I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I can. It is
getting daylight, and you have nothing to fear."
He mounted and sped on his way; while Tess stood and waited. The
atmosphere turned pale, the birds shook themselves in the hedges,
arose, and twittered; the lane showed all its white features, and
Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of
her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation; and when the
sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it. Prince lay
alongside, still and stark; his eyes half open, the hole in his chest
looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated
him.
"'Tis all my doing--all mine!" the girl cried, gazing at the
spectacle. "No excuse for me--none. What will mother and father
live on now? Aby, Aby!" She shook the child, who had slept soundly
through the whole disaster. "We can't go on with our load--Prince
is killed!"
When Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years were
extemporized on his young face.
"Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!" she went on to herself.
"To think that I was such a fool!"
"'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't
it, Tess?" murmured Abraham through his tears.
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