After this slight exertion she once more fainted, but she was soon afterwards brought back again to life, and Mara then was able to make her take the cordial the doctor had prepared for her.
A few hours later, when the physician took his leave for the night, prescribing to the women what they were to do, he and the midwife warmly congratulated each other, not doubting that their skill had snatched the young woman out of the jaws of death.
After a night of pain and restlessness, Milena, early on the next morning, exhausted as she was, fell into a quiet, death-like sleep. Mara then left her to return to the Convent of St. George to see if Uros were still alive and how he was getting on. Milenko's mother went with her. They had not been away long when Milena, shuddering, uttered a loud cry of terror, sat up in her bed and looked straight in front of her.
"What is the matter?" said the midwife, running up to the bedside.
"Don't you see him standing there?" cried the awe-stricken woman.
"There is nobody, my dear; nobody at all."
"Yes! Radonic, my husband, all covered with wounds! He is dying—he is dead!" and Milena, appalled, stared wildly at the foot of the bed.
"It is your imagination; your husband is with your father at
Cettinje."
"No, no; I tell you he's there; help him, or he'll bleed to death!" and the poor woman, exhausted, fell back on her bed unconscious.
The midwife shuddered, for, although she saw nobody, she was quite sure that the apparition seen by Milena was no fancy of an overheated brain, but Radonic's ghost, that had come to visit his wife, for the news of the heyduk's death had been carefully withheld from Milena.