“No more,” she muttered. “There will be no more! Oh, my beloved,” she cried weakly, “I've saved you! Why don't you take me into your arms and carry me out of this lonely place?”
Heyst bent low over her, cursing his fastidious soul, which even at that moment kept the true cry of love from his lips in its infernal mistrust of all life. He dared not touch her and she had no longer the strength to throw her arms about his neck.
“Who else could have done this for you?” she whispered gloriously.
“No one in the world,” he answered her in a murmur of unconcealed despair.
She tried to raise herself, but all she could do was to lift her head a little from the pillow. With a terrible and gentle movement, Heyst hastened to slip his arm under her neck. She felt relieved at once of an intolerable weight, and was content to surrender to him the infinite weariness of her tremendous achievement. Exulting, she saw herself extended on the bed, in a black dress, and profoundly at peace, while, stooping over her with a kindly, playful smile, he was ready to lift her up in his firm arms and take her into the sanctuary of his innermost heart—for ever! The flush of rapture flooding her whole being broke out in a smile of innocent, girlish happiness; and with that divine radiance on her lips she breathed her last--triumphant, seeking for his glance in the shades of death.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Yes, Excellency,” said Davidson in his placid voice; “there are more dead in this affair—more white people, I mean—than have been killed in many of the battles in the last Achin war.”
Davidson was talking with an Excellency, because what was alluded to in conversation as “the mystery of Samburan” had caused such a sensation in the Archipelago that even those in the highest spheres were anxious to hear something at first hand. Davidson had been summoned to an audience. It was a high official on his tour.
“You knew the late Baron Heyst well?”