“Ay!” he exclaimed, with rapturous fervor, “I feel it so. It is life to live for man. It is the life of life to die for him. It is sweet to die for one’s country, and to-night I die for mine. Far in the future I see it—my own dear land, my America, the land where all shall be free and equal, the land of lovers and of friends. Oh, my land, of you I dream, for you I have lived, for you I die!”
She stood gazing at him as he poured forth these words—her face white and radiant, her eyes brilliant, her hands pressed to her bosom, which rose and fell in quick pulsations.
“And for you,” he cried, as his eyes rested upon her, “for my love of you I die. Oh, my wife, I love you greatly, or I could not leave you! I could not love you truly if I failed in love for liberty and justice. Dying for them, I prove my love for you.”
With a low, adoring cry she was in his arms, and clasping each other, they moved to the centre of the chamber, with sweet and passionate words of affection and farewell. The burning moments of that last sublime communion sped swiftly by, and the time for the earthly parting drew near.
“It is the last banquet,” she said, with a bright smile. “To-night is your Thermopylæ.”
“Ours,” he quickly answered. “Ours, for you, too, die. Your death is to be divided from me—a sterner and loftier death than mine.”
“Yes,” she answered, with solemn fervor, “it is indeed my death. My heart is proud, my soul is filled with joy, but I die, for life will never be truly life again till I meet you in the land of the asphodel. So be it. I do not quail. For you, for me, it is the old Achaian hour.”
“For you, for me,” he fervently responded. “I await you in the Hereafter. My life will be but half divine until you come. Now we must part.”
She clung to him for a moment, then withdrew from his arms.
“Come,” she said, taking up the flask, “the last pledge. Ah, wine of the land of Leonidas, little did I dream we should pour you to the pledge of the immortals! But the old Greek hour—the festal hour of death has dawned.”