and black and tall, they swayed to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty splendour of the moonlight,—­they were busy with the ground, digging it and casting out shovels full of earth in heaps beside them.  Each ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions,—­each one worked at its task alone,—­and only their voices mingled in harsh dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they chanted

   “Dies ilia dies irae,
    Calamitatis et miseriae!”

“No!” shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an infuriated madman—­“What are you doing in there?  Who told you to sing my mass or prepare my grave?  I am not ready, I tell you!  Not ready!  I have done nothing to deserve death—­nothing!—­I have not been tried!—­you must wait—­you must wait till you know all—­you must wait! . . .”

His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure nearest him.  It paused in its toil and lifted its head,—­and from the dark folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes glittered out like the eyes of a famished beast.  The other spectres paused also, but only for a moment,—­the bell boomed menacingly over their heads once more, and again they dug and delved, and again they chanted in dreary monotone—­

   “Dies magna et amara valde,
    Dum veneris judicare! 
    Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!”

Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before.

“Stop I tell you!” he cried—­“It is too soon!  You are burying me before my time.  You have no proof against me—­none!  I am young,—­ full of life and strength—­the world loves me—­wants me!—­and I—­I will not die!—­no I will not!—­not yet!  Not yet—­I am not ready!  Stop—­stop!  You do not know what you are doing—­stop!  You are driving me mad with your horrible singing!” And he shrieked aloud.  “Mad, I tell you!—­mad!”

For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move towards him—­he clutched at them—­fought with them—­tore at their garments,—­he would have killed them all, he thought, if the moonlight had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a cold silver circle of ice from which he could not escape,—­yet he went on struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes, as he fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way through strange storms of mingled fire and snow—­till all at once some strong invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and carried him away—­and he remembered no more.

XXXII.

Away in Paris, a vast concourse of people were assembled round an open grave in Pere-la-Chaise, wherein the plain coffin of the Abbe Vergniaud had just been lowered.  The day was misty and cold, and the sun shone fitfully through the wreaths of thin vapour that hung over the city, occasionally gleaming on the pale fine face of the famous “Gys Grandit”, who, standing at the edge of the grave spoke his oration over the dead.