"Through Ulm merchants will
my mother be able to ransom him. I know she will, so oft have I
dreamt of his return. Then, mother, you will give him our duteous
greetings;" and he smiled again.
Like one in a dream Christina returned his smile, because she saw he
wished it, just as the moment before she had been trying to staunch
his wound.
It was plain that the injuries, except Ebbo's sword-cut, were far
beyond her skill, and she could only endeavour to check the bleeding
till better aid could be obtained from Ulm. Thither Moritz
Schleiermacher had already sent, and he assured her that he was far
from despairing of the elder baron, but she derived little hope from
his words, for gunshot wounds were then so ill understood as
generally to prove fatal.
Moreover, there was an undefined impression that the two lives must
end in the same hour, even as they had begun. Indeed, Ebbo was
suffering so terribly, and was so much spent with pain and loss of
blood, that he seemed sinking much faster than Friedel, whose wound
bled less freely, and who only seemed benumbed and torpid, except
when he roused himself to speak, or was distressed by the writhings
and moans which, however, for his sake, Ebbo restrained as much as he
could.
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