Yet so he did, and two days after Joseph Drake breathed his last in his brother's arms. I saw tears drop from Frank's eyes as he bent over the fair curly head that lay on his knee, watching the bright young life go fitfully out. Joe had spoken last of his unhappy mother, seeming to lament he had not been more kind to her, and this memory had touched Frank, who was himself sick, more keenly than he could bear.
So, as I say, he was weeping over his brother as he died. When the last glimmer of life was gone he laid the fair head on the pillow, and, kneeling down, prayed to God very earnestly that his brother might be the last to die. Nearly all the company were gathered round kneeling very respectfully as the general prayed. When he made an end they all cried 'Amen,' and most tried in vain to keep back a tear when they saw how tenderly their general leaned down and kissed the calm young face of his dead brother.
All the time our rat-faced surgeon sat unmoved in the corner of the house where we were. He alone did not kneel, but sat with his case of knives on his knee, and never took his little round eyes off the general. He shifted uneasily when Frank stooped to give his farewell embrace to his brother, and looked more keenly than ever when he rose up to his feet with dry eyes and the old resolute look on his face.
'Now, my lads,' said he, 'you may go. It is over. I thank you all heartily for your prayers. Your duty is done, but mine and Master Surgeon's is only begun. You would not let me do it before, and so we have come to this pass; but, by God's help, this day we will make an end. You thought I used you hardly when I would have done this to one of your mates. So I stayed my hand, knowing how abominable it is to unlearned men. Yet now you shall not hinder me, for between me and my brother's body no one has a right to stand. Go now, and ere long you shall know whether I hold my brotherhood to my father's son higher than my brotherhood to you, my company.'
The rat-faced surgeon had opened his case, but the men still were loath to go, as though they would have stayed Frank from his purpose, and again the little black eyes looked keen and anxious at the captain.
'Go, men!' cried Frank in a sharp, biting voice. 'It is I, Captain Drake, who bid you, and whom you know.'
Slowly then they left. More than one stopped at the door to look round at the surgeon rolling up his sleeves and shudder, till Frank's set look sent them on their way. He beckoned me to stay; and indeed I think he had need of some one to support him in his terrible resolution. It is a fearful thing to use a body as we were about to do, but what must it have been to Frank thus to desecrate the mortal part of that fair youth he loved so well!
It made me sick to see how eagerly the surgeon went to his work. As soon as we had stripped the corpse Frank drew from his pack a book he had often spoken to me about. It was The Anglishman's Treasure, or the True Anatomy of Man's Body, by Master Thomas Vicary. This he held open in his hand, and signed to the surgeon to begin.
Over the terrible sight that followed let me draw the veil. To me it was as heroic a spectacle as ever Agamemnon presented at Aulis. It was a holy sacrifice by our general of his tenderest feelings. Yet when I think how detestable, inhuman, and sacrilegous in most men's eyes is the dissection of bodies, how it has ever been banned by the Church, how there are many who would have it altogether prevented by law, and how loathsome it is even in my eyes, who so well know its necessity, I hasten from the picture that fills my memory, since I have said enough for men to bear in mind this crowning act of Francis Drake's heroical resolution. Everything he did before and afterwards I think called for less from his noble nature than that. Many high-sounding acts he achieved before his death, in the face of danger and the heat of battle, with a constancy that will make true English hearts beat higher for all time; yet nothing stamps hero on his memory, to my thinking, like what that January afternoon he steadfastly endured on that fever-stricken isle, in cold blood, unshaken, unflinching, and almost unmarked. It was the first experiment in anatomy that our captain made that voyage. I cannot wonder it was also the last.
Even the surgeon was more moved than he, and in order to purge the pestilent humours which he swore arose from the body and were the cause of the disease he took so strong a dose of his own compounding that he never spake again, nor did his boy, who also tasted the medicine, recover wholly till we reached England.