Epilogue

Early in December, 1803, in the cool decline of a torrid day, a small British force—mixed regulars and sepoys—threaded its way among the mountains of Berar. It moved slowly and with frequent halts, its pace regulated by the middle of the column, where teams of men panted and dragged at the six guns which were to batter down the hill fortress of Gawul Ghur: for roads in this country there were none, and all the long day ahead of the guns gangs laboured with pick and shovel to widen the foot-tracks leading up to the passes.

Still farther ahead trudged and halted the 74th regiment, following a squadron of the 19th Light Dragoons, and now and again the toilers on the middle slope, taking breath for a new effort and blinking the sweat from their eyes, would catch sight of a horseman on a ridge far overhead, silhouetted against the pale blue sky for a moment while he scanned a plateau or gully unseen by them. Now and again, too, in such pauses, the clear air pulsed with the tramp of the rearguard in the lower folds of the hills—sepoys and comrades of the 78th and 94th.

Though with arms, legs and loins strained almost to cracking, the men worked cheerfully. Their General had ridden forward with his staff: they knew that close by the head of the pass their camp was already being marked out for them, and before sleeping they would be fed as they deserved.

They growled, indeed, but good-humouredly, when, for the tenth time that day, they came to the edge of a gully into which the track plunged steeply to mount almost as steeply on the farther side: and their good humour did them the more credit since the General had forbidden them to lock the wheels, on the ground that locking shook and weakened the gun-carriages.

With a couple of drag-ropes then, and a dozen men upon each, digging heels in the slope, slipping, cursing, back-hauling with all their weight, the first gun was trailed down and run across the gully. As the second began its descent a couple of horsemen came riding slowly back from the advance-guard and drew rein above the farther slope to watch the operation.

About a third of the way down, the track, which trended at first to the left, bent abruptly away to the right, from the edge of a low cliff of rock; and at this corner the men on the drag-ropes must also fling themselves sharply to the right to check the wheels on the verge of the fall. They did so, cleverly enough: but almost on the instant were jerked out of their footholds like puppets. Amid outcries of terror and warning, the outer wheel of the gun broke through the crumbling soil on the verge, the ropes flew through their hands, tearing away the flesh before the flesh could cast off its grip; and with a clatter of stones the gun somersaulted over the slope. With it, caught by the left-hand rope before he could spring clear, went hurling a man. They saw his bent shoulders strike a slab of rock ripped bare an instant before, and heard the thud as he disappeared.

As they ran to view the damage, the two riders came cantering across the gully and joined them. By good fortune, at the base of the rock there welled a tiny spring and spread itself in a miniature bog before making up its mind to leap down the mountain-side and feed the infant waters of the Taptee. Into this plashy soil the gun had plunged and the carriage lay some yards away up-ended on a broken wheel, but otherwise uninjured. Beside the carriage, when the General reached it, an artillery sergeant and three of the team of No. 2 gun were lifting the injured man.

"Badly hurt?"

The sergeant saluted. "We doubt it's over with him, sir. His back's broken, seemingly."

The General turned away to examine the face of the cliff, and almost at once gave vent to a low whistle.

"See here, Ellerton, the rock is caverned and the gun must have broken through the roof. It doesn't look to me like a natural cavern, either. Hi! half a dozen of you, clear away this rubbish and let me have a nearer look."

The men turned to and heaved away the fallen stones under which the water oozed muddily.

"Just as I thought! Nature never made a hole like this."

An exclamation interrupted him. It came from one of the relief party who had clambered into the cavern and was spading there in the loose soil.

"What is it?"

"A skeleton, sir!—stretched here as natural as life."

The General dismounted and clambered to the entrance, followed by his staff officer. As they reached it, the man stooped again and rose with something in his hand.

"Eh? A begging-bowl?"

"Not a doubt of it," said the staff officer, as his chief passed it to him. He examined it, turning it slowly over in his hands. "It's clear enough, though curious. We have struck the den of some old hermit of the hills, some holy man—"

"Who pitched his camp here for the sake of the water-spring, no doubt."

"Queer taste," said the staff officer sagely. "I wonder how the deuce he picked up his food."

"Oh, the hill-men hereabouts will travel leagues to visit and feed such a man."

"That doesn't explain why his bones lie unburied."

"No." The General mused for a moment. "Found anything else?" he demanded sharply.

The searchers reported "Nothing," and wished to know if they should bring the skeleton out into the light.

"No: cover him up decently, and fall in to limber up the gun!" He took his horse's bridle and walked back to the group about the injured man.

"Who is he?"

He was told, a corporal of the 94th who had volunteered for the gun team two days before. The sergeant who reported this added diffidently, "He had half a dozen of his religious mates in the team. He's a Wesleyan Methodist, sir, begging your pardon."

"Are you one?"

The sergeant saluted.

"He was the best man in his company and—and," he added with a touch of awe, "he was converted by Charles Wesley himself—at Bristol in 'eighty, so he's told us—and him aged but sixteen."

The General bent with sudden interest as the dying man opened his eyes. After scanning his face for a moment or two he said gently:

"My man, they tell me you knew Charles Wesley."

The corporal painfully bent his brows, on which the last sweat was gathering. "Is that—the General?" he gasped with a feeble effort to salute. Then his brain seemed to clear suddenly and he answered, not as soldier to commanding officer, but as man to man. "He converted me. Praise be to God!"

"You are going to him. You know?"

The corporal nodded.

"And you may take him a message from me: for he once did me a handsome turn, too—though not in that way. You may tell him—for I watched you with the guns to-day—that I pass you for a good soldier. You may tell him and his brother John that I wish to command no better followers than theirs. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"

The man looked up into the eyes of the sergeant bending over him, muttered a word or two, slowly drew his palm up to his forehead; and so, with the self-same salute, parted from his earthly captain and met his eternal Captain in Heaven.

"What did he say?" asked the General.

"He was wishful not to be put away without a hymn, sir," answered the sergeant, drawing himself erect to "Attention" and answering respectfully through his captain who had drawn near, having limbered up his gun.

The General nodded and turned away to watch the lowering of the remaining guns. A new track had been cut and down it they were trailed without accident. One by one they crossed the gully. Then the rear regiments hove in sight with the ambulance. The dead man was lifted in and his carrying-party, Wesleyans all, fell into rank behind the light wagon as that, too, moved on.

"Ellerton," said the General suddenly as he gazed after them, "did you hear what I said to that poor fellow just now?"

"Yes, General, and wondered."

"It was true, though. If it hadn't been for Charles Wesley, I should never be here commanding these troops. Wesley or Wellesley, sir— spell the name as you will: the man who adopted my great-grandfather spelt it Wesley: and he moved heaven and earth to make Charles Wesley his heir before he condescended to us. The offer stood open for years, but Charles Wesley refused it. I never heard why."

What—the hymn-man?"

"Even so. Odd story, is it not?"

The man who was to be the great Duke of Wellington stared for a moment, lost in thought, at his rear-guard mounting the farther slope of the gully. And as the British guns rolled onward into the dusk, back from the glimmering pass were borne the words of Wesley, Handel's music wafting them on its majestic wings: