Ariadne, an electronic edition

CHAPTER XL.

by Ouida [Ouida, 1839-1908]

date: 1877
source publisher: J.B. Lippincott Company
collection: Genre Fiction

CHAPTER XL.

TO a blow there is but one answer,--in our land at least.

The dawn was scarcely broken when they met again. The air was gray, and windless, and cold. They did not speak a word.

Hilarion fired, and the shot struck Maryx in the breast. Maryx had fired in the air.

He stood a moment erect, with his face to the sunrise, then fell to the ground, backward, his head striking the turf and the stones. They heard him say, as he fell,--

"She bade me not hurt him. I promised."

Then he lay quite still, and the blood began to well out slowly from his mouth.

The delicate and nervous hand that had hewn such lovely and majestic shapes out from the rocks clinched the roots of the rank grasses in the convulsion of a mortal agony; in another moment it relaxed its hold and was motionless, palm upward, on the earth, never more to create, never more to obey the will of the soul and the brain.

The sun came over the low hills suddenly, and it was day. He gave one long slow shuddering sigh as his life-blood choked him, then stretched his limbs out wearily, and lay there dead.