He had always a.s.sociated a death-bed with drawn blinds, hushed voices, sniffling women on their knees and the like.

And here lay this long-limbed man on the gra.s.s in the evening, the night bending to kiss him, the sea hushed behind, making ready for the plunge with the high heart and twinkling humour of the lad running down the sands to bathe.

A little wind breathed on them chilly.

The Gentleman began to shudder.

The boy brooded over his dim outline.

A sudden burning curiosity kindled his heart.

"Is it--very aweful?" he ventured at last.

"Not a bit," whispered the other. "It's as easy as living, once you know how."

The boy rippled.

"Have you ever done it before?"

"Every hour of every day since the beginning."

The boy hugged his hand. He then too had the sense of reiterated life, eternal here on earth.

"Ah, you feel that," he said comfortably. "Then I know you're not afraid."

"Not a bit," sleepily. "I'm too interested--the undiscovered country, you know." His chest was sinking in upon his voice. "What's it going to be?"

Piper's last word leapt to the lad's tongue.

"Love," he said, before he knew that he had said it.

The Gentleman nodded.

"I believe you," he whispered. "Yes, yes, yes.

"_The face familiar smiling through His tears--_

"I can see it."

Kit was crying, he knew not why.

Unable now to see the other's face, he stretched a hand and stroked it.

"Are you there, sir?"

"Always there, Little Chap."

The voice was far, and getting further.

"How--how d'you feel?"

"Why, as I never felt before," chuckling still.

For long he lay still, the night gathering about him. Then the voice came again out of the darkness.

"Ah! there's the first star!"

He lay with hands folded, and face starward. He was drinking in the dark as it began to people, and humming to himself. Kit, listening with all his heart, heard as it were the voice of one singing in Eternity. And whether his ear heard words, or whether only his heart heard the song the other's heart was singing, he never knew.

"Hark to her, hark to the Voice of the Beautiful Spring, Calling to come, Calling to come,

Over the moon-whitened wave on a kittiwake's wing, Over the foam, Furrow and foam,

Leap to her, leap, O my heart, when thou hearest her sing, Home to her, home, Home to her, home."

The song ceased.

There was an age-long silence.

Then out of the darkness from millions of miles away a whisper,

"Kiss me, Little Chap."

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIX

THE LAST POST

The Parson bore the dead man down the hill beneath the stars, Kit still holding the cold hand.

Here yesterday this same limp and lolling figure had chased Knapp with rousing limbs. Now not all the trumpets of his own Brigade could stir his little finger.

Over the greensward the Parson bore his burthen, past the hushed sycamores, into the kitchen.

They entered the Sanctuary.

One candle there showed a Union Jack shrouding a still something on the dresser.

Beside it the Parson laid his dead.

Knapp, b.l.o.o.d.y-bandaged, crept through the curtain and joined them, Blob at his heels.

So they gathered in the half-light: the garrison who had held the Fort, and the man who had stormed it.