The sacristan silently pointed to the chancel, and I walked

hesitatingly across the gloomy intervening space, my footsteps echoing

formidably in the silence. Two young priests stood, one at either side

of the lofty bier. One of them bowed to me, and I took his place. He

disappeared into the ambulatory. The other priest was praying for the

dead, a slight frown on his narrow white brow. His back was

half-turned towards the corpse, and he did not seem to notice me in

any way.

I folded my arms, and as some relief from the uncanny and troublous

thoughts which ran in my head I looked about me. I could not bring

myself to gaze on the purple cloth which covered the remains of

Alresca. We were alone--the priest, Alresca, and I--and I felt afraid.

In vain I glanced round, in order to reassure myself, at the

stained-glass windows, now illumined by September starlight, at the

beautiful carving of the choir-stalls, at the ugly rococo screen. I

was afraid, and there was no disguising my fear.

Suddenly the clock chimes of the belfry rang forth with startling

resonance, and twelve o'clock struck upon the stillness. Then followed

upon the bells a solemn and funereal melody.

"How comes that?" I asked the priest, without stopping to consider

whether I had the right to speak during my vigil.

"It is the carilloneur," my fellow watcher said, interrupting his

whispered and sibilant devotions, and turning to me, as it seemed,

unwillingly. "Have you not heard it before? Every evening since the

death he has played it at midnight in memory of Alresca." Then he

resumed his office.

The minutes passed, or rather crawled by, and, if anything, my

uneasiness increased. I suffered all the anxieties and tremors which

those suffer who pass wakeful nights, imagining every conceivable ill,

and victimized by the most dreadful forebodings. Through it all I was

conscious of the cold of the stone floor penetrating my boots and

chilling my feet....

The third quarter after one struck, and I began to congratulate myself

that the ordeal by the bier was coming to an end. I looked with a sort

of bravado into the dark, shadowed distances of the fane, and smiled

at my nameless trepidations. And then, as my glance sought to

penetrate the gloom of the great western porch, I grew aware that a

man stood there. I wished to call the attention of the priest to this

man, but I could not--I could not.

He came very quietly out of the porch, and walked with hushed

footfall up the nave; he mounted the five steps to the chancel; he

approached us; he stood at the foot of the bier; he was within a yard

of me. The priest had his back to him. The man seemed to ignore me; he

looked fixedly at the bier. But I knew him. I knew that fine, hard,

haughty face, that stiff bearing, that implacable eye. It was the man

whom I had seen standing under the trees opposite the Devonshire

Mansion in London.




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