THE FIRST GRAVE.
"They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave."
_Tennyson._
THE news about Colonel Denis was only too true! He had started for the
ranges on Aberdeen one morning about nine o'clock, as his regiment
was going through their annual course of musketry, and as he stood in
a marker's butt, close to the targets, a native child from the Sepoy
lines suddenly emerged from some unsuspected hiding-place, where she
had been lying _perdue_, and ran right into the open, across the line
of fire. Colonel Denis rushed out to drag her into shelter, but just
as he seized her, a bullet from a Martini-Henry struck him between the
shoulders, and without a groan, he fell forward on his face dead. Yes,
he was quite dead when they hurried up to him. The shock to every one
was stupefying; they were speechless with horror; but five minutes
previously he had been talking to them so cheerfully, and had to all
appearances as good a life as any one present,—and now here he lay
motionless on his face in the sand, a dark stain widening on his white
coat, and a frightened little native child whimpering beside him.
"Instantaneous," said Dr. Malone, with an unprofessional huskiness in
his voice, when they brought him running to the spot. "What an awful
thing, and no one to blame, unless that little beggar's mother,"
glancing at the imp, who stared back at the Sahib with all the power of
her frightened black eyes. "Poor Denis; but it was just like him,—he
never thought of himself." This was his epitaph, the manner in which he
met his death, "was just like him."
And who was to break the terrible tidings to his daughter? People asked
one another the question with bated breath and anxious eyes, as they
stood around. Who was to go and tell her, that her father, to whom she
had bidden a playful good-bye an hour ago, was dead, that that smiling
wave of his hand had been, Farewell for ever!
* * * * *
It was about eleven o'clock, and Helen was sitting at the piano,
playing snatches of different things, unable to settle down to any
special song or piece. She had felt curiously restless all the morning,
and was thinking that she would run over and have a chat with Mrs.
Home,—for she was too idle to do anything else,—when a sudden loud
sob made her start up from the music-stool and turn round somewhat
nervously.
There she beheld her ayah, Fatima, staring at her through the purdah,
but the instant she was discovered, she quickly dropped it, and
vanished. It never occurred to Helen to connect Fatima's tears with
herself, or her affairs; it was more than probable that she had been
having a quarrel with her husband, and that they had been beating
one another, as was their wont,—when words were exhausted. She was
thinking of following her handmaiden, but she believed it would only be
the old story, "Abdul, plenty bad man, very wicked rascal," when her
ear caught the sound of footsteps coming up the front pathway. They
halted, then it was _not_ Mrs. Creery; she never did that, and peeping
over the blind, she beheld to her amazement, Mr. Latimer and Mrs. Home.
And Mrs. Home was crying, what could it be? And they were both coming
to her.
A pang of apprehension seemed to seize her heart with a clutch of ice,
some unknown, some dreadful trouble was on its way to _her_. She sprang
down the steps and met them, saying,—
"What is the matter? Oh! Mr. Latimer, you have come to tell me
something—something," growing very white, "about papa?"
Mr. Latimer himself was deadly pale, and seemed to find considerable
difficulty in speaking. At last he said,—
"Yes; he has been hurt on the ranges."
"Then let me go to him at once—at once."
"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Mrs. Home, bursting into tears, "you must
prepare yourself for trouble."
"I am prepared; please let me go to him. Oh, I am losing time; where is
he? Why, they are bringing him home," as her quick ear caught the heavy
tramp of measured feet, bearing some burden,—an hospital dhoolie.
Before either of her visitors had guessed at her intention, she had
flown down the pathway, and met the procession. She hastily pulled
aside the curtain, and took her father's hand in hers. But what was
this? this motionless form, with closed eyes? She had never seen it
before in all her life, but who does not recognize Death, even at
their first meeting?
"Oh! he is dead," she shrieked, and fell insensible on the pathway.
For a long time she remained unconscious, and "it was best so" people
whispered. There were so many sad arrangements to be made. The General
himself superintended everything with regard to the funeral, which was
to take place at sundown, as was the invariable custom in the East.
There, there is no gradual parting as in England, where white-covered
dead lies amid the living for days. In India such hospitality is never
shown to death, he is thrust forth the very day he comes. The wrench is
agonizing, and, as in a case like the present, where death was sudden,
the shock overwhelming.
To think that you may be laughing and talking with a relative, friend,
or neighbour, one evening, that they have been in the very best of
health, as little anticipating the one great change as yourself, and
that by the very next night, they may be dead and _buried_! In Eastern
countries, there seems to be almost a cruel promptness about the
funerals, but it is inevitable. By five o'clock everything was ready
in the bungalow on the hill; the bier and bearers, the mourners, the
wreaths of flowers, and the Union Jack for pall. Colonel Denis had that
morning been given a huge bunch of white flowers for Helen; lovely
lilies, ferns and orchids, that did not grow on Ross; he had brought
home and presented the offering with pride, and she, being unusually
lazy, had left the flowers in a big china bowl, intending to arrange
them after breakfast.
How little are we able to see into the future! Happily for ourselves.
Would Colonel Denis have carried home that big bunch of lilies with
such alacrity had he known that they were destined to decorate his own
coffin!
In deference to Helen, who was now alive to every sound, the large
_cortège_ almost stole from the door, and the band was mute. The
cemetery was on Aberdeen, not far from the fatal ranges, and the
funeral went by boat. Once on the sea, that profoundly melancholy
strain, "The Dead March in Saul," was heard, after three preliminary
muffled beats of the drum; and it sounded, if possible, more weird
and sad than usual. As its strains were wafted across the water, and
reached the bungalow on the hill, Helen sat up on the sofa, and looked
wildly at Mrs. Home and Mrs. Durand.
"I—I—hear—the 'Dead March' in the distance! Who—who is it for? It
is not playing for papa.—It is impossible, _impossible_. See, here are
some of the flowers he brought me this morning—there are his gloves,
that he left to have mended! I know," wringing her hands as she spoke,
"that people do die, but never—never like this! This is some fearful
dream; or I am going mad; or I have had a long illness, and I have been
off my head. Oh, that band—" now putting her fingers in her ears, and
burying her face in the cushions, "it is a dream-band—a nightmare!"
After a very long silence, there was another sound from across the
water—the distant rattle of musketry repeated thrice, and now Mrs.
Home, and Mrs. Durand, were aware that the last honours had been paid
to Colonel Denis,—who had been alive and as well as they were that
very morning,—and was now both dead and buried.
* * * * *
Nothing short of the very _plainest_ speaking had been able to keep
Mrs. Creery from forcing herself into Helen's presence. But Mrs. Home,
Mr. Latimer, and Dr. Malone, were as the three hundred heroic Greeks
who kept the pass at Thermopylæ. They formed a body-guard she could not
pass.
Every one, even the last-mentioned matron, desired to have Helen under
their roof. Mrs. King came up from Viper, all the way in the mid-day
sun, to say that, "Of course, every one _must_ see, that the farther
Miss Denis was from old associations, the better, and that her room
was ready." Mrs. Graham arrived from Chatham with the same story;
but in the end, Helen went to Mrs. Home, going across with her after
dark, like a girl walking in a trance. Sleep, kind sleep, did come to
her, thanks to a strong opiate, and thus, for a time, she and her new
acquaintance, grief, were parted. The pretty bungalow on the side of
the hill, so bright and full of life only last night, was dark and
silent now. One inmate slept a sleep to deaden sorrow, the other lay
alone upon the distant mainland, under the silent stars, within sound
of the sea—and the new cemetery contained its first grave.