“Then your Majesty will perhaps grant her the burial she here demands?” he said—“It is a strange request!—but not difficult to gratify!”
Taking the paper, the monarch touched it tenderly with his lips before opening it. In all the blind stupefaction of his own grief, he was struck by the fact that there was something strained and unnatural about Thord’s appearance,—something wild and forced even in his expression of sorrow. He studied his face closely, but to no purpose;—there was no clue to the mystery packed within the harsh lines of those dark, fierce features,—he seemed no more and no less than the same brooding, leonine creature that had mercilessly planned the deaths of men in his own Revolutionary Committee. There was no touch of softness in his eyes,—no tears, even at the sight of Lotys smiling coldly in her flower-strewn shroud. And now, unfolding her last message, the King beheld it thus expressed:
“To THOSE WHO SHALL FIND ME DEAD
“I pray you of your gentle love and charity, not to bury my body in the earth, but in the sea. For I most earnestly desire no mark, or remembrance of the place where my sorrows, with my mortal remains, shall be rendered back to nature; and kinder than the worms in the mould are the wild waves of the ocean which I have ever loved! And there,—at least to my own thoughts,—if any spiritual part of me remains to watch my will performed,—shall I be best pleased and most grateful to be given my last rest. LOTYS.”
This document had been written and signed some years back, and had, therefore, nothing to do with any idea of immediate departure from the world, or premeditated suicide. And once again the King looked searchingly at Thord, as he returned him the paper.
“Her will shall be performed!” he said—“And in a manner befitting her memory,—befitting the love borne to her by a People—and—a King!”
He paused,—then went on softly.
“To you Sergius, my friend and comrade!—to you will be entrusted the task of committing this sweet casket of a sweeter soul to the mercy of the waves!—you, the guardian of her childhood, the defender of her womanhood, the protector of her life——”
“O God! No more—no more!” cried Thord, suddenly falling on his knees by the couch of the dead—“No more—in mercy! I will do all—all! But leave me with her now!—leave me alone with her, this last little while!”
And breaking into great sobs, he buried his head among the death-flowers in an utter abandonment of despair.