ps were bloodless and parted;
and her hands firmly clenched together and pressed against her side,
bespoke the agony of the moment. It lasted not longer; for she fell back
fainting and insensible into my arms. I bathed her face and temples
from the well; I called upon her, rubbed her hands within my own, and
endeavoured by every means to arouse her; but in vain. I turned to beg
for aid from the woman, but she was gone. I again endeavoured to awake
Louisa from her stupor, but she lay cold, rigid, and motionless; her
features had stiffened like a corpse, and showed no touch of life.
I shouted aloud for aid; but, alas! we were far from all human
habitations, and the wild cries of the curlew were the only sounds
that met my ear, or the deep rushing of the sea, as it broke nearer and
nearer to where I stood. A sudden pang of horror shot across me as I
looked around and below, and saw no chance of aid from any quarter.
Already the sun was below the horizon, and the grey twilight gave but
gloomy indications all around. The sea, too, was coming fast; the foam
had reached us, and even now the salt tide had mingled its water with
the little spring. No more time was to be lost. A projecting point of
rock intervened between us and the little path by which we had descended
to the beach; over this the spray was now splashing, and its base was
only to be seen at intervals between the advancing or retiring wave.
A low, wailing sound, like distant wind, was creeping over the water,
which from time to time was curled along the round-backed wave with all
the threatening aspect of a coming storm; the sea-birds wheeled round in
circles, waking the echoes with their wild notes, and the heavy swell
of the breaking sea roared through many a rocky cavern with a sad and
mournful melody. I threw one last look above, where the tall beetling
cliff was lost in the gloom of coming night, another on the broad bleak
ocean, and then, catching up my companion in my arms, set forward.

For the first few moments I felt not my burden. My beating heart
throbbed proudly, and as I pressed her to my bosom, how I nerved myself
for any coming danger by the thought that all the world to me lay in
my arms! Every step, however, brought me farther out; the sea, which
at first washed only to my ankles, now reached my knees; my step became
unsteady, and when for an instant I turned one look on her who lay still
and insensible within my grasp, I felt my head reel and my