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until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had taken
up its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being.
The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I
am without its inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness and
strength; disdain not yet this rent shrine of fleshly mortality, O immortal
Capability! While one fellow creature remains to whom aid can be afforded,
stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine!"
His vehemence, and voice broken by irrepressible sighs, sunk to my heart;
his eyes gleamed in the gloom of night like two earthly stars; and, his
form dilating, his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed as if at his
eloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit entered his frame, exalting him
above humanity. He turned quickly towards me, and held out his hand.
"Farewell, Verney," he cried, "brother of my love, farewell; no other weak
expression must cross these lips, I am alive again: to our tasks, to our
combats with our unvanquishable foe, for to the last I will struggle
against her."
He grasped my hand, and bent a look on me, more fervent and animated than
any smile; then turning his horse's head, he touched the animal with the
spur, and was out of sight in a moment.
A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was not emptied, nor
the bow unstrung. We stood as marks, while Parthian Pestilence aimed and
shot, insatiated by conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of slain. A
sickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical mechanism, came over
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