nqueror, with a still threatening countenance, prepares
to follow up his victory, and treads on her as she lies.

But a new spirit had come upon her--the spirit which called the beloved
of Heaven to itself; and, speaking in a sorrowing voice, she thus uttered
her last words:

"My friend, thou hast conquered--I forgive thee. Forgive thou me, not for
my body's sake, which fears nothing, but for the sake, alas, of my soul.
Baptise me, I beseech thee."

There was something in the voice, as the dying person spake these words,
that went, he knew not why, to the heart of Tancred. The tears forced
themselves into his eyes. Not far off there was a little stream, and the
conqueror went to it and filled his helmet; and returning, prepared for
the pious office by unlacing his adversary's helmet. His hands trembled
when he first beheld the forehead, though he did not yet know it; but
when the vizor was all down, and the face disclosed, he remained without
speech and motion.

Oh, the sight! oh, the recognition!

He did not die. He summoned up all the powers within him to support his
heart for that moment. He resolved to hold up his duty above his misery,
and give life with the sweet water to her whom he had slain with sword.
He dipped his fingers in it, and marked her forehead with the cross, and
repeated the words of the sacred office; and while he was repeating them,
the sufferer changed countenance for joy, and smiled, and seemed to say,
in the cheerfulness of her departure, "The heavens are opening--I go in
peace." A paleness and a shade together then came over her countenance,
as if lilies had been mixed with violets. She looked up at heaven, and
heaven itself might be thought for very tenderness to be looking at her;
and then she raised a little her hand towards that of the knight (for she
could not speak), and so gave it him in sign of goodwill; and with his
pressure of it her soul passed away, and she seemed asleep.

But Tancred no sooner beheld her dead, than all the strength of mind
which he had summoned up to support him fell flat on the instant. He
would have given way to the most frantic outcries; but life and speech
seemed to be shut up in one point in his heart; despair seized him like
death, and he fell senseless beside her. And surely he would have died
indeed, had not a party of his countrymen happened to come up. They were
looking for water, and had found it, and they discovered the bodies at
the same time. T