'A health to Glyco! A deep draught to a singer from heaven come down
upon earth!' cried the guests, seizing their wine-cups, as the ode was
concluded, and draining them to the last drop. But their drunken
applause fell noiseless upon the ear to which it was addressed. The
boy's voice, as he sang the final stanza of the ode, had suddenly
changed to a shrill, almost an unearthly tone, then suddenly sank again
as he breathed forth the last few notes; and now as his dissolute
audience turned towards him with approving glances, they saw him
standing before them cold, rigid, and voiceless. The next instant his
fixed features were suddenly distorted, his whole frame collapsed as if
torn by an internal spasm--he fell back heavily to the floor. Those
around approached him with unsteady feet, and raised him in their arms.
His soul had burst the bonds of vice in which others had entangled it;
the voice of Death had whispered to the slave of the great despot,
Crime--'Be free!'
'We have heard the note of the swan singing its own funeral hymn!' said
the patrician Placidus, looking in maudlin pity from the corpse of the
boy to the face of Vetranio, which presented for the moment an
involuntary expression of grief and remorse.
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