The count was still speechless; he could only press her hand to his lips. After a pause, she proceeded—
"Look up, my dear boy! and attend to me. Should Poland become the property of other nations, I conjure you, if you survive its fall, to leave it. When reduced to captivity, it will no longer be an asylum for a man of honor. I beseech you, should this happen, go that very hour to England: that is a free country; and I have been told that the people are kind to the unfortunate. Perhaps you will find that Pembroke Somerset hath not quite forgotten Poland. Thaddeus! Why do you delay to answer me? Remember, these are your mother's dying words!"
"I will obey them, my mother!"
"Then," continued she, taking from her bosom a small miniature, "let me tie this round your neck. It is the portrait of your father." Thaddeus bent his head, and the countess fastened it under his neck- cloth. "Prize this gift, my child; it is likely to be all that you will now inherit either from me or that father. Try to forget his injustice, my dear son; and in memory of me, never part with that picture. O, Thaddeus! From the moment in which I first received it until this instant, it has never been from my heart!"
"And it shall never leave mine," answered he, in a stifled voice," whilst I have being."
The countess was preparing to reply, when a sudden volley of firearms made Thaddeus spring upon his feet. Loud cries succeeded. Women rushed into the apartment, screaming, "The ramparts are stormed!" and the next moment that quarter of the building rocked to its foundation. The countess clung to the bosom of her son. Thaddeus clasped her close to his breast, and casting up his petitioning eyes to heaven, cried, "Shield of the desolate! grant me a shelter for my mother!"
Another burst of cannon was followed by a heavy crash, and the most piercing shrieks echoed through the palace. "All is lost!" cried a soldier, who appeared for an instant at the room door, and then vanished.
Thaddeus, overwhelmed with despair, grasped his sword, which had fallen to the ground, and crying, "My mother, we will die together!" would have given her one last and assuring embrace, when his eyes met the sight of her before-agitated features tranquillized in death. She fell from his palsied arms back on the couch, and he stood gazing on her as if struck by a power which had benumbed all his faculties.
The tumult in the palace increased every moment; but he heard it not, until Butzou, followed by two or three of his soldiers, ran into the apartment, calling out "Count, save yourself!"
Sobieski still remained motionless. The general caught him by the arm, and instantly covering the body of the deceased countess with the mantle of her son, hurried his unconscious steps, by an opposite door, through the state chambers into the gardens.