“Mercy! ... mercy! ... not for me, but for her! ... for her, my love, my life, my tenderest little one! ...  What is her crime, ye fiends? ... why do ye deem love a sin and passion a dishonor? ...  Shall there be no more heart-longings because ye are cold? ...  Spare her! ... she is so young, so fond, so innocent of all reproach save one, the shame of loving me!  Spare her! ... or, if ye will not spare, slay her at once! ... now!—­now, with swift compassionate sword, . . but cast her not alive into yon hideous serpent’s den! ... not alive! ... ah no, no,—­ye gods have pity! ...”

Here his voice broke and a sudden light passed over his agonized countenance.  Gazing steadfastly at the girl, whose beautiful, white body now lay motionless on the cold stone, with a cloud of fair hair falling veil-like over it, his eyes seemed to strain themselves out of their sockets in the intensity of his eager regard, when all at once he gave vent to a wild peal of delirious laughter and exclaimed..

“Dead.. dead! ...  Thanks be to the merciless gods for this one gift of grace at the last!  Dead.. dead! ...  O the blessed favor and freedom of death! ...  Sweetheart, they can torture thee no more.. no more! ...  Ah, devils that ye are!” and his voice grown frantically loud, pierced the gloomy arches with terrible resonance, as he saw the red-garmented slaves vainly endeavoring to rouse, with ferocious blows and thrusts, new life in the fair, stiffening corpse before them..  “This time ye are baffled! ...  Baffled!—­and I live to see your vanquishment!  Give her to me!” and he stretched out his trembling arms ...  “Give her...she is dead—­and ye cannot offer to Nagaya any lifeless thing!  I will weave her a shroud of her own gold hair—­I will bury her softly away in the darkness—­I will sing to her as I used to sing in the silent summer evenings, when we fancied our secret of forbidden love unknown,—­and with my lips on hers, I will pray.. pray for the pardon of passion grown stronger...than...life! ...”

He ceased, and swaying forward, fell, . . a shiver ran through his limbs...one deep, gasping sigh...and all was over.  The band of torturers gathered round the body, uttering fierce oaths and exclamations of dismay.

“Both dead!” said one of the individuals in white.. “’Tis a most fatal augury!”

“Fatal indeed!” said another, and turning to the men with the blood stained axes, he added angrily—­“Ye were too swift and lavish of your weapons—­ye should have let these criminals suffer slowly inch by inch, and yet have left them life enough wherewith to linger on in anguish many hours.”

The wretches thus addressed looked sullen and humiliated, and approaching the two corpses, would have brutally inflicted fresh wounds on them, had not the seeming chief of the party interfered.