Behold, she dies!"
And as she finished speaking I saw her raise a dagger on high, and
then I saw another figure. It was Thuvia's. As the dagger fell
toward the unprotected breast of my love, Thuvia was almost between
them. A blinding gust of smoke blotted out the tragedy within that
fearsome cell--a shriek rang out, a single shriek, as the dagger
fell.
The smoke cleared away, but we stood gazing upon a blank wall. The
last crevice had closed, and for a long year that hideous chamber
would retain its secret from the eyes of men.
They urged me to leave.
"In a moment it will be too late," cried Xodar. "There is, in fact,
but a bare chance that we can come through to the outer garden alive
even now. I have ordered the pumps started, and in five minutes
the pits will be flooded. If we would not drown like rats in a
trap we must hasten above and make a dash for safety through the
burning temple."
"Go," I urged them. "Let me die here beside my Princess--there is
no hope or happiness elsewhere for me. When they carry her dear
body from that terrible place a year hence let them find the body
of her lord awaiting her."
Of what happened after that I have only a confused recollection.
It seems as though I struggled with many men, and then that I was
picked bodily from the ground and borne away. I do not know. I
have never asked, nor has any other who was there that day intruded
on my sorrow or recalled to my mind the occurrences which they know
could but at best reopen the terrible wound within my heart.
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