How could human lungs breathe the midnight of blackening walls? The place was hot with the h.e.l.l of confinement. I said over and over--"O G.o.d, Thou art Light!--in Thee is no darkness at all!"

This anguish seemed a repet.i.tion of something I had endured once before.

The body and spirit remembered, though the mind had no register. I clawed at the walls. If I slept, it was to wake gasping, fighting upward with both hands.

The most singular phase was that I reproached myself for not soaking up more sun in the past. Oh, how much light was going to waste over wide fields and sparkling seas! The green woods, the green gra.s.s--they had their fill of sun, while we two perished!

I remembered creeping out of glare under the shadow of rocks, and wondered how I could have done it! If I ever came to the sun again I would stretch myself and roll from side to side, to let it burn me well!

How blessed was the tan we got in summer from steeping in light!

Looking at my cell-mate I could have rent the walls.

"We are robbed," I told his deaf ears. "The light, poured freely all over the city, the light that belongs to you and me as much as to anybody, would save you! I wish I could pick you up and carry you out where the sun would shine through your bones! But let us be glad, you and I, that there is a woman who is not buried like a whitening sprout under this weight of stone! She is free, to walk around and take the light in her gray eyes and the wind in her brown hair. I swear to G.o.d if I ever come out of this I will never pa.s.s so much as a little plant prostrate in darkness, without helping it to the light."

It was night by the loophole when our turnkey threw the door open. I heard the priest and his sacristan joking in the corridor before they entered carrying their sacred parcels. The priest was a doddering old fellow, almost deaf, for the turnkey shouted at his ear, and dim of sight, for he stooped close to look at the dying man, who was beyond confession.

"Bring us something for a temporary altar," he commanded the turnkey, who stood candle in hand.

The turnkey gave his light to the sacristan, and taking care to lock us in, hurried to obey.

I measured the lank, ill-strung a.s.sistant, more an overgrown boy than a man of brawn, but expanded around his upper part by the fullness of a short white surplice. He had a face cheerful to silliness.

The turnkey brought a board supported by crosspieces; and withdrew, taking his own candle, as soon as the church's tapers were lighted.

The sacristan placed the temporary altar beside the foot of the bed, arrayed it, and recited the Confiteor.

Then the priest mumbled the Misereatur and Indulgentiam.

I had seen extreme unction administered as I had seen many another office of the church in my dim days, with scarcely any attention. Now the words were terribly living. I knew every one before it rolled off the celebrant's lips. Yet under that vivid surface knowledge I carried on as vivid a sequence of thought.

The priest elevated the ciborium, repeating,

"Ecce Agnus Dei."

Then three times--"Domine, non sum dignus."

I heard and saw with exquisite keenness, yet I was thinking,

"If I do not get out of here he will have to say those words over me."

He put the host in the parted mouth of the dying, and spoke--

"Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vetam aeternam."

I thought how easy it would be to strip the loose surplice over the sacristan's head. There was a swift clip of the arm around your opponent's neck which I had learned in wrestling, that cut the breath off and dropped him as limp as a cloth. It was an Indian trick. I said to myself it would be impossible to use that trick on the sacristan if he left the cell behind the deaf old priest. I did not want to hurt him.

Still, he would have a better chance to live after I had squeezed his neck, than I should have if I did not squeeze it.

The priest took out of a silver case a vessel of oil, and a branch. He sprinkled holy water with the branch, upon the bed, the walls, the sacristan and me, repeating,

"Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor."

While I bent my head to the drops, I knew it was impossible to choke down the sacristan, strip off his surplice, invest myself with it and get out of the cell before priest or turnkey looked back. The sacrilege of such an attack would take all the strength out of me.

The priest said the Exaudi nos, exhorted the insensible figure, then recited the Credo and the Litany, the sacristan responding.

Silence followed.

I knew the end was approaching. My hands were as cold as the nerveless one which would soon receive the candle. I told myself I should be a fool to attempt it. There was not one chance in a hundred. I should not squeeze hard enough. The man would yell. If I were swift as lightning and silent as force, they would take me in the act. It was impossible.

But people who cannot do impossible things have to perish.

The priest dipped his thumb in oil, and with it crossed the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands of him who was leaving the use of these five senses and instruments of evil.

Then he placed a lighted candle in the stiffened fingers, and ended with--

"Accipe lampadem ardentem custodi unctionem tuam."

I said to myself--"I cannot do it! n.o.body could! It is impossible!"

The sacristan now began to strip the altar and pack all the sacred implements into their cases: preparing his load in the center of the room.

The man was dead.

The sacristan's last office was to fix the two lighted altar candles on the head and foot railing of the bed. They showed the corpse in its appalling stillness, and stood like two angels, with the pit between them.

The sacristan rapped upon the door to let the turnkey know it was time to unlock.

I drew the thick air to my lung depths. The man who would breathe no more was not as rigid as I stood. But there was no use in attempting such a thing!

The turnkey opened a gap of doorway through which he could see the candles and the bed. He opened no wider than the breadth of the priest, who stepped out as the sacristan bent for the portables.

There was lightning in my arm as it took the sacristan around the neck and let him limp upon the stones. The tail of the priest's ca.s.sock was scarcely through the door.

"Eh bien! sacristan," called the turnkey. "Make haste with your load. I have this death to report. He is not so pretty that you must stand gazing at him all night!"

I had the surplice over the sacristan's head and over mine, and backed out with my load, facing the room.

If my jailer had thrust his candle at me, if the priest had turned to speak, if the man in the cell had got his breath before the bolt was turned, if my white surplice had not appeared the princ.i.p.al part of me in that black place--.

It was impossible!--but I had done it.

V

The turnkey's candle made a star-point in the corridor. He walked ahead of the priest and I walked behind. We descended to the entrance where the man with the big book sat taking stock of another wretch between officers. I saw as I shaded my face with the load, that his inattentive eye dwelt on my surplice, which would have pa.s.sed me anywhere in France.

"Good-night, monsieur the cure," said the turnkey, letting us through the outer door.