Mohegan pointed toward Elizabeth, who, forgetting her danger, had sunk back to a projection of the rock as soon as she recognized the sounds of Edwards' voice, and said with something like awakened animation:
“Save her—leave John to die.”
“Her! whom mean you?” cried the youth, turning quickly to the place the other indicated; but when he saw the figure of Elizabeth bending toward him in an attitude that powerfully spoke terror, blended with reluctance to meet him in such a place, the shock deprived him of speech.
“Miss Temple!” he cried, when he found words; “you here! is such a death reserved for you!”
“No, no, no—no death, I hope, for any of us, Mr. Edwards,” she replied, endeavoring to speak calmly; there is smoke, but no fire to harm us. “Let us endeavor to retire.”
“Take my arm,” said Edwards; “there must be an opening in some direction for your retreat. Are you equal to the effort?”
“Certainly. You surely magnify the danger, Mr. Edwards. Lead me out the way you came.”
“I will—I will,” cried the youth, with a kind of hysterical utterance. “No, no—there is no danger—I have alarmed you unnecessarily.”
“But shall we leave the Indian—can we leave him, as he says, to die?”
An expression of painful emotion crossed the face of the young man; he stopped and cast a longing look at Mohegan but, dragging his companion after him, even against her will, he pursued his way with enormous strides toward the pass by which he had just entered the circle of flame.