Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/348

 CHAP. X.IX. [sic]

could my tottering feet sustain the weight of my body. A sudden giddiness almost bent me to the ground. But the imminence of the danger restored me all the strength, which the dread of the former had wrested from me. Despair roused me from the swoon of furious rage. I laid held of my loaded gun; I cocked it; one and the same slug was to exterminate both of the adulterers.

But some guardian angel watched over Adela's life. In the very moment I pulled the trigger, my thumb accidentally got between the cock and the pan. The clattering made Bernardos, who already held my wife claspt in his arms, draw sideways. Struck with fear, he stretched his neck. But not a moment would I grant him to recollect himself. The trigger is pulled a second time; the cock flies—and down he drops with his