Chapter 32

"Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed:
Beloved till life could charm no more,
And mourn'd till pity's self be dead."

Collins.

An hour later, and the principal actors in the foregoing scene had
disappeared. There remained only the widowed Narra-mattah, with Dudley,
the divine, and Whittal Ring.

The body of Conanchet still continued, where he had died, seated like a
chief in council. The daughter of Content and Ruth had stolen to its side,
and she had taken her seat, in that species of dull woe, which so
frequently attends the first moments of any unexpected and overwhelming
affliction. She neither spoke, sobbed, nor sorrowed in anyway that grief
is wont to affect the human system. The mind seemed palsied, though a
withering sense of the blow was fearfully engraven on every lineament of
her eloquent face. The color had deserted her cheeks, the lips were
bloodless, while, at moments, they quivered convulsively, like the
tremulous movement of the sleeping infant; and, at long intervals, her
bosom heaved, as if the spirit within struggled heavily to escape from its
earthly prison. The child lay unheeded at her side, and Whittal Ring had
placed himself on the opposite side of the corpse.

The two agents, appointed by the Colony to witness the death of Conanchet,
stood near, gazing mournfully on the piteous spectacle. The instant the
spirit of the condemned man had fled, the prayers of the divine had
ceased, for he believed that then the soul had gone to judgment. But there
was more of human charity, and less of that exaggerated severity in his
aspect, than was ordinarily seated in the deep lines of his austere
countenance. Now that the deed was done, and the excitement of his exalted
theories had given way to the more positive appearance of the result, he
might even have moments of harassing doubts concerning the lawfulness of
an act that he had hitherto veiled under the forms of a legal and
necessary execution of justice. The mind of Eben Dudley vacillated with
none of the subtleties of doctrine or of law. As there had been less
exaggeration in his original views of the necessity of the proceeding, so
was there more steadiness in his contemplation of its fulfilment.
Feelings, they might be termed emotions, of a different nature troubled
the breast of this resolute but justly-disposed borderer.

"This hath been a melancholy visitation of necessity, and a severe
manifestation of the foreordering will," said the Ensign, as he gazed at
the sad spectacle before him. "Father and son have both died, as it were,
in my presence, and both have departed for the world of spirits, in a
manner to prove the inscrutableness of Providence. But