"I have killed her! I have killed her!" cried Lord Sherbrooke, gasping for breath—"I have killed the dear unfortunate girl!" and letting go Wilton's arm, he rushed forward at once into the midst of the other party, exclaiming, "Stand back! Let me forward! She is my wife! Stand out of my way! How, in the name of Heaven, did she—"
He left off, without concluding; and nobody answered. But the tone of bitter grief and agony in which Lord Sherbrooke spoke was not to be mistaken: there was in it the overpowering energy of passionate grief; and everybody made way for him. In a moment he bad snatched the form of the unhappy lady from the man who held her in his arms, and supporting her himself, partly on his knee, partly on his bosom, he kissed her again and again vehemently, eagerly, we may almost say frantically, exclaiming, "And I have killed thee, my Caroline! I have killed thee, my beloved, my wife, my own dear wife! I have killed thee, noble, and true, and kind! Oh, open your eyes, dear one, open your eyes and gaze upon me for a minute! She is living, she is living!" he added wildly—"she does open her eyes!—Quick, some one call a surgeon!—A hundred guineas to the first who brings me a surgeon!—God of Heaven! how has this happened?—Oh yes, she is living, she is reviving!—Wilton, for pity's sake, for mercy's sake, help me!"
Wilton Brown had followed Lord Sherbrooke rapidly; for a sudden apprehension had crossed his mind immediately the words were pronounced, "He has shot the lady," lest by some accident Lady Laura had fallen into the hands of the people who were approaching, and that she it was who had been wounded or killed by the rash act of his friend. The moment he came up, however, he perceived that the lady's face was unknown to him, and he saw also that the men who stood round, deprived of all power and activity by a horrible event, which they only vaguely comprehended, were anything but the persons he had expected to see. They seemed to be almost all common sailors; and though they were in general evidently Englishmen, they were habited more in the fashion of the Dutch seamen of that day. They were well armed, it is true, but still they bore not the slightest appearance of being connected with Sir John Fenwick and the party to which lie was attached; and the horror and consternation which seemed to have taken possession of them all, at the injury which had been inflicted on the unhappy lady, showed that they were anything but feelingless or hardened.
One rapid glance over the scene before his eyes had shown Wilton this; and he now stood beside Lord Sherbrooke, gazing with painful interest on a picture, the full horror of which he divined better than the others who surrounded them.
Almost as Lord Sherbrooke spoke, however, and before Wilton could reply, the lady made a slight movement of her hand, and raised her head. Her eyes were open, and she turned to Lord Sherbrooke, gazing on his face for a moment, as if to be certain who he was.
"Oh, Sherbrooke," she said at length, in a faint voice, "fly, fly!—I was very foolish to faint.—I am better now. The men will be upon you in a minute—Oh Heaven, they are all round us! Oh how weak it was to faint and keep you here till they have taken you.—I am better now," she said, in answer to a whispered inquiry of Lord Sherbrooke, as he pressed her to his heart. "But I must have hurt my shoulder in falling, for it pains me very much." And putting her hand towards it, she drew it suddenly away, exclaiming, "Good Heaven, it is blood!"
"Yes, dearest—yes, beloved," replied Lord Sherbrooke—"it is blood—blood shed by your husband's hand; but oh, inadvertently, clear girl. I rashly fired amongst the men that were pursuing me, and have killed the only woman that I ever loved!" And he struck his hand vehemently against his forehead, with a gesture of despair that could not be mistaken.
"Come, come, young gentleman," said a man who seemed the leader of the bluff sailors around him, "don't take on so. Some one has gone for a surgeon. There's a clever one at Halstow, I know, and mayhap the young lady is not so much hurt. At all events, you did not do it to hurt her, that's clear enough; and I rather fancy we've all been in a mistake together. For if you were flying from people looking out to take you, you were not the goods we were after—for we were looking for people that were coming to take us.
"They came down and said that a gentleman had come down with a Messenger to look after our little traffic, and have some of us up for it. Now we intended to plant the Messenger in the bog till we had got all things ready and the ship off, and it was him and his people we were after. But come along—bring down the lady to Master Plessis's. She will be taken good care of there, I warrant you. Here, Jack Vanoorst!—you're a bit of a surgeon yourself, for you doctored my head when the Frenchman broke my crown one day. See if you can't stop the blood, at least till we get the lady to old Plessis's, and the surgeon comes."
A broad-built elderly man advanced, and, with whatever materials could be obtained upon the spot, made a sort of bandage and compress by the dim light, and applied it dexterously enough, while Caroline lay with her head upon her husband's bosom, and her hand clasped in his.