The girl looked in great surprise at the strange figure before her, and was evidently lost in wonder at hearing her wild-looking and ragged champion deliver himself in such excellent English, and with such a well-bred air. To outward seeming he was as much a cateran as any of the scoundrels he had lately put to flight.
“I thank you, sir,” she said simply. “It may be poor Martin is still living.”
She knelt down by the side of the fallen man and raised his head upon her knees. But the skene, driven with great force, had passed beneath the breast-bone and had penetrated the heart--the man was dead. A glance was sufficient to show that life was extinct. She allowed the head to remain resting upon her lap for some minutes, gazing at the rugged face of the dead man in silence, and then she looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “I have known him all my life,” she said, “and never was there a braver or a kinder heart. Years ago he saved my father´s life, and now he has died to save mine.”
Gervase had knelt down beside her, and had been endeavouring to catch some feeble sign of movement in the pulse. “Yes, he is dead,” he said, “and we can do nothing for him, but it may be the other needs our help.”
“My grandfather has not been injured,” she said. “He swooned when they came round the coach, and though they used him roughly, I do not think he hath suffered from aught but fright. Still, he is an old man and very frail, and it may be--”
But the old man had raised himself on his elbow, and was looking round him with an expression of bewilderment, as though not yet able to realize what had happened. Then suddenly his eye fell upon the chaise lying overturned, and with a nimbleness that one could not have expected, he leapt to his feet, and walked with rapid strides to the vehicle.
“Dorothy,” he shouted, “Dorothy, help me, girl! The rogues have stolen my treasure. Good God! I am a beggar--a beggar. Why the ---- did they not take my life? The gold that I have watched growing and growing, and the precious stones that I would not have parted with for a kingdom! Oh God! I am a beggar, and will die on the road-side after all.”
The old man seemed entirely beside himself with grief and rage, and began to pour forth such a string of oaths, wild and incoherent, that Gervase felt deeply for the girl who was in vain endeavouring to calm him.
“I think, grandfather,” she said, “it is still safe, but I had thought the matter was of little worth--”
“Worth! Great Heaven! there were ten thousand pounds--” here he stopped short and looked at Gervase, whose appearance did not tend to reassure him.