"I can't stand this, Jack. How can people be buried in stone vaults? I'm choking."
Without waiting for a reply, he slipped away between the pillars, and I was left alone with Mr. Penfellow. The verger was just shepherding the pall-bearers through the gate.
"A very sad chapter in the glorious history of this ancient family, Mr. Nash," murmured the vicar with moist eyes. "But surely no man could hope for a grander Valhalla."
He gestured toward the encircling tombs.
"All of the line since Elizabethan times. That is, all the lords and their ladies. Cadets and collaterals are buried elsewhere in the church. Have you heard the story of Lady Jane Chesby, the builder of this chamber? Ah! Very interesting, is it not? Her own husband was lost at sea, you know. But here is an empty tomb she reared to him."
He led me to the handsomest sarcophagus in the center of the chamber. On the marble lid was carved life-size the effigy of a man in half-armor, sea-boots and morion. In his hands, clasped upon his breast, he grasped a sextant.
The lettering of the inscription on the side I hastily deciphered as:
"James Matthew Kymmer, Baron Chesby
Hereditarie Rangare of Crowdene Wood,
Admirall of ye Queene's Gracious Majestie,
Scourge of ye Spaniards and all Papists and
Infidells, Lost at Sea anno apud. 1590