Page:Maria Felicia.pdf/267

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A STORY OF BOHEMIAN LOVE
263

ing fury fell upon the soldiers with savage strength, and the staves in their hands became terrible weapons.

“What have we done?” again they cried. “Why do you want to kill us? Have you not been born among us; do you not know the lot we are enduring? Is this what we get for wishing to beg for what is ours by right?”

But their words were fruitless; the firing was repeated, and those who did not fall in their own blood were soon under arrest.

Andrew and the harper were in the midst of the terrible fray from the very first. Around them the wildest conflict raged. The harper, wounded in the head by a bullet, fell to the ground; and Andrew, struck with a stick by a peasant who had raised it to strike a soldier, fell on his knees beside the harper and tried to protect him with his body.

“Run,” said the harper, collecting his strength. “Run! nothing more can be done to-day.”

“I will not move from the spot without you,