He was mortally wounded in a
skirmish; and when his men came back from the pursuit, he was bleeding
to death, resting against a tree. When they lifted him up, they noticed
his eyes fixed with a curious, complacent expression on the red stream
that surged and gurgled out of his wound, just as a _gourmand_ looks at
a bumper of a rare vintage held up to the light. They heard him growl to
himself, "_Qu'il coule rouge et fort, le bon vieux sang de Bourgogne_."
And then he fell back--dead.
O Publicola Thompson! Phoesphor to the Tower Hamlets and Boanerges of
the platform--will you not allow that, amid a wilderness of weeds, this
one fair plant flourishes under "the cold shade?"
CHAPTER XXII.
"Shy she was, and I thought her cold;
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Filled I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me."
When I came to Livingstone's chambers on the following morning, I found
him alone. His head was resting listlessly against the back of the vast
easy-chair in which he was reclining, and his face, thrown out in relief
against the crimson velvet, looked haggard and drawn. The calumet--not
of peace--was between his lips, and the dense blue clouds were wreathing
round him like a Scotch mist.
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