"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.