“Marie,” answered I, “we shall meet again, but it will be in another place.”
“In another place! Where?” she asked, in faltering accents.
“In heaven,” I answered; for to this angel I could not lie.
Again she fainted, but this time it was from grief. I raised her up, and placed her in the arms of Bug-Jargal, whose eyes were full of tears.
“Nothing can keep you back, then,” said he; “I will add nothing to my entreaties, this sight ought to be enough. How can you resist Marie? For one word like she has spoken I would have sacrificed the world, and you cannot even give up death for her.”
“Honour binds me,” answered I, sadly. “Farewell, Bug-Jargal, farewell, brother; I leave her to you.”
He grasped my hand, overwhelmed with grief, and appeared hardly to understand me.
“Brother,” said he, “in the camp of the whites there are some of your relations, I will give her over to them; for my part I cannot accept your legacy.”
He pointed to a rocky crag which towered high above the adjacent country.
“Do you see that rock?” asked he, “when the signal of your death shall float from it, it will promptly be answered by the volley that announces mine.”