Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/228

D'RI AND I slide that was to be the punishment of poor courage.

D'ri had a plausible theory of the slide. He said that if we had clung to the sides of it to break our speed we 'd have gone down like a plummet and shattered our bones on a rocky shore. Coming fast, our bodies leaped far into the air and fell to deep water. How long I lay there thinking, as I rested, I have no satisfactory notion. Louise and Louison came into my thoughts, and a plan of rescue. A rush of cavalry and reeking swords, a dash for the boats, with a flying horse under each fair lady, were in that moving vision. But where should we find them? for I knew not the name of that country out of which we had come by ways of darkness and peril. The old query came to me, If I had to choose between them, which should I take? There was as much of the old doubt in me as ever. For a verity, I loved them both, and would die for either. I opened my eyes at last, and, rising, my hands upon the gunwales, could dimly see the great shoulders of D'ri swaying back and forth as he rowed. The coming dawn had shot an arrow into the great,