So saying, Beltane sighed, and laid him down among the bracken and thereafter Fidelis did the like; the fire sank and waned, and oft Sir Fidelis stirred restless in the shadows; the river murmured slumberously among the sedge, but Beltane, hearkening with drowsy ears, oft thought to hear another sound, very soft and repressed yet very dolorous, ere, worn and spent, and something weakened by wound and loss of blood, he sank at last to deep and gentle sleep.
But in his sleep he dreamed that one knelt above him in the dark, keeping watch upon his slumbers in the attitude of one in prayer--one whom he knew, yet knew not; it seemed to Beltane in his dream, that this silent, slender shape, stooped of a sudden, low and lower, to kiss the iron fetters that bound his wrists; then Beltane strove to wake yet could not wake, but in his slumber sighed a name, soft-breathed and gentle as the languorous murmur of the stream: "Helen!"