The woman was evidently English,
young and pretty, although her long hair, heavy and wet, was polluted by
the sand that stuck to it, and her half-open eyes were filled with
the same. On her lips there lingered a slight smile. She was of middle
height, of slender figure, and delicately nurtured, as the small
bare feet and little hands showed. As I looked at the latter I saw a
wedding-ring on her finger, and I thought, "It is Bransome's wife." I
tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her finger--which
I might have known, because the natives would not have left it there
had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the bearers to lay the
bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little party wended its way
along the shore homeward, while the natives I had dispersed followed one
after another in African fashion.
Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side on
a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave in the
little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-eaten wooden
crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of Messrs.
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