CHAPTER XIX.
FINDING THE BODY.
'Fall in, the Mounted Infantry!' cried the voice of Hammersley, when with earliest dawn strong parties were detailed from the camps of the Second Division and Sir Evelyn Wood to scout the scene of the tragedy; and as his squadron rode forth in the grey light with rifle-butt resting on the thigh, just as the dawn began to redden the summit of the Itelezi Hill, Florian remembered that this mournful search was his first duty as an officer; but the calamity clouded the joy of his promotion, and would be always associated with it.
He felt himself again the equal of Dulcie Carlyon; but, still, to what end? He could not go home to her, nor could she come there to him, a combatant in Zululand; besides, he knew well enough that an officer's pay, unless when on service, is not sufficient for himself without the encumbrance of a wife; and with this enforced practical view of the situation he could only sigh as he rode on and thought of poor Dulcie.
As some of the Volunteer Horse went to the front, Florian became conscious that two, wearing huge, battered hats, who rode together, were regarding him furtively, and with a curiously hostile and scowling expression; and his heart gave a kind of leap when he recognised in these, two of the ruffians whose odious features were indelibly impressed upon his memory by the adventures of that horrible night in the so-called hotel at Elandsbergen—Josh Jarrett and Dick of the Droogveldt, with his short, thickset figure, small, dull eyes, and heavy, bull-dog visage.
That they would work him some mischief, if possible, in their new capacity he never doubted; and possibly enough it was their design to do so, secretly and securely, amid the often confused scouting and scampering to and fro of the Mounted Infantry among bush and cover of every kind. But, as they were then going to the front, he thought it unwise to move in the matter at the time; besides, they might be knocked on the head, and all on the ground were thinking only of the Prince Imperial.
A deep silence hovered over the ranks of the various searching parties that rode round by the base of the flat-topped Itelezi Hill. The swallow-tailed banneroles of the 17th Lancers, who looked handsome and gay in their white helmets and blue tunics faced and lapelled with white, fluttered out on the morning wind; but the iron hoofs of their horses fell without a sound on the soft and elastic turf of the green veldt. Occasionally a low murmur would be heard as the searchers drew nearer the fatal kraal, and the lance was slung and the carbine grasped instinctively when at times the black Kaffir vultures, hinting of a dreadful repast, rose from among the tall, feathery Tambookie grass, and, croaking angrily, winged their way aloft as if enraged and interrupted.
Driving out roughly by lance point and rifle bullet about a hundred Zulus from some holes and scrub, several of the Lancers under Lieutenant Frith, their adjutant, and the Mounted Infantry under Hammersley, next drew near the fatal donga, which some officers crossed on foot. Among those who were in advance of all the rest was Lieutenant Dundonald Cochrane, of the Cornish Light Infantry.
'Look!' cried Hammersley to Florian, as Cochrane was seen to pause and with reverence take off his helmet. Then a hum went along the ranks of the searchers, who all knew what he had found.
And there, on the sloping bank of the donga in the evening sunshine, with his head pillowed on some sweet wild-flowers, nude as he came into the world, save that a reliquary and locket with his father's miniature were round his neck—supposed to be potent fetishes—lay the poor young Prince, the guest of Britain, the hope of Imperial France, and the only son of his mother, dead, and gashed by sixteen assegai wounds, among them the usual cruel Zulu coup de grace—the gash in the stomach.
It was found that, though an accomplished swordsman, he had failed to use his sword—the sword of his father the Emperor—which had dropped from the scabbard in his attempts to mount; but that, seizing an assegai which had been hurled at him, he had defended himself till he sank under repeated wounds; and a tuft of human hair clenched in his left hand attested the valour and the desperation of his resistance.
His faithful little Scottish terrier was found dead by his side.
All around him the ground was trampled, torn, and stained by gouts of blood.
A bier was now formed by crossed lances of the 17th Lancers, covered by cut rushes and a cavalry cloak. Reverently and almost with womanly tenderness did our soldiers raise the body, and on this bier, so befitting to one of his name, Prince Napoleon was borne by loving hands by the rough and rugged track that led towards the hill of Itelezi; while all around the place where they had found him were flowers of gold and crimson tint, where in the gouts and pools of blood bright-winged moths and butterflies were battening.
That the Prince was duly prepared to meet any fate that might befall him the remarkable prayer composed by him fully attests. It was found in his repositories, and was published in the papers of the time.
The entire Second Division was under arms to receive his remains when brought into the camp beside the river. The body was borne through the lines on a gun-carriage, wrapped in linen and shrouded by a Union Jack; the funeral service was performed by the Catholic chaplain to the forces, and Lord Chelmsford acted as chief mourner. Though tolerably accustomed to bloodshed now, a profound impression of gloom pervaded the faces of the troops.
By mule-cart the body was sent to Pietermaritzburg, and in passing through Ladysmith there occurred a scene that was touching from its simplicity. This is a small village in the Division of Riversdale or Kannaland, where the body remained for the night at the entrance thereof, in the bleak open veldt, under a guard of honour; but from the school-house there came forth, and lined the roadway, a procession of little black children, who, to the accompaniment of an old cracked harmonium, sang a hymn, as the soldiers of the 58th Regiment took the body away, and sweetly and softly the voices of the little ones rose and fell on the chilly air of the morning.
'This,' says Captain Thomasson, of the Irregular Horse, in his narrative, 'was but one mark of the feeling that all in the colony, whatever their age, colour, position, or sex, had at the sudden and terrible close of that bright young life. And it may safely be affirmed that not one disassociated in his mind from the thought of the dead son, the recollection of the blow awaiting the widowed mother.'
The next striking scene was at Durban, the only port in Natal Colony, where the troops handed over the remains to the blue-jackets of H.M.S. Shah for conveyance to England.
Here the poor old majordomo of the Prince was left behind. He was so inconsolable for the loss of his master, that it was feared he would lose his reason, and more than once he said, with simple truth and bitterness:
'My master would not have abandoned one of them!’