“Oh, father, father! do not talk so!” sobbed Helena, burying her face in her hands.
“Hush, my child! I am not afraid. Rector, you can pray for me, but, now all is told and done, leave me with my child. Good-by, my sister; I never knew you, so we are almost strangers—good-by. Kiss me, Eunice, and be a good wife to Crispin, who loves you so dearly. Crispin, I have wronged you, but made reparation. Dick! Gurt! you have been true men, and Maurice will look after your future. Maurice, my dear son, good-by. Be a kind husband to my child, and comfort her in her sorrow. Bury me at sea, for I will have no meaner grave than the mighty ocean. Good-by, one and all—good-by!”
They took leave of him in silence, one by one, and then left the cabin quietly, leaving him alone with Helena and the Rector, who was already on his knees reciting the service for the dying. On deck, the sun was setting in splendor, leaving trails of glory in the heavens, and sadly they remained there, waiting for the end. In about half an hour, the Rector, pale and sad, appeared on the deck.
“It is all over!”
The next day, the yacht arrived at Syra, with her ensign half-mast, as a token of the dead on board. Here the men whom Crispin had recruited for the defence of Melnos were paid off and dismissed. No one on board cared to remain longer in the Archipelago, now so fraught with sad associations, so, after a few hours’ stay, The Eunice steamed out of the harbor on her way to old England once more.
Off the island of Cerigo, to the extreme south of the Peloponnesus, Justinian’s body was committed to the deep, wrapped in no meaner shroud than that ragged Union Jack, shot nearly into tatters, which had floated so proudly over the well-defended stockade. The Rector, in a voice broken by emotion, read the burial service over the body of the dead Demarch, who, whatever his faults might have been, was a great man. The engines were slowed down, the body, wrapped in its glorious pall, shot with a sullen splash into the sea, and then the yacht, with set sails and beating screw, plunged on, through the purple seas, towards England.
Helena was almost broken-hearted with her loss, and shut herself up in her cabin to lament in solitude. This, however, Maurice would not allow, as he was afraid of her becoming ill, and one evening, when all were at dinner, he persuaded her to come up on deck, where the glory of the sunset was burning with splendor in the far west.
“My dearest,” he said tenderly, taking[taking] her in his arms, as they stood facing the keen sea breeze, “you must not break your heart like this. Your father would never have survived the loss of Melnos, so he had his wish, and died when all his hopes of a new Hellas were at an end. I must be your comforter now, Helena, and when you are my dear wife, I trust to make you so happy, that you will be able to look back with calmness on this loss, which you now think—and justly—so bitter. Hush, hush, my dear love! We will face the future together, and live down our past sorrows.”
Helena, drying her eyes, put her cold little hand into his, and looked trustfully up into his face, but was too overcome by her feelings to trust herself to speech.
The sun, dying in the west, was flooding the heavens with gold, and just above the intolerable brilliance on the horizon appeared a fantastically shaped cloud, like an isle all broken into bays, capes, peaks, and plains. In the glowing splendor it looked so frail and ethereal, that, even as they gazed, it melted away before their eyes like a fairy vision.