And before the moment of
hesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature's own violence
overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by
a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass
of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz
found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the
other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches,
while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-
boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his
fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was
evident that he could not move from his present position till some one
came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his
face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes
before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, so
near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him,
lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplessly
pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage of
splintered branches and broken twigs.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115