“GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN”
Down in that lonely Servian village, nestling beautifully at the foot
of a range of hills, a scene followed, inexpressibly sad and mournful
to me.
We carried Zoiloff to the house of the priest, a man whose heart was as
large as his means were straitened, and together we laid my poor friend
on the low truckle bed in the barely furnished room. I helped while the
examination of his wounds was made, watching the priest’s face with an
anxiety that cannot be put in words.
“How did it happen?” he whispered.
“A gunshot wound somewhere in the back, I fear,” I told him.
But there was no need for this explanation, for the blood guided him to
the wound easily enough.
“The ball has passed through his body and through his right lung.”
“Is there any hope?” I asked, my own heart answering the question
before it was asked. He shook his head sadly.
“On this earth none,” he said. He stopped the bleeding, which was
comparatively slight.
“There is very little blood,” I said, hoping against hope.
“The bleeding is internal. No man can save him. I have done all that
can be done. Let us pray for him.”
He laid my friend back on the bed with a touch as deft and gentle as
a woman’s, and kneeling by the bedside, he began to pray earnestly
and fervently, in a soft voice rich with the rare gem of unaffected
sympathy. Following his example, I knelt on the other side of the bed,
and, with my face buried in my hands, I tried to follow his prayers
through the tumult of my thronging emotions at the knowledge that this
brave, staunch friend must die, and that it was his friendship that had
cost him his life.
How long the good priest prayed I know not, but after a time I was
conscious that the rich, sweet voice had ceased, and when I looked up I
was alone with my dying comrade.
I got up from my knees, and placing the one rush chair by the bed,
sat down to watch for the end and wait lest he should return to
consciousness.
A short time later the priest looked in and beckoned me.
“The men who carried your friend here are still waiting; shall I keep
them any longer?” I placed my purse in his hands to give them what he
would, merely asking him to reward them generously.
“Will he recover consciousness?” I asked.
“It were better not, but he is in God’s hands,” he answered reverently;
and I stole back to my chair to resume my vigil.
He looked already like a dead man, and I had to hold my ear close to
his mouth before I could catch the faintest sign of his breathing.
I felt for the pulse and could detect no flicker of it, and then I
laid my fingers gently over his heart. The beats were barely to be
discerned. As I drew my hand away I came upon a secret. A dead flower
bound by a wisp of faded ribbon was fastened close to his heart, both
flower and ribbon dabbled with his blood.
The sight of the little withered memorial of a dead passion, so wholly
unexpected in one I had found so hard and stern, affected me deeply.
I held it a moment, wondering what lay behind, and where and who was
the woman whose heart would be stricken by the blow of his death even
as sorely as mine would be. Then I laid it so that it rested on his
faithful heart, and, taking his hand, sat with it in mine.
The hours passed uncounted by me. Once or twice the good priest came
back to the room, and at length, when Zoiloff showed no sign of a
return to consciousness, he administered the last rites of the Church.
The sacrament was placed between the nerveless lips, and the priest and
I joined in the solemn ceremonial.
“He will not last long. I am surprised he is still alive,” he said,
when the simple, beautiful ceremony was over. “God be merciful to him!”
When the priest left the room I followed and asked for some brandy, as
I thought there might be some last message Zoiloff might wish to send
by me, and I hoped to rouse a final flicker of strength for the purpose.
I poured a few drops into his mouth with a spoon, and after a few
minutes gave him a second dose. I detected, as I thought, some signs of
a rally of strength, and gave him more, and sat with his hand in mine
and my eyes on his face and waited.
“Zoiloff, Zoiloff, my dear friend!” I called gently.
To my delight his eyelids quivered slightly, and after a moment or
two they opened and he looked at me. He recognised me, and his mouth
moved as if to smile, and I felt a slight, very slight, pressure of
the hand. I gave him more of the spirit, and it appeared to lend him a
little strength.
His lips moved as if to speak and his eyes brightened.
I felt his hand move in mine as if he would lift it, and, guessing
his wish, I lifted it to his heart so that the fingers could feel the
little treasure of love that lay there. His fingers closed over it, and
he smiled again. But his strength would not suffer him to hold his arm
up, so I propped it up, that the hand might rest on the flower.
“Can you hear me, Zoiloff? Do you know me?”
His lips moved and his eyes seemed to assent.
“Can I carry any message for you?” and I laid my fingers on the dead
flower to show my meaning, and then bent my ear down to his mouth.
He seemed to make a great effort to speak, and I caught a struggling of
the breath, as I held my own in the eager strain to listen. But finding
he could not speak I gave him a few drops more of the brandy, now
convinced that he wished to say something.
“Have you any message, dear friend?” I asked again, as I bent down.
There came another pause of effort and then I caught a word.
“Christina’s,” and I felt the fingers near his heart close on the
flower.
In an instant the full knowledge of his heroic sacrifice rushed upon
me. He loved Christina; and in the nobleness of his self-denying love
he had given his life that mine should be saved for her.
I grasped his other hand and held it, as I pressed my lips to his
marble forehead.
Then I saw his lips move again.
“Leave it,” and the movement of his fingers near his heart told me what
he meant.
“On my honour, Zoiloff,” I said earnestly. “God bless you! the
staunchest friend man ever had. I never dreamt of this.”
“Don’t tell her,” he whispered, trying to shake his head. Then I felt
his hand try to lift mine, and, divining his wish, I laid mine to his
lips, and he kissed it. This effort exhausted the little reserve of
strength, and with a sigh his eyes closed, and his hand slipped utterly
nerveless and flaccid from mine.
I thought he was gone; but he was not, and when I held a glass to his
lips there was a faint dulling with his breath. Taking his hand again
in mine, I waited for the end.
He lingered perhaps an hour longer till the twilight began to gloom
the little chamber, and I was hoping that he would pass away in this
peaceful slumber of unconsciousness, when I heard his breath strengthen
suddenly. He opened his eyes; the fingers on the flower at his heart
tightened into almost a firm clasp; a quiver shook his body, and
raising his head slightly from the pillow, he cried in a voice strong
enough to surprise and for an instant give me hope:
“Christina, Chris----” The word was not finished before the spasm of
strength was spent, and he fell back again with a deep sigh.
He was dead; and I thank God that in the last struggle of his strong
brave soul to escape he had been comforted by the love which had
controlled and impulsed every act and motive of his life, and which
he had carried locked away from the knowledge of all the world in the
deepest recess of his loyal, noble heart.
If I had treasured him as a friend in his life, I loved him in his
self-denying death; and when I had satisfied myself that he had really
passed, I flung myself on my knees by his bier and wept like a woman.
The room was dark when I rose from my uncontrollable passion of grief,
and I pressed my lips to his cold forehead before I drew the sheet over
the dead face and left the room.