173. Death. 20th October 1890.

As we have seen, Burton had for some months shown signs of bodily decay; and he now daily grew weaker. His eyes, though still fierce and penetrating, were sunk into hollow cavities. His body was emaciated, his hands were thin to transparency, his voice was sometimes inarticulate, and he could hardly walk without support. Still, there seemed no immediate cause for anxiety, and, as will be seen from the following letter 628 (15th October 1890) to Mr. David MacRitchie, he was busy evolving new plans, including a visit to Greece, to be made in the company of Dr. Schliemann, 629 the archaeologist." In the spring of next year (Inshallah!) there will be a total disruption of my Lares and Penates. I shall be 'retired for age,' and leave Trieste for ever with my mental eye upon a flat in London which can be locked up at a moment's notice when the renter wants to go abroad. Meanwhile we are off to Athens about mid-November. All luck to the [Gypsy] Society." On the same day he wrote to Mr. W. F. Kirby: "Excuse post-card. We have no secrets. Please don't forget to keep me au courant of your movements in re Jan., &c.

We shall not be in London before early September 1891, I imagine, but then it will be for good." Elsewhere he says, almost in the words of Ovid, "My earnest wish is somehow to depart from these regions." He was to depart, very soon, but in a manner little expected.

Sir Richard as we have noticed, would never say "Good-bye." It was always "Au revoir." One day in this October Miss Letchford went to see him with her little sister. It was tea-time, but Lady Burton was in another room with a visitor. Never had he appeared so bright or affectionate. He laughed and joked and teased the child and would not let them go for two hours. At last he shook hands and said, "Come and see me again very soon. I like you and your sister.—-Good-bye, Daisy." "I was so startled," comments Miss Letchford, "by that 'Good-bye' that a shiver passed over me. I felt at that moment that I should never see him again." Two days later Mr. Albert Letchford called on Sir Richard, who seemed fairly well, but he remarked "The good Switzerland did me ended this evening."

Dr. Baker, though himself just then a great sufferer from neuralgic headache, watched with anxious solicitude over his patient. On the last day of his life Sir Richard seemed better than usual, and all the household remarked his excellent spirits. It was Sunday October 29th. After returning from mass and communion at eight in the morning Lady Burton found him engaged upon the last page of the twentieth chapter of The Scented Garden. 630 The work was therefore almost half done. She kissed him, and he said, "To-morrow I shall have finished this, and then I will begin our biography." She commented "What happiness that will be!" Her mind, however, was not quite at ease that morning, for a bird had pecked for the third time at a window that was never opened, and Sir Richard remarked "This is a sign of death."

The day was fine, and after breakfast Burton took his usual two hours' walk with Dr. Baker. On the way out through the garden he noticed a robin drowning in the basin of a fountain. 631 At his request Dr. Baker rescued it, and Burton, opening his coat and vest—for he never wore a waistcoat—warmed the bird at his breast, and then carried it to the house to be cared for by the porter. The incident carries us back to those old days at Tours, when, as a boy, he often laid himself out to revive unfortunate birds and small beasts. In the afternoon he wrote some letters and discussed gaily the proposed visit to Greece. They dined at half-past seven, and talked and laughed as usual, though Burton seemed tired. As usual, too, he shocked his wife by jesting about scapularies and other sacred things, but the conversation ran chiefly on General Booth's scheme for relieving the Submerged Tenth; and Burton, who entered into the subject with zest, observed: "When you and I get to England and are quite free we will give our spare time to that." 632

In the course of the day Mrs. Victoria Maylor came in with the manuscript of The Scented Garden and the copy of it which she had made for the printers, 633 and from this we may deduce that Sir Richard intended to go to press at once with the first twenty chapters of the work. He may have intended to publish the twenty-first chapter later as a second volume. At half-past nine he retired to his bedroom. Lady Burton then repeated "the night prayers to him," and while she was speaking "a dog," to use her own words, "began that dreadful howl which the superstitious regard as the harbinger of death."

After prayers, Burton asked for "chou-chou;" she game him a paper-covered copy in two volumes of the Martyrdom of Madeline 634 by Robert Buchanan, and he lay in bed reading it. At midnight he complained of pain in his foot, but said he believed it was only a return of the gout—the "healthy gout," which troubled him about every three months.

"Let me call Dr. Baker," said Lady Burton.

"No," replied Sir Richard, "don't disturb him poor fellow, he has been in frightful pain with his head; and has at last got a little sleep."

At four, however, Lady Burton paid no heed to her husband's remonstrances, but called up Dr. Baker, who, however, saw no cause for alarm, and after administering some medicine he returned to bed. Half an hour later Burton complained that there was no air, and Lady Burton, again thoroughly alarmed, rose to call in Dr. Baker once more.

Although Burton was then dying, he said, "Poor chap, don't disturb him."

But Lady Burton instantly summoned Dr. Baker, who on entering pronounced the situation grave. Lady Burton at once roused the servants and sent in all directions for a priest; while, assisted by Dr. Baker and Lisa, she "tried every remedy and restorative," but in vain.

"Oh, Puss," cried Burton, "chloroform—ether—quick!"

"My darling," replied Lady Burton in anguish. "Dr. Baker says it would kill you. He is doing everything possible."

His breathing then became laboured, and after a brief struggle for air he cried, "I am dying, I am dead." Lady Burton held him in her arms, but he got heavier, and presently became insensible. Dr Baker applied an electric battery to the heart, and Lady Burton kneeling at the bedside, and holding her husband's hand, prayed her "heart out to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead in appearance) till the priest arrived." But it was in vain. The priest, a Slavonian, named Pietro Martelani, came in about half-past six. We may regret what followed, but no one would judge harshly the actions of an agonised woman. Pity for human suffering must drown all other feelings. The priest looked at the dead but warm body and asked whether there was still any life. That the heart and pulsed had ceased to beat, Lady Burton herself afterwards admitted to her relations, but deceiving herself with the belief that life still continued in the brain, she cried: "He is alive, but I beseech you, lose not a moment, for the soul is passing away."

"If," said the Priest, "he is a Protestant, he cannot receive the Holy Sacrament in this way."

Lady Burton having declared that her husband "had abjured the heresy and belonged to the Catholic Church," the priest at once administered "the last comforts."

It was certainly a kind of consolation to the poor lady to feel that her husband had not departed unhouselled; but it is equally evident that her mind had given way, for the scenes that presently followed can be explained only on this assumption. 635

Dr. Baker at once sent a brief note to Mr. Letchford. Singularly enough the night before—that is the terrible Sunday night—Miss Daisy Letchford experienced "a strange instance of telepathy." "My brother," she says, "had gone out, and I waited alone for him. Suddenly I fancied I heard footsteps in the passage and stopping at the door of the room where I was reading. I felt drops of cold sweat on my forehead. I was afraid, yet I knew that no one was about at that time of the night. The door opened slowly, and I felt the impression of some one looking at me. I dared not raise my eyes. The footsteps seemed to approach. In a fit of fear I looked up and saw Sir Richard standing before me. He started, waved his hand and disappeared. Early in the morning came a ring at the bell. I jumped out of bed and burst into tears as I said, 'This is to tell us that Sir Richard is dead.' At that moment the maid brought in the letter for my brother from Dr. Baker. I ran with it into his room. 'Albert, Albert,' I cried, 'Sir Richard is dead.' He opened the letter. It was only too true."

The same morning, Mr. P. P. Cautley, the Vice Consul, was called up to the house.

The undertaker, who was already there, asked in Mr. Cautley's presence to what religion Sir Richard belonged.

Turning to Mr. Cautley, Lady Burton asked: "What religion shall I say?"

"Tell him Sir Richard's true religion," replied Mr. Cautley. 636

She then said, "Catholic."

"But!" interjected Mr. Cautley.

"YES," followed Lady Burton, "he was a Catholic."

Lady Burton still nursed the hope that Sir Richard was not quite dead. There was life in the brain, she persisted in saying. Would he revive? "For forty-eight hours," she tells us, "she knelt watching him." She could not shed a tear. Then she "had the ulnar nerve opened and strong electricity applied to make sure of his death."

Some months after, when her mind had regained its equilibrium, she observed to Major St. George Burton. 637 "To a Protestant, Dick's reception into the Holy Church must seem meaningless and void. He was dead before extreme unction was administered; and my sole idea was to satisfy myself that he and I would be buried according to the Catholic rites and lie together above ground in the Catholic cemetery. He was not strictly received, for he was dead, and the formula Si es capax, &c., saved the priest's face and satisfied the church." When mortification began to set in, the body, which was found to be covered with scars, the witnesses of a hundred fights, was embalmed, laid out in uniform, and surrounded with candles and wreaths. "He looked so sweet," says Lady Burton, "such an adorable dignity, like a sleep." 638 Behind the bed still hung the great map of Africa. On his breast Lady Burton had placed a crucifix, and he still wore the steel chain and the "Blessed Virgin Medal," which she had given him just before the Tanganyika journey.

Priests, pious persons, and children from the orphanage of St. Joseph, in which Lady Burton had taken so much interest, watched and prayed, recited the office for the dead, and sang hymns.

There were three distinct funerals at Trieste, and there was to be another nine months onward in England. All that can be said is that Lady Burton seemed to draw comfort from pageantry and ceremonial that to most mourners would have been only a long-drawn agony.

The procession was a royal one. The coffin was covered with the Union Jack, and behind it were borne on a cushion Burton's order and medals. Then followed a carriage with a pyramid of wreaths, and lastly, the children of St. Joseph's orphanage, a regiment of infantry and the governor and officials of Trieste.

Every flag in the town was half-mast high, multitudes thronged the streets, and every window and balcony was crowded. Every head was uncovered. The procession wound its way from the Palazzo Gosleth down the declivity into the city under a bright sun pouring down its full beams, and so onward through the serried masses of spectators to the cemetery. Writing to Lady Stisted, 639 Lady Burton says, "I did not have him buried, but had a private room in the cemetery [a "chapelle ardente"] consecrated (with windows and doors on the ground floor) above ground where I can go and sit with him every day. He had three church services performed over him, and 1,100 masses said for the repose of his soul." "For the man," commented the profane, "who, in his own words, 'protested against the whole business,' perhaps 1,100 masses would not have been enough." In an oration delivered in the Diet of Trieste, Dr. Cambon called him an intrepid explorer, a gallant soldier, an honour to the town of Trieste." The whole press of the world rang with his praises. The noble tribute paid to his memory by Algernon C. Swinburne has often been quoted: