“No, no, the drink, the drink!” gasped the Queen, “O my dear Hamlet—the drink, the drink! I am poisoned!”
“O, villainy! Ho! let the door be locked! Treachery! Seek it out,” cried Hamlet.
Laertes, on the point of death, confessed the whole plot, and Hamlet, stung at last to vengeance, stabbed the wicked King with Laertes’s poisoned weapon, which he held in his hand.
“He is justly served,” said Laertes. “Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, nor thine on me.”
“Heaven make thee free of it!” said Hamlet, as the young man fell back motionless. “I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu!”
Horatio, feeling that he no longer cared to live, seized the cup, and would have drunk off what was left of the poisoned wine, but with a last effort of failing strength, Hamlet wrenched the cup out of his hands, and dashed it to the ground.
Far off in the distance was heard the music of a triumphant march, and learning that it was the youthful Fortinbras, returning with conquest from Poland, Hamlet prophesied that he would be elected as the new King, and gave his dying voice for him as his successor. Then murmuring, “The rest is silence,” the young Prince sank quietly back, with a smile of unearthly radiance on his face, and at last the storm-tossed spirit was at peace.
“Now cracks a noble heart,” said Horatio in loving farewell. “Good-night, sweet Prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”