José — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

152 JOSE. stood with sunken head and drooping ears, as if under an enervating influence, motionless at the side of his mistress. Mary was conscious of the blighting effect the dull, silent picture that lay exposed to her view, had upon her heart, and bravely strove to dispel it. Holding her hand above her eyes, she inspected every point of the singular landscape as far as she could see. She knew full well that it was absolutely necessary for her to decide upon some course, and that the preservation of her life was wholly a ques- tion of coolness and courage. Suddenly her eye en- countered a sparkling object—she looked again in close scrutiny—it was the stream! Doubtless a short, sharp turn of it was visible at this point only, but though she should have to thread her way with the utmost precaution over wild, broken ground, it was not beyond reach, albeit a long distance away. Selecting a solitary tree on an eminence in the direction she was going, before her, she gazed back in a straight line, her eye encountering the summit of amountain. She now had a well defined course from which she could not easily swerve ere reaching the river, and with refreshened vigor she patted the pony’s neck, causing him to shake his head and awaken out of his momentary lethargy. Leading the animal by the bridle, she carefully picked her. way down the side of the hill, only to make her ascent up another buta short stretch beyond; but she was soon prevented from continuing in the direction she had selected by insuperable obstacles that constantly iinposed themselves. Once she had to deviate a long distance from her course to sur- round jagged bowlders and loose sand wastes, and another time she stood helplessly at the brink of Eomichooks sco