"Accipe lampadem ardentem custodi unctionem tuam."
I said to myself—"I cannot do it! Nobody could! It is impossible!"
The sacristan now began to strip the altar and pack all the sacred implements into their cases: preparing his load in the center of the room.
The man was dead.
The sacristan's last office was to fix the two lighted altar candles on the head and foot railing of the bed. They showed the corpse in its appalling stillness, and stood like two angels, with the pit between them.
The sacristan rapped upon the door to let the turnkey know it was time to unlock.
I drew the thick air to my lung depths. The man who would breathe no more was not as rigid as I stood. But there was no use in attempting such a thing!
The turnkey opened a gap of doorway through which he could see the candles and the bed. He opened no wider than the breadth of the priest, who stepped out as the sacristan bent for the portables.
There was lightning in my arm as it took the sacristan around the neck and let him limp upon the stones. The tail of the priest's cassock was scarcely through the door.
"Eh bien! sacristan," called the turnkey. "Make haste with your load. I have this death to report. He is not so pretty that you must stand gazing at him all night!"