Jacopo had brought some clear water in his helmet. I thanked him with a look, and he stepped back, leaving us three together, two who were living, and one who was going away.
I bathed the forehead and drawn lips, from which flowed a thin stream of blood, and as I did so her eyes opened, but the film of death was on them.
"Di Savelli--Ugo--," and she was gone.
Gone like a flash, flung swiftly and fast into eternity, struck down, perhaps unwittingly, by the arm which should have been a shield to her. I have often wondered if D'Entrangues ever knew who fell to his pistol shot. If he did, God pity him! In the one glimpse I caught of his white face, as he swung round and rode off, I thought I saw a look of horror. But everything went so quickly, that then I had no time to think, and now I can recall but the end.
To her dead lips Carillon pressed his crucifix, into her dead ears he mumbled prayers. I knelt tearless, and prayerless, beside him, thinking only of the great love that had laid down a life.
One by one my men stole up, and stood in a half circle, leaning on the cross-handles of their swords, over which the grim, bearded faces looked down on us in pity.
Suddenly Carillon raised his crucifix aloft.
"My Father," he cried, "receive her soul!"
And someone said softly,
"Amen!"