er, fearing to stop. But at last
he did stop, with a shivering laugh. He must face this thing, he
decided. And over and over again he told himself, "I have written my
last. Yes, my last!" and steadfastly resisted the taunting, airy quill
lying there. So, what was harder than farewell to loved ones, he nerved
himself to end the small actions of his daily existence.

Maximilian had his life long been a dreamer, ever gazing wide-eyed as a
child on the wonderful fantasies that came, whether entrancing or
dreadful. But the child's fantasies are kindred with man's philosophies.
Often, as he lay awaiting sleep, there was one particular thought that
would bring him quickly, stark, staring awake. And this thought was, how
certain things always came to pass. No matter how far away, nor how very
slow their approach, making vague the hope or horror of them, yet the
actual, present hour of their happening always struck at last. There was
the eve of the day when he should be of age. Oh, but he had longed for
that day! He had longed until he craftily suspected it never would
arrive. And yet, despite those leaden-footed oxen, the minutes, arrive
it did, in very fact. The eve of that day was a happy bed-time; but over
his ardent reveries, over the vista of future achievements, there
suddenly, darkly loomed another thought, a foretoken and clammy shroud,
which smote the young prince with trembling. For would not the day of
his death, however far away also, sometime be the present, passing
moment, as surely, just as surely, as this anniversary of his birth?
Here was a terrifying glimpse of mortality.

When, not fifteen years later, Maximilian opened his eyes in the black
Capuchin cell, and comprehension grew on him of the present day's
meaning, he recalled how the fantasy of a morning of death had first
come to him. He was a boy, and he was to go on a voyage. The boy had
awakened when there was scarcely light as yet, and heard his mother at
the door. "It is time, dear." She spoke low, not liking to break his
slumber. But in the silence of all the world her voice was clear, and
very sweet, and the words stood forth against his memory ever afterward.
He was to be gone from her for a time, and this was in her mind as she
called him. The boy, though, could think of nothing except that his
little excursion among new and strange adventures was to begin, actually
to begin. But then, quite unaccountably, there fell over his eagerness
a chilling