Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/45

 for the girl held in her hand a burning lamp. I could see the fresh blood in her fingers as she curved them into a shade for the flame. She approached the river; placed the lamp on the stream; and the lamp sailed away. The flame flickered as if it would go out; but still it burned, and the girl’s dark, flashing eyes followed it with her whole soul beaming from under her long silken eyelashes; she knew that if the lamp burned as long as she could see it, then her beloved was alive; but if it went out, then that he was dead. The lamp burned and fluttered, and her heart burned and fluttered also; she sank on her knee and breathed a prayer: close beside her, in the grass, lay a water-snake, but she thought only of Brama and her beloved. “He lives!” exclaimed she, rejoicingly, and the mountains repeated her words, “he lives!”