Still, the attempt must be made, and that instantly. Every second lessened the hope of its success--with every pulse-beat he felt the awful, reeling numbness increase. How much longer he could retain his consciousness he could not tell. He saw plainly that Eleanor was losing hers.
"My darling," he said, striving vainly to unclasp the arms that clung to him, "I must go--I must call assistance: this may be more serious than I thought. Try to rouse yourself, Eleanor: I must go!"
Alas! it was easy to say--it was awfully impossible to do. Even when Eleanor relaxed her already half-unconscious embrace, and he strove to rise, he found that not even desperation could give the requisite power. He literally could not gain his feet. Every effort failed: he sank back hopelessly.
Then he tried to raise his voice in a cry for help, but it refused to obey his bidding. He was not able to speak above a broken whisper. Finding this to be the case, he turned in an agony of despair to the girl beside him--the girl whom, with a last effort, he drew to his breast.
"Eleanor," he said, "it is hopeless. If this _is_ poison we must die! Oh, my darling, can you forgive me? O my God, send us help! Eleanor, can you hear me? Eleanor, will you not speak to me?"
For a minute all was silence. Then the fair head raised itself, and the lids slowly and heavily lifted from the blue, flower-like eyes. The moon, which had now risen high in the cloudless July heaven, shone full on her face as she said, "Kiss me."
For the first time their lips met: when they parted both were cold.
Still clinging together, they were found. At their feet lay a fragment of the deadly-poisonous Egyptian river-plant which Marston Brent had ignorantly plucked for a lotos.
Roars there ever a beast in his forest den, Hear we thunder in heaven, a horn among men, On the hill sings a maiden now and then,-- Sound what may, Answer through space thou mak'st again With small delay. Aware of the thunder's rattling roll, Of the winds and the waves when without control, Of the cries where the village shepherds stroll, Reply thou giv'st; Yet thou thyself, without one answering soul, A poet liv'st.
Sometimes it was our simple hosts who led the conversation, which then, especially as they became at ease with us, always drifted more or less into the supernatural. Nor was this surprising, as the tales, legends, old manners and customs amongst the Tyrolese are thoroughly interwoven with threads of heathen mythology and with the occult belief of the Middle Ages.