After all, why did people weigh down one's last slumber with six feet of
soil overhead when three or four would leave one nearer to the sun, and
make not quite so chill a bed? He was thinking of this as he took a last
look at Tavish. Then he heard the Indian give a sudden grunt, as if some
one had poked him unexpectedly in the pit of the stomach. He whirled
about, and stared.
Father Roland stood within ten feet of them, and at sight of him an
exclamation rose to David's lips and died there in an astonished gasp.
He seemed to be swaying, like a sick man, in the moonlight, and impelled
by the same thought Mukoki and David moved toward him. The Missioner
extended an arm, as if to hold them back. His face was ghastly, and
terrible--almost as terrible as Tavish's, and he seemed to be
struggling with something in his throat before he could speak. Then he
said, in a strange, forced voice that David had never heard come from
his lips before:
"Bury him. There will be--no prayer."
He turned away, moving slowly in the direction of the forest. And as he
went David noticed the heavy drag of his feet, and the unevenness of his
trail in the snow.
CHAPTER XIII
For two or three minutes after Father Roland had disappeared in the
forest David and Mukoki stood without moving.
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