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CHAPTER XXXI.

THE LAST BATTLE FOE THE REPUBLIC.

ENDERLY at last I laid her down, and moved about. Glad of something to do, I gathered fallen branches, de cayed wood, and dry, dead reeds, and built a ready pyre.

I struck flints together, made a fire, and when the surf of light again broke in across the eastern wall, I lifted her up, laid her tenderly on the pile, composed her face and laid her little hands across her breast. I lighted the grass and tules. So the fire took hold and leaped and laughed, and crackled, and reached, as if to salute the solemn boughs that bent and waved from the cliffs above, as bending and looking into a grave. I gathered white stones and laid a circle around the embers. How rank and tall the grass is growing above her ashes now ! The stones have settled and settled till almost sunk in the earth, but this girl is not forgotten. This is the monu ment I raise above her ashes and her faithful life.