eatness of spirit overcame those sentiments,
and gave her power to forbear disturbing his last moment; which
immediately approached. The hero looked up with an air of negligence,
and satiety of being, rather than of pain to leave it; and leaning back
his head, expired.[148]

When the heroine, who sat at a distance, saw his last instant come, she
threw herself at his feet, and kneeling, pressed his hand to her lips;
in which posture she continued under the agony of an unutterable sorrow,
till conducted from our sight by her attendants. That commanding awe,
which accompanies the grief of great minds, restrained the multitude
while in her presence; but as soon as she retired, they gave way to
their distraction, and all the islanders called upon their deceased
hero. To him, methought, they cried out, as to a guardian being, and I
gathered from their broken accents, that it was he who had the empire
over the ocean and its powers, by which he had long protected the island
from shipwreck and invasion. They now give a loose to their moan, and
think themselves exposed without hopes of human or divine assistance.
While the people ran wild, and expressed all the different forms of
lamentation, methought a sable cloud overshadowed the whole land, and
covered its inhabitants with darkness: no glimpse of light appeared,
except one ray from heaven upon the place in which the heroine now
secluded herself from the world, with her eyes fixed on those abodes to
which her consort was ascended.[149] Methought, a long period of time
had passed away in mourning and in darkness, when a twilight began by
degrees to enlighten the hemisphere; and looking round me, I saw a boat
rowed towards the shore, in which sat a personage adorned with warlike
trophies, bearing on his left arm a shield, on which was engraven the
image of Victory, and in his right hand a branch of olive. His visage
was at once so winning and so awful, that the shield and the olive
seemed equally suitable to his genius.

When this illustrious person[150] touched on the shore, he was received
by the acclamations of the people, and followed to the palace of the
heroine. No pleasure in the glory of her arms, or the acclamations
of her applauding subjects, were ever capable to suspend her sorrow for
one moment, until she saw the olive branch in the hand of that
auspicious messenger. At that sight, as Heaven bestows its blessings on
the wants and importunities of mortals, out of its