We continued our approach, following the two turkey buzzards, who at length made a stand under the star-apple tree, where the grass was long and rank, as if it had grown over a grave, hissing and stretching out their wings, nearly seven feet from tip to tip, and apparently determined to give battle, as if they had now retreated to their prey. Seeing us determined, however, they gave a sort of hop, or short flight, and gently lifted themselves on to a branch of the tree above, about four feet from the ground, where they remained observing us, and uttering hoarse, discordant croaks, sounding as if they had been gorged to the throat with carrion already, and shaking their heads, and snorting as if their nostrils had been choked with rotten flesh; polluting the air at the same time with a horrible stench, and casting wistful glances down into the tuft of rank grass beneath.
This state of suspense was horrible, so with one accord we drove the obscene creatures from their perch, and stepping forward, looked into the rank tuft. Heaven and earth! what a sight was there—Stretched on the ground, embedded in the quill-like guinea-grass that bristled up all around him, lay poor Jessamy on his face; his clothes soaked and soiled by the rain of the two preceding nights, and the vile poaching of the vultures now congregated in the tree above, which appeared to have been circling round and round him, from the filth and dirt, and trodden appearance of the herbage; but as yet deterred from making an attack. The majesty of the human form, all dim and mangled though it was, like a faint, but sacred halo, had quelled the fierceness of their nature, and the body of the suicide was still unbroken, even after the lapse of two days, except by the shattering of the pistol-shot fired by his own sacrilegious hands. Had it been the carcass of an ox, twelve hours could not have run by, before the naked skeleton would have been bleaching in the sun and wind.
There was a broken halter hanging from the branch above him.
"I cannot look at him," said my uncle, shrinking back in disgust; and as he spoke, the John Crows dropped down again, and began to move warily about the body, but still afraid to attack it.
Finding that we were not retreating, however, the creatures flew up into the tree once more; and our eyes following them, we saw at least a score clustered immediately overhead, all ready, no doubt, to devour the carcass, so soon as those below should give the signal.
It seemed probable that he had tied his horse to the branch above where he lay, and that the animal had subsequently, when impelled by hunger, broken the halter. He had laid his hat on the sward close beside him, with his watch and silk handkerchief in it, and drawn off his gloves, which were placed, seemingly with some care, on the edge of it. He had then apparently knelt, shot himself through the head, and fallen on his face across the pistol. As we approached, the buzz of flies that rose up!—and the incipient decomposition that appeared on the hands! We waited to see the body turned—but the ghastly and shattered forehead—the hair clotted in black gore—the brains fermenting through the eyes—the mask of festering and putrifying and crawling matter that was left on the ground, with the print of the features in it—Horrible—most horrible!
An inquest was held that afternoon, when the poor fellow was put into a shell in his clothes, and buried where he lay;—in consecrated ground, as I have already related. Some unfortunate speculations in business, working on a very sensitive nature, had turned his brain, and in a godless hour he had made away with himself. But two days before I had seen him full of fun and gaiety, although possibly the excitement was not natural, and now!——Alas, poor Jessamy, we had at least the melancholy satisfaction of shielding your defaced remains from the awe-inspiring surse pronounced against the Israelites, if they should fall away after the sinfulness of the Heathen—"And thy carcass shall be meat unto the fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them awa."
But time and tide wait for no man; so we had to leave the sad scene, and proceed on our journey.
*****
"I say, uncle," after we had talked ourselves out on the melancholy affair, "when shall we come into the road?"