"As one of the colonel's oldest friends, would care----"
She shook her head. She was grateful. It was a kind thought. But Colonel Muir was Colonel Muir and everybody loved him--he would have enough friends.
"Madam," said the young officer, with a break in his voice, "when we lower him into his solitary grave--he is to be buried on the hill above his tent where he sat so often--we shall all know that the finest fellow in the regiment, nay, in the whole army, has gone from us."
She lay that night, her face crushed into the pillow without a sob. Only once or twice she whispered to herself.
"Ah, Duke, Duke, I'm glad I made you happy--so glad--so glad!"
She was up betimes to take her stand on a neighbouring hill, where, unobserved, she could watch him laid to his rest. Not a tent was to be seen; the battalion had shifted quarters during the night; the forward march to which he had looked with such longing had begun, and he----
Close by the belt of forest trees she could see his dismantled hut; a heap of packed baggage piled close by with a sentry on guard beside it. But the arbour hid what it held. So, as the sun rose, the leaden beat of the Dead March rose, as the regiment, followed by detachments from all and every regiment in Varna, drew up in a lane to let the artillery with a gun-carriage draped with the colours pass up.
Just his coat, his plaid, his sword, his bonnet, that was all. And after him his grey Arab--the one she had ridden--fully dressed. That was Andrew on the one side, and the other three? Generals, she supposed, by their uniforms.
What a crowd of officers! And the men, marching so slowly to the muffled beat! Would they never reach the grave?
At last. Now there were some words of command--heard vaguely as inarticulate cries--the long procession formed up, massed itself into a hollow square.