, "with my dearest friends slain, my cause ruined,
and my soul covered with the shame of remorse, defeat and the disgrace
of having purchased my miserable life by the death of the noblest of
souls? I will go to the scaffold alone. You will conquer, and will
avenge my death."

"Sweet goddess!" I cried, "you will not thus sacrifice yourself. What
will victory be worth if you, for whom we fight, are not our proudest
trophy? What avails the triumph of our cause if there remains no queen
to possess the triumph? Your life is our life, your death our
destruction. With you to fight for, any company of leaders will be
successful. Let us surrender ourselves to make you free."

"It can never be," replied Lyone, "that you must suffer, one hundred
souls for but one. I am that one, and the cause can more easily suffer
the loss of one soul than the loss of all. That the soul may again
possess freedom is worthy many a martyr. I only regret I have but one
life to give for this blessed cause. I counsel you to depart and carry
on the war you have so bravely begun, and in your hour of triumph
remember Lyone."

"There is no cause if there is no Lyone," I pleaded. "Do not be your
own enemy; accept the condition of freedom so freely offered you, and
perhaps even we may still find some means of escape."

"The king, I know," said Lyone, "would much prefer your death to mine.
He is exasperated at the loss of the fleet, and that, too, at the
hands of strangers. Nothing would give him greater joy, and nothing
such fame in the eyes of the nation, than to put yourself and your
sailors to death. My capture and your present visit are but the
fulfilment of his plot to destroy you. He thinks you will never allow
me to be sacrificed, and so hopes for your annihilation. But in this
he will be disappointed. In this terrible trial I have eaten my heart
out. Without you, and without our faithful comrades, life would be
less than worthless. This crisis can only be solved by heroic
measures. I have decided for you all. Go!--go and avenge my death!"

I saw that Lyone had firmly steeled her soul for the sacrifice,
tremendous at it was, and in the presence of such heroism it seemed
sacrilege to again offer our less worthy lives for a life such as
hers.

But a resolve so unsupportable agonized me. I clasped the divine girl
in my arms in a transport of love and horror, and implored her again
and again to accept life while it was offered her.

We stood besi