"Hurry up, then. What do you stop to talk for? Make your strokes as light as possible. You might be heard!" said the lantern-bearer, irascibly.
Perkins redoubled his exertions, but it seemed an age to his impatient employer before the dull, horrible thud of the spade announced that the coffin was reached.
"You'll have to help me git the coffin out," said Perkins. "It will be no easy job in this darkness and the pouring rain."
It was no easy job, as he had said, but their united efforts, with the usual appliances for such work, at length enabled them to raise it out of the grave and set it on the ground beside them. Even as they did so, a dreadful sound mingled with the sob of the wind and the putter of the rain. It was a low and smothered moan from within the coffin!
"Great God, Perkins, wrench the lid off!" exclaimed the other, excitedly. "She revives!"
Again and again the low moan echoed within the coffin, having a horrible sound from within that prison-house of death, and fevering the blood of the waiting man who swore audibly at Perkins, whose swiftest efforts seemed like the progress of a snail to his impatient mood.
"Now, sir," said Perkins, at last, as panting, and perspiring, he threw off the lid of the elegant casket, "now, sir, there's your game!"
The man flashed the lantern light forward. It shone on a beautiful white face, fixed in unconsciousness, now, the dews of horror standing thick and wet on the brow, the lips bleeding where the pearly teeth had bitten them in anguish, the small, dimpled white hands clenched in the lace upon her breast that was frayed and torn with her frantic struggles at finding herself in that awful prison. But blessed unconsciousness had supervened, and she looked death-like indeed to the eyes that beheld her.
"Looks like she might be gone, sure enough, this time sir," said Perkins, uneasily.
"If she is, I'll kill you, d—n you!" cried the man. "I'll not be balked of my revenge like that. I'll glut it on somebody!"