His words died away; a deadly pallor overspread his features, his head turned dizzy, and a ringing noise filled his ears.
"Death! death!" he murmured faintly, and, with a sigh, he fell senseless to the ground.
Every thing had become silent again in the humble house; not a human sound interrupted the stillness reigning in the desolate room. Only the hum of a few flies, rushing with their heads against the window-panes, was heard. Once a rustling noise was heard in a corner, and a mouse glided across the floor, its piercing, glittering eyes looked searchingly around, and the sight of the bloody, motionless form, lying prostrate on the floor, seemed to affright it, for it turned and slipped away even faster than it had approached, and disappeared in the corner.
The sun rose higher, and shone down on the dimmed windows of the house, reflecting their yellow outlines on the floor, and illuminated the gold lace adorning the uniform of the prostrate and motionless officer.
All at once the silence was broken by the approach of hurried steps, and a loud voice was heard near at hand, shouting:
Then every thing was still again. The new-comer was evidently waiting for a reply. After a pause, the steps drew nearer--now they were already in the hall; and now the tall, slender form of a Prussian officer, with a bandaged head and arm, appeared on the threshold of the room. When he beheld the immovable body on the floor, his pale face expressed surprise and compassion.
"An officer of the queen's dragoons!" he ejaculated, and in the next moment he was by his side. He knelt down, and placed his hand inquiringly on the heart and forehead of the prostrate officer.
"He is warm still," he murmured, "and it seems to me his heart is yet beating. Perhaps, perhaps he only fainted from loss of blood, just as I did before my wounds had been dressed. Let us see."
He hastily drew a flask from his bosom, and pouring some of its contents into his hand, he washed with it the forehead and temples of his poor comrade.
A slight shudder now pervaded his whole frame, and he looked with a half-unconscious, dreamy glance into the face of the stranger, who had bent over him with an air of heart-felt sympathy.
"Where am I?" he asked, in a low, tremulous voice.