How Laura's heart beat while she clung to Goring's arm and clasped little Netty's tiny hand, when the signals announced that the ship was about to enter that great harbour which is the most spacious and secure in the British Isles, though less than a quarter of a mile in breadth at the narrowest part of the entrance.
'There she is,' exclaimed Goring, 'just rounding South Sea Castle!'
Laura's bright hazel eyes grew dim as she watched the approaching ship. It seemed to her as if it was but yesterday, in one sense, since she had seen the transport depart with the Rifles after her reconciliation and reunion with Dalton; and yet, so strong are the impressions of the human mind, that it also seemed as if it were ages ago; and now—now he was coming home, though but perhaps the wreck of himself, to her and their little Netty—the husband and the father from whom they had been so long and unnaturally separated!
'By Jove, she has her ensign half hoisted!' exclaimed a voice among the thousands of whom she formed a unit.
Goring had remarked this through his double field-glass, yet said nothing of it to his fair companion, lest she might be unnecessarily alarmed.
'What does it mean?' she asked him more than once, ere he replied, unwillingly,
'It means that there has been a death on board.'
'A death!' she said faintly, as she recalled the loving tenor of Dalton's last farewell letter to her, written like Jerry's to Bella on the night before Coomassie was entered, and of the fatal telegram that told of his serious wounds. 'A death, Goring?' she repeated, with a wild expression in her beautiful eyes, while her cheek grew snowy white as she watched the slowly approaching ship, which was under half steam now.
'Yes, marm,' said an officious old sailor, who was regarding the stately vessel through an old, battered telescope tied round with spunyarn; 'some poor fellow has lost the number of his mess, for there is a coffin covered by a Union Jack in one of the quarter boats, as you may see for yourself, marm.'
He proffered his telescope civilly enough, but Laura shrank closer to the side of Goring, who remained silent, for he too had his own thoughts. She could not look; her eyes felt sightless, and her poor heart seemed to die within her with the most fearful forebodings.