"But, O papa," whispered the girl, "I loved him so--loved him as Estelle Cressingham never, never did!"
"You, my darling?"
"Yes, papa."
"My poor pet! I suspected as much all along. Well, well, we are all in the hands of God. It is a black Christmas, this, for us at Craigaderyn, and I shall sorrow for him even as Llywarch Hen sorrowed of old for all the sons he lost in battle. But what a strange fatality to escape so narrowly at the Bôd Mynach, and then to be drowned in the distant East!"
And with a heart swollen alike by prayer and sorrow, the girl, whose tender and long-guarded secret had at last escaped her in the shock of grief, sat alone in her room that night, and heard the Christmas chimes ringing out clearly and merrily to all, it seemed, but for her; for those bells, those gladsome bells, which speak to every Christian heart of bright hope here and brighter hope elsewhere, seemed to chime in vain for Winifred Lloyd; so she thought in her innocent heart, "I shall go to him yet, though he can never come back to me!"
[CHAPTER XLIV.--THE CASTLE OF YALTA.]
I presume that I need scarcely inform my reader that, notwithstanding the predicament in which a preceding chapter left me, and the tenor of that paragraph which caused such consternation among my warm-hearted Welsh friends at Craigaderyn, I was not drowned in the Black Sea, though my dip in the waters thereof was both a cold and deep one. Such fellows as I, are, perhaps, hard to kill--at least, I hope so. On rising to the surface, I found myself minus forage-cap, sword, and revolver, and also my horse, which, being sorely wounded, floated away out of the creek into which we had fallen (or been hurled by the Cossack lances), and the poor animal was helplessly drowned, without making any attempt to swim landward. This was, perhaps, fortunate for me, as the Cossacks saw it drifting in the moonlight, and continued to fire at it with their carbines, leaving me to scramble quietly ashore unnoticed and unseen.
My swimming powers are very small; thus, when just about to sink a second time, I was fortunate enough to grasp some sturdy juniper bushes, that grew among the rocks and overhung the water. Aided by these I gained footing on a ledge in safety, and remained there for a few minutes, scarcely venturing to breathe, until all sounds ceased on the cliffs above, and the flashing of the Cossacks' carbines, and their wild hurrahs died away; and the moment I was assured of silence, I proceeded steadily, but not without great difficulty, to climb to the summit of the opposite side of the creek, my recently fractured arm feeling stiff and feeble the while, three lance-prods bleeding pretty freely, and my undress uniform wet, sodden, and becoming powdered fast by the still falling flakes of snow. Even amid all that bodily misery I thought more sorrowfully than bitterly of her I had lost.
"Estelle gone from me, a terrible death before me, either by capture or privation," thought I. "What have I done, O God, to be dealt with thus hardly?"
Even mortification that I had failed in the execution of my once coveted duty, existed no longer in my heart, at that time at least. At last I gained the summit; the uprisen moon was shining on the far-stretching Euxine, and casting a path of glittering splendour on its waters, even to the foot of the cliffs on which I stood. On the other side, to my comfort, the scouting Cossacks had entirely disappeared. That Count Volhonski, once my pleasant companion in Germany, and in whose way, coincidence and chance had so often cast me, should have fallen by my hand, was certainly a source of deep regret to me; but for a time only; a sense of my own pressing danger soon became paramount to all minor considerations. Exposure to the keen wind from the sea on ground so lofty, the night having closed in, and the snow flakes falling, all rendered shelter, warmth, and dry clothing, with dressing for the lance-thrusts, most necessary, if I would save my life; and yet in seeking to obtain these, I ran the most imminent risk of summarily losing it.