Page:Heavens!.djvu/79

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HEAVENS!
63

from her, Raoul stumbled and fell. The baron was thrown right over his neck, and hurled with a terrible crash against a tree. He fell lifeless to the ground. Jenny gave a scream; the horse galloped on to the pond, and from Baron Mundy’s temple a stream of blood rushed forth.

The young girl stood transfixed with horror; she could not stir one step from her place, and felt as if a lightning-flash had pierced her very heart. At that moment she became conscious that she indeed loved Edmund, and—he was lying before her in his blood, helpless, lifeless, dead!

But the next moment she roused herself, shook off the paralyzing feeling which at first overpowered her, and summoning up all her courage, she flew to the unhappy rider, placed him in an easier position on the ground, and, sitting down close to him, endeavoured with all the strength she had to raise the upper part of his body, so hat his head might rest on her lap. The look she then fastened on his face was one that might almost have called back the dead to life again.

Mundy looked ghastly, all stained and disfigured with blood. He was completely senseless, and did not show the least sign of life. As Jenny gazed at him, two hot tears dropped from her eyes on his face. All this took place in less than a minute.

Pushing the hair from her brow, Jenny then rose slowly, laid the baron gently on the soft grass, and ran down to the sluice, where she dipped her pocket-handkerchief in the water. On her way back she saw that the young baroness had come up to the spot, and was almost out of her senses at the dreadful sight of her brother lying before her, to all appearance lifeless. She seemed ready to faint