There was more in all that he heard than
this. The words seemed as words that had doomed him at once and for
ever. His eyes, directed full on the face of the madman, were dilated
with horror, and his deep, gasping, convulsive breathings mingled
heavily, during the moment of silence that ensued, with the chiming of
the bells above and the bubbling of the water below--the lulling music
of the temple, playing its happy evening hymn at the pleasant close of
day.
'We shall remember, mother!--we shall remember!' continued the Pagan
softly, 'and be happy in our remembrances! My brother, who loves me
not, will love you when I am gone! You will walk in my little garden,
and think on me as you look at the flowers that we have planted and
watered together in the evening hours, when the sky was glorious to
behold, and the earth was all quiet around us! Listen, mother, and kiss
me! When I go to the far country, I will make a garden there like my
garden here, and plant the same flowers that we have planted here, and
in the evening I will go out and give them water at the hour when you go
out to give my flowers water at home; and so, though we see each other
no more, it will yet be as if we laboured together in the garden as we
labour now!'
The girl still fixed her eager gaze on her father.
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