I listened, to be certain that I was alone with my murdered
children. No sound was in the dwelling; the assassins had departed,
believing that their labour of blood was ended when I fell beneath their
swords; and I was able to crawl forth in security, and to look my last
upon my offspring that the Romans had slain. The child that I held to
my breast still breathed. I stanched with some fragments of my garment
the wounds that he had received, and laying him gently by the stairs--in
the moonlight, so that I might see him when he moved--I groped in the
shadow of the wall for my first murdered and my last born; for that
youngest and fairest one of my offspring whom they had slaughtered
before my eyes! When I touched the corpse, it was wet with blood; I
felt its face, and it was cold beneath my hands; I raised its body in my
arms, and its limbs already were rigid in death! Then I thought of the
eldest child, who lay dead in the chamber above. But my strength was
failing me fast. I had an infant who might yet be preserved; and I knew
that if morning dawned on me in the house, all chances of escape were
lost for ever.
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