"Back!" cried the farmer, catching hold of the horse's bridle. "Back! we will die alone! Back with your mistress! I have got one of yours already here!"
The man had thrust back the horse with such violence that it almost fell. The Count pulled it up by a tremendous effort, so that it sprang forward. Pölitz started back to seize the pickaxe with which he had been working, and which lay behind him on the wall of the outhouse. At the same moment the unfastened half of the door was shut between him and those outside with such appalling violence, that the whole door was shattered as if it had been made of glass, and as its splinters fell, the beams of the falling roof of the barn crashed down just in front of the horses, who started back in mad terror, and turning short round, dashed across a fallow-field to the pollarded willows which used to stand at the edge of the common, but behind which now eddied the turbid waters of the invading flood; then turning off to the right, led by their instinct, they followed the field to the dune which rose in dusky whiteness before them. To have guided them would have been impossible, even if the terrified riders could have thought of such a thing. They were carried as if by the storm itself to the foot of the hill. The panting horses climbed and climbed, and pressed deeper into the sand, which gave way under their hoofs and rolled down into the stream, which rushed from one hollow to the other where a moment before had lain the fallow field between hill and farm.
Carla's horse fell. The Count urged his on a few paces farther, and threw himself from the saddle at the instant when the animal under him fell like a lifeless thing--perhaps really lifeless--into the depths below. With hands and feet he worked his way up, up! cursing his ill luck that had led him to the steepest part, and yet not daring to turn farther to the left, since here at least there was grass and scrub to cling to, while there the smooth sand offered no hold. Drops of anguish trickled from his brow into his eyes--he could see nothing more, could only hear the roaring of the sea as it broke on the other side of the hill, as a confused ringing in his ears. He gained the summit and staggered forward, as his groping hands found no resistance, gathered himself up again, and looked wildly round him.
There, not far from him, lay a dark object.
Was it Carla? How came she here? Dead?
The dark object moved. He tottered forward to her side.
"Carla!"
She raised herself to her knees and stared fixedly at him, as he bent down to lift her up.
But hardly had his hand touched her, than she started up and away from him.
"Wretch!" she shrieked, "I too will die alone! Back to your other mistress! You have one already at the farm!"