Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/43

Rh cannot help your fate, but I am sorry. I now embrace you for the last time—you have been, and might be noble, what you are I shall ever forget." After a pause he added, "Will nothing save his life?" Frederick sternly answered, "No, nothing." So they parted, both shedding tears. When Gustavus had recovered his voice, he said firmly, and in a manly tone, "Ye neither of you know me. That I am so mean in the opinions of my honourable companions is much, very much: but that I am so mean in my own is more. I am mad to think of what I have lost: I am glad that I am overtaken in my crime. Be it known to you, lord Frederick, that in some senses you are the poorest of the two; for you are proud to wrench from humanity that which I loathe, and shall throw by. I know not why, but I feel you are out of my memory. I regret not to leave you, and hardly seem to have done you an offence. But to the greater and gentle Christian what can I say? Never enough—never half. I feel my heart aches, and thus will I be peevishly revenged upon it—I will whisper thy name, and it shall usher me to heaven." So saying, he stabbed himself to the heart, and fell on his back, dead. When Christian saw this he ordered his soldiers to take him