I am prouder in this dread
moment of your love than all your foes can be of their hard triumph!'
Beruna and Bathsheba received their mistress when she returned to her
chamber. They marked her desolate air. She was silent, pale, and cold.
They bore her to her couch, whereon she sat with a most listless and
unmeaning look; her quivering lips parted, her eyes fixed upon the
ground in vacant abstraction, and her arms languidly folded before
her. Beruna stole behind her, and supported her back with pillows, and
Bathsheba, unnoticed, wiped the slight foam from her mouth. Thus Miriam
remained for several hours, her faithful maidens in vain watching for
any indication of her self-consciousness.
Suddenly a trumpet sounded.
'What is that?' exclaimed Miriam, in a shrill voice, and looking up with
a distracted glance.
Neither of them answered, since they were aware that it betokened the
going forth of Alroy to his trial.
Miriam remained in the same posture, and with the same expression of
wild inquiry. Another trumpet sounded, and after that a shout of the
people. Then she raised up her arms to heaven, and bowed her head, and
died.
'Has the second trumpet sounded?'
'To be sure: run, run for a good place.
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