"I'm very sorry," said Black Sheep soberly. "He told me that a long time ago."
Aunty Rosa heard the conversation. "Will nothing check your wicked tongue?" she said angrily. There were blue circles round her eyes.
Black Sheep retreated to the nursery and read "Cometh up as a Flower" with deep and uncomprehending interest. He had been forbidden to read it on account of its "sinfulness," but the bonds of the Universe were crumbling, and Aunty Rosa was in great grief.
"I'm glad," said Black Sheep. "She 's unhappy now. It was n't a lie, though. I knew. He told me not to tell."
That night Black Sheep woke with a start. Harry was not in the room, and there was a sound of sobbing on the next floor. Then the voice of Uncle Harry, singing the song of the Battle of Navarino, cut through the darkness:
"Our vanship was the Asia—
The Albion and Genoa!"
"He 's getting well," thought Black Sheep, who knew the song through all its seventeen verses. But the blood froze at his little heart as he thought. The voice leapt an octave and rang shrill as a boatswain's pipe:
"And next came on the lovely Rose,
The Philomel, her fire-ship, closed,
And the Little Brisk was sore exposed
That day at Navarino."
"That day at Navarino, Uncle Harry!" shouted Black Sheep, half wild with excitement and fear of he knew not what.
A door opened and Aunty Rosa screamed up the staircase: "Hush! For God's sake hush, you little devil. Uncle Harry is dead!"