Blood!--blood!--the blood of kings,--the dust of
thrones!--and he, the cause! Choked and tormented with a parching
thirst, it seemed in the dream that he tried to speak,--and with all
his force he cried out--"For her sake I did it! For her sake!" But the
clamour of the crowd drowned his voice,--and then it was as if the
coldness of death crept slowly over him,--slowly and cruelly, as though
his whole body were being enclosed within an iceberg,--and he saw
Gloria, the child of his love and care, laid out before him dead,--but
robed and crowned like a queen, and placed on a great golden bier of
state, with purple velvet falling about her, and tall candles blazing
at her head and feet. And voices sang in his ears--"Gloria! Gloria in
excelsis Deo!"--mingling with the muffled chanting of priests at some
distant altar; and he thought he made an attempt to touch the royal
velvet pall that draped her beautiful lifeless body, when he was
roughly thrust back by armed men with swords and bayonets who asked him
"What do you here? Are you not her murderer?"--and he cried out wildly
"No, no! Never could I have harmed the child of my love! Never could I
hurt a hair of her head, or cause her an hour's sorrow! She is all I
had in the world!--I loved her!--I loved her! Let me see her!--let me
touch her!--let me kiss her once again!" And then the scene suddenly
changed,--and it was found that Gloria was not dead at all, but walking
peacefully alone in a garden of flowers, with lilies crowning her, and
all the sunshine about her; and that the golden bier of state had
changed into a ship at sea which was floating, floating westward
bearing some great message to a far country, and that all was well for
him and his darling.
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