Il Gobbo cringed as though he had been struck a blow from some invisible hand.
"I dare not—I dare not," he whined, deprecating the proffered gift. "The sin would be visited upon my head.—It is written: Disturb not the dead."
A terrible look passed into Eckhardt's face.
"Is this purse not heavy enough? I will add another."
"It is not that—it is not that," Il Gobbo replied, almost weeping with terror. "I dread the vengeance of the dead! They will not permit the sacrilege to pass unpunished."
"Then let the punishment fall on my head!" replied Eckhardt with terrible voice. "Take your spade, old man, for by the Almighty God who looks down upon us, you will not leave this place alive, unless you do as you are told."
The old grave digger trembled in every limb. Helplessly he gazed about; imploringly he looked up into the face of Eckhardt's immobile companion, but he read nothing in the eyes of these two, save unrelenting determination. Instinctively he knew that no argument would avail to deter them from their mad purpose.
Eckhardt watched the old man closely.
"You dug this grave yourself, three years ago," he then spoke in a tone strangely mingled of despair and irony. "It is a poor grave digger who permits his dead to leave their cold and narrow berth and go forth among the living in the form they bore on earth! It has been whispered to me," he continued with a terrible laugh, "that some of your graves are shallow. I would fain be convinced with my own eyes, just to be able to give your calumniators the lie! Therefore, good Il Gobbo, take up your spade with all speed, and imagine, as you perform your task, that you are not opening this grave to disturb the repose of her who sleeps beneath the sod, but preparing a reception to one still in the flesh! Proceed!"
The last word was spoken with such menace that the grave digger reluctantly complied, and taking up the spade, which he had dropped, he pushed it slowly into the sod. Leaning silently on his sword, his face the pallor of death, Eckhardt and his companion watched the progress of the terrible work, watched one shovel of earth after the other fly up, piling up by the side of the grave; watched the oblong opening grow deeper and deeper, till after a breathless pause of some duration the spade of the grave digger was heard to strike the top of the coffin.