Van Patten trudged along through the snow toward the tomb. He wasn’t a timid young man in any sense of the word, and the present excursion was nothing but a little adventure, which he could work up with frequent tellings into a good after-dinner story. “Rather a nasty night,” he muttered to himself, as he turned in at the cemetery gate. There was not a star in sight, and the sky was full of great threatening black clouds, which probably meant snow before morning.
He unlocked the tomb, and stepped inside, but it was some time before he could make out in the inky darkness where what he was seeking lay. There were three wooden boxes resting on iron bars set into the cement wall. All were of about the same length, and there was nothing by which to distinguish one from the other, as he felt them over.
“It’s a wonder he wouldn’t have told me there was a party of them here. How’s a man to know who’s who?” said the captain to himself, and he gave a slight shiver. “Well, here goes for luck, anyway,” and he began to unscrew the lid from the nearest coffin box.
After some ten minutes’ work he had the wooden cover off, and tried to pry the coffin open. The thing gave way at last, and he thrust his hand in and groped about the neck of the body, feeling for the tie. His hand met only a mass of lace and ribbons, and to his dismay he discovered that the corpse was that of a woman.
He hurriedly replaced the cover, screwed on the lid again, and wiped the sweat from his brow. There was not a sound in the vault save a thud now and then, when a piece of the ceiling, loosened by frost, fell to the floor, or struck on one of the wooden boxes. The humor of the situation was all gone now, and he was trembling as he began work on the second box. Every few minutes his shaking hands slipped, and the screw-driver would jam against the box with a dull, echoing thud. In his feverish haste he tried to turn the heavy screws with his bare fingers; but the rough edges cut him cruelly, and the box was soon splashed with blood. He did not feel the pain, however, and only worked the faster.
He loosened, but did not wholly remove the lid of the box, and then reached down to pry off the coffin cover; but he found that it was not fastened. He thrust his hand in, and felt again for the throat; but, to his horror, there was no throat there. He passed his hand up higher, and felt for the face, and there was only a little bunch of frozen flowers. “You’re losing your head, Pat,” he said to himself; but his voice was hollow, and echoed strangely in that gruesome, shut-in place. He reached farther down and felt along the arm. He gave a little pull on the hand, and it came off at the wrist. Thoroughly unmanned, he threw the thing on the floor, and ran shrieking from the tomb. Once outside again, the cold air brought him back to himself a little, but he could feel the touch of those icy fingers on his trembling hand. He was partly dazed, and could not reason rightly. The long strain had been too much for him, but one thought remained uppermost in his mind; he must get that black silk neck cloth from the man whose coffin still remained unopened.
He forced himself back into the tomb, but his heart fluttered strangely, as he knelt beside the last box. He did not stop to remove the screws, but drove the hammer under the cover, and twisted and wrenched the boards off furiously. The coffin lid withstood his efforts for some time, for the fastenings were strong; but at last they, too, gave way. He reached down for the throat again, dreading lest he should find some new horror. His hand touched a moist face, and the man in the coffin stirred and groaned.
“Lie still, damn you!” he shrieked, and seized the man brutally by the throat. A hand cold and clammy clutched his feebly. “Let go!” he screamed with another curse, and struck the face angrily with his hand. He tore the neckcloth, collar and all, from the man’s throat, and started to turn away, when a low voice came from the coffin. With a laugh that was not nice to hear, Van Patten staggered across the vault. As he neared the door his head struck against one of the iron coffin supports and he fell heavily to the ground.
Van Patten’s three friends sat around the table in the country house, anxiously waiting for the return of the captain. The wager was lost to Van Patten, for it was nearly two hours since he left the house, and the men were about to start out in search of him, when the front door opened and someone staggered into the lighted room from the hall. But the white-faced man who lurched toward them, with clothes torn and covered with blood, was not the captain, but Andrew Phelps. He talked wildly and incoherently; but they gathered from his ravings that he had been rescued from a living grave by someone who had immediately set upon him like a madman.