"For God's grace, doan't 'e bawl so loud!" he implored. "If p'liceman was ridin' past and catched us!"
Though he felt no flicker of fear, Jonah realised the value of this counsel. He looked to see that the door was shut fast, then proceeded with his work in silence. The reluctant screws came out quicker as he acquired increased skill, and from their raw holes issued a faint smell of eucalyptus, for the coffin was built of that wood.
At last the men together lifted the lid, and set it in a corner. Then a sterner task awaited them where the lead shell lay bare. Noise of mallet on chisel was now inevitable, and Collins heard himself directed to stand sentry at the churchyard gate, so that if the nightly patrol should pass that way on his uncertain round, silence might fall until he had departed beyond earshot. Probability of any other human visitor there was none, unless the doctor chanced to be abroad.
Henry therefore got out into the fresh air very willingly, and before long sat him down at the churchyard gate and listened to muffled activity from Jonah's mallet in the distance. One other sound disturbed the night. Already grey dawn stole along the eastern woods, but the deep, tranced hour before bird-waking was upon all things, and in its loneliness Collins found the lap and chuckle of a stream under the churchyard wall welcome as a companion. It knew action at least, and broke the horrible stillness. Once he heard slow footfall of hoofs, and was about to give an alarm, when, from the shadows, came forth an old white horse that wandered alone through the night. Like a ghost it dragged itself slowly past—perchance waking from pain, perchance wondering, as such aged brutes may wonder, why grass and water are no longer sweet. It hobbled painfully away, and the echo of its passing was swallowed up in the silence, and the apparition of its body vanished under the mist. There only remained the wakeful streamlet, leaping from its dim journey among coffins into the watercress bed, and a hollow reverberation of blows from the mortuary.
Presently, however, Mr. Cramphorn's mallet ceased to strike, and finding that the supreme moment had now come, Collins nerved himself to return. From the dawn-grey into gloom he stole to see the picture of Jonah in a round ring of lantern light sharply painted upon darkness. A coffin, with its inner leaden shell torn back, lay at Cramphorn's feet, and Henry instantly observed that some tremendous and unforeseen circumstance had fallen out during his vigil at the churchyard gate. The other man was glaring before him like a lunatic; his short hair bristled; his face dripped. Terrified he was not, yet clearly had become the victim of amazed bewilderment and even horror.
"For Christ's sake, doan't 'e glaze at me like that!" implored Henry. "What have 'e done? What's happened to 'e? Doan't tell me you'm struck into that shaape for this high-handed job!"
The other's mouth was open and his under-jaw hung limp. Apparently he lacked force to speak, for he merely pointed to his work; upon which Collins looked sideways into the coffin with stealthy dread. Instantly his face also became transformed into a display of liveliest astonishment and dismay; but in his case frank terror crowded over him like a storm. And thus three men—two living and one a corpse—each confronted the others, while the marble serenity of this death offered a contrast to the frenzied emotion on the faces of those that lived.
"God's gudeness! You've brawked into the wrong wan!" gasped Collins.
Jonah shook his head, for still he could not answer; yet the suspicion of his companion seemed natural, because not Christopher Yeoland but another lay at their feet.
Within the coffin, placid and little disfigured save where the eyes had fallen in and the skin tightened over his high, bald brow, appeared a venerable face—a face almost patriarchal. The dead man's beard gleamed nobly white upon his breast, and his features presented the solemn, peaceful countenance of one indifferent to this rude assault from busy souls still in life.