CHAPTER XXXII
“GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN”
DOWN in that lonely Servian village, nestling beautifully at the foot of a range of hills, a scene followed, inexpressibly sad and mournful to me.
We carried Zoiloff to the house of the priest, a man whose heart was as large as his means were straitened, and together we laid my poor friend on the low truckle bed in the barely furnished room. I helped while the examination of his wounds was made, watching the priest’s face with an anxiety that cannot be put in words.
“How did it happen?” he whispered.
“A gunshot wound somewhere in the back, I fear,” I told him.
But there was no need for this explanation, for the blood guided him to the wound easily enough.
“The ball has passed through his body and through his right lung.”
“Is there any hope?” I asked, my own heart answering the question before it was asked. He shook his head sadly.
“On this earth none,” he said. He stopped the bleeding, which was comparatively slight.
“There is very little blood,” I said, hoping against hope.
“The bleeding is internal. No man can save him. I have done all that can be done. Let us pray for him.”
He laid my friend back on the bed with a touch as deft and gentle as a woman’s, and kneeling by the bedside, he began to pray earnestly and fervently, in a soft voice rich with the rare gem of unaffected sympathy. Following his example, I knelt on the other side of the bed, and, with my face buried in my hands, I tried to follow his prayers through the tumult of my thronging emotions at the knowledge that this brave, staunch friend must die, and that it was his friendship that had cost him his life.
How long the good priest prayed I know not, but after a time I was conscious that the rich, sweet voice had ceased, and when I looked up I was alone with my dying comrade.
I got up from my knees, and placing the one rush chair by the bed, sat down to watch for the end and wait lest he should return to consciousness.
A short time later the priest looked in and beckoned me.
“The men who carried your friend here are still waiting; shall I keep them any longer?” I placed my purse in his hands to give them what he would, merely asking him to reward them generously.
“Will he recover consciousness?” I asked.
“It were better not, but he is in God’s hands,” he answered reverently; and I stole back to my chair to resume my vigil.
He looked already like a dead man, and I had to hold my ear close to his mouth before I could catch the faintest sign of his breathing. I felt for the pulse and could detect no flicker of it, and then I laid my fingers gently over his heart. The beats were barely to be discerned. As I drew my hand away I came upon a secret. A dead flower bound by a wisp of faded ribbon was fastened close to his heart, both flower and ribbon dabbled with his blood.
The sight of the little withered memorial of a dead passion, so wholly unexpected in one I had found so hard and stern, affected me deeply. I held it a moment, wondering what lay behind, and where and who was the woman whose heart would be stricken by the blow of his death even as sorely as mine would be. Then I laid it so that it rested on his faithful heart, and, taking his hand, sat with it in mine.
The hours passed uncounted by me. Once or twice the good priest came back to the room, and at length, when Zoiloff showed no sign of a return to consciousness, he administered the last rites of the Church. The sacrament was placed between the nerveless lips, and the priest and I joined in the solemn ceremonial.
“He will not last long. I am surprised he is still alive,” he said, when the simple, beautiful ceremony was over. “God be merciful to him!”
When the priest left the room I followed and asked for some brandy, as I thought there might be some last message Zoiloff might wish to send by me, and I hoped to rouse a final flicker of strength for the purpose.
I poured a few drops into his mouth with a spoon, and after a few minutes gave him a second dose. I detected, as I thought, some signs of a rally of strength, and gave him more, and sat with his hand in mine and my eyes on his face and waited.
“Zoiloff, Zoiloff, my dear friend!” I called gently.
To my delight his eyelids quivered slightly, and after a moment or two they opened and he looked at me. He recognised me, and his mouth moved as if to smile, and I felt a slight, very slight, pressure of the hand. I gave him more of the spirit, and it appeared to lend him a little strength.
His lips moved as if to speak and his eyes brightened.
I felt his hand move in mine as if he would lift it, and, guessing his wish, I lifted it to his heart so that the fingers could feel the little treasure of love that lay there. His fingers closed over it, and he smiled again. But his strength would not suffer him to hold his arm up, so I propped it up, that the hand might rest on the flower.
“Can you hear me, Zoiloff? Do you know me?”
His lips moved and his eyes seemed to assent.
“Can I carry any message for you?” and I laid my fingers on the dead flower to show my meaning, and then bent my ear down to his mouth.
He seemed to make a great effort to speak, and I caught a struggling of the breath, as I held my own in the eager strain to listen. But finding he could not speak I gave him a few drops more of the brandy, now convinced that he wished to say something.
“Have you any message, dear friend?” I asked again, as I bent down.
There came another pause of effort and then I caught a word.
“Christina’s,” and I felt the fingers near his heart close on the flower.
In an instant the full knowledge of his heroic sacrifice rushed upon me. He loved Christina; and in the nobleness of his self-denying love he had given his life that mine should be saved for her.
I grasped his other hand and held it, as I pressed my lips to his marble forehead.
Then I saw his lips move again.
“Leave it,” and the movement of his fingers near his heart told me what he meant.
“On my honour, Zoiloff,” I said earnestly. “God bless you! the staunchest friend man ever had. I never dreamt of this.”
“Don’t tell her,” he whispered, trying to shake his head. Then I felt his hand try to lift mine, and, divining his wish, I laid mine to his lips, and he kissed it. This effort exhausted the little reserve of strength, and with a sigh his eyes closed, and his hand slipped utterly nerveless and flaccid from mine.
I thought he was gone; but he was not, and when I held a glass to his lips there was a faint dulling with his breath. Taking his hand again in mine, I waited for the end.
He lingered perhaps an hour longer till the twilight began to gloom the little chamber, and I was hoping that he would pass away in this peaceful slumber of unconsciousness, when I heard his breath strengthen suddenly. He opened his eyes; the fingers on the flower at his heart tightened into almost a firm clasp; a quiver shook his body, and raising his head slightly from the pillow, he cried in a voice strong enough to surprise and for an instant give me hope:
“Christina, Chris——” The word was not finished before the spasm of strength was spent, and he fell back again with a deep sigh.
He was dead; and I thank God that in the last struggle of his strong brave soul to escape he had been comforted by the love which had controlled and impulsed every act and motive of his life, and which he had carried locked away from the knowledge of all the world in the deepest recess of his loyal, noble heart.
If I had treasured him as a friend in his life, I loved him in his self-denying death; and when I had satisfied myself that he had really passed, I flung myself on my knees by his bier and wept like a woman.
The room was dark when I rose from my uncontrollable passion of grief, and I pressed my lips to his cold forehead before I drew the sheet over the dead face and left the room.