"See if his heart's still beating," she commanded.
Andy reverently lowered his dusky face against the white bosom of his master. When he lifted it the tears had blinded his eyes:
"Nobum," he said slowly, "he's done dead!"
The tick of the little French clock on the mantel beneath the mother's portrait rang with painful clearness.
Helen raised her hand to Minerva:
"Open the windows and let the smoke out. I'll hold him in my arms until the doctor comes."
"Yassum——"
Minerva drew the heavy curtains back from the tall windows, opened the casements and the perfumed air of the beautiful Southern night swept into the room.
A cannon boomed its final cry of victory from the Square and a rocket, bursting above the tree-tops, flashed a ray of red light on the white face of the dead.