She drew her hand across her mouth as if wiping it, and broke into a chuckle of such laughter as made my hair stir on my head. Then she leaped on to the grave, holding her hands high above her head, and inch by inch disappeared into the earth. Urcombe’s hand was laid on my arm, in an injunction to keep still, but now he removed it.
“Come,” he said.
With pick and shovel and rope we went to the grave. The earth was light and sandy, and soon after six struck we had delved down to the coffin lid. With his pick he loosened the earth round it, and, adjusting the rope through the handles by which it had been lowered, we tried to raise it. This was a long and laborious business, and the light had begun to herald day in the east before we had it out, and lying by the side of the grave. With his screw-driver he loosed the fastenings of the lid, and slid it aside, and standing there we looked on the face of Mrs. Amworth. The eyes, once closed in death, were open, the cheeks were flushed with colour, the red, full-lipped mouth seemed to smile.
“One blow and it is all over,” he said. “You need not look.”
Even as he spoke he took up the pick again, and, laying the point of it on her left breast, measured his distance. And though I knew what was coming I could not look away…
He grasped the pick in both hands, raised it an inch or two for the taking of his aim, and then with full force brought it down on her breast. A fountain of blood, though she had been dead so long, spouted high in the air, falling with a heavy splash over the shroud, and simultaneously from those red lips came one long, appalling cry, swelling up like some hooting siren and dying away again. With that, instantaneous as a lightning flash, came the touch of corruption on her face, the colour of it faded to ash, the plump cheeks fell in, the mouth dropped.
“Thank God, that’s over,” said he, and without pause slipped the coffin lid back into its place.
Day was coming fast now, and, working like men possessed, we lowered the coffin into its place again and shovelled the earth over it…
The birds were busy with their earliest pipings as we went back to Maxley.
LOST EPIPHANY, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
A Story of Saint-Germain
There was no doubt that the man chained to the other massive steering oar beside his own was dead; the body was stiff, the rigidity making him as great a weight as the long oar was. His skin was cold and taking on the color of clay; he lay bent almost double over the oar, his elbows poking out at awkward angles because of his manacles. Not that Sant-Germainus cared, for he was consumed in the misery that only travel over water could bring him. He had ceased to feel the hard blows of the oar-master’s lash two days ago, nor did he bother any longer to look for distant land beyond the heaving sea as the merchant ship plowed on through the advancing storm; rain-clouds obscured the distance and heaving seas demanded his full attention. The steering-oar shuddered as the ship climbed the side of a wave. Below-decks all but a dozen oars were pulled in; those that remained in the water were plied with steady purpose to keep the boat from floundering.
“You there! Steersman!” The captain’s first officer, known as Ynay, struggled along the deck, clinging to the rope as the ship pitched and wallowed. His language was a variation of Byzantine Greek, but with an accent that indicated the man came from Colchis.
Sant-Germainus lifted his head, his body aching with fatigue, his clothes soaked and clammily cold, his eyes almost swollen shut from the relentless waves washing over the deck. He stared at the first officer and forced himself to speak.
“What is it, Ynay?”
He knew his response could earn him a beating for insolence, but that hardly seemed to matter; being on running water without the protection of his native earth was more punishment than any whip could mete out. He found it ironic that this night or perhaps the next would be the anniversary of his birth.
“The other steersman!” shouted the first officer.
“He can’t answer you,” Sant-Germainus responded.
Ynay was almost up to the steering-oar; blinking into the wet; he reached to shake the second steersman, then hesitated. “Is he ill?”
“No longer,” said Sant-Germainus. “He stopped breathing some time ago.”
The first officer faltered. “Dead?”
“From a fever,” said Sant-Germainus, who had recognized the disease as something that could not be treated on this boat at sea. “It settled in his gut. He complained of it last night: to you.”
“But…he hasn’t fallen,” said Ynay, reaching for the amulet that hung around his neck.
“Because he is closely chained to me, and I can only hold the oar standing up. His oar is chained to mine,” Sant-Germainus said as patiently as he could.
The first officer blinked, then nodded twice. “Yes. Yes. You shouldn’t have to…I’ll have the oar-master come and release you.” He was hesitant to touch the corpse. He stood as straight as he could without letting go of the safety rope. “The captain is ordering the two of you to remain on deck until the skies clear. In such a storm as this, and with long nights, we must have the attention of every man.”
“One of us cannot comply, Ynay,” said Sant-Germainus. He looked over his shoulder at the frothing sea. “We should be nearing Paros or Naxos. You will need a guard in the bow as well as a second steersman.”
“How can you be sure? We’re probably off-course by leagues.”
“Possibly. But there are more islands than those two in the Cyclades, and we should be wary of them. They are around us in the dark, and we may not see them until we are up against their shores.” Sant-Germainus had to shift his stance as the dead body struck his legs. “We will all drown if we scrape a rock in this gale.”
The first officer looked uncomfortable. “The captain doesn’t want to risk any more lives. He’s afraid anyone on deck could be washed away.” As if to support this idea, the ship pitched toward its port side and tried to turn abeam to the wave, which would bring a fatal shift in position. Sant-Germainus held the oar with all his strength, and gradually the prow slid back to taking the waves straight on while the dead man slid as far down the other steering oar as his manacles permitted. Ynay dropped to his knee in an effort to keep hold of the safety rope.
“If you lose your steersmen, you will sink. That is certain,” said Sant-Germainus.
“The storm could lessen,” the first officer growled.
“If it does, we may run aground on one of the islands—if we are lucky,” Sant-Germainus warned. “If we’re not dashed apart on rocks or cliffs.”
“I suppose,” said Ynay, regarding the corpse of the second steersman with increasing distress. “He’s got to go over the side.”
Sant-Germainus nodded, trying to keep the steering-oar steady. “If there is no lookout, we may lose the bottom of the ships to unseen shoals.” As much as he longed for solid earth under his feet, he dreaded the shoals, no matter how solid they were, that would rip the bottom out of the ship; he, unlike the others aboard, could not drown, and the thought of lying, chained in a wreck, alert and aware until his flesh was eaten away by sea-creatures appalled him. “Then more than cargo would be forfeit.”
“I know,” muttered the first officer; his voice did not carry over the roar of the waves and the wind’s moan.
“The winds are rising,” Sant-Germainus pointed out. “They have changed direction three or four times.”
“We’ve