"Spring up! Spring up!" he cried, bending down, and casting his arm around her. "This is not half over. I must carry you away!"
Partly lifted, partly leaping from the ground, Edith sprang up before him; and, holding her tightly to his heart, Walter turned the rein and dashed away, through friends and enemies, trampling, unconscious of what he did, alike on the dead and the dying. The western side of the square was crowded with combatants, and he directed his horse's head toward the east, reached the angle, and turned sharp round to get in the rear of the English column, which was seen forcing its way onward to support the advance party of Major Putnam. He thought only of his sister, and, pressing her closer to his heart, he said: "We are safe, Edith! We are safe!"
Alas! he spoke too soon. There had been one group in the square that stood almost aloof from the combat. Gathered together in the southeastern angle, Apukwa and his companions seemed watching an opportunity for flight. But their fierce eyes had seen Walter, and twice had a rifle been discharged at him from that spot, but without effect. They saw him snatch his sister from the hut, place her on the horse, and gallop round. Apukwa, the brother of the Snake, and two others, jumped upon the parapet, and scarcely had he uttered the words, "We are safe!" when the fire blazed at once from the muzzles of their rifles. One ball whistled by his ear, and another passed through his hair. But clasping Edith somewhat closer, he galloped on, and in two minutes after came to a spot where three or four men were standing, and one kneeling, with his hand under the head of a British officer, who had fallen. Walter reined up the horse sharply, for he was almost over them before he saw them; but the sight of the features of the dead man drew from his lips the sudden exclamation of "Good God!" They were those of Lord H----.
Edith's face, as Walter held her, had been turned toward him, and he fancied that she rested her forehead on his bosom to shut out the terrible sights around. Her forehead was resting there still, but over the arm that held her so closely to his heart Walter saw welling a dark red stream of blood. He trembled like a leaf. "Edith!" he said, "Edith!" There was no answer. He pushed the bright brown curls back from her forehead, and as he did so the head fell back, showing the face as pale as marble. She had died without a cry, without a sound.
Walter bent his head, and kissed her cheek, and wept.
"What is the matter, sir?" said the surgeon, rising from beside the body of Lord H----. "Did you know my lord?"
"Look here!" said Walter.
It was all he said, but in an instant they gathered round him, and lifted Edith from the horse. The surgeon put his hand upon the wrist, then shook his head sadly; and they laid her gently by the side of Lord H----; they knew not with how much propriety--but thus she would have loved to rest.
Thus they met, and thus they parted; thus they loved, and thus they died. But in one thing they were happy--that neither, at their last hour, knew the other's peril or the other's fate.