He had no idea of pursuing the assassin. His whole soul was wrapt up in the sad spectacle before him, and he thought only of endeavouring to save her, if possible, before she perished from loss of blood, which was flowing freely from a deep dagger-wound in her pure and beautiful neck, evidently from the same weapon which had struck Major Campbell, and slain the paisana by a blow in the same part of the frame. Her bosom was exposed and covered with the red current, which stained the moonlit leaves and petals of the forest-flowers where she lay. Unflinchingly had Ronald that morning beheld men weltering and wallowing in blood; but he shrunk in agony at the sight of Catalina's.
"Catalina de Villa Franca! dearest, hear my voice! Speak to me. Never until this moment of horror and woe did I know how much I loved you." He rent the silk sash from his shoulder[*] and endeavoured to stanch the blood, while the unfortunate girl opened her lustrous eyes, and gazed upon him with a look which, while it told of exquisite pain—of love and delight, too surely convinced him, by its terrible expression, that she was—dying.
[*] The crimson sash is worn over the left shoulder in Highland regiments.
"You have come, Ronald. I expected you many—many months ago," she whispered in broken accents, while her wild black eyes were fixed on his with an expression of tenderness. "Hold me up, dearest—hold me up, that I may look upon you for the last time,—on the face I have loved so long, and used to dream about in the long nights at Merida and Almarez. O that my brother, Alvaro, was here too! Holy—holy Mother of God! look on me—I am dying!"
"Ah, Catalina! speak not thus: every word sinks like a sword into my heart. Dying! oh, it cannot be! You shall live if the aid of art and affection can preserve you. You shall live," he added frantickly, "and for me."
"O no—never—not for you!" she said bitterly, in tones gradually becoming more hollow, "it may not be. Alas! I am not what I was an hour ago. I cannot,—I cannot now be yours, even should I escape death, whose cold hand is passing over my heart."
"Almighty Power, preserve my senses! What is this you say?" he replied, raising her head upon his knee, and gathering in his hand the soft dishevelled curls which streamed freely upon the turf. "What mean these terrible words, Catalina?"
Before she replied, a shudder convulsed her frame, and drops of white froth fell from her lips. A strange light sparkled in her eyes: there was something singularly fearful and beautiful in the expression of her pale countenance at that moment.
"I need not shrink from telling you the dreadful truth,—I need not deceive you," she added, speaking more fluently as a passionate flow of tears relieved her. "I feel in my heart a sensation, which announces that the moment of dissolution is at hand. I hail it with joy,—I wish not to live. The wretch who deceived us has robbed me of that which is most precious to a woman, and then with his dagger—"
A moan escaped the lips of Ronald, and he gnashed his teeth with absolute fury, while big drops, glittering in the moonlight, stood upon his pale forehead, and his throat became so swollen that he was almost choked. He snatched up his sword, and with difficulty restrained the inclination he felt to rush deeper into the wood, in search of Cifuentes. But how could he leave Catalina, the torn and disordered condition of whose garments, together with the wounds and bruises on her delicate hands and arms, bore evidence that a desperate struggle had taken place before the first outrage was accomplished. Stuart reeled as if a ball had passed through his brain, and the forest-trees seemed to rock around him as if shaken by an earthquake. The fierce emotion passed away, and was succeeded by a horrible calmness,—a feeling of settled and morbid desperation. He passed his hand once or twice over his brow, as if to clear his thoughts and arrange them before he again knelt beside Catalina, who had closed her eyes and lay still, as if in a deep slumber. He thought that the spirit had passed from her; but the faint beating of her heart, as he laid his cheek on her soft breast, convinced him that she yet lived. Raising her from the ground, he endeavoured to make his way through the wood to where he had left the aged priest, to the end that some means might be procured to save her life, if it was yet possible to do so. But he had not borne her a dozen yards, when the branch of a tree tore off the sash with which he had hastily bound up the wound, and the blood gushed forth with greater violence than before.