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As she passed out of the chapel, leaning on her husband's arm, the grave, graceful woman, composed rather than proud, Sir Edwin Uniacke must have felt that Christian Grey was as far removed from him and the like of him as if she dwelt already in the world beyond the grave. But this, perhaps, only made him the more determined to see her.
Captain Uniacke, retiring with a few of the Gordons, saw that there was only one course left: they must entrench for the night. He was in advance of the actual rear guard, attempting to hold a house against the fire of quite a hundred tribesmen. Collecting four men of his regiment, and shouting wildly, he rushed at the doorway.
For he stood perfectly still and never took his large blue eyes from the canvas. Uniacke went into the little passage, got his hat and hastened out, impelled yet without purpose. As he crossed the churchyard he saw Sir Graham put something into the sailor's hand. The sailor touched his cap awkwardly and rolled off. Uniacke hurried forward. "You've finished your work?" he said, coming up.
Uniacke thought of the street-cries of London to which he was going, and that this cry was like one of them. He heard it again. Now it was nearer. Short and sharp, it sounded both angry and something else what? Dolorous, he fancied, keen with a horror of wonder and of despair. He remembered where he was, and that he had never before heard such a cry on the Island. But he still sat by the table.
In a moment the painter came out of the gloom. "That churchyard draws me," he said, mounting the step. "You saw the Skipper?" "Yes, leaving." "Did he speak to you?" "Not a word." The clergyman breathed a sigh of relief. In the evening Uniacke turned his pipe two or three times in his fingers and said, looking down: "That picture of yours " "Yes. What of it?"
But still he did not recognise the voice. "Jack!" It was cried under the window of the parlour, fiercely, frantically. Uniacke knew the voice for the mad Skipper's. He delayed no longer, but hastened to the front room and stared out across the churchyard.
Silent and yet I seemed to feel that it said, 'This is what I am. Paint me like this. Look at what the sea has done to me! Look look at what the sea has done! Uniacke! Uniacke!" He sank down into a chair and stared before him with terrible eyes. A shudder ran over the clergyman, but he said, in a voice that he tried to make calm and consolatory, "Of course it was your fancy, Sir Graham.
The romance of death dropped away. The filthy reality of death stood before me, upon the grave of that boy." "You imagined it," muttered Uniacke. He spoke without conviction. "I did not. I saw it. For now I knew that I was no longer thinking of my picture.
Sir Graham put this strange question with a sort of morose fierceness, getting up from his chair as he spoke. The young clergyman could think of no reply. "Why not?" he said at last. "He may be well, happy, active in a life that he loves, that he glories in." "No, Uniacke, no, for he's far away from his duty.
Mr Uniacke, a man of fine presence, oratorical gifts, and high social position, had hitherto been the Tory leader and Howe's chief opponent in the House, and his conversion to the side of Responsible Government was indeed a triumph. But there was fierce work still to do.
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