The order was executed, and the tent filled with twilight. Everybody stood waiting in silence.
"Listen, friends," Julian began; his voice was low but clear, his whole presence breathed a triumph of mind over body, and invincible will still gleamed from those eyes. The hand of Ammianus trembled, but he wrote down the words uttered. He knew that he was writing on the tables of history, and transmitting to men unborn the last words of a great man.
"Listen, friends; my hour is come, perhaps too soon. But you see, like an honest debtor, I am not sorry to give back my life to Nature, and in my soul is neither pain nor fear; nothing but cheerfulness, and a fore-feeling of the long repose. I have simply done my duty, and have nothing to repent of. From the days when I daily expected death, like a hunted beast, in the palace of Macellum, in Cappadocia, up to the day of greatness when I took on the purple of the Roman Cæsar, I have tried to keep my soul stainless, I have aspired to ends not ignoble. If I have failed—and I have failed—to do all that I desired, you will not forget that most of our earthly affairs are in the hands of Destiny. And now I thank the Eternal for having allowed me to die neither after long sickness nor at the hands of the executioner, but on the battlefield—in mid-youth—in mid-endeavour, half-way to achievement.... And dear, dear friends...."
His voice ceased; everyone present knelt down; many were weeping.
"No, no, my dear friends," said Julian smiling; "why weep for those who are going back to their own country? Take heart, Victor!"
The old man tried to answer, but in vain; then hiding his face in his hands, he sobbed aloud.
"Soft! Soft!" cried Julian; and then turning toward the sky: "Ah, there He is!"
The morning clouds were growing rosy, and the twilight in the tent had become warm and mellow; the first beam of the sun washed over the rim of the horizon. The dying man held his face towards the light, with closed eyes.
Then Sallustius Secundus went up to Julian and kissing his hand said—
"Well-beloved Augustus! whom do you name as your successor?"