“Leave the grave alone!” choked Black Eric, his face twitching horribly. “She is out in the barn, I tell you! See, I think she is there!” He pointed a shaking finger to another broken-down hut between the trees.
“We will find the grave,” said Silent Sven. “You said it was between the oaks.”
“I won’t go there!” gasped Black Eric. “Let us look——”
“You’ll come with us!” Silent Sven commanded, grasping Black Eric by the shoulder and dragging him along. Silent and awed, the crowd proceeded through the tangle of weeds and young trees to the side of the hut between the two oaks. Some of the men began to poke around with their sticks, but Olga stopped them.
The old man motioned silently to a depression in the ground. “It is long ago,” he whispered. “The grave—is sunken.”
Olga fell on her knees, sobbing convulsively. She reached out her hands and reverently brushed aside the leaves that lay upon the grave, then started up, a cry of terror on her lips.
Within the depression, where she had scraped the leaves away, a human skeleton lay bleaching, stained almost to the colour of brown twigs. As they bent over they saw a skull, through the sockets of which rose the slender spires of a plant, covering it mercifully with clusters of purplish-blue flowers. A rusty iron cross lay beside it.
“That is—that is where she lay—when we came up,” quavered the old man. “She lay there——”
The women began to sob unrestrainedly, Kaisa’s voice wailing above the others. The men turned upon Black Eric, their sticks raised high, terror forgotten in a mighty wave of revenge that swept its fire over them.
“It isn’t true!” he gasped, his teeth clicking together. “It isn’t, I tell you! Haven’t we seen her—all these years? Didn’t we—see her—this——”