"_He is dead_" she said to herself, in a whisper. "What shall I do?"
Then, suddenly, she knew what to do: she remembered that she had noticed
a lantern hanging on the wall near the door; and now something impelled
her to get it. In the stifling darkness of the shack she felt her way to
it, held its oily ring in her hand, thought, frantically, of matches,
groped along toward the mantelpiece, stumbled over a chair--and clutched
at the match box! Something made her open the isinglass slide, strike a
match, and touch the blackened wick with the sulphurous sputter of
flame,--the next moment, with the lighted lantern in her hand, she was
out in the sheeting blackness of the rain!--running!--running!--toward
that still figure by the deadened fire. Just before she reached it a
twig rolled under her foot, and she said, "A _snake_,"--but she did not
flinch. As she gained the circle of stones, a flash of lightning, with
its instant and terrific crack and bellow of thunder, showed her a
streak of blood on Maurice's face.... He had tripped and fallen, and his
head had struck one of the blackened stones.

"He is dead," she said again, aloud. She put the lantern on the ground
and knelt beside him; she had an idea that she should place her hand on
his heart to see if he were alive. "He isn't," she told herself; but she
laid her fingers, which were shaking so that she could not unfasten his
coat, somewhere on his left side; she did not know whether there was any
pulse; she knew nothing, except that he was "dead." She said this in a
whisper, over and over. "He is dead. He is dead." The rain came down in
torrents; the trees creaked and groaned in the wind; twice there were
flashes of lightning and appalling roars of thunder. Maurice was
perfectly still. The smoky glimmer of the lantern played on the thin
streak of blood and made it look as though it was moving--trickling--