, led him to the
window. "He has no single wound that in itself would be fatal," the
Trappist whispered; "but a twenty that together have bled him to
death. He hacked his way up this stair through half a score of
Genoese; at the door here, there was none left to hinder him, and we,
having found and followed with the keys, climbed over bodies to find
him stretched before it."

"Emilia!" It was my father's voice lifted in triumph; and the Queen
rose at the sound of it, trembling, and stood by the bed. "Emilia!
Ah, love--ah, Queen, bend lower!--the love we loved--there, over the
Taravo--it was not lost. . . . It meets in our children--and we--and
we--"

The Queen bent.

"O great one--and we in Heaven!" I raised the Princess and led her
to the window fronting the dawn. We looked not toward the pillow
where their lips met; but into the dawn, and from the dawn into each
other's eyes.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MY MISTRESS RE-ENLISTS ME.

"If all the world were this enchanted isle,
I might forget that every man was vile,
And look on thee, and even love, awhile."
_The Voyage of Sir Scudamor_.

We had turned from the bed, that no eyes but the Queen's might
witness my father's passing. Her arm had slipped beneath his head,
to support it, and I listened dreading to hear her announce the end.
But yet his great spirit struggled against release, unwilling to
exchange its bliss even for bliss celestial; and presently I heard
his voice speaking my name.

"Prosper," he said; but his eyes looked upward into the Queen's, and
his voice, as it grew firmer, seemed to interpret a vision not of
earth. "Learn of me that love, though it delight in youth, yet
forsakes not the old; nay, though through life its servant follow and
never overtake. Even such service I have paid it, yet behold I have
my reward!

"To you, dear lad, it shall be kinder; yet only on condition that you
trust it.

"You will need to trust it, for it will change. Lose no faith in the
beam when, breaking from your lady's eyes, it fires you not as
before. It widens, lad; it is not slackening; it is passing,
enlarging into a diviner light.

"By that light you shall see all men, women, children--yes, and all
living things--akin with you and deserving your help. It is the
light of God upon earth, and its warmth is God's charity, though He
kindle it first as a selfish spark between a youth and a maid.