Michael cast his heart into the music, the tears flowed unrestrained across his withered cheeks, but smilingly happily through his tears, as dimly through his old eyes he saw the two young figures enacting again the age-old tale of youth and love, he murmured,
“I am the resurrection and the life, Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”…
Eugene turned his wet eyes to the light that streamed through the library windows, winked rapidly, gulped, and blew his nose heavily. Ah, yes! Ah, yes!
… The band of natives, seeing now that they had no more to fear, and wild with rage at the losses they had suffered, began to advance slowly toward the foot of the cliff, led by Taomi, who, dancing with fury, and hideous with warpaint, urged them on, exhorting them in a shrill voice.
Glendenning cursed softly under his breath as he looked once more at the empty cartridge belts, then grimly, as he gazed at the yelling horde below, slipped his two remaining cartridges into his Colt.
“For us?” she said, quietly. He nodded.
“It is the end?” she whispered, but without a trace of fear.
Again he nodded, and turned his head away for a moment. Presently he lifted his gray face to her.
“It is death, Veronica,” he said, “and now I may speak.”
“Yes, Bruce,” she answered softly.
It was the first time he had ever heard her use his name, and his heart thrilled to it.
“I love you, Veronica,” he said. “I have loved you ever since I found your almost lifeless body on the beach, during all the nights I lay outside your tent, listening to your quiet breathing within, love you most of all now in this hour of death when the obligation to keep silence no longer rests upon me.”
“Dearest, dearest,” she whispered, and he saw her face was wet with tears. “Why didn’t you speak? I have loved you from the first.”
She leaned toward him, her lips half-parted and tremulous, her
