“I would die for you!” he answered vehemently.
That is the first thing youth ever thinks of. From very fulness of life, it can afford to be on familiar terms with death.
“Tut; that is unnecessary. But would you do anything I asked of you as a personal favor?”
“Only try me. I would go to the ends of the earth for you.”
“Tenez! suppose I was dying King Arthur and you my squire. Would you hesitate to fling away Excalibur at my command?”
“The paltry bauble! What thought could I have to waste upon it while you were dying?”
“But suppose this obedience did not suffice to release me. Suppose that, in my agony, I prayed you to drive your own sword into my heart to set me free. Would you do it?”
He hesitated a moment. “That would be a terrible prayer; yet if you were suffering, and I knew that you must die, I would do even that for you.”
“You have said it,” I cried, and leaped to my feet in uncontrollable excitement. “I have a request to make you, I have a prayer that you only can fulfil. Swear that you will grant it—swear by all your love for me, by all the gratitude which you profess, and for which I shall never claim other return—swear that you will do what I am about to bid you!”
I saw that Guy was disquieted by my words and manner. Instead of replying with the bold confidence I had a right to expect, he recoiled from the revelation that pressed urgently on my lips.