The flute tones of Julius floated around Maienthal, and he looked down upon the earth.
"And be thou ever blest, thou good earth, thou good mother-land, bloom, ye fields of Hindostan, farewell, thou glowing Maienthal, with thy flowers and with thy people,—and ye brothers, all of you, after a long smile, come and blissfully follow me. Now, O Eternal One, take me up, and console the two survivors."
The death angels stood on all the clouds, and drew their glittering swords out of the nights,—one thunder clapped after another, as if one prison-door of this earthly life after another were flung open.
The terrible luminous point had crept out of mid-air into the powder-house.
The death-hour had already passed, and yet life had not.
Emanuel trembled with yearning and apprehension, because he felt as yet no sign of dying,—moved his hands as if he would give them to some one,—stared into the lightnings as if he would draw them upon him....
"Death! seize me," he cried, beside himself,—"ye dead friends! O father! O mother! tear my heart away, take me,—I cannot—cannot live any longer."—
At that moment a blazing, rattling globe flew up into the tempest, and the powder-house shot itself to pieces like an undermined hell.—The explosion threw the flaming Emanuel pale into his flowery grave; the whole thundering east trembled; the moon and the rainbow were darkened....
THE BLISSFUL AFTER-MIDNIGHT.
Victor, cast headlong, senseless, at last bestirred his arm and felt therewith the cold face, on which to-day the crazy skeleton had read this night beforehand, and which projected above the grave, turned toward heaven. He threw himself upon it and pressed his face to the pale one. Before his tears had forced their way through the hard grief, the clouds carried back their fire-buckets and their funeral torches, and transparent foam-fleeces softly overflowed the moon and settled down at last over the whole valley and over the still couple in a thousand warm drops, which so easily remind man of his own tears. The blowing up of the powder-house by one of the three Englishmen had broken up the naval engagement of the burning clouds.