"We both rushed after them, and on reaching the edge of the abyss perceived one shape lying motionless among the rocks of the stream, and another limping painfully towards the further shore. This second figure was Fatia Negra."
"Surely Juon was not dead?" cried Henrietta, horrified.
"No; only crippled by the fall. He fell undermost, the other on top. Yet the other must have suffered severely. We could see from his heavy movements that he had more than one limb damaged. Only with the utmost exertion did he manage to scale the opposite cliff.
"While he was clambering up the mountain-side, Mariora sobbing and screaming, rushed down to her insensible husband, and taking his head into her bosom dragged his limp body out of the cold water of the brook, whilst I took down from the beech-tree Fatia Negra's double-barrelled musket and raised it to my cheek. Before me on the white rock, in the full light of the moon, a good mark for a marksman was that panting black object struggling upwards. I pointed the barrel straight at him. I took a long and careful aim. I am certain I should have hit him. And then I bethought me how much I had loved him once upon a time, and the weapon sank down. I flung it from me."
The girl ceased to speak and covered her face with both her hands. It was a long time before she took them away again.
At last she sprang up quickly, and turning her pale face towards Henrietta, said in a hard, dry voice: "It will be the last time, your ladyship. I am weak because I am a woman, folks would say. But they shall know that that is not true. Don't be afraid, my lady; what I have promised, that will I do. You have been very good to me in telling me that I was being deceived, and I will requite you for it. And now, God bless you, my lady. Farewell!"
"But surely you are not thinking of going home so late at night?"
"What care I about the night? No spectre can meet me anywhere that is worse than the horrible thing that dwells at the bottom of my heart. God bless your ladyship. You shall hear from me soon. Farewell!"
Then the girl gently kissed Henrietta's hand and left the room, throwing into her gait and bearing an energy and a self-confidence which she was far from feeling.