Dreadful was the waking of Tancred--not for the solemn whispering around him--not for his aching wounds, terrible as they were,--but for the agony of the recollection that rushed upon him. He would have gone staggering out of the pavilion to seek the remains of his Clorinda, and save them from the wolves; but his friends told him they were at hand, under the curtain of his own tent. A gleam of pleasure shot across his face, and be staggered into the chamber; but when he beheld the body gored with his own hand, and the face, calm indeed, but calm like a pale night without stars, he trembled so, that he would have sunk to the ground but for his supporters.
"O sweet face!" he exclaimed; "thou mayst be calm now; but what is to calm me? O hand that was held up to me in sign of peace and forgiveness! to what have I brought thee? Wretch that I am, I do not even weep. Mine eyes are as cruel as my hands. My blood shall be shed instead."
And with these words he began tearing off the bandages which the surgeons had put upon him; and he thrust his fingers into his wounds, and would have slain himself thus outright, had not the pain made him faint away.
He was then taken back to his own chamber. Godfrey came in the mean time with the venerable hermit Peter; and when the sufferer awoke, they addressed him in kind words, which even his impatience respected; but it was not to be calmed till the preacher put on the terrors of religion, remonstrating with him as an ingrate to God, and threatening him with the doom of a sinner. The tears then crept into his eyes, and he tried to be patient, and in some degree was so--only breaking out ever and anon, now into exclamations of horror, and now into fond lamentations, talking as if with the shade of his beloved.
Thus lay Tancred for days together, ever woful; till, falling asleep one night towards the dawn, the shade of Clorinda did indeed appear to him, more beautiful than ever, and clad in light and joy. She seemed to stoop and wipe the tears from his eyes; and then said, "Behold how happy I am. Behold me, O beloved friend, and see how happy, and bright, and beautiful I am; and consider that it is all owing to thyself. 'Twas thou that took'st me out of the false path, and made me worthy of admission among saints and angels. There, in heaven, I love and rejoice; and there I look to see thee in thine appointed time; after which we shall both love the great God and one another for ever and ever. Be faithful, and command thyself, and look to the end; for, lo, as far as it is permitted to a blessed spirit to love mortality, even now I love thee!"