The donkey-girl called out: "Oh, the madman! He is killing the signor!"
Lanfear shouted. The madman flung Gerald to the ground, and fled
shrieking. Miss Gerald had leaped from her seat, and followed Lanfear as
he ran forward to the prostrate form. She did not look at it, but within
a few paces she clutched her hands in her hair, and screamed out: "Oh,
my mother is killed!" and sank, as if sinking down into the earth, in a
swoon.
"No, no; it's all right, Nannie! Look after her, Lanfear! I'm not hurt.
I let myself go in that fellow's hands, and I fell softly. It was a
good thing he didn't drop me over the edge." Gerald gathered himself up
nimbly enough, and lent Lanfear his help with the girl. The situation
explained itself, almost without his incoherent additions, to the effect
that he had become anxious, and had started out with the boy for a
guide, to meet them, and had met the lunatic, who suddenly attacked him.
While he talked, Lanfear was feeling the girl's pulse, and now and then
putting his ear to her heart. With a glance at her father: "You're
bleeding, Mr.
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