While his messengers were exploring the crannies of the rocks for dried leaves and sticks, Helen, totally overcome, leaned almost motionless against the wall of the hut.

Finding, by her shortened breath, that she was fainting, the knight took her in his arms, and supporting her on his breast, chafed her hands and her forehead.

His efforts were in vain; she seemed to have ceased to breathe; hardly a pulse moved her heart.
Alarmed at such signs of death, he spoke to one of his men who remained in the hut.
The man answered his master's inquiry by putting a flash into his hand.
The knight poured some of its contents into her mouth.

Her streaming locks wetted his cheek.

"Poor lady!" said he, "she will perish in these forlorn regions, where neither warmth nor nourishment can be found." To his glad welcome, several of his men soon after entered with a quantity of withered boughs, which they had found in the fissures of the rock at some distance.