The Grand Duke entered
last in the train, he was clad in the ermine only worn by Princes, and
as he bowed his head, he placed the last urn on the floor. The young man
started--the name of the murdered Mother was deeply graven on the
sculptured swells. Then all grew dark before him, he saw neither the
Throne of the Monarch, nor the fair girl still clinging to his arm. But
his ear quickened as his eye grew dim, and the question of the Monarch
rang loudly through his brain: 'Are they all really dead, and will they
rise from the grave no more?'
And as if with one voice answered the Ambassadors: 'They are all surely
dead, and will rise no more forever.' At a sign from the Monarch, the
courtiers approached, took up the urns, and solemnly deposited them upon
the columns of black marble ranged on either side of the Hall. Flaming
torches were then handed by the attendants, taken by those high in the
favor of the court, and held over the open crypt of the urn. The ashes
within kindled, and burned with a dim, bluish flame. The pale smoke rose
from the shrine, spread through the air, and wafted the smell of Death
to the nostrils of the Lord!
It now seemed to the young man as if all he had seen at the hour of
twilight was but a dream; he looked upon these throngs as the sole
masters of the world, and on their Monarch as omnipotent and eternal. At
this moment the table of festival rose in the Hall, everywhere
surrounded by the blazing funereal urns.
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