The Argosy — page 335: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

314 Over the Spliigen. breathing is loud and painful. I meet Anton’s glance, and we look despairingly and in silence into each other’s eyes. It is a flight for dear life and we know it. I turn to look at Lucy. She slumbers peacefully, though our carriage rocks from side to side, and threatens to overset us as we clear the sharp curve of the zigzag. Were I to wake her now and tell her of our danger, it would kill her, in her weak state. And then how can I wake her and tell her I am powerless to save her from an awful death? No, let her sleep, poor child, if she can. I have no heart to rouse her—to rouse her from a pleasant dream of her infant boy—to the conviction that she will never see his rosy face again in this world. What a change to come upon us in a few short hours. Only this morning we were speaking of how, as the years went on, we would train our boy, and strive to set him a good example; we had prayed to God to spare him to us and let him be a blessing to our old age. Poor Georgie; you will never know the parents who loved you so tenderly. Nearer and nearer comes the dreadful waggon, louder and louder sounds the crashing of its wheels, and faster and faster we fly onward. A loud cry from Anton rouses Lucy; she looks up in terror. Alas! she reads no comfort in my face; she sees no reassuring smile. I try to speak, but my lips are dry and no words will come. I can only give a deep groan, and, sinking into my seat, cover my face with my hands. We rush with such a whirl round the next zigzag that Lucy screams and clings to me in agony. We hear a great crash. Our pace slackens. I feel our time is come. My heart is beating so wildly that I cannot look up. Then we stop, and when, with an effort, Ll raise my head, Lucy is lying in a dead faint at my feet, Anton has left his seat and is crouched on the road-side crying like a child, our horses are panting and breathless—but we are saved. At the last corner the great waggon, with its heavy load and its four horses, has gone headlong over the precipice. It was a good while before either of us could do anything to help the other. Poor Anton had stuck to his post and done his duty bravely while there was need, but now the sudden relief from a prospect of certain death rendered him helpless, and he trembled like a leaf. I was not much better, and when poor Lucy struggled from her faint and asked for water, we were both unable to get it for her. Before long a carriage, with a large party of English tourists coming up from Chiavenna, stopped and rendered us what assistance they could. ‘They were much impressed by the danger they them- selves had incurred, and deeply grateful to have been spared the knowledge of it. Under the care of the ladies, Lucy revived slowly, though she ECORNIELIOO KS, (EO) m