ain's jealous, capricious, inconsequent and illogical God.
Anthropomorphism!

Is there a God at all?

I shall soon know.

If so--

Oh Thou, who man of baser earth didst make
And ev'n with Paradise devised the Snake,
For all the Sin the face of wretched man
Is black with--Man's forgiveness give--and take!

At dawn I said aloud:--

"This Chapter is closed. The story of Burker and Dolores is written. I
may now strive to forget."

I was wrong.

Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C. came to see me soon after daylight. He
gave me an opiate and I slept all that day and night. I went on parade
next morning, fresh, calm, and cool--and saw _Burker riding toward the
group of gentlemen who were awaiting the signal to "fall in"_.

I say I was fresh, calm, and cool.

I was.

And there was Burker--looking exactly as in life, save for a slight
nebulosity, a very faint vagueness of outline, and a hint of
transparency.

I had been instructed by the Adjutant to assume the post of Instructor
(as the end of the Mounted Infantry drill season was near)--and I blew
the "rally" on my whistle as many of the gentlemen were riding about,
and shouted the command: "Fall in".

Twenty living men and one dead faced me, twenty dismounted and one
mounted. I called the corporal in charge of the armoury.

"How many on parade?" I asked.

He looked puzzled, counted, and said:--

"Why--twenty, ain't there?"

I numbered the troop.

Twenty--and Burker.

"Tell off by sections."

Five sections--and Burker.

"Sections right."

A column of five sections--and Burker, in the rear.

I called out the section-leader of Number One section.

"Are the sections correctly proved?" I asked, and added: "Put the troop
back in line and tell-off again".

"Five sections, correct," he reported.

I held that drill, with five sections of living men, and a single file
of dead, who manoeuvred to my word.

When I gave the order "With Numbers Three for action dismount," or
"Right-hand men, for action dismount," Burker remained mounted. When I
dismounted the whole troop, Burker remained mounted. Otherwise he
drilled precisely as Number Twenty-one would have drilled in a troop of
twenty-one men.

Was I frightened? I do not know.

At first my heart certainly pounded as though it would leap from my
body, and I felt dazed, lost, and shocked.

I think I _was_ frightened--not of Burker so much as of the unfamiliar,
the unknown, the impossible