CAMILLA.
'Our life is but a little holding, lent
To do a mighty labour: we are one
With heaven and the stars when it is spent
To serve God's aim: else die we with the sun.'

She sinks. Camillo droops his head above her.

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene. It was more like a
cathedral service than an operatic pageant. Agostino had done his best to
put the heart of the creed of his Chief into these last verses. Rocco's
music floated them in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to
articulate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full meaning
should be taken.

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, followed by
one harmless verse of Camilla's adieux to them, and to her husband and
life, concluded the opera.

'Let her stop at that--it's enough!--and she shall be untouched,' said
General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles.

'I have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent song is
coming.'

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in flagrant disobedience
to orders. Rebuking his nephew with a frown, he commanded the lieutenant
to make his way round to the stage and see that the curtain was dropped
according to the printed book.

'Off, mon Dieu! off!' Pericles speeded him; adding in English, 'Shall she
taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.'

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation: the keynote being despair:
ordinary libretto verses.

Camilla's eyes unclose. She struggles to be lifted, and, raised on
Camillo's arm, she sings as if with the last pulsation of her voice,
softly resonant in its rich contralto. She pardons Michiella. She tells
Count Orso that when he has extinguished his appetite for dominion, he
will enjoy an unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours.
Repeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel by her
daughter's grave--not mournfully, but in beatitude--she utters her adieu
to all.

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in Vittoria's ear. She
looked up and beheld the downward curl of the curtain. There was
confusion at the wings: Croats were visible to the audience. Carlo
Ammiani and Luciano Romara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble
youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, and caught the
curtain descending. The whole house had risen insurgent with cries of
'Vittoria.' The curtain-ropes were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo,
Luciano