"Yes, yes, la pauvre Henriette! And the other! The other!"
Hans Unwirrsch held his wife in his arms and drew her head to his breast.
"Oh, love, love, whom do you think we have brought ashore out of the fire and the raging sea?"
He led her gently down to the shore; she trembled violently; speechless, she swayed between her husband and the French girl as she walked through the crowd of natives and foreigners who respectfully made way for her.
The captain of the "Adelaide" was sitting on a stone with his head in his hands. Beside him stood Colonel von Bullau as if he were again on one of his battlefields. Lieutenant Rudolf Götz was on his knees in the sand and in his lap he held the head of an unconscious woman—
"Kleophea! Kleophea!" cried Franziska, sinking down with folded hands beside the unconscious form.
"Yes, Kleophea!" said the Lieutenant, and gnashing his teeth he added: "And she is alone! Praise God!"
Chapter XXXVI
Thus destiny had been fulfilled and, incomprehensibly strange as it all seemed at first, it had yet been quite simple and natural. We do not understand, either, the fate of the little bird that suddenly drops out of the air dead at our feet until we have held the little body in our hand for a while;—and then we do understand it.