Disturbed, impetuous, with dishevelled hair, Hiort came back, and said, in a low voice, "It is done; I was blest; no one will be so after me." "With that yellow one,[133] and now in the night-hour, I will answer for nothing," said Gaspard. Albano reddened with shame at the impudent presumption, and still more at Roquairol's crime of dishonoring and seducing, even in the play, his holy beloved. "Music, but tender and good!" he cried, and let himself be fanned by the zephyr of harmony, and drank incessantly "funeral draughts," or wine,--both to the annoyance of the Knight, who abhorred drinking, and shunned music, because this or both made one weak. He laid himself down on the turf, and the pistol beside him, and said, stammering, "So, then, I lie in the warm ashes of my burnt-out life, and my cold ashes will be added soon." He put his double opera-glass close to his eyes, and cast sparkling looks over at Linda. "I have had her on my heart, the divine beauty, my eternal love,--my tulip, which at evening closes at length over the bee, that he may die in the flower-cup. On the roses of my life I rest and die; I still look with bliss on the sweet one; I cannot repent. Only forgive, poor Carlos; I wipe away the crime with blood, but with tears of penitence I cannot. Should that which time has washed away from this shore cleave again to the shore of eternity, then it must fare badly with me there: I can change there as little as here." At this moment a cannon-shot was fired in the city to announce a deserter. He took his pistol into his hand. "Yes, yes, a shot signifies a fugitive,--a fugitive out of the world, too. O, when shall the sharp sickle lift itself in the east, and cut life in twain? I am so weary!" He looked toward the eastern heavens, but a cloud, which already faintly thundered, overcast the gateway of the moon. He smiled bitterly. "Even this little, last joy also destiny begrudges me! I shall see the moon no more. Well, I shall, perhaps, mount higher than it or its storm-cloud,--only my dear spectators and auditors of my death are driven away from me by the rain. Yes, if thou art out, then am I out!" He pointed to the flask.