y his side; but the old man pointed to the bow that
his son had cast aside and murmured eagerly: "Leave me--let me be. What
does it matter about me? Fight--for the gods--I say. For the gods! Go
on, aim truly!"

But the lad would not leave the dying man, and seeing how deeply the
spear had struck to the old man's heart he groaned aloud, throwing up
his arms in despair. Then an arrow hit his shoulder, another pierced
his neck, and he, too, fell gasping for breath. Karnis saw him drop, and
painfully raised himself a little to help him; but it was too much
for him; he could only clench his fist in helpless fury and chant,
half-singing, half-speaking, as loud he was able, Electra's curse:

"This my last prayer, ye gods, do not disdain!
For them turn day to night and joy to pain!"

But the heavy infantry, who by this time were crowding through the
breach, neither heard nor heeded his curse. He lost consciousness and
did not recover it till Herse, after lifting up her son and propping him
against a plinth, pressed a cloth against the stump of the lance
still remaining in the wound to staunch the swiftly flowing blood, and
sprinkled his brow with wine. He felt her warm tears on his face, and as
he looked up into her kind, faithful eyes, brimming over with tears of
sympathy and regret, his heart melted to tenderness. All the happiest
hours of the life they had spent together crowded on his memory; he
answered her glance with a loving and grateful gaze and painfully held
out his hand. Herse pressed it to her lips, weeping bitterly; but he
smiled up at her, nodding his head and repeating again and again the
line from Lucian: "Be comforted: you, too, must soon follow."

"Yes, yes--I shall follow soon," she repeated with sobs. "Without you,
without either of you, without the gods--what would become of me here."

And she turned to her son who, fully conscious, had followed every word
and every gesture of his parents and tried himself to say something. But
the arrow in his neck choked his breath, and it was such agony to speak
that he could only say hoarsely: "Father mother!" But these poor words
were full of deep love and gratitude, and Karnis and Herse understood
all he longed to express.

Tears choked the poor woman's utterance so that neither of the three
could say another word, but they were at any rate close together, and
could look lovingly in each other's eyes. Thus passed some few minutes
of peace for them, in