The end came soon, in the night, for it was his will to live that had
kept him with them so long. Taquisara was with him. One by one the
others came, hastily muffled and wrapped in dark robes, for the night
was cold and damp even within doors. One after another they came, and
they stood and knelt beside him on the right and left. He spoke to them
all,--to his father and his mother first, for he felt the tide ebbing.
With streaming eyes Veronica bent down and looked for the fading light
in his, through her fast-falling tears. And close to her his mother
stretched out weak hands that trembled with every breaking sob. His
father knelt there, burying his face against the pillow, shaking all
over, his arms hanging down loose and helpless by his sides, bent,
bowed, crushed, as a weak old lion, stricken in age and cruelly wounded
to death. And above them all, Taquisara's sad, deep-chiselled face
looked down, as the face of a bronze statue beside a grave. Without, the
winter's rain beat a low dead-march on the great windows, and the
southwest wind sighed out its vast breath along the castle walls.
It was long since he had spoken, and they thought that they should never
hear his voice again. But still the last light lingered in his eyes.
Very little was left for him to do.
He moved Veronica's right hand, that was in his, drawing it a little,
and she let it move; and his other held Taquisara's, and he drew it
also, they yielding, till the two touched, and at his dying will clasped
one another.
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