heard was the custom with the dead, to compose the features distorted by
the dying agony. He then flung himself on the ground at a little distance,
and gave himself up to the reflections suggested by the strange
occurrences of the last hour.

He had taken a human life; and, however the circumstances might excuse
him,--might make the thing even something praiseworthy, and that would be
called patriotic,--still, it was not at once that a fresh country youth
could see anything but horror in the blood with which his hand was
stained. It seemed so dreadful to have reduced this gay, animated,
beautiful being to a lump of dead flesh for the flies to settle upon, and
which in a few hours would begin to decay; which must be put forthwith
into the earth, lest it should be a horror to men's eyes; that delicious
beauty for woman to love; that strength and courage to make him famous
among men,--all come to nothing; all probabilities of life in one so
gifted; the renown, the position, the pleasures, the profits, the keen
ecstatic joy,--this never could be made up,--all ended quite; for the dark
doubt descended upon Septimius, that, because of the very fitness that was
in this youth to enjoy this world, so much the less chance was thereof his
being fit for any other world. What could it do for him there,--this
beautiful grace and elegance of feature,--where there was no form, nothing
tangible nor visible? what good that readiness and aptness for associating
with all created things, doing his part, acting, enjoying, when, under the
changed conditions of another state of being, all this adaptedness would
fail? Had he been gifted with permanence on earth, there could not have
been a more admirable creature than this young man; but as his fate had
turned out, he was a mere grub, an illusion, something that nature had
held out in mockery, and then withdrawn. A weed might grow from his dust
now; that little spot on the barren hill-top, where he had desired to be
buried, would be greener for some years to come, and that was all the