"Beautiful creature," I said as she lay on the grass very weak and exhausted, "I heard of you one morning after I came from a dying stick of birch wood. It was sorry for you."
Her glazed eyes brightened. "The trees of the wood are all good to me," she murmured, "they will mourn that I die. They were my play-fellows--the wild deer shunned me."
"You must not die, beautiful one," I said decidedly. "You will grieve the warden and his fine son."
"The cruel hunters," she gasped, "they hunted so long and so hard. Why did they not shoot and kill? I am so weary."
"Rouse yourself, dear one," I said. "Sleep and rest. Do not die, I beg of you. It would be wrong."
"I will try," she just breathed, and I was about to leave her to rest when something made me turn back.
"Oh, why," I said, "did you try to leap when you were so weary?"
"To please my master, whom I love. Could I die a better death?" she said, but so faintly that I could scarcely hear her.
Then I went on, "If you die, you will break the young Denty's heart. He will say that he killed you."
Some strength seemed to come to her at that.
"I will live then," she said quite distinctly, "I will, indeed. Thank you, little Pony friend." Then she laid her lovely white head on the green grass and closed her dim eyes.
"You are too beautiful to die," I whinnied ever so softly, then I looked at the human beings. They didn't know I had spoken a word to her. Bless their dear hearts!--clever, so clever, but some things they don't know.
Mr. Devering and I were just leaving the doe, when a man suddenly stood beside us. I don't know whether he came from the east, west, north or south. He just seemed to drop down among us, and at his heels was an equally gliding bloodhound.
The warden was like his son, but more French. He was dark, slender, silent, and had short grizzled hair and black eyes more piercing even than Mr. Devering's.
He never said a word, he just bent down and touched the doe's head. She opened her eyes and fixed them on him with a wonderful expression. They were talking to each other without a word being said. Then she closed her eyes, and he rose.
"My Father," said Denty in French, "they've got her at last!"
The warden said nothing. He just stared at his son in such a painful way that it made me shudder.