If there was reply, none of the watchers heard it. Gordon had lifted himself on his elbow, his head turned with a sudden, strange expectancy. “The password?” he said distinctly,—“it is here!” He laid his hand upon his heart.
A sobbing cry answered, and a woman crossed swiftly to the couch and knelt beside it.
A great light came to Gordon’s countenance. “Teresa!” he gasped. “Teresa—my love!”
The effort had brought exhaustion. He sank back, feeling his head pillowed upon her breast. He smiled and closed his eyes.
A friar had followed her into the room. Mavrocordato beckoned the wondering surgeons to the door. They passed out, and young Gamba, after one glance at his sister, followed. The friar drew near the couch, crucifix in hand, his lips moving silently. The door closed.
After the one cry which had voiced that beloved name, Teresa had made no sound. She cradled Gordon’s head in her arms, watching his face with a fearful tenderness. From the court came the hushed hum of many people, from the stair low murmur of voices; behind her she heard Padre Somalian’s breathed prayer. Her heart was bleeding with a bitter pain. Now and again she touched the damp brow, like blue-veined marble, and warmed the cold hands between her own as she had done in that direful ride when her arms had held that body, bleeding from a kriss.
The day was declining and the air filled with shadows. The storm that had hung in the sky had begun to mutter in rolling far-off thunder, and the sun, near to setting, made a lurid flame at the horizon-bars. Gordon stirred and muttered, and at length opened his eyes upon the red glare. He heard the echoes of the clouds, like distant artillery.
With the energy of delirium he sat up. He began to talk wildly, in a singular jumble of languages: “Forward! Forward! Courage—strike for Greece! It is victory!”
The hallucination of weakness had given him his supreme desire. He was leading the assault on Lepanto.
“My son,”—the friar’s voice spoke—“there are other victories than of war. There is that of the agony and the cross.”