and then they all fell back like a wave, all of them crying out, and some of them turning and trying to push away. And the poor woman, she was wild, bending her knees, and trying to get free of those men that were holding onto her. Well, I couldn't help but go up. I don't suppose anything could have kept me away; and I'll tell you that's the first time I've ever done such a thing, and, God help me, it's to be the last. Now, you must believe me, you must! But there, right there in that coffin, with that fellow standing on the broken boards over her feet, was the dead woman, and I tell you... I tell you she was as fresh, as pink =his voice cracked, and he sat there, his eyes wide, his hand poised as if he held something invisible in his fingers, pleading with me to believe him-`as pink as if she were alive! Buried six months! And there she lay! The shroud was thrown back off her, and her hands lay on her breast just as if she were asleep.'
"He sighed. His hand dropped to his leg and he shook his head, and for a moment he just sat staring.'I swear to you!' he said.'And then this fellow who was in the grave, he bent down and lifted the dead woman's hand. I tell you that arm moved as freely as my arm! And he held her hand out as if he were looking at her nails. Then he shouted; and that woman beside the grave, she was kicking at those fellows and shoving at the earth with her foot, so it fell right down in the corpse's face and hair. And oh, she was so pretty, that dead woman; oh, if you could have seen her, and what they did then!'
"'Tell me what they did,' I said to him softly. But I knew before he said it.
"'I tell you... ' he said.'We don't know the meaning of something like that until we see it!' And he looked at me, his eyebrow arched as if he were confiding a terrible secret.'We just don't know.'
"'No, we don't,' I said.
"'I'll tell you. They took a stake, a wooden stake, mind you; and this one in the grave, he took -the stake with a hammer and he put it right to her breast. I didn't believe it! And then with one great blow he drove it right into her. I tell you, I couldn't have moved even if I'd wanted to; I was rooted there. And then that fellow, that beastly fellow, he reached up for his shovel and with both his arms he drove it sharp, right into the dead woman's throat. The head was off like that' He shut his eyes, his face contorted, and put his head to the side.
"I looked at him, but I wasn't seeing him at all. I was seeing this woman in her grave with the head severed, and I was feeling the most keen revulsion inside myself, as if a hand were pressing on my throat and my insides were coming up inside me and I couldn't breathe. Then I felt Claudia's lip against my wrist She was staring at Morgan, and apparently she had been for some time.
"Slowly Morgan looked up at me, his eyes wild.'It's what they want to do with her,' he said.'With Emily! Well I won't let them.' He shook his head adamantly.'I won't let them. You've got to help me, Louis.' His lips were trembling, and his face so distorted now by his sudden desperation that I might have recoiled from it despite myself.'The same blood flows in our veins, you and I. I mean, French, English, we're civilized men, Louis. They're savages!'
"`Try to be calm now, Morgan,' I said, reaching out for him.'I want you to tell me what happened then. You and Emily. '
"He was struggling for his bottle. I drew it out of his pocket, and he took off the cap.'That's a fellow, Louis; that's a friend,' he said emphatically.'You see, I took her away fast. They were going to burn that corpse right there in the cemetery; and Emily was not to see that, not while I... ' He shook his head'There wasn't a carriage to be found that would take us out of here; not a single one of them would leave now for the two days' drive to get us to a decent place!'
"'But how