“Ah! Bougwan, I die!” gasped the beautiful creature. “She crept out—Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint—and the door began to fall; then she came back, and was looking up the path—I saw her come in through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and she stabbed me, and I die, Bougwan!”
“Poor girl! poor girl!” Good cried in his distress; and then, as he could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
“Bougwan,” she said, after a pause, “is Macumazahn there? It grows so dark, I cannot see.”
“Here I am, Foulata.”
“Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a word.”
“Say on, Foulata, I will render it.”
“Say to my lord, Bougwan, that—I love him, and that I am glad to die because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
“Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere. Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that—I will search them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he would—still be white. Say—nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I love—Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms—oh! oh!”
“She is dead—she is dead!” muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears running down his honest face.
“You need not let that trouble you, old fellow,” said Sir Henry.