I will go forward! I will dare to die!
Hail, then, thou gate of Hell!“[[19]]
She takes a few steps toward the palace; but her courage fails for a moment. The reek of blood in her nostrils stifles her, and she recoils. In her last words passion and strength alike fade out, giving place to a pathetic human appeal:
“O strangers! friends!
I shrink not idly, like some timorous bird
Before a bush! Bear record in that day
When I am dead....“[[19]]
And the old men, as she passes slowly out of sight, wail over her what is perhaps her most fitting epitaph:
Ah! what is mortal life? When prosperous,
A shadow can o’erturn it; and, when fallen,