at his side, and
raising his hands relaxed the severity of his countenance and exclaimed:
"The gods comply."

Down the line of prelates on either side, his gesture, look and words
were successively repeated. The Great Mayor rose to his feet, the choir
began a solemn chant and, opportunely, a funeral car drawn by ten white
horses with black plumes rolled in at the gate and made its way through
the parting crowd to the grave selected for the occasion--that of a high
official whom I had treated for chronic incumbency. The Great Mayor
touched the grave with his golden spade (which he then presented to the
Supreme Priest) and two stalwart diggers with iron ones set vigorously
to work.

At that moment I was observed to leave the cemetery and the country; for
a report of the rest of the proceedings I am indebted to my sainted
father, who related it in a letter to me, written in jail the night
before he had the irreparable misfortune to take the kink out of a rope.

As the workmen proceeded with their excavation, four bishops stationed
themselves at the corners of the grave and in the profound silence of
the multitude, broken otherwise only by the harsh grinding sound of
spades, repeated continuously, one after another, the solemn invocations
and responses from the Ritual of the Disturbed, imploring the blessed
brother to forgive. But the blessed brother was not there. Full fathom
two they mined for him in vain, then gave it up. The priests were
visibly disconcerted, the populace was aghast, for that grave was
indubitably vacant.

After a brief consultation with the Supreme Priest, the Great Mayor
ordered the workmen to open another grave. The ritual was omitted this
time until the coffin should be uncovered. There was no coffin, no body.

The cemetery was now a scene of the wildest confusion and dismay. The
people shouted and ran hither and thither, gesticulating, clamoring, all
talking at once, none listening. Some ran for spades, fire-shovels,
hoes, sticks, anything. Some brought carpenters' adzes, even chisels
from the marble works, and with these inadequate aids set to work upon
the first graves they came to. Others fell upon the mounds with their
bare hands, scraping away the earth as eagerly as dogs digging for
marmots. Before nightfall the surface of the greater part of the
cemetery had been upturned; every grave had been explored to the bottom
and thousands of men were tearing away at the interspaces with as
fu