If they were meaning to break their part of the bargain it mattered very little, for I was unable to keep mine.
I had suspected that from the moment the boulder was uprooted; I knew it a moment after the lantern was hung upon the headstone. The stone had rested on that grave for two years, yet at the fresh pressure of the pick it had given and swayed and rolled from its green pedestal. It had tumbled at my feet, and there was not even a clot of earth or a pebble clinging to it. Moreover, on the grave itself there was grass where it had rested. For all its weight, it had not settled into the ground or so much as worn the herbage. Yet it had rested there two years!
The lantern was hung upon the headstone, and its light showed to me that close to the ground the headstone had been chipped. It was as though some one had swung a pick and by mistake had struck the edge of the headstone. Moreover, whoever had swung the pick had swung it recently. For whereas the face of the granite was dull and weatherbeaten, this chipped edge sparkled like quartz.
The aspect of the grave itself confirmed me. Some pains had been taken to replace the sods of grass upon the top, but all about the mound, wherever the lantern-light fell, I could see lumps of fresh clay.
The grave had been opened, and recently--I did not stop then to consider by whom--and secretly. It could have been opened but for the one reason. There would be no plan there for Glen to find.
Roper uttered an exclamation and stopped digging. His spade had struck something hard. Glen lowered the lantern into the trench, and the light struck up on to his face and the face of the diggers.
I hazarded a whisper to Tortue, and certainly no one else heard it, but neither did Tortue. Roper struck his spade in with renewed vigour, and a stifled cry which burst at the same moment from the five mouths told me the coffin-lid was disclosed. I whispered again the louder:
"Tortue! Tortue!" and with no better result.
The pick was handed down at Roper's call. I spoke now, and at last he heard. He turned his head across his shoulder towards me, but he only motioned me to silence. The pick rang upon wood, and now I called:
"Tortue! Tortue!"