But it was merely a convulsion of the muscles, a horrible pang of pain.
The red blood gushed from his mouth, and again a voice, whispering at his ear, said,
“Tjean, come into our dance.”
He grew calmer; his sufferings abated, and once more he sank down on his bed of sand.
Thronging memories of childhood came to life again in his mind, with singular clearness. He heard an old folksong, wherewith his mother used to lull him to sleep when he was a baby in his cradle; then suddenly, in the midst of the desert, the village chime rang out the evening Angelus.
Tears coursed down his bronzed cheeks. The prayers of long ago returned to his memory, and the poor soldier set himself to praying with the fervour of a child. He took between his hands the medal of the Virgin, which his mother had hung round his neck. He still had sufficient strength to raise it to his lips, and he kissed it with immeasurable love. He prayed with all his soul to Our Lady of Sorrows, to whom his simple-minded mother was wont to pray on his behalf each evening. He was steeped in the splendour of those radiant hallucinations that surround a deathbed; and aloud, in the overwhelming silence of these solitudes, he repeated, in a fast-failing voice, the inevitable adieu, “Farewell, farewell, until we meet in heaven.”
It was close on noon. Jean’s sufferings were diminishing. The desert in the intense tropical light seemed to him like a great brasier of white fire which no longer had power to burn him. And yet his bosom heaved as if to breathe more deeply; his mouth opened as if to plead for water.
At last his lower jaw dropped; his mouth fell open for the last time, and Jean passed peacefully away in the dazzling sunshine.
XXVII
When Fatou-gaye returned from the village of the great Marabout, bringing with her a mysterious article in a leather wallet, the women of the friendly tribe informed her that the battle was over.