Il Gobbo, who all but his head stood now in the grave, looked up imploringly to Eckhardt, hoping that at the last moment he would desist from the terrible sacrilege he was about to commit. But when he read only implacable determination in the commander's face, he again turned to his task and continued to throw up the earth until the coffin stood free and unimpeded in its narrow berth.
"I cannot raise it up," the old man whined. "It is too heavy."
"We will assist you! Out it shall come if all the devils in hell clung to it from beneath. Bring your ropes and bring them quickly! Hear you?" thundered Eckhardt in a frenzy. His self-enforced calm was fast giving way before the terrible ordeal he was passing through.
"Would it not be safer to go down and open the lid?" questioned Eckhardt's companion, for the first time breaking the silence.
"There is not room enough,—unless the berth is widened," Eckhardt replied. Then he turned to Il Gobbo, who was slowly scrambling out of the grave.
"Widen the berth—we will come down to you!"
The grave digger returned to his task; then after a time, which seemed eternity to those waiting above, his head again appeared in the opening. One shovel of earth after another flew up at the feet of Eckhardt and his companion. Again and again they heard the spade strike against the coffin, till at last something like a groan out of the gloom below informed them that the task had been accomplished.
"Have you any tools?" Eckhardt shouted to Il Gobbo.
"None to serve that end," stammered the grave digger.
"Then take your spade and prise the lid open!" cried Eckhardt. He was trembling like an aspen, and his breath came hard through his half-closed lips. The expression of his face and his demeanour were such as to vanquish the last scruples of Il Gobbo, who belaboured the coffin with much good will, which was mocked by the result, for it seemed to have been hermetically sealed.