Yet even so Kit found himself shuddering.
The terror of that lopped trunk, flat on its back, shocked his heart.
Childlike he felt in the dimness for the Parson"s fingers, and was made glad by their grip.
"I think he"s gone," whispered the Parson.
II
The old man"s head, moon-white in the dusk, lay on a soldier"s knapsack.
An officer"s short cloak, b.u.t.toned about his throat, was flung back from his body. The great hands, fingers so touching in their thick-jointed awkwardness, were folded on his bare and s.h.a.ggy breast. His wounds were hidden, but tattooed upon his chest was something that Kit at first mistook for a cross. Then he saw it was an anchor.
And as he looked the anchor seemed to glow and grow. No longer a blue smudge on the skin, it was an anchor in the heart, shining through the flesh--the anchor on which this brave old battleship had ridden out the gale of life.
The old man lay calm as marble. The cheeks were hollowed, and the fringe of stiff white hair uplifted.
A more beautiful picture of an Englishman, faithful unto death, it was impossible to conceive.
Kit thought of Sir Geoffrey Blount, the old Crusader with chipped nose--mailed hands folded just so, casqued head tilted just so--asleep on the stone-slab in the lady-chapel at home.
But how far more beautiful than that broken-nosed old warrior was this Crusader of the Sea!
III
The Parson bent.
_"Piper!"_ he called low. _"Piper!"_ The old man stirred.
_"D"you know who I am?"_
One great forefinger uplifted and fell.
_"We won through,"_ choked the Parson. _"Nelson"s safe."_
The old man"s lips parted.
_"Mr. Caryll"s brought a message for you from Nelson,"_ continued the Parson. "Kit!"
The boy bent his lips to the ear of the dying sailor.
_"Piper!"_ he cried, his pure boy"s voice ringing out fearlessly.
_"Nelson--sent--his--love--to--you--his--love."_
"He can"t hear," choked the Parson. "It"s no good."
"Hush," said the boy.
He knew the message would take minutes travelling along the dying pa.s.sages to the brain.
At last, at last it reached.
The old man"s face broke into a smile, fair as a winter sunset.
_"Love"_ he whispered, nodded deliberately, and died.
CHAPTER Lx.x.xVI
TWILIGHT
I
The Parson turned to the window, weeping.
Kit crossed to comfort him.
"It"s all right, sir," he said tenderly, taking the other by the arm.
A hand plucked at his ankle.
"Little Chap," whispered a voice.
The boy looked down.
At his feet, propped on a straw-stuffed haversack against the wall, lay the Gentleman.
Kit was kneeling beside him in an instant.
"O, sir!" he cried, with sobbing heart.
The other tweaked his nose with tender fingers.
"Cela ne fait rien."
"But are you hurt, sir?"
"Pas trop.... Not quite what I was at dawn; and not quite what I shall be at dark."
He was sitting strangely huddled.