CHAPTER XV.

_A BITTER SORROW._

“_Nota Kaholthay, Jesus Christ, Notyanayne neoltze nogahneayta Tattaahyenay naso noayl nahnathath doko eethlahse choo. Amen._ (The grace of our Lord, etc.)” The words broke the solemn silence in the distinct but tremulous voice of a young girl; a voice trembling with earnestness as the benedictory blessing passed her lips, every tone filled with suppressed anguish, revealing the agony of a broken heart.

The scene was as solemnly impressive as the words; two open graves rudely hewn from the hard-frozen earth—accomplished by infinite labor after burning fires over the spots for hours—one of them empty while the other revealed a shapeless, undefinable bundle in its cold depths. Beside this one stood three dark muffled figures, sharply outlined against the perpendicular face of rocks. The central figure, the speaker, one of the most touching sights on God’s fair earth—was a girl bowed by a great, an overwhelming sorrow, a girl in whose eyes dwelt a look of unutterable despair. This was Kasba; not the young, lovingly-impulsive girl of yesterday, but a girl-woman, a woman of steady and implacable purpose, with feelings so lacerated in the last twenty-four hours that she had grown numb with pain. Horror upon horror had fallen upon her until further grief could no longer be felt.

On her left was the unmistakable figure of Sahanderry. He stood rigidly erect with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the shadowy object at the bottom of the grave. Tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks and violent sobs convulsed his frame. Venturing to raise his eyes at the girl’s concluding words, he threw her a hasty glance; her unnatural composure puzzled him. With a pathetically resigned air she closed the book from which she had been reading, and slowly advancing to the edge of the grave, stood silently gazing into it. The despairing agony in her face was pitiable, for the grave held all that was mortal of her beloved father.

Inconceivably strange it is that Delgezie, being on the outside of the house, should have been killed, while Sahanderry, who lay close to the seat of the explosion, had escaped with his life, in fact was almost uninjured except for being badly scorched and thoroughly shaken. It would be hard to explain this, or any part of the seemingly miraculous events that followed this disaster. Even the sanest reasoning would fail to convince. The natural inference was that the gunpowder-keg had not sufficient resistance to cause the devastating combustion the incident would lead one to expect and that Delgezie had been killed by some flying object hurtled through the air by the force of the explosion—but this was supposition.

Beside the girl, and completely overcome with grief, was the boy David. He was sobbing audibly.

Stepping back from the grave, Kasba signed to her companions to fill it in. This was the signal for Sahanderry to give full vent to his lamentations while he dropped clods of frozen earth reverently into the hole. These were instantly followed by the sound of dull thuds. Kasba started at the gruesome noise, a startled cry escaped her, but she displayed no further sign of emotion. Stunned and dazed, she stood silently watching the work go on.

The task completed, Sahanderry and David, overcoming their more violent grief, turned to the girl for orders, but remained discreetly silent. Kasba was gazing fixedly at the grave as if her eyes could penetrate the hard, flint-like earth to where the body of her father lay beneath. Suddenly she tottered forward and, uttering a low, despairing cry, fell on her knees.

“_Ay, setah! setah!_ (Oh, father, father!)” she moaned, with her face pressed to the icy clods. She remained in this attitude for some time wrestling with a feeling of unutterable loneliness.

Her companions scarcely breathed. Presently she kissed the hard sod, rose quickly and turned slowly away.

Entering the lonely hut she dropped into a seat and remained in an attitude of deep despondency with eyes fixed upon the floor. The entrance of her sorrowing companions passed entirely unnoticed.

Taking pains to make no unnecessary noise, Sahanderry first attended to the fire, then seated himself in a gloomy corner, and from this vantage-ground watched the sorrow-stricken girl. David sank on the floor at Kasba’s feet, crouching with his head pressed tightly against her knee, and without raising her eyes the girl dropped her hand upon his head and let it rest there in sympathy.

Time dragged on. Deepening shadows crept across the room, gradually enveloping all objects in dismal gloom. The solemn ticking of the clock sounded vastly disproportionate and seemed in the melancholy silence to vibrate with the hum and noise of some mighty machine.

Throughout these dreary hours Kasba sat mute and desolate, taking no heed of time, battling with a confused sense of irreparable loss.

Completely stunned by the succession of terrible shocks, she had been too bewildered to fully understand the significance of the solemn service she had read at the grave-side. The bitter fact that her father was dead and that she had buried him that afternoon filled all her mind, and for the first time in her life her never-failing consolation was denied her. She could not pray, and she was disconsolate indeed, for there was no other comfort in earth or heaven.

“When some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly And silence, against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new— What hope? what help? what music will undo That silence to your senses? Not friendship’s sign Not reason’s subtle count. Nay, none of these! Speak Thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause.”

But Kasba dare not look heavenward, for bitter, rebellious thoughts had hardened her heart. What had she done that this great trouble should be visited upon her? Delgezie had been both father and mother to her, soothing and tending and caring for her in her infantile afflictions with all the tenderness and affection of a loving mother. From the day of her birth he had surrounded and guarded her young life with the wealth and strength of a passionate love. The deep affection he had borne his poor dead wife had been transferred to the child she had left to his care. She became the joy of his life; his one thought was for her happiness, his one aim her comfort. They had been all in all to each other, and that God-fearing man had been cut down in an instant, without even the mournful consolation of a parting word. As the knowledge of her loss gained upon her the loneliness of her position grew correspondingly distinct. Poor, weary, sorrow-stricken girl, tired and harassed by her multitudinous duties, confused from want of rest and sleep, she sat buried in the perplexities of a series of most singularly strange and terrible happenings.

Yet she had still another duty to fulfil, another painful task to perform—a task, if possible, more keenly agonizing than the burying of her loved father. In a corner of the room lay the body of Roy Thursby, the man she had loved with all the strength of her simple young heart.

Roy’s body had been carried to Delgezie’s hut, but all attempts at resuscitation had proved futile, and it now lay on Kasba’s bed, covered with a white sheet, awaiting burial. The body, however, had not yet been sewn up in canvas, as was customary immediately after death. This still remained to be done, although the empty grave beside Delgezie’s yawned for it.

Silently in the gloomy darkness Kasba sat in a procrastinating mood. The stern burial custom of her race and a solemn duty to the dead called urgently to her to complete those last sad rites, but love with equal persistence implored for longer respite. Tremulously she shrank from the heart-rending ordeal of hiding forever the face she loved so ardently. Yet she well knew the task to be unavoidable, she would allow no other hand to touch that dear form, to cover his dear body with the garment of the grave.

The darkness grew intense. The feeble gleam of twilight from the window failed to pierce the room’s pitchy blackness any longer. The noisy clock ticked on incessantly. Silent and motionless the three figures sat like three grim statues, so inert were they.

At length a weird, ghostly sound broke the deathly stillness. With one accord Kasba and Sahanderry started to their feet. They gazed toward each other with horrified eyes, each striving to pierce the black pall which hung between them, to discover if either was the author of the strange sound. David cowered upon the floor.

The clock ticked ominously.

The two figures stood speechless.

Again that ghostly sound, and now it was like a deep, long-drawn sigh.

Simultaneously Kasba and Sahanderry darted forward—Kasba to the bed and Sahanderry to the door, through which he vanished.

Kasba softly bent over the indistinct figure lying there. With senses strained to the utmost she paused, breathlessly listening. Hours might have passed, or only moments; she could not have told. Again that deep, sighing sound. It came from beneath the white sheet upon the bed.

With a sharp cry Kasba fell upon her knees. With outstretched hands and upturned eyes, “Almighty God,” she cried in accents of exceeding joy, “I thank Thee for this miracle.” Then for the first time since her father’s death she fell into a storm of weeping.

The figure sighed again and slightly stirred.

Springing to her feet Kasba softly uncovered Roy’s face and then quickly lit the lamp and held it in her trembling hand. The light fell upon the form of Roy Thursby. He lay calm and still, and Kasba waited with bated breath in an agony of suspense, her heart beating tumultuously. Presently there was another sigh and Roy’s eyes slowly opened. The girl started and trembled as he turned his head toward her, but there was no gleam of recognition in his eyes.

Kasba stirred uneasily. Her heart beat so for a moment that it well-nigh choked her.

The slight sound caught his ears. His lips moved—“Who is there?” The words came slowly; they were spoken only by great effort and scarcely above his breath.

“It is Kasba,” said the girl when she could control her voice sufficiently to speak. “There was an accident and you were hurt. I—they brought you to my father’s hut.”

“Why—are—we—in—darkness?” asked Roy with infinite labor.

Kasba stared at him in horrified amazement, for the light she held fell full upon his face.

At this moment an ejaculation from behind caused her to glance back. In the doorway stood the boy David with an expression of terrified wonder on his face, and towering over his shoulder, with his head pushed well forward, was Sahanderry who stood awestruck. His mouth was wide open, and his piercing black eyes, large and round, betrayed the amazement he felt.

Kasba beckoned him to come forward, and putting the boy aside, he cautiously entered. With eyes intent upon the countenance of his master, Sahanderry drew near the bed. Then realizing that Roy was in truth alive, that by some seeming miracle he had returned from the very brink of the grave, he sprang impulsively forward, and clutching one of Roy’s hands, burst into tears.

“Oh, Bekothrie! Bekothrie! I am glad—me!” he sobbed.

This miraculous escape from the dead was more in accord with his wonderful faith than that Roy the all-powerful could be overcome, and his jubilation knew no bounds.

“But, Sahanderry,” said Roy, still speaking in a low, weak voice, “tell me, why are we in the dark?” There was a slight tone of apprehension in his voice, as if he divined that some evil was being kept from him.

Sahanderry ceased his sobbing and gazed with perplexity at Kasba.

“Why—,” he began, but Kasba with a swift gesture clapped her hand over his mouth.

Silent as the motion was, the slight, almost imperceptible sound made by the girl in shifting her position caught Roy’s attention. He lay with a painfully strained look upon his face, and in an attitude of intently listening. No one spoke. The man and girl watched him with fast beating hearts, a look of horror growing in their eyes, for a terrible suspicion gradually took possession of them.

“Will—you—not—speak?” he said hoarsely. “Speak, why—is—there—no—light?”

Sahanderry glanced in consternation at his companion. He moved uneasily. His lips parted as if in speech, but he answered never a word.

Roy waited, breathing quickly. Presently a look of suspicion passed over his face. “Speak, man, I command you!” he cried with greater force. “Is there a light?”

Throwing a desperate, imploring glance at Kasba, Sahanderry wrung his hands. “Yes,” he faltered, “but—,” he stopped suddenly, the unutterable despair on his master’s face held him tongue-tied.

For a few moments Roy lay silent, completely overcome by the sudden, appalling revelation; then, clutching convulsively at his eyes: “Oh, my God! my God! I am blind!” he moaned.