What followed, no eye could trace, no pen could describe. There was a wild cry, like that of a savage animal; a fiery leap through a cloud of whirling dust; a straight flash through the haze, like lightning.
One could see that somehow or other that slashing cut was glanced aside, but how, the speed of thought could not trace.
It was done in a second, in the twinkling of an eye. And, as the dust subsided, there stood Aradas, unmoved and calm as the angel of death, with his arms folded, and nothing in his hand save the dagger shivered to the guard. And at his feet lay his enemy, as if stricken by a thunderbolt, with his eyes wide open and his face to heaven, and the deadly estoc buried, to the gripe, in the throat, that should lie no more forever.
Pass we the victor's triumph, and the dead traitor's doom; pass we the lovers' meeting, and the empty roar of popular applause. That was, indeed, the judgment of God; and when God hath spoken, in the glory of his speechless workings, it is good that man should hold his peace before him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BRIDAL DAY.
"The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,
So fair a bride shall leave her home!
Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,
So fair a bride shall pass to-day."
Longfellow.