Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bands asunder which
confined his arms, and clasping her to him with a force that seemed to
make her touch his very heart, his breast heaved as if his soul were
breaking from its outraged tenement; and, while his head sunk on her
neck, he exclaimed, in a low and interrupted voice:
"My prayer is heard, Helen! Life's cord is cut by God's own hand! May
he preserve my country, and-- Oh! trust from my youth--"
He stopped--he fell; and with the shock, the hastily-erected scaffold
shook to its foundation. The pause was dreadful.
The executioner approached the prostrate chief. Helen was still locked
close in his arms. The man stooped to raise his victim, but the
attempt was beyond his strength. In vain he called on him--to
Helen--to separate, and cease from delaying the execution of the law;
no voice replied, no motion answered his loud remonstrance.
Gloucester, with an agitation which hardly allowed him power to speak
or move, remembered the words of Wallace, "that the rope of Edward
would never sully his animate body!" and, bending to his friend, he
spoke; but all was silent there. He raised the chieftain's head, and,
looking on his face, found indeed the indisputable stamp of death.
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