"We'll die together, eh?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Jest not, Azrael. I am ready to do what I say."
"And I am ready to die," replied the girl. "Come, I'll show thee something,"—and with that, drawing aside the carpet, she lifted up a trap-door, beneath which was visible through the gloom a deeper, lower room, supported by short, stout, arched columns, close beside which a number of large barrels had been placed.
"Yes," said Banfi, "I know. In that cellar I have hidden the gunpowder which I saved after John Kemeny's fall."
"Look at this long nitrous linstock," said Azrael, drawing up the end of a thick cotton coil out of the cellar; "the barrels are connected with it, and many a time when thou hast been with me have I had the end of this lunt under the cushions of my couch, and held in my couch the torch which was to have kindled it whilst thou wert sleeping with thy head upon my breast, and I lay and listened calmly for the explosion which was to send us both to heaven or to hell."
"And you were afraid to do it?"
"Not for myself. But I reflected that thou wert not thine own but thy country's."
"I belong to no one now."
"Thy mind was so full of lofty plans. Destiny chose thee to be a Prince among men, a hero among the kings of the earth whose name should fill the pages of history."