XI.— THE VICTORY.
God led it to its long repose,
Its glorious rest.
And though the warrior's sun has set,
Its light shall linger round us yet,
Bright, radiant, blest."—Longfellow.
The night of the 22d of March was dark and dreary. The wind rose high, and swept in stormy gusts across the Crimea. There was for a time a stillness over the three armies, like the calm before a tempest.
At the advanced post of the British forces on the side nearest the French, was a detachment of the 97th Regiment, commanded by Captain Vicars. No watch-fire on that post of danger might cast its red light, as aforetime, on the Book of God. Yet was that place of peril holy ground. Once more the night breeze bore away the hallowed sounds of prayer. Once more the deep, earnest eyes of Hedley Vicars looked upward to that heaven in which his place was now prepared. Perhaps in that dark night he pictured a return to his country, to his home, to the chosen of his heart, and thought of all the loving welcomes which awaited him. But there are better things than these, dear as they are, which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Perhaps his spirit took a loftier flight, and imagined the yet more joyful welcomes upon the eternal shore.
One stern duty more, soldier and Christian, and realities more lovely and glorious than it hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, shall satisfy thy soul.
