She was braver than most women, or she would probably have jerked the bridle or frightened her horse by frantic cries, and sent him slipping with herself down the ravine; for the situation was a most fearful one, and there are few women who could have braved it without a tremor. A _man_, let it be remembered, if cruel enough, might have alighted and left the horse to its fate; but to a woman, encumbered by her long clothes, the attempt must have been almost certain destruction for both. Perhaps not sixty seconds had elapsed after the first cry, when the lawyer succeeded in checking his horse without throwing him headlong, swung his foot out of the stirrup, and attempted to spring to the ground. But just then there was a sudden rush over the rock; a wierd and unnatural sweeping by, something like that of the Demon Hunt in "Der Freischutz;" a cry of terror and fright that seemed to come from the whole line in the rear and fill the air with ghastly sound; a closing of the eyes on the part of the incapable guardian, in the full belief that the noises he heard were those of the accomplishment of the great horror; then sounds nearer him, and a jar that almost prostrated himself and the horse against which he yet leaned; then a wild cry of exultation and delight which seemed--God help his senses!--was he going mad?--to be mingled with the clapping of hands like that which follows a moment of intense interest at the theatre! Then silence, and the lawyer opened his eyes as suddenly as he had closed them. And what did he see? On the rock, nothing; in the path, ahead of him, Clara Vanderlyn still sitting her horse, though in a half fainting state, and Halstead Rowan, also on horseback, ahead of her, and with his hand holding her bridle!