Chapter 23

What had the Eternall Maker need of thee,
The world in his continuall course to keepe,
That doest all things deface? ne lettest see
The beautie of his worke? Indeede in sleepe,
The slouth full body that doth love to steepe
His lustlesse limbs, and drowne his baser mind,
Doth praise thee oft, and oft from Stygian deepe,
Calles thee his goddesse, in his errour blind,
And great dame Nature's hand-maide, chearing every kinde.
_Faerie Queene._

The tranquillity of the previous night was not contradicted by
the movements of the day. Although Mabel and June went to every
loophole, not a sign of the presence of a living being on the
island was at first to be seen, themselves excepted. There was a
smothered fire on the spot where M'Nab and his comrades had cooked,
as if the smoke which curled upwards from it was intended as a lure
to the absent; and all around the huts had been restored to former
order and arrangement. Mabel started involuntarily when her eye
at length fell on a group of three men, dressed in the scarlet of
the 55th, seated on the grass in lounging attitudes, as if they
chatted in listless security; and her blood curdled as, on a second
look, she traced the bloodless faces and glassy eyes of the dead.
They were very near the blockhouse, so near indeed as to have been
overlooked at the first eager inquiry, and there was a mocking levity
in their postures and gestures, for their limbs were stiffening in
different attitudes, intended to resemble life, at which the soul
revolted. Still, horrible as these objects were to those near
enough to discover the frightful discrepancy between their assumed
and their real characters, the arrangement had been made with so
much art that it would have deceived a negligent observer at the
distance of a hundred yards. After carefully examining the shores
of the island, June pointed out to her companion the fourth soldier,
seated, with his feet hanging over the water, his back fastened to
a sapling, and holding a fishing-rod in his hand. The scalpless
heads were covered with the caps, and all appearance of blood had
been carefully washed from each countenance.

Mabel sickened at this sight, which not only did so much violence
to all her notions of propriety, but which was in itself so revolting
and so opposed to natural feeling. She withdrew to a seat, and hid
her face in her apron for several minutes, until a low call from
June again drew her to a loophole. The latter then pointed out
the body of Jennie seemingly standing in the door of a hut, leaning
forward as if to look at the group of men, her cap fluttering in
the wind, and her hand grasping a broom. The distance was too great
to distinguish the features very accurately; but Mabel