_A BITTER SORROW._
“_Nota Kaholthay, Jesus Christ, Notyanayne neoltze nogahneayta
Tattaahyenay naso noayl nahnathath doko eethlahse choo. Amen._ (The
grace of our Lord, etc.)” The words broke the solemn silence in the
distinct but tremulous voice of a young girl; a voice trembling with
earnestness as the benedictory blessing passed her lips, every tone
filled with suppressed anguish, revealing the agony of a broken heart.
The scene was as solemnly impressive as the words; two open graves
rudely hewn from the hard-frozen earth—accomplished by infinite labor
after burning fires over the spots for hours—one of them empty while
the other revealed a shapeless, undefinable bundle in its cold depths.
Beside this one stood three dark muffled figures, sharply outlined
against the perpendicular face of rocks. The central figure, the
speaker, one of the most touching sights on God’s fair earth—was a girl
bowed by a great, an overwhelming sorrow, a girl in whose eyes dwelt a
look of unutterable despair. This was Kasba; not the young,
lovingly-impulsive girl of yesterday, but a girl-woman, a woman of
steady and implacable purpose, with feelings so lacerated in the last
twenty-four hours that she had grown numb with pain. Horror upon horror
had fallen upon her until further grief could no longer be felt.
On her left was the unmistakable figure of Sahanderry. He stood rigidly
erect with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the shadowy object at the bottom of
the grave. Tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks and violent sobs
convulsed his frame. Venturing to raise his eyes at the girl’s
concluding words, he threw her a hasty glance; her unnatural composure
puzzled him. With a pathetically resigned air she closed the book from
which she had been reading, and slowly advancing to the edge of the
grave, stood silently gazing into it. The despairing agony in her face
was pitiable, for the grave held all that was mortal of her beloved
father.
Inconceivably strange it is that Delgezie, being on the outside of the
house, should have been killed, while Sahanderry, who lay close to the
seat of the explosion, had escaped with his life, in fact was almost
uninjured except for being badly scorched and thoroughly shaken. It
would be hard to explain this, or any part of the seemingly miraculous
events that followed this disaster. Even the sanest reasoning would fail
to convince. The natural inference was that the gunpowder-keg had not
sufficient resistance to cause the devastating combustion the incident
would lead one to expect and that Delgezie had been killed by some
flying object hurtled through the air by the force of the explosion—but
this was supposition.
Beside the girl, and completely overcome with grief, was the boy David.
He was sobbing audibly.
Stepping back from the grave, Kasba signed to her companions to fill it
in. This was the signal for Sahanderry to give full vent to his
lamentations while he dropped clods of frozen earth reverently into the
hole. These were instantly followed by the sound of dull thuds. Kasba
started at the gruesome noise, a startled cry escaped her, but she
displayed no further sign of emotion. Stunned and dazed, she stood
silently watching the work go on.
The task completed, Sahanderry and David, overcoming their more violent
grief, turned to the girl for orders, but remained discreetly silent.
Kasba was gazing fixedly at the grave as if her eyes could penetrate the
hard, flint-like earth to where the body of her father lay beneath.
Suddenly she tottered forward and, uttering a low, despairing cry, fell
on her knees.
“_Ay, setah! setah!_ (Oh, father, father!)” she moaned, with her face
pressed to the icy clods. She remained in this attitude for some time
wrestling with a feeling of unutterable loneliness.
Her companions scarcely breathed. Presently she kissed the hard sod,
rose quickly and turned slowly away.
Entering the lonely hut she dropped into a seat and remained in an
attitude of deep despondency with eyes fixed upon the floor. The
entrance of her sorrowing companions passed entirely unnoticed.
Taking pains to make no unnecessary noise, Sahanderry first attended to
the fire, then seated himself in a gloomy corner, and from this
vantage-ground watched the sorrow-stricken girl. David sank on the floor
at Kasba’s feet, crouching with his head pressed tightly against her
knee, and without raising her eyes the girl dropped her hand upon his
head and let it rest there in sympathy.
Time dragged on. Deepening shadows crept across the room, gradually
enveloping all objects in dismal gloom. The solemn ticking of the clock
sounded vastly disproportionate and seemed in the melancholy silence to
vibrate with the hum and noise of some mighty machine.
Throughout these dreary hours Kasba sat mute and desolate, taking no
heed of time, battling with a confused sense of irreparable loss.
Completely stunned by the succession of terrible shocks, she had been
too bewildered to fully understand the significance of the solemn
service she had read at the grave-side. The bitter fact that her father
was dead and that she had buried him that afternoon filled all her mind,
and for the first time in her life her never-failing consolation was
denied her. She could not pray, and she was disconsolate indeed, for
there was no other comfort in earth or heaven.
“When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new—
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your senses? Not friendship’s sign
Not reason’s subtle count. Nay, none of these!
Speak Thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause.”
But Kasba dare not look heavenward, for bitter, rebellious thoughts had
hardened her heart. What had she done that this great trouble should be
visited upon her? Delgezie had been both father and mother to her,
soothing and tending and caring for her in her infantile afflictions
with all the tenderness and affection of a loving mother. From the day
of her birth he had surrounded and guarded her young life with the
wealth and strength of a passionate love. The deep affection he had
borne his poor dead wife had been transferred to the child she had left
to his care. She became the joy of his life; his one thought was for her
happiness, his one aim her comfort. They had been all in all to each
other, and that God-fearing man had been cut down in an instant, without
even the mournful consolation of a parting word. As the knowledge of her
loss gained upon her the loneliness of her position grew correspondingly
distinct. Poor, weary, sorrow-stricken girl, tired and harassed by her
multitudinous duties, confused from want of rest and sleep, she sat
buried in the perplexities of a series of most singularly strange and
terrible happenings.
Yet she had still another duty to fulfil, another painful task to
perform—a task, if possible, more keenly agonizing than the burying of
her loved father. In a corner of the room lay the body of Roy Thursby,
the man she had loved with all the strength of her simple young heart.
Roy’s body had been carried to Delgezie’s hut, but all attempts at
resuscitation had proved futile, and it now lay on Kasba’s bed, covered
with a white sheet, awaiting burial. The body, however, had not yet been
sewn up in canvas, as was customary immediately after death. This still
remained to be done, although the empty grave beside Delgezie’s yawned
for it.
Silently in the gloomy darkness Kasba sat in a procrastinating mood. The
stern burial custom of her race and a solemn duty to the dead called
urgently to her to complete those last sad rites, but love with equal
persistence implored for longer respite. Tremulously she shrank from the
heart-rending ordeal of hiding forever the face she loved so ardently.
Yet she well knew the task to be unavoidable, she would allow no other
hand to touch that dear form, to cover his dear body with the garment of
the grave.
The darkness grew intense. The feeble gleam of twilight from the window
failed to pierce the room’s pitchy blackness any longer. The noisy clock
ticked on incessantly. Silent and motionless the three figures sat like
three grim statues, so inert were they.
At length a weird, ghostly sound broke the deathly stillness. With one
accord Kasba and Sahanderry started to their feet. They gazed toward
each other with horrified eyes, each striving to pierce the black pall
which hung between them, to discover if either was the author of the
strange sound. David cowered upon the floor.
The clock ticked ominously.
The two figures stood speechless.
Again that ghostly sound, and now it was like a deep, long-drawn sigh.
Simultaneously Kasba and Sahanderry darted forward—Kasba to the bed and
Sahanderry to the door, through which he vanished.
Kasba softly bent over the indistinct figure lying there. With senses
strained to the utmost she paused, breathlessly listening. Hours might
have passed, or only moments; she could not have told. Again that deep,
sighing sound. It came from beneath the white sheet upon the bed.
With a sharp cry Kasba fell upon her knees. With outstretched hands and
upturned eyes, “Almighty God,” she cried in accents of exceeding joy, “I
thank Thee for this miracle.” Then for the first time since her father’s
death she fell into a storm of weeping.
The figure sighed again and slightly stirred.
Springing to her feet Kasba softly uncovered Roy’s face and then quickly
lit the lamp and held it in her trembling hand. The light fell upon the
form of Roy Thursby. He lay calm and still, and Kasba waited with bated
breath in an agony of suspense, her heart beating tumultuously.
Presently there was another sigh and Roy’s eyes slowly opened. The girl
started and trembled as he turned his head toward her, but there was no
gleam of recognition in his eyes.
Kasba stirred uneasily. Her heart beat so for a moment that it well-nigh
choked her.
The slight sound caught his ears. His lips moved—“Who is there?” The
words came slowly; they were spoken only by great effort and scarcely
above his breath.
“It is Kasba,” said the girl when she could control her voice
sufficiently to speak. “There was an accident and you were hurt. I—they
brought you to my father’s hut.”
“Why—are—we—in—darkness?” asked Roy with infinite labor.
Kasba stared at him in horrified amazement, for the light she held fell
full upon his face.
At this moment an ejaculation from behind caused her to glance back. In
the doorway stood the boy David with an expression of terrified wonder
on his face, and towering over his shoulder, with his head pushed well
forward, was Sahanderry who stood awestruck. His mouth was wide open,
and his piercing black eyes, large and round, betrayed the amazement he
felt.
Kasba beckoned him to come forward, and putting the boy aside, he
cautiously entered. With eyes intent upon the countenance of his master,
Sahanderry drew near the bed. Then realizing that Roy was in truth
alive, that by some seeming miracle he had returned from the very brink
of the grave, he sprang impulsively forward, and clutching one of Roy’s
hands, burst into tears.
“Oh, Bekothrie! Bekothrie! I am glad—me!” he sobbed.
This miraculous escape from the dead was more in accord with his
wonderful faith than that Roy the all-powerful could be overcome, and
his jubilation knew no bounds.
“But, Sahanderry,” said Roy, still speaking in a low, weak voice, “tell
me, why are we in the dark?” There was a slight tone of apprehension in
his voice, as if he divined that some evil was being kept from him.
Sahanderry ceased his sobbing and gazed with perplexity at Kasba.
“Why—,” he began, but Kasba with a swift gesture clapped her hand over
his mouth.
Silent as the motion was, the slight, almost imperceptible sound made by
the girl in shifting her position caught Roy’s attention. He lay with a
painfully strained look upon his face, and in an attitude of intently
listening. No one spoke. The man and girl watched him with fast beating
hearts, a look of horror growing in their eyes, for a terrible suspicion
gradually took possession of them.
“Will—you—not—speak?” he said hoarsely. “Speak,
why—is—there—no—light?”
Sahanderry glanced in consternation at his companion. He moved uneasily.
His lips parted as if in speech, but he answered never a word.
Roy waited, breathing quickly. Presently a look of suspicion passed over
his face. “Speak, man, I command you!” he cried with greater force. “Is
there a light?”
Throwing a desperate, imploring glance at Kasba, Sahanderry wrung his
hands. “Yes,” he faltered, “but—,” he stopped suddenly, the unutterable
despair on his master’s face held him tongue-tied.
For a few moments Roy lay silent, completely overcome by the sudden,
appalling revelation; then, clutching convulsively at his eyes: “Oh, my
God! my God! I am blind!” he moaned.