CHAPTER I
THE TRUTH ABOUT "THE SCENTED GARDEN"
Now I indeed will hide desire and all repine,
And light up this my fire that neighbours see no sign:
Accept I what befalls by order of my Lord,
Haply he too accept this humble act of mine.
Alf Laylah wa Laylah
(Burton's "Arabian Nights").
SIR RICHARD BURTON'S funeral was attended by a great crowd of mourners and representatives of every class in Trieste. The Austrian authorities accorded him military honours, and the Bishop of Trieste conceded all the rites of the Church. His remains were laid, with much pomp and circumstance, in their temporary resting-place—a small chapel in the burial-ground—until his widow could take them back with her to England. The funeral over, Lady Burton returned to her desolate house—a home no longer, for the loved presence which had made the palazzo a home, as it would have made a home to her of the humblest hut on earth, was gone for ever. The house was but an empty shell. Sir Richard Burton's death had been so sudden and unexpected that none of Lady Burton's near relatives, her
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