* * * * *
The job is done. Leicester managed it splendidly with less loss than we expected. But he's got a nasty wound in the hip. We've got water again—Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me to drink?
The first gun went to-day. They haven't got to the right spot yet, but such as it was the shooting flustered the ant-hill down there, finely. For two days Yufzul has left us in peace, and meanwhile the guns on the hill get closer and pound away. But the enemy shows no sign of packing yet. The Khan is a tough old boy; we'll have a tussle for it yet. They've flashed to say they are ready up there. We shall co-operate.
This last sheet but one was dated April 15, 8 A.M.
The next entry was marked 3 P.M. of the same day.
In measure as the relief approaches, I know not why, my hopes go down. Rosamond—oh, if I should never see you again! What will you do with your life? You will have my mother, though that may not be for long, and there is enough to keep you both from want, thank God, under the roof of the Old Ancient House. Go to her there; at least for the first. And then and then—I won't bind you.
If we had had a child you would be more mine!
I wish we had another night, even in this trap of death. I might perhaps dream of you once more. The dead won't dream. Perhaps that is best. What if we should never meet again!
Rosamond's breath came short, shudders ran through her. She laid down in its turn this record of the fever of a man's mind and took up the last sheet. The last sheet! This was, indeed, the end! It was dated, carefully written without any of the wildness or disjointedness of the previous entries. The strong man on the verge of action would do all things as became a soldier, even to his final letter to his beloved.
Rosamond, my wife, I have decided to lead the counter-attack myself to-night. Leicester is incapacitated. Bethune's head is stronger than mine, now, and should the suspense be longer delayed and the relief fail, he will make a better job of it than I should here. Yufzul shows no sign of budging, and we begin to suspect he is reckoning on fresh reinforcements. Do not think that I should throw away that life which belongs to you without just reason. When you get this letter (perhaps after all I shall come back to-night to tear it up) you will know that I went out with the full acceptance of the inevitable.
God keep you, Rosamond! My mother taught me to believe. I could not have remembered her all these years of manhood and forgotten my God. And to-night I am strong. What is to be, will be right. I kneel before you and I kiss your sweet hands, and I bless you.—Your HARRY.
The woman read and dropped the letter on her lap. Was that all? The end, the end! It was impossible. He could not have left her like that. There must be more from him. One word, one last word. And she did not even know how he died. There was no God, or life could not be so cruel!
She was tearing, with maddened fingers, in the depths of the box.... Why will women hoard the orange blossom of their bridal hopes that it may torture them with its hideous relentless sweetness, when fate has fulfilled its mockery upon them!
Harry's pocket-book—the familiar old pocket-book! It fell apart in her hands. A portrait.... Her own face looked out on her with serious girl's eyes. She flung it from her: she had nothing in common with that creature. Then she caught it up again and kissed the worn leather with wild passion. Dear fingers had touched it. He had worn it, who knows, over his dear heart.... Plans, service notes—"range to the shoulder of the North Bluff works out at 1300." Lists of stores, calculations of stores and rations, gone over and over again. Oh, misery, there is sorrow beyond what human strength can bear! To think of him in these sordid straits of hunger, to stay on that thought is more than she can do and live. And she cannot die yet: she must know first.