"He's there, is he?" screamed the infuriated man. "The darned skunk's down, is he? Well, I'll cure him like a ham. Get torches, some of you and ice him in."
He was swaying with passion; yet, even regarding it, I could not understand what his order meant, and I asked—
"What are you going to do with that man?"
"What am I going to do with him?" he yelled, scarce noticing who spoke to him; "I'm going to bury him."
It was wonderful in that moment to see how the men, who had before defied him, then became as slaves at his command. A silence deep and profound rested upon them; even those with the captain watched him in his outrageous anger and were dumb; but all helped him in his ghastly work, and brought shovels and picks, which they carried to the higher plane of snow. As for the American, who sat upon the beach groaning with the pain of his wound, I do not know how any man could have wished to add to his hurt; yet he asked for no sympathy, and it was plain that he knew what they meant to do with him. At one time feverish ravings seized him, and he shook his fist at all around him; then he poured his anger upon Black, who listened to him, gratified that he should provoke it. And the more the man cursed, the greater satisfaction did the other show.
"We've got to die, both of us," said the American at last, ceasing his wilder oaths; "you en me, Black, en there isn't much ez we kin look for; but, if there's en Almighty God, I reckon ez He'll place this yere off my score, and lay it on yours, or there ain't no hell, an' there ain't no justice, and what seamen dreams of is lies—lies as your word is lies, en everything about your cursed ship. Go on, lay me right here as I lay now; but I'll rize agen you, and the day'll come when you'd give every dollar ye're worth to dig me up, and give me life agen."
The softer speech availed the poor fellow as little as the other. I felt then an exceeding pity for him, and I touched Black on the arm and was about to plead with him; but at the sight of me he raised his fist, and I moved away, seeing by the light of his eyes that he was as much a madman in that moment as any maniac in Bedlam. For he stood foaming and muttering, his hands clenched, his hat upon the snow, great drops of sweat on his bronzed forehead. The haste of the men to get the picks was not half haste enough for him; and when they began to dig he hurried them the more, until a great pile of snow had been thrown out.
It was a weird scene—the most weird I have ever known. We stood in a snow-pit amongst the hills, and above us rose in grandeur the great pyramids of basalt and gneiss. There was no sign of living green thing, even of lichens or of moss, in that elevated plain above the sea; and the shrill call of the gulls was hushed in the greater stillness of the night. The moon, high in the unclouded sky, gave light far down into the crevasses—clear, silvered light that made a jewel of every higher point, and sprinkled the crests of the breakers as with floss of fire. Nor was there wind, even a breath of the night's breeze, but only the melancholy silence of the omnivorous frost, the boom of falling avalanche echoing in the ravines and the ice-caverns, the groans of the doomed man—a very Miserere amongst the hills, as down below amongst the dead upon the shore.
In the snow-plain, which was the centre of this northern desolation, they dug the grave of the living man. I watched from afar—held by what hideous power I knew not—and I saw them roll him over into the trench they had dug, and shovel the snow quickly upon him. He watched them, silent in his terror; but when his head only was uncovered he gave a shriek of agony, which rose like the great cry of a man going before his God, and ceased not to echo from height to height until long minutes had passed. Then all was hushed, for the cold mantle of death fell upon him. Slowly those who had done their work took up their tools and returned doggedly to the beach; but Captain Black was unable to move from the man who had put that last great curse upon him not five minutes gone. Bare-headed and alone, he stood at the snow-grave, and looked down upon the mound now sparkling with the crystals of the frost that bound it. And as he looked there came a great weird wailing from a distant hill, a piercing cry, as of another soul passing, and it echoed again and again from peak to peak and ravine to ravine—a wild "ochone," that had sadness and grief and misery in it; and I knew that it was the cry from one of the seamen who had been turned from the mines—from one who mourned, perchance, the death of a friend or of a brother. Yet, at the cry, Black gave a great start, and shivering as a man struck down with a deadly chill, he passed from the grave to the beach. And this was the agony of his returning reason.