My lord (or what I still continued to call by his loved name) stood
with his elbow in one hand, and his chin sunk in the other, gazing
before him on the surface of the wood. My eyes followed his, and
rested almost pleasantly upon the frosted contexture of the pines,
rising in moonlit hillocks, or sinking in the shadow of small
glens. Hard by, I told myself, was the grave of our enemy, now
gone where the wicked cease from troubling, the earth heaped for
ever on his once so active limbs. I could not but think of him as
somehow fortunate to be thus done with man's anxiety and weariness,
the daily expense of spirit, and that daily river of circumstance
to be swum through, at any hazard, under the penalty of shame or
death. I could not but think how good was the end of that long
travel; and with that, my mind swung at a tangent to my lord. For
was not my lord dead also? a maimed soldier, looking vainly for
discharge, lingering derided in the line of battle? A kind man, I
remembered him; wise, with a decent pride, a son perhaps too
dutiful, a husband only too loving, one that could suffer and be
silent, one whose hand I loved to press. Of a sudden, pity caught
in my windpipe with a sob; I could have wept aloud to remember and
behold him; and standing thus by his elbow, under the broad moon, I
prayed fervently either that he should be released, or I
strengthened to persist in my affection.
"Oh God," said I, "this was the best man to me and to himself, and
now I shrink from him. He did no wrong, or not till he was broke
with sorrows; these are but his honourable wounds that we begin to
shrink from. Oh, cover them up, oh, take him away, before we hate
him!"
I was still so engaged in my own bosom, when a sound broke suddenly
upon the night. It was neither very loud, nor very near; yet,
bursting as it did from so profound and so prolonged a silence, it
startled the camp like an alarm of trumpets. Ere I had taken
breath, Sir William was beside me, the main part of the voyagers
clustered at his back, intently giving ear. Methought, as I
glanced at them across my shoulder, there was a whiteness, other
than moonlight, on their cheeks; and the rays of the moon reflected
with a sparkle on the eyes of some, and the shadows lying black
under the brows of others (according as they raised or bowed the
head to listen) gave to the group a strange air of animation and
anxiety. My lord was to the front, crouching a little forth, his
hand raised as for silence: a man turned to stone. And still the
sounds continued, breathlessly renewed with a precipitate rhythm.
Suddenly Mountain spoke in a loud, broken whisper, as of a man
relieved. "I have it now," he said; and, as we all turned to hear
him, "the Indian must have known the cache," he added. "That is he
- he is digging out the treasure."
"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Sir William. "We were geese not to
have supposed so much."
"The only thing is," Mountain resumed, "the sound is very close to
our old camp. And, again, I do not see how he is there before us,
unless the man had wings!"
"Greed and fear are wings," remarked Sir William. "But this rogue
has given us an alert, and I have a notion to return the
compliment. What say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight
hunt?"
It was so agreed; dispositions were made to surround Secundra at
his task; some of Sir William's Indians hastened in advance; and a
strong guard being left at our headquarters, we set forth along the
uneven bottom of the forest; frost crackling, ice sometimes loudly
splitting under foot; and overhead the blackness of pine-woods, and
the broken brightness of the moon. Our way led down into a hollow
of the land; and as we descended, the sounds diminished and had
almost died away. Upon the other slope it was more open, only
dotted with a few pines, and several vast and scattered rocks that
made inky shadows in the moonlight. Here the sounds began to reach
us more distinctly; we could now perceive the ring of iron, and
more exactly estimate the furious degree of haste with which the
digger plied his instrument. As we neared the top of the ascent, a
bird or two winged aloft and hovered darkly in the moonlight; and
the next moment we were gazing through a fringe of trees upon a
singular picture.
A narrow plateau, overlooked by the white mountains, and
encompassed nearer hand by woods, lay bare to the strong radiance
of the moon. Rough goods, such as make the wealth of foresters,
were sprinkled here and there upon the ground in meaningless
disarray. About the midst, a tent stood, silvered with frost: the
door open, gaping on the black interior. At the one end of this
small stage lay what seemed the tattered remnants of a man.
Without doubt we had arrived upon the scene of Harris's encampment;
there were the goods scattered in the panic of flight; it was in
yon tent the Master breathed his last; and the frozen carrion that
lay before us was the body of the drunken shoemaker. It was always
moving to come upon the theatre of any tragic incident; to come
upon it after so many days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a
desert) still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of the most
careless. And yet it was not that which struck us into pillars of
stone; but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of
Secundra ankle deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast
the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail arms and shoulders
glistered in the moonlight with a copious sweat; his face was
contracted with anxiety and expectation; his blows resounded on the
grave, as thick as sobs; and behind him, strangely deformed and
ink-black upon the frosty ground, the creature's shadow repeated
and parodied his swift gesticulations. Some night birds arose from
the boughs upon our coming, and then settled back; but Secundra,
absorbed in his toil; heard or heeded not at all.
I heard Mountain whisper to Sir William, "Good God! it's the grave!
He's digging him up!" It was what we had all guessed, and yet to
hear it put in language thrilled me. Sir William violently
started.
"You damned sacrilegious hound!" he cried. "What's this?"
Secundra leaped in the air, a little breathless cry escaped him,
the tool flew from his grasp, and he stood one instant staring at
the speaker. The next, swift as an arrow, he sped for the woods
upon the farther side; and the next again, throwing up his hands
with a violent gesture of resolution, he had begun already to
retrace his steps.
"Well, then, you come, you help - " he was saying. But by now my
lord had stepped beside Sir William; the moon shone fair upon his
face, and the words were still upon Secundra's lips, when he beheld
and recognised his master's enemy. "Him!" he screamed, clasping
his hands, and shrinking on himself.
"Come, come!" said Sir William. "There is none here to do you
harm, if you be innocent; and if you be guilty, your escape is
quite cut off. Speak, what do you here among the graves of the
dead and the remains of the unburied?"
"You no murderer?" inquired Secundra. "You true man? you see me
safe?"
"I will see you safe, if you be innocent," returned Sir William.
"I have said the thing, and I see not wherefore you should doubt
it."
"There all murderers," cried Secundra, "that is why! He kill -
murderer," pointing to Mountain; "there two hire-murderers,"
pointing to my lord and myself - "all gallows - murderers! Ah! I
see you all swing in a rope. Now I go save the sahib; he see you
swing in a rope. The sahib," he continued, pointing to the grave,
"he not dead. He bury, he not dead."
My lord uttered a little noise, moved nearer to the grave, and
stood and stared in it.
"Buried and not dead?" exclaimed Sir William. "What kind of rant
is this?"
"See, sahib," said Secundra. "The sahib and I alone with
murderers; try all way to escape, no way good. Then try this way:
good way in warm climate, good way in India; here, in this dam cold
place, who can tell? I tell you pretty good hurry: you help, you
light a fire, help rub."
"What is the creature talking of?" cried Sir William. "My head
goes round."
"I tell you I bury him alive," said Secundra. "I teach him swallow
his tongue. Now dig him up pretty good hurry, and he not much
worse. You light a fire."
Sir William turned to the nearest of his men. "Light a fire," said
he. "My lot seems to be cast with the insane."
"You good man," returned Secundra. "Now I go dig the sahib up."
He returned as he spoke to the grave, and resumed his former toil.
My lord stood rooted, and I at my lord's side, fearing I knew not
what.
The frost was not yet very deep, and presently the Indian threw
aside his tool, and began to scoop the dirt by handfuls. Then he
disengaged a corner of a buffalo robe; and then I saw hair catch
among his fingers: yet, a moment more, and the moon shone on
something white. Awhile Secundra crouched upon his knees, scraping
with delicate fingers, breathing with puffed lips; and when he
moved aside, I beheld the face of the Master wholly disengaged. It
was deadly white, the eyes closed, the ears and nostrils plugged,
the cheeks fallen, the nose sharp as if in death; but for all he
had lain so many days under the sod, corruption had not approached
him, and (what strangely affected all of us) his lips and chin were
mantled with a swarthy beard.
"My God!" cried Mountain, "he was as smooth as a baby when we laid
him there!"
"They say hair grows upon the dead," observed Sir William; but his
voice was thick and weak.
Secundra paid no heed to our remarks, digging swift as a terrier in
the loose earth. Every moment the form of the Master, swathed in
his buffalo robe, grew more distinct in the bottom of that shallow
trough; the moon shining strong, and the shadows of the standers-
by, as they drew forward and back, falling and flitting over his
emergent countenance. The sight held us with a horror not before
experienced. I dared not look my lord in the face; but for as long
as it lasted, I never observed him to draw breath; and a little in
the background one of the men (I know not whom) burst into a kind
of sobbing.
"Now," said Secundra, "you help me lift him out."
Of the flight of time, I have no idea; it may have been three
hours, and it may have been five, that the Indian laboured to
reanimate his master's body. One thing only I know, that it was
still night, and the moon was not yet set, although it had sunk
low, and now barred the plateau with long shadows, when Secundra
uttered a small cry of satisfaction; and, leaning swiftly forth, I
thought I could myself perceive a change upon that icy countenance
of the unburied. The next moment I beheld his eyelids flutter; the
next they rose entirely, and the week-old corpse looked me for a
moment in the face.
So much display of life I can myself swear to. I have heard from
others that he visibly strove to speak, that his teeth showed in
his beard, and that his brow was contorted as with an agony of pain
and effort. And this may have been; I know not, I was otherwise
engaged. For at that first disclosure of the dead man's eyes, my
Lord Durrisdeer fell to the ground, and when I raised him up, he
was a corpse.
Day came, and still Secundra could not be persuaded to desist from
his unavailing efforts. Sir William, leaving a small party under
my command, proceeded on his embassy with the first light; and
still the Indian rubbed the limbs and breathed in the mouth of the
dead body. You would think such labours might have vitalised a
stone; but, except for that one moment (which was my lord's death),
the black spirit of the Master held aloof from its discarded clay;
and by about the hour of noon, even the faithful servant was at
length convinced. He took it with unshaken quietude.
"Too cold," said he, "good way in India, no good here." And,
asking for some food, which he ravenously devoured as soon as it
was set before him, he drew near to the fire and took his place at
my elbow. In the same spot, as soon as he had eaten, he stretched
himself out, and fell into a childlike slumber, from which I must
arouse him, some hours afterwards, to take his part as one of the
mourners at the double funeral. It was the same throughout; he
seemed to have outlived at once and with the same effort, his grief
for his master and his terror of myself and Mountain.
One of the men left with me was skilled in stone-cutting; and
before Sir William returned to pick us up, I had chiselled on a
boulder this inscription, with a copy of which I may fitly bring my
narrative to a close:
J. D.,
HEIR TO A SCOTTISH TITLE,
A MASTER OF THE ARTS AND GRACES,
ADMIRED IN EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICA,
IN WAR AND PEACE,
IN THE TENTS OF SAVAGE HUNTERS AND THE
CITADELS OF KINGS, AFTER SO MUCH
ACQUIRED, ACCOMPLISHED, AND
ENDURED, LIES HERE FORGOTTEN.
* * * * *
H. D.,
HIS BROTHER,
AFTER A LIFE OF UNMERITED DISTRESS,
BRAVELY SUPPORTED,
DIED ALMOST IN THE SAME HOUR,
AND SLEEPS IN THE SAME GRAVE
WITH HIS FRATERNAL ENEMY.
* * * * *
THE PIETY OF HIS WIFE AND ONE OLD
SERVANT RAISED THIS STONE
TO BOTH.
Footnotes:
(1) A kind of firework made with damp powder.
(2) "NOTE BY MR. MACKELLAR. Should not this be Alan BRECK Stewart,
afterwards notorious as the Appin murderer? The Chevalier is
sometimes very weak on names.
(3) NOTE BY MR. MACKELLAR. This Teach of the SARAH must not be
confused with the celebrated Blackbeard. The dates and facts by no
means tally. It is possible the second Teach may have at once
borrowed the name and imitated the more excessive part of his
manners from the first. Even the Master of Ballantrae could make
admirers.
(4) NOTE BY MR. MACKELLAR. And is not this the whole explanation?
since this Dutton, exactly like the officers, enjoyed the stimulus
of some responsibility.
(5) NOTE BY MR. MACKELLAR: A complete blunder: there was at this
date no word of the marriage: see above in my own narration.
(6) Note by Mr. Mackellar. - Plainly Secundra Dass. - E. McK.
(7) Ordered.
(8) Land steward.
(9) Fooling.
(10) Tear-marked.
(11) Unwilling.
(12) Ring.
