A tinge so slight that only a medical eye could have detected it, began faintly to suffuse the white face. The doctor tore away the shroud and placed his hand upon the heart. There was no movement; but they lifted the body out of the coffin and proceeded to adopt the measures proper for resuscitation.
Meanwhile, the hearse stood at the door; the funeral guests were assembling outside—carriages arriving; while within, all was commotion and suspense—servants hurrying to and fro fetching hot bricks, stimulants, restoratives, in obedience to the doctors’ commands; the latter plying every means skill could devise to keep the flickering spark of life from dying out; and the startled family, half paralysed by the sudden revulsion, standing around, gathered in anxious, silent groups.
Breathlessly they watched for tidings. For a long time the result seemed doubtful—doubtful whether the hearse before the door, the gaping coffin, the graveclothes lying scattered about and trampled under foot, all the grim paraphernalia of death, hastily discarded in the first wild moment of hope—might not yet be needed to fulfil their mournful office. But no! Breath, pulsation, consciousness, were slowly returning.
Colonel H—— was given back to his family and home, filling again the place that it was thought would know him no more. And not until five-and-twenty years had passed away after that memorable morning, were his friends summoned—this time to pay him the last tribute.
A young officer returned from China related, apropos of burying alive, the following experience.
‘On our passage home,’ he said, ‘we had in the transport, besides our own troops, a large draft of French soldiers. Disease soon broke out among the closely packed men, and deaths were of daily occurrence. The French dealt summarily with their dead. As soon as a poor fellow had breathed his last, he was stripped, a twenty-pound shot tied to his heels, and his body thrust through a porthole into the sea. John Bull’s prejudices rebelled against such rapid proceedings. When we lost any of our comrades, they were allowed to lie for twelve hours covered with the Union-jack, and the burial service was read over them before they were committed to the deep. One day, a French sergeant, who had just fallen a victim to the pestilence, was brought up on deck in the sheet in which he had died, to be thrown overboard. The twenty-pound shot had been fastened to his feet and the sheet removed, when, in pushing him through the porthole, he was caught by a protruding hook or nail at the side, and stuck fast. A few more vigorous thrusts sent the body further through; and in so doing, the flesh was torn by the hook, and blood began to flow. The attention of the bystanders was attracted to this; and, moreover, they fancied that they saw about the corpse other startling symptoms. “The man’s alive!” flew from mouth to mouth. In an instant, willing hands were pressing eagerly to the rescue, and before the body could touch the water, it was caught and brought up on deck.
‘The French sergeant was one of the soundest men on board the transport-ship when we landed.’
CAMEO-CUTTING.
The best American artist in cameo-cutting has recently, says a contemporary, been interviewed upon his costly art. He was found pounding up diamonds with a pestle and mortar. This, he explained, was not the only costly part of cameo-making, which takes eyesight, a great deal of time and patience, and years of experience. Then the onyx stones, from which the cameos are made, are expensive, costing sometimes as much as fifty dollars. The choicest have a layer of cream-coloured stone on a dark chocolate-coloured base. But many persons like the red, orange, black, or shell pink stones just as well. They are found in the Uruguay Mountains and in Brazil. The onyx is a half-precious stone of the quartz family. It is taken to Europe, and cut into oval or oblong shapes, and Americans have to pay ten per cent. duty to get it through the custom-house. The cameo-cutter turned to his lathe by the window, and, rubbing some of the diamond dust, which he had mixed with sperm oil, on the end of a small drill, began his work. He was making for a cabinet piece a large cameo, two by two and a half inches, one of the largest ever cut, of an old gentleman in Germany, whose portrait was placed before him. ‘I have one hundred and twenty-five of these soft iron drills,’ he remarked; ‘they are made soft so as to catch the diamond dust, which is the only thing that will cut a cameo. A cameo is indestructible, except you take a hammer and smash it. It is an old art, and was practised by the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians. Dr Schliemann found some cameos in good preservation that were probably three thousand years old. It takes several weeks to cut a large piece like this. Afterwards, it has to be polished with tripoli, first being smoothed with emery and oil, using the lead instruments similar to those for cutting. It is easier to cut a profile than a full-face portrait. Some people prefer intaglios, in which the portrait is depressed instead of raised. They are made on sards and cornelians, the former being a dark-reddish brown, and the latter a clear red. They are harder to make than cameos. I have to take impressions of the work in wax as I go on. I usually cut portraits from photographs, but sometimes have done them from life, and also from casts of dead persons.’ Among portraits which the artist had cut are those of ex-President Hayes, Mrs Hayes, William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Peter Cooper, and others. A large cameo copy of Gerôme’s ‘Cleopatra before Cæsar’ was valued at fifteen hundred dollars.