Through two long hours of this fitful night I watched him with the keenest interest. I saw him struggle, confused, bewildered, reeling, giddy, dazzled, sometimes almost yielding to temptation, sometimes earnestly imploring the Heavenly Father for strength to resist delusion. As if in despair, I saw him hurrying through the long suite of apartments in search of a sword to pierce his weak, vacillating heart, but no arms were here to be found. Sometimes I saw him rush to meet the alluring Circes of the Palace, as if seeking their fascinations; then, suddenly turning upon them, he would curse and insult the seductive Sirens. I saw him tear from them their veils of snow, rend them asunder, and trample the costly fragments under his feet. They knelt, wept, and humiliated themselves before him. They prayed for love, saying: 'Once, only once, we implore thee, confess that thou lovest!' Utter madness came upon him; electric flashes fired his veins; rapture tingled through every fibre of his young frame; and in the voluptuous delirium of the moment he wildly cried: 'I love! I love!'
As he spake, he caught in his arms the Houri of the foreign race; he fastened his burning lips upon her rosebud mouth; and by the magic of her breath she drew him on to the Hall of the Throne!
There sat the Master of Life and Death, with the flags and standards of the conquered nations floating around and above him. As the youth and maiden entered, I again heard the great bell toll the hour. Throngs of courtiers stood around the Throne. Slowly the curtain of inwrought tapestry rose from the platina door. Those who had been waiting beyond its threshold for admittance, were summoned by the Heralds to appear. Ambassadors from the Kings of the East and the Kings of the West entered the Presence Chamber. On they filed in long and solemn procession. They all bowed as they passed the Throne, each one depositing an urn of pure gold at the feet of the Monarch. The urns were filled with the ashes of those who had fallen in battle, heroes killed in holy causes, patriots and martyrs from different parts of the world. The Grand Duke entered last in the train, he was clad in the ermine only worn by Princes, and as he bowed his head, he placed the last urn on the floor. The young man started—the name of the murdered Mother was deeply graven on the sculptured swells. Then all grew dark before him, he saw neither the Throne of the Monarch, nor the fair girl still clinging to his arm. But his ear quickened as his eye grew dim, and the question of the Monarch rang loudly through his brain: 'Are they all really dead, and will they rise from the grave no more?'
And as if with one voice answered the Ambassadors: 'They are all surely dead, and will rise no more forever.' At a sign from the Monarch, the courtiers approached, took up the urns, and solemnly deposited them upon the columns of black marble ranged on either side of the Hall. Flaming torches were then handed by the attendants, taken by those high in the favor of the court, and held over the open crypt of the urn. The ashes within kindled, and burned with a dim, bluish flame. The pale smoke rose from the shrine, spread through the air, and wafted the smell of Death to the nostrils of the Lord!
It now seemed to the young man as if all he had seen at the hour of twilight was but a dream; he looked upon these throngs as the sole masters of the world, and on their Monarch as omnipotent and eternal. At this moment the table of festival rose in the Hall, everywhere surrounded by the blazing funereal urns. The maiden begged the bridegroom to take his seat at the banquet; the Master, descending from his Throne, placed his arm in his, and led him to the place of honor, at his side. The great bell again tolled the hour. The guests also took their places at the feast.
Directly in front of the young man stood the column of black marble bearing the urn containing the ashes of his Mother. And whenever he saw her holy name, his long lashes veiled his sinking eyes; but his bride constantly recalled his attention to the blue flames of the crypt.
More and more madly, fiercely, fearfully, his reeling and wretched soul struggled to regain its ancient faith, to return to its early hopes; but temptation was around him; his brain was bewildered; his understanding darkened; and madness within.
Healths poisonous to his heart went round, and he was forced to drain them in honor of the Master. An inward shivering disjointed his members, unstrung his nerves, heart and frame fainted into weakness, a dew cold as death covered his temples, and his head fell wearily upon his breast—the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the men, the burning urns, danced, reeled, and tottered in wild confusion before him. The murmuring voices, the buzz of sound, the swell of the triumphant music, the strange words of the foreign bride, mingled and boomed like the roar of the sea in the ears of the swooning man—and so the last hours passed away!
He still lived, if life be measured by the wild throbs of the heart. Like the clap of doom the last hour struck upon his ear. He opened his heavy eyelids, the blue flames from the urns were dying out. The Master of Life and Death, graciously smiling and courteously inclining toward him, said: 'Guest of my Banquet, the hour has struck in which thou art to swear to serve me; in which thou must abjure thine ancient faith and name.'
As he spake, he threw to him across the table jewelled orders and diamond crosses, saying: 'Wear these in memory of me!' The Herald then drew near, and read to him from the Black Book the form of abjuration. The agonizing and swooning man mechanically repeated the words one by one after him, not even hearing the sound of his own voice. His head had fallen on the bosom of his bride, his lips still moved, but his eyes were glaring in the whiteness of death—and so he uttered all the prescribed words until the very last was said!