“Thanks, Jack; good-bye, old ship,” and then, after a pause, turning his fading eyes towards mine, he whispered: “_Une vie manqué, une vie manqué_, but thank God finished like a gentleman, for Queen and flag. God bless them, Queen and flag. So-long, Dick, go home.” And as he muttered the last word he closed his eyes, and with a smile on his face his gallant spirit left its clay to answer the eternal roll-call. There is no time for lamentation, and but little for mourning, in the bush, so that as soon as the doctor had pronounced our poor pal dead old Jack and myself set about his obsequies. I first of all removed from his neck the locket, which was sewn up in leather, and looked through his poor sordid pack in case there might be any letters or papers to take care of; but there were none. “’Ere, chuck me that blanket, mate,” growled my fellow-undertaker. “No, mine’s a new one. We’ll start him aloft in that, seems more respectful like,” and the kind-hearted old filibuster substituted his own brand-new blanket for Hutton’s tattered one, at the same time producing a small canvas ditty-bag, out of which he extracted a sailmaker’s palm, needle and twine. “Yer see, Dick,” he continued, “I always like to give a mate his last chuck, so long as I’ve got time, respectful like. So that he’s no call to feel shame when he toes the line afore Davy Jones. Now you turn to and dig the hole, while I sew him up ship-shape and Bristol fashion, coz t’other mates will be ’ere soon and we may have to hoof it.” This was very true, so leaving Jack to sew up the still warm remains I started in with tomahawk and hands to scoop out a shallow resting-place for my dead pal. I had not more than half finished when I was joined by Mr Roach and the rest of the company, some of whom helped me to complete the grave, and when it was ready his tent-mates lifted, with rough though revering hands, the shapeless form, and bore it slowly to its last resting-place. There we laid him down, shovelling the soft soil over him with our hands, and concealing the spot so that no wandering Hau Hau could discover and desecrate the remains of our gallant comrade. Yes, there, alone he lay, without a prayer having been said over him, without a bugle having been blown, or without a parting shot having been fired, and with only a mob of rough, sin-stained men to, for a few minutes, mourn for him, yet I guess that as horny hands wiped away a salt drop or two, and deep voices muttered oaths and threats of revenge, none of his noble ancestors resting under the old abbey roof at home were more sorrowed for or rest better than their hapless kinsman killed in a forgotten, nameless skirmish and buried by his wild and reckless comrades in a hidden grave on a lonely fern ridge among the wilds of the New Zealand bush. _R.I.P._