There was yet another well, which yielded nothing then: which will
yield nothing till the sea, too, gives up her dead. It lay two hundred
yards from the rampart, beneath the walls of the unfinished barracks.
Thither at an hour varied nightly, for fear lest the rebel shot should
swell the funeral, with stealthy step and scant attendance the slain of
the previous day were borne. When morning broke the battle raged around
that sepulchre. Overhead the cannon roared, and men charged to and fro.
But those below rested none the less peacefully; their last cartridge
bitten; their last achievement performed: their last pang of hunger
and affliction undergone and already forgotten. There were deposited,
within the space of three weeks, two hundred and fifty English people,
a fourth by tale of the whole garrison. As in a season of trouble and
lawlessness men bury away their jewels and their gold against the
return of tranquillity and order: so the survivors committed to the
faithful mould their dear treasures, trusting that time and the fortune
of war would enable our country to honour her lost ones with a more
solemn rite, and a worthier tomb. Brief was the service whispered on
the brink of that sad well in the sultry summer night. It was much,
when they came to the grave, while the corpse was being made ready to
be laid into the earth, if the priest then said: "In the midst of life
we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?"
"Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most
merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal
death."
And again, while the earth was being cast upon the body by some
standing by, the priest might with the assent of all declare that it
was of His great mercy that it had pleased Almighty God to take unto
Himself the soul of the dear brother there departed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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