"What is it?" they cried; "is he wounded, is he hurt?"
"He is dead," Clay answered, passing on with his burden. "Get Hope away."
Madame Alvarez stood with the girl's arms about her, her eyes closed and her figure trembling.
"Let me be!" she moaned. "Don't touch me; let me die. My God, what have I to live for now?" She shook off Hope's supporting arm, and stood before them, all her former courage gone, trembling and shivering in agony. "I do not care what they do to me!" she cried. She tore her lace mantilla from her shoulders and threw it on the floor. "I shall not leave this place. He is dead. Why should I go? He is dead. They have murdered him; he is dead."
"She is fainting," said Hope. Her voice was strained and hard.
To her brother she seemed to have grown suddenly much older, and he looked to her to tell him what to do.
"Take hold of her," she said. "She will fall." The woman sank back into the arms of the men, trembling and moaning feebly.
"Now carry her to the carriage," said Hope. "She has fainted; it is better; she does not know what has happened."
Clay, still bearing the body in his arms, pushed open the first door that stood ajar before him with his foot. It opened into the great banqueting hall of the palace, but he could not choose.
He had to consider now the safety of the living, whose lives were still in jeopardy.