The smell, as the pit was being dug lower down, became always more offensive; but when, at last, the rotting deal coffin was drawn out and opened, it became overpoweringly loathsome. The corpse, however, being found in a good state of preservation, there could be no doubt that the dead man was a vampire. It is true that the tapers which everyone held gave but a dim and flickering light; moreover, that the stench was so sickening that all turned at once their heads away in disgust; still, they had all seen enough of the corpse to declare it to be but seemingly dead. The priest, standing as far from it as he possibly could, began at once to exorcise it in the name of the Trinity, the Virgin and all the saints; to sprinkle it with holy water, commanding it not to move, not to jump out of its box and run away—for these ghouls are cunning devils, and if one is not on the alert they skedaddle the moment the coffin is opened. Our priest, however, was a match even for the dead man, and his holy-water sprinkler was uplifted even before the lid of the loathsome chest was loosened.
The storm which had been threatening the whole of that day broke out at last. No sooner had the sexton begun to dig the grave than the wind, which had been moaning and wailing round the stones and wooden crosses, began to howl with a sinister sound. Then, just as the priest uttered the formula of the exorcism—when the coffin was uncovered and the uncanny corpse was seen—a flash of lurid lightning gleamed over its livid features, and the rumbling thunder ended in a tremendous crash; the earth shook as if with the throes of childbirth; hell seemed to yawn and yield forth its fulsome dead. As the priest sprinkled the corpse with holy water, the rain came down in torrents as if to drown the world.
Although the noise was deafening, still some of the men affirm that they heard the corpse lament and entreat not to be killed; but the priest, a tall, stalwart man of great strength and courage, went on perfectly undaunted, paying no heed to the vampire, mumbling his prayers as if the man prostrate before him was some ordinary corpse and this was a commonplace, every-day funeral.
The priest, having reached in his orisons the moment when he uttered the name of Isukrst, or God the Son, Josko Vranic, who stood by, shivering from head to foot, and looking like a cat extracted from a tub of soap-suds, drew out a dagger from under his coat, where it had been carefully concealed from the ghost's sight, and stabbed the corpse. It was, of course, a black steel stiletto, for only such a weapon can kill a vampire. He should have stabbed the dead man in his neck and through the throat, but he was so sick that he could hardly stand; besides, his candle that instant went out, and, moreover, he was terribly frightened, for although he was stabbing but a corpse, still that corpse was his own brother.
A flash of lightning which followed that instant of perfect darkness showed him that the dagger, instead of being stuck in the dead man's neck, was thrust in the right cheek.
The ceremony being now over, the priests and their attendants hastened back to the chapel to take shelter from the rage of the storm, as well as to escape from the pestilential stench.
The sexton alone remained outside to heap up the earth again on the uncanny corpse, and shut up the grave.
"Are you sure you stabbed the corpse in the neck, severing the throat, and thus preventing it from ever sucking blood again?" asked the priest.
"Yes, I believe I have," answered Vranic, with a whining voice.
"I don't ask you what you believe; have you done it—yes, or no?" said the ecclesiastic, sternly.