"O, Rodney, turn!" cried Sylvie.
But there was a horrible second in which he could not know how to turn.
He did not stop to look, even. He sprang, with one leap, he knew not how,—over step or dasher,—to the horse's head. He seized him by the bridle, and pulled him off the road, into a thicket of bush-branches, in a hollow rough with stones.
The wheels caught fast; Rodney clung to the horse, who tried to rear; Sylvie sat still on the seat sloped with the sharp cant of the half-overturned vehicle.
There was only a single instant. Down, with the awful roar of an earthquake, came crashing swift and headlong, passing within a hand's breadth of their wheel, the enormous, toppling, loaded team; its three strong horses in a wild, plunging gallop; heels, heads, haunches, one dark, frantic, struggling tumble and rush. An instant more, of paralyzed breathlessness, and then a thundering fall, that made the ground quiver under their feet; then a stillness more suddenly dreadful than the noise. A great cloud of dust rose slowly up into the air, and showed dimly in the dusky light.
The gray horse quieted, cowed by the very terror and the hush. Sylvie slipped down from the tilting buggy, and found her feet upon a stone.
Rodney reached out one hand, and she came to his side. He put his arm around her, and drew her close.
"My darling little Sylvie!" he said.
She turned her face, and leaned it down upon his shoulder.
"O, Rodney, the poor man is killed!"