But when he went about among the graves with the holy-water he heard the dead muttering.

“Jean-Marie,” said a voice, fumbling among its unused tones for forgotten notes, “art thou ready?  Surely that is the last call.”

“Nay, nay,” rumbled another voice, “that is not the sound of a trumpet, Francois.  That will be sudden and loud and sharp, like the great blasts of the north when they come plunging over the sea from out the awful gorges of Iceland.  Dost thou remember them, Francois?  Thank the good God they spared us to die in our beds with our grandchildren about us and only the little wind sighing in the Bois d’Amour.  Ah, the poor comrades that died in their manhood, that went to the grande peche once too often!  Dost thou remember when the great wave curled round Ignace like his poor wife’s arms, and we saw him no more?  We clasped each other’s hands, for we believed that we should follow, but we lived and went again and again to the grande peche, and died in our beds. Grace a Dieu!”

“Why dost thou think of that now—­here in the grave where it matters not, even to the living?”

“I know not; but it was of that night when Ignace went down that I thought as the living breath went out of me.  Of what didst thou think as thou layest dying?”

“Of the money I owed to Dominique and could not pay.  I sought to ask my son to pay it, but death had come suddenly and I could not speak.  God knows how they treat my name to-day in the village of St. Hilaire.”

“Thou art forgotten,” murmured another voice.  “I died forty years after thee and men remember not so long in Finisterre.  But thy son was my friend and I remember that he paid the money.”

“And my son, what of him?  Is he, too, here?”

“Nay; he lies deep in the northern sea.  It was his second voyage, and he had returned with a purse for the young wife, the first time.  But he returned no more, and she washed in the river for the dames of Croisac, and by-and-by she died.  I would have married her, but she said it was enough to lose one husband.  I married another, and she grew ten years in every three that I went to the grande peche.  Alas for Brittany, she has no youth!”

“And thou?  Wert thou an old man when thou camest here?”

“Sixty.  My wife came first, like many wives.  She lies here.  Jeanne!”

“Is’t thy voice, my husband?  Not the Lord Jesus Christ’s?  What miracle is this?  I thought that terrible sound was the trump of doom.”

“It could not be, old Jeanne, for we are still in our graves.  When the trump sounds we shall have wings and robes of light, and fly straight up to heaven.  Hast thou slept well?”

“Ay!  But why are we awakened?  Is it time for purgatory?  Or have we been there?”

“The good God knows.  I remember nothing.  Art frightened?  Would that I could hold thy hand, as when thou didst slip from life into that long sleep thou didst fear, yet welcome.”