His eyes were moist now--but from excess of happiness, not
sorrow--as he saw before him the blessed, blissful realization of his
vision.
Towards morning Beelzebub, who had been excessively uneasy and restless
all night, managed, with great difficulty, to clamber up on the bed,
where he rubbed his nose against his master's hand--trying at the same
time to purr in the old way, but failing lamentably. The baron woke
instantly, and saw poor Beelzebub looking at him appealingly, with his
great green eyes unnaturally dilated, and momentarily growing dim; he
was trembling violently, and as his master's kind hand was stretched
out to stroke his head, fell over on his side, and with one half-stifled
cry, one convulsive shudder, breathed his last.
"Poor Beelzebub!" softly said Isabelle, who had been roused from her
sweet slumber by his dying groan, "he has lived through all the misery
of the old time, but will not be here to share and enjoy the prosperity
of the new."
Beelzebub, it must be confessed, fell a victim to his own
intemperance--a severe fit of indigestion, consequent upon the enormous
supper he had eaten, was the cause of his death--his long-famished
stomach was not accustomed to, nor proof against, such excesses. This
death, even though it was only that of a dumb beast, touched de Sigognac
deeply; for poor Beelzebub had been his faithful companion, night and
day, through many long, weary years of sadness and poverty, and had
always shown the warmest, most devoted affection for him.
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