“So they went down, half a hundred, and brought a litter well woven, hung on staves of ash wood strong and long and polished. They brought up meat and drink; and the children, wondering, followed, knowing not what death is, not being let to know. They gathered about him softly, seated themselves in the grasses, decked their heads with the flowers. And in the folded hands and on the pulseless bosom of Basil they warily slipped sweet blossoms of white and blue.
“For the elders whispered them: ‘Hush! he is sleeping! Hush! he is weary!’
“Then the people sat in a circle, and ate and drank in silence, prayerful, as if they ate the Holy Bread of the altar. Ending, they rose and gave thanks; and tender and reverent, laid their dead on the litter, and took the staves on their shoulders.
“The children, wondering, ran, lifting questioning eyes, puzzled, but no wise grieving, and clung to the edge of the litter. They were close to his head and his feet, they pressed inside of the bearers, making a flowery wreath all fluttering round his whiteness. And where a fold of his garment wavered over the border, a dozen dimpled hands proudly bore it along.
“So they went down the mountain, weeping, but not with sorrow. For they felt a stir within them, a trembling, an unfolding, a lifting sense in the temples, a glimmering sense of kindred to clouds where the sun is calling the rainbow out of the rain.
“There was a woman among them, a singer of songs. Basil had named her the Lark of San Salvador. As they went down, she made a song and sang it; and to this day the song is sung by all the scattered children of San Salvador. Later times have added penitence and supplication to the one stanza that she sang to them that day. Our hymn suits the dark hours of life: hers was all victory and exultation. She sang:—
‘San Salvador, San Salvador,
We live in thee!’
“While she sang, they laid him in the bed that he had chosen. And when Dylar, the heir, came home to them, ‘You have done well!’ he said.
“Behold! Thus lived and died Prince Basil, the White Father of San Salvador!”