Dan flung up the window. The first red streak
of dawn was warming the gray east, a herald of the coming sun. John
saw it, and with the love of light which lingers in us to the end,
seemed to read in it a sign of hope of help, for, over his whole
face there broke that mysterious expression, brighter than any
smile, which often comes to eyes that look their last. He laid
himself gently down; and, stretching out his strong right arm, as if
to grasp and bring the blessed air to his lips in a fuller flow,
lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness, which assured us that for
him suffering was forever past. He died then; for, though the heavy
breaths still tore their way up for a little longer, they were but
the waves of an ebbing tide that beat unfelt against the wreck,
which an immortal voyager had deserted with a smile. He never spoke
again, but to the end held my hand close, so close that when he was
asleep at last, I could not draw it away. Dan helped me, warning me
as he did so, that it was unsafe for dead and living flesh to lie so
long together; but though my hand was strangely cold and stiff, and
four white marks remained across its back, even when warmth and
color had returned elsewhere, I could not but be glad that, through
its touch, the presence of human sympathy, perhaps, had lightened
that hard hour.
When they had made him ready for the grave, John lay in state for
half an hour, a thing which seldom happened in that busy place; but
a universal sentiment of reverence and affection seemed to fill the
hearts of all who had known or heard of him; and when the rumor of
his death went through the house, always astir, many came to see
him, and I felt a tender sort of pride in my lost patient; for he
looked a most heroic figure, lying there stately and still as the
statue of some young knight asleep upon his tomb.
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