Words came to her in the language of her childhood. "My God," she cried, "Fiend that dwellest beyond the sky, have mercy. Pitiless Father, who didst condemn thy Son for sport, whose nostrils love the scent of burning men, whose ears find music in their agony, whose eyes gloat upon their writhings, take me to thy hell of torment and release my child."
And so, with frantic blasphemy, cursing God and beating her breast, she fell forward upon the baby's grave.
CHAPTER XXIX.
DR. STANLEY DISCOURSES CONCERNING THE DIVERSIONS OF THE SAINTS.
At the hour agreed upon, Mrs. Joe left Stormpoint to fetch Natalie. As the latter had done in the morning, and in order to inspect the newly-erected headstone, she alighted from her carriage at the cemetery and passed through various alleys, when, as she approached her destination, she suddenly halted.
A woman was stretched upon the grave, who, on hearing the ejaculation of Mrs. Joe, partly raised her head, disclosing an earth-bedaubed face, and emitting sounds not human, but rather the moans of a tortured animal.
Mrs. Joe ran and seized her shoulder, and at the touch Natalie half arose. Her gleaming eyes, her face distorted and soiled with earth—these presented an appalling spectacle.
The lady of Stormpoint could hardly have told how the task was accomplished, but she succeeded in inducing the frantic woman to enter the carriage, and, thus separated from the grave, she became quieter, though never ceasing to mutter phrases which caused the listener to shudder. Mrs. Joe was a woman of varied experience. She had heard the oaths of mining camps when pistols and knives were out and frenzied ruffians were athirst for blood; she would have thought no form of profanity strange to her ears; yet she had heard no blasphemy equal to that uttered by her companion, repeated as a weary child asleep may repeat some hard-learned sentence impressed upon a tired brain.
Arrived home, and Natalie in her bed, and withal lying quiet, and the carriage dispatched at full speed for Dr. Stanley, there was time to consider the next step.