This time his back fairly arched with the terrible strain, and the muscles in it made it as rough as a ploughed field. But, though he tugged, and pulled, until the water dropped from his brow, he moved not the rock.
“Enough,” I said. “It will surely prove too much for either of us. I must choose something more easy. Yet I will have one trial,” I remarked.
Now, then, I placed myself astride of the great stone, as Cory had done, and I grasped the two projections. I pulled upward once not with all my strength, for I wanted to try the weight. Then, of a truth, I feared I had set myself too great a task, for the rock seemed as immovable as the earth itself. But once again I lifted upward, and this time I strained every muscle I could bring into play. Still the boulder remained in its bed.
I thought toward the end of my last effort, that I felt the least movement, and this gave me hope that, if I kept on pulling, I might tear the rock out. Slowly I pulled upward again, straightening my bent body, as the stone gave, ever so little, in its ancient bed. It was now or never. I pulled and pulled, until, verily, I feared that my arms would come from the sockets.
There was a buzzing in my ears, and, above it, I heard the crowd of men, murmuring in astonishment. Up and up I lifted, until, with a great heave, I had fairly torn the boulder from the earth. Summoning all my efforts until I thought my head would burst from the strain I poised the stone above me. It shadowed me from the sun, and was like to crush me with its weight. I could scarce see beyond it, because of the bulk. Then with a last remaining bit of power, I hurled the stone from me, down the hill side, toward the brook. I had lifted the great rock.
As the stone left my hands the murmur of admiration changed to one of horror. Brushing the mist from my eyes I saw, at the bottom of the slope, Lucille right in the path of the bounding stone. She was walking along the brook, and had not seen me throw the rock. A shout from the men, for I was too dazed to cry out, caused her to look up. She came to a sudden halt.
On the great rock went, by leaps and bounds, from hillock to hillock, and she was in its course, unable, from very fear, to move out of the way. The stone was now scarce a fathom’s distance from her. In the next instant it must strike and crush her, and none of us could do aught to prevent it.
When we had all turned our heads away, that we might not see her killed, and my heart seemed like to burst through my breast, we heard a great noise. It was a roar and a rattle.
The flying rock had struck another, deep bedded in the side of the hill, and the impact of the blow had burst both into thousands of fragments. With a sound like a cannon shot, these had scattered all about Lucille, but not one had struck her. She stood trembling with fright, in the midst of the broken stone, while, scarce knowing what I did, I hastened down the hill to her. She was walking slowly away when I reached her.
“You were near to death,” I said, much unnerved, for, somehow, her life had grown very dear to me.