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At last she arose and looked about her, hoping to find some shelter where she might take refuge. Ruin only stared her in the face! "Well," said she, "let the wild beasts tear me to pieces, let me die of hunger and thirst, if I can expiate my sins here upon the tomb of Bonne-Biche and Beau-Minon!"
To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a MAN in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement.
"I wanted to expiate my sin," he finished, "and, above all, I have longed to prove myself a man in your sight." She listened with white, set face, slightly averted. When she turned to him at last, he saw that her eyes were wet with tears. "I cannot judge of these matters," she said. "You you were no coward the other night, amico mio. You were the bravest of the brave. You saved my life.
Now my readers will understand that seppuku was not a mere suicidal process. It was an institution, legal and ceremonial. An invention of the middle ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity. When enforced as a legal punishment, it was practiced with due ceremony.
By the imposition of holy orders, the grandson of Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but this ceremony, which seemed to profane the sacraments of the church, was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant, and the death of the deacon Theodosius could alone expiate the crime of his royal birth.
I wanted to rebel openly when I saw that wonderful court, world-famous for its beauty, which has been turned into a dépôt of supplies and barracks with horses stabled under those delicate, Gothic arches, models of purity and beauty. But to what good? Will anything ever expiate the offense? There are also horses in the theatre and machine guns in all the upper windows.
Now I will expiate my sin. Your secret is safe with me, and since you hate me I will never see you more. Miriam, we look upon each other for the last time. Further, if I can, I will work for the deliverance of Marcus and help him to join you in Tyre, whither the Luna is bound is she not? Farewell?"
Jacquemin would then give an explanation; for of reparation Zilah thought little. And yet, full of anger, and not having Menko before him, he longed to punish some one; he wished, that, having been made to suffer so himself, some one should expiate his pain.
Periclides nodded approvingly. An expression of lofty contempt passed over the brow and lip of Agesilaus. But with national self-command, he replied gravely, and with equal laconic brevity, "If Pausanias hath committed a trivial error that a fine can expiate, so be it. But talk not of fines till ye acquit him of all treasonable connivance with the Mede."
At length, no longer exhausting himself in fruitless intreaties, the victim has recourse in his agonies to curses on his executioners. He says, his ghost shall haunt them for ever, for no vengeance can expiate such cruelty. He will tear their cheeks with his fangs, for that power is given to the shades below.
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