“I had made acquaintance with the general, and we were laughing and talking together when he suddenly started and turned pale.
“‘Great heavens!’ he cried, ‘it is Eenie, my daughter. Black Bess, her mare, has bolted with her, and is heading straight for the Furies’ Leap. She is lost! she is lost!’
“I hardly heard the last word. I had struck the spurs into my own good mare, and was off like a meteor. I could see the lady’s terrible danger. She was heading for an awful precipice. I saw I might intercept her if I crossed her bows, as a sailor would say. It was a ride for life—we near each other, riding swift as arrows. Onward she comes—onwards I dash, and we are barely fifty yards from the Furies’ Leap, when our horses come into collision with fearful force.
“I remember nothing more until I open my eyes and find myself in bed, powerless to move. But a beautiful young girl rose from a seat near the window, and, approaching the bed, gave me to drink, but enjoined me to be still. This was Miss Lyell; she nursed me back to life, and the next few weeks seemed all one happy dream.”
“She loves you?”
“She does, and has promised never to be another’s.”
“And she’ll be yours, Frank, my boy. Come, I’ve news to give you. Neither your father nor her father object, except on the score of your youth and hers, and your inexperience of the world. Now, depend upon it, Frank, what your father advises is best. He wants you to spend your next few years in travelling.”
“And I will,” cried Frank; “I’ll seek adventures and dangers in every part of the globe—among the snows of the north, amidst the jungles of India, in Afric’s bush, and the wild plain-lands of far distant Australia. I care not if I am killed; life without my Eenie is not worth having.”
“Bravo! Frank,” cried Chisholm, jumping up and shaking him by the hand. “I’ll go with you; and my friend, Fred Freeman, will go too. There’s luck in odd numbers. But don’t talk about being killed; it is time that we want to kill, and all the wild beasts we can draw a bead upon.”