They left Romano, and proceeded to confer in another apartment. Here they resolved
that the fanatic should be sent upon some business of fancied importance out
of Toledo. This charge the archbishop assumed to himself—Egiza being required
simply to instruct the priest to obey him, as if he himself commanded in each particular.
The prince then demanded a dagger from his uncle, which he received, and
hiding it in his bosom, he prepared to take his departure. When they returned to
the room in which Romano had been left, they found him lying upon his face. He
was faint with exhaustion; and though he seemed conscious of their presence and
care, he did not at the moment give any evidence that he understood their words.
The archbishop commanded that wine should be brought and poured into his mouth
This revived him. A little food was brought at the same time, and an effort was
made to force or persuade him to eat. But it was not successful. They poured a
small quantity of wine down his throat, and a temporary reanimation of his frame
was the consequence. Meanwhile, Egiza, taking advantage of the circumstances,
left the palace; and though the eyes of Romano beheld his flight, and gleamed with
disquiet and dissatisfaction as they beheld, yet his limbs refused their office. Their
strength, of which he had boasted but a little while before, was seemingly all departed.
It had been overtasked by the labors put upon it; and the probability is that
the hallucinations of his mind had been in great part the result of his ascetic life
and unnatural abstinence. He nevertheless pushed aside the attendants who administered
to him, pointed to the door through which Egiza had fled, and strove to rise
and pursue. But he could not; he sank back with a deep sigh and lay motionless
on the floor. The archbishop at first thought that life had departed; but when he
placed his hand upon the body, it shrank from his touch, and the next moment Romano
raised himself to a sitting posture.

“The holy brother, my father? Where hath he gone? Shall I not see him?
Hath he left me no tasks?”

“He hath, Romano; these will I deliver to thee in season.”

The eye of the fanatic brightened, and a smile of pleasure rested upon his thin
and pallid lip.

“Give them to me now, my father!” he exclaimed, striving desperately to rise to
his feet.

“Nay, not yet,” said the archbishop, persuasively. “There is yet time. To-morrow”—

“There is no to-morrow for me, my father. The Lord hath called me. I heard
His voice but now, calling unto me, and I sank down in a swoon while I heard it.
What the holy brother hath left for me to do, that must I do quickly. I have little

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time; keep it not from me; let me not go before my tasks be ended, and the good
work done, which hath been left to me.”

“Thou hast done thy work; thou hast been the faithful steward, and mayst go
without fear to thy account.”

“Said he so?” eagerly demanded the dying man. “Did he tell thee this, my
father?”

The archbishop nodded in affirmation. Romano clasped his hands, and the muttered
prayer and thankfulness of his lips were audible, though indistinctly syllabled,
and the tear stood in his eye—the bright drop of a most pious gratitude—in proof of
the delight which this intelligence gave him.

“Now am I ready to depart!” he exclaimed. “The day is done—the night is
coming on—the weary shall rest....... Yet, father,” he continued, rising and resting
his form upon his elbow; “yet, father, if thou wilt believe me, I had nearly faltered—
nearly sank back from the blessed heights—when the promised land lay before me.
What a moment of blindness was that, my father!”

“What moment, Romano?”

“When I faltered.”

“And when was that, my brother?” inquired the archbishop; not so much with
a desire to know as to amuse and satisfy the mind of the dying man.

“When the Lord bade me strike. Then, then, I bethought me of the long communion
I had had with Guisenard, ere he had sworn himself God's enemy and the
oppressor of the brethren; and I bethought me of his wife, who is young and passing
lovely. Many a time had I broken and blessed the bread in their habitation. Alas!
that it was God's pleasure that I should do otherwise. This was my weakness, father;
when I thought too much upon these things. I had almost stumbled, and fell
back from the service; but I grew strong, when the keeper bade me sup with him.
I smote him ere the speech was over; but I had almost missed, I had almost lost for
ever the blessed crown which is before my hope in this hour. And there was yet
one more trial to my soul, my father—one more trial, when the piercing shriek of
the woman came to my ear, as we fled. Hush! hark! I hear it now!—now!—
now!”

He clapped his hands upon his ears, shrieked loudly himself, then with one convulsive
effort fell over upon the floor, still and lifeless as the man he had slain in
his madness.