but we did not heed them. If my own life had been trembling in the balance, I could scarcely have felt more cruel anxiety; and as for Emma, I hardly dared to steal one glance at her pale and anguish-wrung features, as she stood on the highest point of the rock, clinging to me for support, and waving her hankerchief, poor thing, while her eyes pierced the twilight, riveted on the figure of that lonely horseman on whom the sea was gaining with fearful rapidity.
“Why does he not head straight for the shore? Ah, now he takes the right course! but the horse can scarcely answer to the spur,” I muttered between my set teeth. “Oh, push on, for Heaven’s sake, press on!” I shouted with the full strength of my lungs, using my outspread hands as a trumpet, and Hilton heard the call, started, and knew us, for he gave an answering hail which only reached us as an inarticulate cry. But the voice of human sympathy, or the sight of her he loved, seemed to revive him, for he lifted his steed with the rein, and pressed on more steadily, while immediately afterwards the horse seemed to find firmer footing, for he no longer sank beneath the surface, and as he broke into a quicker pace he shook his head with a long neigh of triumph. The carriages had by this time arrived, and had come to a halt, but the horses were alarmed by the lightning, which was now almost incessant, and they were with difficulty kept under control, while two or three of the party came scrambling on foot up the bank, uttering exclamations of dismay and compassion.
“He is nearer, nearer now. The horse goes fast. He will be saved, he is safe! Harry! Harry!” cried Emma, taking hope as the firmer ground was reached; then, as the storm gathered, she turned wildly to me: “George, brother, say that he is safe!”
I said something, I do not remember what, to encourage Emma’s despair, perhaps, should her hopes be disappointed, but I meant it for the best, and the boys, who were excitedly watching the struggle, set up a cheer.
“Well done! he can gallop now. He is on firm ground. Mr. Hilton is safe, papa; he is out of reach of the sea! Hurrah!”
But the joyous shout died away on their young lips as, with an awful plunge, the good horse sank to the saddle-girths, snorting, plunging, rearing wildly, but in vain, for every effort served but to bury him deeper and deeper in the tenacious quicksand, and his neigh of distress changed to that horrid scream, seldom heard but on the battle-field, which nothing but extremity of pain or fear can elicit.
We shouted to Hilton to throw himself from the saddle—to fling himself flat upon the treacherous surface—as the only chance of life; but I do not think we were heard, so hoarsely did the thunder roar overhead, while the darkness deepened so much that it was only when a flash of lightning showed every detail of the scene that we could distinguish the sufferer.
Emma’s despair was fearful to witness, and in her passionate grief she upbraided us for allowing the victim to perish, unhelped, before our eyes; but human aid was useless there, and we could but remain spectators of what we were powerless to prevent. At every fresh flash we could see, by the vivid though momentary light, the horse sinking deeper and deeper. The moist sand was up to his withers now, a few short moments and it reached his neck; now the horse was wholly lost to sight, and the rider was waist-deep in the quagmire, sinking, still sinking, as if dragged down by some viewless monster below into a living grave. And the sea came on, triumphant, relentless, its blue wall curling and frothing as it ran, arrow-swift, over the strand, and already a foamy line of shallow water had reached to within a few yards of the spot where Harry remained, helpless.
Another flash. The line of foamy water crept snake-like on, reached Harry, passed him, and rolled on far to landward, and line after line, streak after streak, came in the deepening water, and then rolled on the low blue wall, and still the quicksand gaped, insatiate, for its prey. It was up to his armpits now, the water, and presently another flash showed the poor wretch, his head alone above the salt flood, with a face deadly pale, and eyes that glared, white and ghastly, in the lurid glow of the lightning, while the lips seemed to move, but whether in prayer to Heaven or a hopeless cry for aid, can never be known. No sound reached us. The rain was blindingly thick, and the wind raved as it swept the hurrying clouds before it. There was a longer pause than usual between the flashes. To our impatience it seemed as if the dreadful darkness endured for ages. At last it came, broad and bright, the fierce flare of white light, but nothing was visible; nothing but grey sea and white foam, where the little waves began to toss and curl, and the curving wall of blue ran far shoreward. We strained our eyes, but could see nothing more. Unwilling to trust our senses, anxiously we waited for the next flash, and it came; but we saw nothing but a waste of sea and sky. Harry Hilton was lost for ever to men’s sight until the Judgment Day.
In the agony of that suspense, I had almost forgotten my poor sister. Her voice had died away in sobs, and she had sunk at my feet, and lay there, crouching. But when I saw that the grave had closed over its victim, I bent to raise Emma, and thought at first that she was in a swoon, but a cry of dismay from one of the party aroused me to a new fear. We lifted Emma tenderly, and by the light of the carriage-lamps saw the signs of the mischief I had dreaded, only too plainly. Poor girl, the white handkerchief she had waved so long was pressed to her lips now, and stained with crimson drops that ran heavily down, and left a dark stain on the light muslin she wore, and on the small white wrist that lay passive between my hands.
Why linger on the sad story? Suffice it that Emma’s frail health had not been able to endure the anguish of that hideous scene. A blood-vessel had given way, and she never spoke more, and before we reached Avranches she was dead.
We buried poor Emma on the very day that was to have witnessed her union with him whom she had loved—loved too well to survive his fearful end.