The ground under the snow was discouragingly hard. To David the digging of the grave seemed like chipping out bits of flint from a solid block, and he soon turned over the pick to Mukoki. Alternately they worked for an hour, and each time that the Cree took his place David wondered what was keeping the Missioner so long in the cabin. At last Mukoki intimated with a sweep of his hands and a hunch of his shoulders that their work was done. The grave looked very shallow to David, and he was about to protest against his companion's judgment when it occurred to him that Mukoki had probably digged many holes such as this in the earth, and had helped to fill them again, so it was possible he knew his business. After all, why did people weigh down one's last slumber with six feet of soil overhead when three or four would leave one nearer to the sun, and make not quite so chill a bed? He was thinking of this as he took a last look at Tavish. Then he heard the Indian give a sudden grunt, as if some one had poked him unexpectedly in the pit of the stomach. He whirled about, and stared.
Father Roland stood within ten feet of them, and at sight of him an exclamation rose to David's lips and died there in an astonished gasp. He seemed to be swaying, like a sick man, in the moonlight, and impelled by the same thought Mukoki and David moved toward him. The Missioner extended an arm, as if to hold them back. His face was ghastly, and terrible—almost as terrible as Tavish's, and he seemed to be struggling with something in his throat before he could speak. Then he said, in a strange, forced voice that David had never heard come from his lips before:
"Bury him. There will be—no prayer."
He turned away, moving slowly in the direction of the forest. And as he went David noticed the heavy drag of his feet, and the unevenness of his trail in the snow.
CHAPTER XIII
For two or three minutes after Father Roland had disappeared in the forest David and Mukoki stood without moving. Amazed and a little stunned by the change they had seen in the Missioner's ghastly face, and perplexed by the strangeness of his voice and the unsteadiness of his walk as he had gone away from them, they looked expectantly for him to return out of the shadows of the timber. His last words had come to them with metallic hardness, and their effect, in a way, had been rather appalling: "There will be—no prayer." Why? The question was in Mukoki's gleaming, narrow eyes as he faced the dark spruce, and it was on David's lips as he turned at last to look at the Cree. There was to be no prayer for Tavish! David felt himself shuddering, when suddenly, breaking the silence like a sinister cackle, an exultant exclamation burst from the Indian, as though, all at once, understanding had dawned upon him. He pointed to the dead man, his eyes widening.
"Tavish—he great devil," he said. "Mon Père make no prayer. Mey-oo!" and he grinned in triumph, for had he not, during all these months, told his master that Tavish was a devil, and that his cabin was filled with little devils? "Mey-oo," he cried again, louder than before. "A devil!" and with a swift, vengeful movement he sprang to Tavish, caught him by his moccasined feet, and to David's horror flung him fiercely into the shallow grave. "A devil!" he croaked again, and like a madman began throwing in the frozen earth upon the body.