I gathered some of them together, and piled them up below the hole, then mounted to the top, and, feeling rather ashamed of what I was doing, peeped into the outhouse.
The sight of horror that met my eyes the instant I looked through the hole is as present to my memory now as if I had beheld it yesterday.I can hardly write of it at this distance of time without a thrill of the old terror running through me again to the heart.
The first impression conveyed to me, as I looked in, was of a long, recumbent object, tinged with a lightish blue color all over, extended on trestles, and bearing a certain hideous, half-formed resemblance to the human face and figure.I looked again, and felt certain of it.There were the prominences of the forehead, nose, and chin, dimly shown as under a veil--there, the round outline of the chest and the hollow below it--there, the points of the knees, and the stiff, ghastly, upturned feet.Ilooked again, yet more attentively.My eyes got accustomed to the dim light streaming in through the broken roof, and I satisfied myself, judging by the great length of the body from head to foot, that I was looking at the corpse of a man--a corpse that had apparently once had a sheet spread over it, and that had lain rotting on the trestles under the open sky long enough for the linen to take the livid, light-blue tinge of mildew and decay which now covered it.
How long I remained with my eyes fixed on that dread sight of death, on that tombless, terrible wreck of humanity, poisoning the still air, and seeming even to stain the faint descending light that disclosed it, I know not.I remember a dull, distant sound among the trees, as if the breeze were rising--the slow creeping on of the sound to near the place where I stood--the noiseless whirling fall of a dead leaf on the corpse below me, through the gap in the outhouse roof--and the effect of awakening my energies, of relaxing the heavy strain on my mind, which even the slight change wrought in the scene I beheld by the falling leaf produced in me immediately.I descended to the ground, and, sitting down on the heap of stones, wiped away the thick perspiration which covered my face, and which I now became aware of for the first time.It was something more than the hideous spectacle unexpectedly offered to my eyes which had shaken my nerves as I felt that they were shaken now.Monkton's prediction that, if we succeeded in discovering his uncle's body, we should find it unburied, recurred to me the instant I saw the trestles and their ghastly burden.I felt assured on the instant that Ihad found the dead man--the old prophecy recurred to my memory--a strange yearning sorrow, a vague foreboding of ill, an inexplicable terror, as I thought of the poor lad who was awaiting my return in the distant town, struck through me with a chill of superstitious dread, robbed me of my judgment and resolution, and left me when I had at last recovered myself, weak and dizzy, as if I had just suffered under some pang of overpowering physical pain.
I hastened round to the convent gate and rang impatiently at the bell--waited a little while and rang again--then heard footsteps.
In the middle of the gate, just opposite my face, there was a small sliding panel, not more than a few inches long; this was presently pushed aside from within.I saw, through a bit of iron grating, two dull, light gray eyes staring vacantly at me, and heard a feeble husky voice saying:
"What may you please to want?'
"I am a traveler--" I began.
"We live in a miserable place.We have nothing to show travelers here.""I don't come to see anything.I have an important question to ask, which I believe some one in this convent will be able to answer.If you are not willing to let me in, at least come out and speak to me here.""Are you alone?"
"Quite alone."
"Are there no women with you?"
"None."
The gate was slowly unbarred, and an old Capuchin, very infirm, very suspicious, and very dirty, stood before me.I was far too excited and impatient to waste any time in prefatory phrases; so, telling the monk at once how I had looked through the hole in the outhouse, and what I had seen inside, I asked him, in plain terms, who the man had been whose corpse I had beheld, and why the body was left unburied?
The old Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled suspiciously.He had a battered tin snuff-box in his hand, and his finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking.When I had done, he shook his head and said: "That was certainly an ugly sight in their outhouse; one of the ugliest sights, he felt sure, that ever I had seen in all my life!""I don't want to talk of the sight," I rejoined, impatiently; "Iwant to know who the man was, how he died, and why he is not decently buried.Can you tell me?"The monk's finger and thumb having captured three or four grains of snuff at last, he slowly drew them into his nostrils, holding the box open under his nose the while, to prevent the possibility of wasting even one grain, sniffed once or twice luxuriously--closed the box--then looked at me again with his eyes watering and twinkling more suspiciously than before.
"Yes," said the monk, "that's an ugly sight in our outhouse--a very ugly sight, certainly!"I never had more difficulty in keeping my temper in my life than at that moment.I succeeded, however, in repressing a very disrespectful expression on the subject of monks in general, which was on the tip of my tongue, and made another attempt to conquer the old man's exasperating reserve.Fortunately for my chances of succeeding with him, I was a snuff-taker myself, and Ihad a box full of excellent English snuff in my pocket, which Inow produced as a bribe.It was my last resource.