"My time is short noo," he replied in a moaning voice; "but, oh! this will be sad news to my auld faither. My death will bring sorrow and dule on his grey hairs. And then there is Jessie—Jessie Cavers o' the Inch-house, at Avonside!" He began to sob, and his tears mingled with his blood. He sunk back exhausted, and lay still for a short time, during which he muttered to himself,—"The gowden braid—her lock o' hair! An ill omen,—cut in twa by a sabre at Orthez. O Jessie! my sweet wee love, maun we never meet mair?"
"Maister Ronald!" said he, in a quivering voice, "see that Jessie gets a' my back pay. There's three months o't gane, come the neist Lord's-day. Let her put it to her tocher,—'twill help her to get anither love. I release her frae the troth she gaed to me. Alake—" And his voice died away in a gentle wail.
"Evan, this money,—hear me; this pay you speak of,—shall I not give it to your father, rather than this Jessie Cavers, who may, perhaps, have forgotten you?"
"She never will forget me!" cried Iverach, with an impetuosity which caused the gore to rush from his wound and mouth fearfully. "If I thocht she had proved fause to her plichted aith, I wad haunt her till her dyin' day. Yird an' stane wadna' haud me! But my faither,—gie him this, sir; for he wad fling siller into the loch, as if it burnt his hand."
He undid from his bonnet the regimental badge which fastened the black cockade and upright green feather. It was a wreath of thistles, encircling a Sphynx, and the word Egypt stamped in brass. "Gie—gie him this: he will wear it for my sake,—the sake o' his Evan Bean. And now, Heaven bless ye, Maister Ronald, and grant that ye may live lang and happily after I'm gane to dust, and the grass o' many a year has grown and withered ower me. Ye've been a kind maister,—a gude friend,—and a gude officer to me. God bless Colonel Cameron, and every officer and private man in the regiment! I thocht to have been spared to gang hame wi' ye a' to auld Scotland; but that hath been ordained itherways. But—but—"
His voice failed him again, and his eyes grew dull and glassy, while his face became overspread with the livid hue of death, and assumed that expression which is terrible to look upon. On a sudden he started, and seemed to gaze intently on some distant object.
"Evan!" said Stuart in astonishment. "What see you, that you gaze thus?"
"My faither the piper," said he in a breathless voice, while he grasped Ronald convulsively with one hand, and with the other pointed to some vision of his imagination. "'Tis my faither!" he added, in a voice thrilling with death and delight. "He comes to find me in the deid-thraw! Yonder, yonder he comes,—doon by the dyke-side. His pipes a' braw wi' ribbons frae the drones, and his tartan plaid waving behind him!"
Startled by the energy of the dying soldier, Ronald looked in the direction pointed out. No such appearance was visible to him; but there lay the broad bosom of the Garonne, refulgent with the noon-day sun,—sweeping in watery majesty past the towers and spires of Toulouse, and disappearing among the deep forests, which were resounding with the clang of the battle that was waged hotly and fiercely before the walls of the city.
"Evan," said he, mournfully, "I see not the figure you mention."