Don’t cry, my dear children; perhaps had John lived to grow grey, there might have been greater and truer cause to weep for him.
I did not speak or move for some time, for life seemed still flickering about the parted lips. At length the stillness could not be mistaken, and I laid his head softly on a mossy stone, and closed his eyes; then I looked round and saw Basil leaning against the rock, watching me with an expression of sullen misery in his face. My heart smote me, for after all he had never intended to hurt John, and it had been partly the poor fellow’s reckless way of snatching his weapon that had caused this calamity; still, I felt too much revolted by the cold-blooded attempt on the Turk’s life, to speak to him with calmness, so we remained aloof and silent.
A great stir now arose on the hillside, and I saw a large party of the mountaineers returning from their raid against the Turks with every mark of triumph. Presently, a number of them turned in our direction. Many glittering dark eyes rested on our mournful group with curiosity, wonder, or pity. I felt abashed at first, and was considering how I could enlist their help in carrying the body to a place of shelter near Laurie’s hut, when I saw the crowd open. To my great joy, an officer in European dress came forward, exclaiming “Is it possible? you, Mrs Englefield, here?” then, seeing my bloodstained hands and cloak, he added, “and hurt, I fear?” and he was at my side in a moment. With unspeakable comfort, I recognised Captain Blundel, an Englishman, in the Austrian engineer service, who had dined with us several times at Cattaro. My husband liked him particularly, and their acquaintance seemed in the way to become a friendship, when Captain Blundel had been ordered up the country in order to survey some part of it for a government map. I soon relieved his mind of the fear that I was wounded, and told my story in the fewest words possible. Oh, the relief of having a strong mind to lean upon once more! Not till then did I know how utterly exhausted I was. Captain Blundel seemed quite at home with the mountaineers, selected some to carry the body up the hill, sent a couple to guard the door of Mr Englefield’s hut, lest the tidings should be carried to him hastily, and, lastly, to my great delight, took measures to procure surgical help for him as quickly as possible.
“That is a blessing I dared not hope for,” I exclaimed; “they told me there was no surgeon to be found in Montenegro.”
“And they told you right;” he answered, “but happily at this moment, it is otherwise. The Prince-bishop, who was brought up, you know, in Russia, has a clever medical man from Saint Petersburgh on a visit to him just now; his highness is about to pass this way, on his march from the Lake of Scutari back to Cetigna; he knows me well, and is besides too kind-hearted not readily to lend us Dr Goloff’s services for a short time.”
We walked slowly up the hill, Captain Blundel and myself keeping near the party that bore poor John’s body. The other mountaineers hurried forward with such shouts of glee and exultation that I could not help asking what it all meant. “It means,” replied my companion, “that the gallant fellows have made a successful raid over the Turkish border, and surprised an underling of the Pasha of Scutari, laden with money and jewels of his master’s and his own. I was surveying near the spot where he was captured. I never saw a fellow so terrified, and not without reason, for they would have beheaded him there and then, had he not declared himself a British subject and no Turk; they carried him to their Prince, in whose custody he remains.”
It flashed at once across my mind that this description agreed, in many points, with that of Orlando Jones. I determined, without delay, to hint these suspicions to Captain Blundel, and gave him, in the strictest confidence, an outline of that villain’s history. He listened gravely, asked several questions much to the point, and ended by begging me to trust the matter in his hands.
We were now at our journey’s end, and I begged for some water, and hastily washed my bloodstained hands and cloak, lest they should frighten your uncle. Captain Blundel, meanwhile, saw the body laid in a sheltered place, and appointed two mountaineers to watch by it. But Basil, he afterwards told me, now came forward, and insisted on that duty being left to him; he would take no refusal, and more than once, when Captain Blundel looked in, he found him on his knees at the head of the rude bier, praying devoutly. “No people,” added Captain Blundel, “make longer prayers than the Black Mountaineers, nor, I believe, more devout ones.”
I entered alone the hovel where my husband lay; what a place it was! The floor was unpaved, and positively alive with mice and fleas; the walls were of stones loosely heaped together, and little bright flecks of light peeped through the crevices. Wood smoke curled up from the hearth and so dimmed the air that I could not at once distinguish the dear object of my search. Two women were there, kind though rough nurses; one was baking cakes on the hearth for him, the other was holding to his lips a cup of sour milk. He was propped up against a pile of blankets, and his features looked wan and sunk. He caught sight of me at once, and snatched me to his breast with a vehemence so unlike his calm self that it almost startled me. So did his rapid utterance and feverish rather unconnected questions, ending with, “Where’s John? isn’t he with you?”
“No,” I tremblingly answered, neither daring to tell the truth nor to withhold it from him in his critical state.