True. There, lying as though violently flung, a woman was half-crouched, half-prone behind the roots of a huge maple that leaned out far above a sheer declivity.
He saw torn clothing, through the foliage; a white hand, out-stretched and bleeding; a mass of golden-coppery hair that lay dishevelled on the bed of moss and last autumn's leaves.
"A woman! Dying?" he thought, with a sudden stab of pity in his heart.
Then, forcing his way along, he reached her, and fell upon his knees at her side.
"Not dead! Not dying! Thank God!" he exclaimed. One glance showed him she would live. Though an ugly gash upon her forehead had bathed her face in blood, and though he knew not but bones were broken, he recognized the fact that she was now returning, fast, to consciousness.
Already she had opened her eyes—wild eyes, understanding nothing—and was staring up at him in dazed, blank terror. Then one hand came up to her face; and, even as he lifted her in both his powerful arms, she began to sob hysterically.
He knew the value of that weeping, and made no attempt to stop it. The overwrought nerves, he understood, must find some outlet. Asking no question, speaking no word—for Gabriel was a man of action, not speech—he gathered her up as though she had been a child. A tall woman, she; almost as tall as he himself, and proportioned like a Venus. Yet to him her weight was nothing.
Sure-footed, now, and bursting through the brambles with fine energy, he carried her to the gap in the wall, up through it, and so to the roadway itself.
"Where—where am I?" the woman cried incoherently. "O—what—where—?"
"You're all right!" he exclaimed. "Just a little accident, that's all. Don't worry! I'll take care of you. Just keep quiet, now, and don't think of anything. You'll be all right, in no time!"