Watching, she saw the muscles of his arm work convulsively. Then the rough stem of ivy began to slip through his clenched fingers. Another second, and he dropped like a stone from a height of twenty feet or more. Instinctively Joan stretched out her arms as though to catch him; but he struck the ground legs first just in front of her, and, with a sharp exclamation, pitched forward against her.
The shock was tremendous. Joan saw it coming, and prepared to meet it as well as she might by bending her body forward, since, at all hazards, he must be prevented from falling face foremost on the spiked tomb, there to be impaled. His brow cut her lip almost through, his shoulder struck her bosom, knocking the breath out of her, then her strong arms closed around him like a vice, and down they went together.
All this while her mind remained clear. She knew that she must not go down backwards, or the fate from which she strove to protect him would overtake her—the iron spikes would pierce her back and brain. By a desperate effort she altered the direction of their fall, trusting to come to earth alongside the tomb. But she could not quite clear it, as a sudden pang in the right shoulder told her. For a moment they lay on the edge of the tomb, then rolled free. Captain Graves fell undermost, his head striking with some violence on a stone, and he lay still, as did Joan for nearly a minute, since her breath was gone.
Presently the pain of breathlessness passed a little, and she began to recover. Glancing at her arm, she saw that a stream of blood trickled along her sleeve, and blood from her cut lips was falling on the bosom of her dress and upon the forehead of Henry Graves beneath her, staining his white face.
“Oh, he is dead!” mourned Joan aloud; “and it is my fault.”
At this moment Henry opened his eyes. Apparently he had overheard her, for he answered: “Don’t distress yourself: I am all right.”
As he spoke, he tried to move his leg, with the result that a groan of agony broke from him. Glancing at the limb, Joan saw it was twisted beneath him in a fashion so unnatural that it became evident even to her inexperience that it must be broken. At this discovery her distress overpowered her to so great an extent that she burst into tears.
“Oh! your leg is broken,” she sobbed. “What shall I do?”
“I think,” he whispered, with a ghastly smile, biting his lips to keep back any further expression of his pain, “that you will find a flask in my coat pocket, if you do not mind getting it.”
Joan rose from her knees, and going to the coat, which lay hard by, took from it a little silver flask of whiskey-and-water; then, returning, she placed one arm beneath the injured man’s head and with the other contrived to pour some of the liquid down his throat.