Did
I not promise to belong to him alone, even in the earth if it were
necessary? I must embrace him, and he will carry me away! We shall be
dead, and we shall be wedded in spite of all, and for ever and for ever!"

She stepped back to the dying man, and touched him: "Here I am, my Dario,
here I am!"

Then came the apogee. Amidst growing exaltation, buoyed up by a blaze of
love, careless of glances, candid like a lily, she divested herself of
her garments and stood forth so white, that neither marble statue, nor
dove, nor snow itself was ever whiter. "Here I am, my Dario, here I am!"

Recoiling almost to the ground as at sight of an apparition, the glorious
flash of a holy vision, Pierre and Victorine gazed at her with dazzled
eyes. The servant had not stirred to prevent this extraordinary action,
seized as she was with that shrinking reverential terror which comes upon
one in presence of the wild, mad deeds of faith and passion. And the
priest, whose limbs were paralysed, felt that something so sublime was
passing that he could only quiver in distraction. And no thought of
impurity came to him on beholding that lily, snowy whiteness. All candour
and all nobility as she was, that virgin shocked him no more than some
sculptured masterpiece of genius.

"Here I am, my Dario, here I am."

She had lain herself down beside the spouse whom she had chosen, she had
clasped the dying man whose arms only had enough strength left to fold
themselves around her. Death was stealing him from her, but she would go
with him; and again she murmured: "My Dario, here I am."

And at that moment, against the wall at the head of the bed, Pierre
perceived the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, embroidered in gold and
coloured silks on a groundwork of violet velvet. There was the winged
dragon belching flames, there was the fierce and glowing motto "_Bocca
nera, Alma rossa_" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth darkened by a roar,
the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. And behold! all that
old race of passion and violence with its tragic legends had reappeared,
its blood bubbling up afresh to urge that last and adorable daughter of
the line to those terrifying and prodigious nuptials in death. And to
Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of
Cassia Boccanera the _amorosa_ and avengeress who had flung herself into
the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio. Was
there not here eve