Sir John Constantine: Memoirs of His Adventures At Home and Abroad and Particularly in the Island of Corsica: Beginning with the Year 1756Quiller-Couch, Arthur
General
Sir John Constantine: Memoirs of His Adventures At Home and Abroad and Particularly in the Island of Corsica: Beginning with the Year 1756
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Corsica (France) -- Fiction
But from the first I doubted her reaching it alive. Her sufferings
had worn her out, and it is a matter of dispute between Dom Basilio
(who administered the last sacrament), and me whether or no her eyes
ever saw the home to which we carried her. They were open, and she
was certainly breathing, when we made the entrance of Helford river;
for we had lifted her couch upon deck and propped her that she might
catch the earliest glimpse of Constantine above the trees. They were
open when we dropped anchor, but she was as certainly dead. She lies
buried in the private chapel of the house, disused during my
brother-in-law's lifetime, but since restored and elaborately
decorated by our Trappist guests. A slab of rose-pink Corsican
granite covers her, and is inscribed with the words, "Orate pro anima
Emiliae, Corsicorum Reginae," the date of her death, and beneath it a
verse which I took to be from the Vulgate until Parson Grylls
quarrelled with Dom Basilio over it--
"CRAS AMET QVI NVNQVAM AMAVIT QVIQVE AMAVIT CRAS AMET."
As I have said, I had parted with all hope to see my nephew again:
and it but confirmed my despair when I received a letter from General
Paoli with news that the Prince Camillo had been assassinated; for
neither his sister nor Prosper had said word to me of the young man's
treachery, and I concluded that they had bound themselves to rescue
him, an unwilling prisoner. In our last brief leave-taking on the
island, Prosper had confided to me certain wishes of his concerning
the house at Constantine, and the disposal of his estate; wishes of
which I need only say here that they obliged me after a certain
interval to get his death "presumed" (as the phrase is), and for that
purpose to ride up to London and seek counsel with our lawyer, Mr.
Knox.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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