only babe when, alone in a foreign land, it lay on her bosom dying; and
the multitude, who, by this, had knowledge of the dreadful deed, stood
in silence while he mourned.

"Trusty, Trusty," he said, "do you know me, Trusty?" and his tears fell
fast into the dog's bristly coat. The poor creature, now far gone in
that unconsciousness which deafens the ear to the voice of love itself,
still faintly heard the familiar tones, for he lifted his eyes to his
master's face and nestled closer into his bosom. It was a touching
sight, in truth, and those who stood close enough to see the moving
spectacle, wiped their own eyes, divinely moist with the mist of
sympathy.

It was evident to all, and to the old man himself, that above and around
and closing in upon them was the mystery which men call death--a mystery
as inscrutable as it hovers over the kennel and stable as when it enters
the habitations of men--and that in a few moments the life still within
the body of the poor animal, with all its powers of doing, of thinking,
and of loving, would depart the structure in which it had found so
pleasant an abode and so facile a medium of expression.

For a few moments nothing more was said; the old man continued to sob
and the life of his companion continued to ebb away. The brutal blow
that caused his death had mercifully numbed the power of feeling, so
that whatever the gloomy journey he was about to take might mean to him,
whether the same life he was leaving, or a larger, or none at all, he
would move on through the darkness toward the one or the other at least
without pain.

"You and I have fared in company for many a year," said the old man at