"King Ithobal, this shape is yours; come now and take your prize. Prince
Aziel, my soul is yours, in life it shall companion you, and in death
await you. Prince Aziel, I come to you." Then, before he could answer
a single word, with one swift and sudden spring she hurled herself from
the cliff edge to fall crushed upon the road beneath.
Aziel saw. In his agony he strained so fiercely at the bonds which
held him that they burst like rushes. He leapt from the camel and knelt
beside Elisa. She was not yet dead, for her eyes were open and her lips
stirred.
"I have kept faith, keep it also, Aziel! the story is not yet done," she
gasped. Then her life flickered out, and her spirit passed.
Aziel rose from beside the corpse and looked upward. There upon the
edge of the rock above him, leaning forward, his eyes blind with horror,
stood Ithobal the king. Aziel saw him, and a fury entered into his heart
because this man, whose jealous rage and evil doing had bred such woe
and caused the death of his beloved still lived upon the earth. By the
prince was Metem, who, for once, had no words, and from his hand he
snatched a bow, set an arrow on the string and loosed.
The shaft rushed upwards, it smote Ithobal between the joints of his
harness so that the point of it sunk through this neck.
"This gift, king Ithobal, from Aziel the Israelite," he cried, as the
arrow sped.
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