d she motioned them all to be silent as she spoke on while
her voice still should serve her.

"They will tell you how I did it--I have not time. The Marshal gave his
word you shall be saved; there is no fear. That is your friend who bends
over me here?--is it not? A fair face, a brave face! You will go back to
your land--you will live among your own people--and _she_, she will love
you now--now she knows you are of her Order!"

Something of the old thrill of jealous dread and hate quivered through
the words, but the purer, nobler nature vanquished it; she smiled up in
his eyes, heedless of the tumult round them.

"You will be happy. That is well. Look you--it is nothing that I did. I
would have done it for any one of my soldiers. And for this"--she
touched the blood flowing from her side with the old, bright, brave
smile--"it was an accident; they must not grieve for it. My men are good
to me; they will feel such regret and remorse; but do not let them. I am
glad to die."

The words were unwavering and heroic, but for one moment a convulsion
went over her face; the young life was so strong in her, the young
spirit was so joyous in her, existence was so new, so fresh, so bright,
so dauntless a thing to Cigarette. She loved life: the darkness, the
loneliness, the annihilation of death were horrible to her as the
blackness and the solitude of night to a young child. Death, like night,
can be welcome only to the weary, and she was weary of nothing on the
earth that bore her buoyant steps; the suns, the winds, the delights of
the sights, the joys of the senses, the music of her own laughter, the
mere pleasure of the air upon her cheeks, or of the blue sky above her
head, were all so sweet to her. Her welcome of her death-shot was the
only untruth that had ever soiled her fearless lips. Death was terrible;
yet she was content--content to have come to it for his sake.

There was a ghastly stricken silence round her. The order she had
brought had just been glanced at, but no other thought was with the most
callous there than the heroism of her act, than the martyrdom of her
death.

The colour was fast passing from her lips, and a mortal pallor settling
there in the stead of that rich bright hue, once warm as the scarlet
heart of the pomegranate. Her head leant back on Cecil's breast, and she
felt the great burning tears fall one by one upon her brow as he hung
speechless over her; she put her hand upward and touched his e