“Well, Egbert,” said she, in tones of Christian resignation, “it is only a step between this and the other life. Father and mother and sisters and brothers will mourn when they learn of the death that Lizzie died, but then she has only gone on before—just ahead of them.”
“Yes,” replied the young lover, who felt soothed, albeit saddened, by the words of the sweet girl. Reaching up his hand, he took hers, and with a solemn, sacred feeling, said:
“I suppose, Lizzie, now that we stand in the presence of death, you will permit me to declare how I loved you the first time I saw you in St. Louis, and how that love has increased and deepened with every hour since, until I feel now, like the romantic cavaliers of old, that it is sweet to stand here, and to die, knowing that I die defending your honor and your life. Lizzie, my own dearest one, you have all my heart. None who have seen you can fail to respect your sweetness of character, and the veriest slave was never held a more helpless captive by his task-master than I am by you. It would be idle for me to expect any thing like a similar emotion upon your part, but I am sure you will not be offended at what I have said. Tell me that.”
“No; I am not—”
Egbert fell her hand tremble in his own, and a strange yearning came over him to hear what she had checked herself in saying. Could it be that she felt in any degree the same emotion that penetrated his whole being? No, impossible; and yet what meant this trembling, this agitation, this excitement?
But she said not the words he was so anxious to hear, and they talked awhile longer upon the desperate situation, and then, kissing the dear hand that he had fondled and held imprisoned in his own, he bade her good-night, and returned to his post of duty.
CHAPTER X. AT FULL SPEED.
All through this singular fight, Lightning Jo had kept within reach of his mustang, which occasionally put in a kick now and then, in the hope that he might be turned to account; but the tumult and uproar became so terrific, that he finally became panic-stricken, and with a whinny of the wildest terror, he made a plunge among the scarcely-less excited animals, when his furious struggles added to the fearful uproar, which was already sufficient to drive an ordinary man out of his senses.