“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, “how shall I ever survive this blow—­my brother! oh, my brother! tell me that you forgive me.”

“Most willingly; yet what is there to be forgiven?  You took me for an enemy and hence alone your error.  It was fate, Henry.  A dreadful doom has long been prophesied to the last of our race.  We are the last—­and this is the consummation.  Let it console you however to think that, though your hand had not slain me another’s would.  In the ranks of the enemy I should have found—­Henry, my kind, my affectionate brother—­your hand—­there—­there—­ what dreadful faintness at my heart—­Matilda, it is my turn now—­Oh, God have mercy, oh—­”

While this scene was passing by the road side between the unfortunate brothers, the main body of the British force had come up to the spot where the General still lay expiring in the arms of De Courcy, and surrounded by the principal of the medical staff.  The majority of these were of the Regiment previously named—­veterans who had known and loved their gallant leader during the whole course of his spotless career, and more than one rude hand might be seen dashing the tear that started involuntarily to the eye.  As the colors of the Forty-Ninth passed before him, the General made an effort to address some language of encouragement to his old corps, but the words died away in indistinct murmurs, and waving his hand in the direction of the heights, he sank back exhausted with the effort, and resigned his gallant spirit for ever.

For some minutes after life had departed, Henry Grantham continued to hang over the body of his ill-fated brother, with an intenseness of absorption that rendered him heedless even of the rapid fire of musketry in the advance.  The sound of De Courcy’s voice was the first thing that seemed to call him to consciousness.  De Courcy had heard the cry uttered by the latter, on receiving the fatal shot, and his imagination had too faithfully portrayed the painful scene that had ensued.  A friend of both brothers, and particularly attached of late to the younger from the similar nature of their service, he was inexpressibly shocked, but still cherishing a hope that the wound might not be attended with loss of life, he expected to find his anticipations realized by some communication from his friend.  Finding however that the one rose not, and remarking that the general demeanour of the other was that of profound despair, he began at length to draw the most unfavorable conclusion, and causing the body of his Commander to be borne under cover of the building, until proper means of transport could be found, he hastened to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy.