Beside the
saddles, on the ground, the shining copper kettle held three bright
brass bowls, well-scoured wooden trenchers, a long wooden ladle, an
iron skewer, and three brass spoons, the simple necessities for cooking
and eating. Forks had not been thought of in those days.
Gilbert lay on his back and turned his face away from his man. He was
bruised and scratched, and his head ached from being struck on the
ground when the mare had dragged him; but he was whole and sound in
limb, and Dunstan had stretched his joints and pressed his bruises with
a wise touch that had in it something of Oriental skill. He lay wrapped
in a long robe of coarse white linen, as thick as wool--a sensible
Greek garment which he had got in Constantinople. The afternoon was
warm, and though the flap of the tent was raised and stretched out like
an awning, there was little air, and the place smelt of the leathern
trappings and of hot canvas; and through the side to which he turned
his face Gilbert could see little dazzling sparks of rays where the sun
was beating full upon the outside.
He wished that in the mad rush of the Arab the life might have been
pounded out of him, and that he might never have waked to know what he
had done; for although in his sober senses he did not love the Queen,
it seemed to him that he had loved her in the moment when he sprang to
save her life, and that he could never again forget the look of fear
for him in her eyes and her cry of terror for his sake.
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