“Ecce Agnus Dei.”

Then three times—­“Domine, non sum dignus.”

I heard and saw with exquisite keenness, yet I was thinking,

“If I do not get out of here he will have to say those words over me.”

He put the host in the parted mouth of the dying, and spoke—­

“Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vetam aeternam.”

I thought how easy it would be to strip the loose surplice over the sacristan’s head.  There was a swift clip of the arm around your opponent’s neck which I had learned in wrestling, that cut the breath off and dropped him as limp as a cloth.  It was an Indian trick.  I said to myself it would be impossible to use that trick on the sacristan if he left the cell behind the deaf old priest.  I did not want to hurt him.  Still, he would have a better chance to live after I had squeezed his neck, than I should have if I did not squeeze it.

The priest took out of a silver case a vessel of oil, and a branch.  He sprinkled holy water with the branch, upon the bed, the walls, the sacristan and me, repeating,

“Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor:  lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.”

While I bent my head to the drops, I knew it was impossible to choke down the sacristan, strip off his surplice, invest myself with it and get out of the cell before priest or turnkey looked back.  The sacrilege of such an attack would take all the strength out of me.

The priest said the Exaudi nos, exhorted the insensible figure, then recited the Credo and the Litany, the sacristan responding.

Silence followed.

I knew the end was approaching.  My hands were as cold as the nerveless one which would soon receive the candle.  I told myself I should be a fool to attempt it.  There was not one chance in a hundred.  I should not squeeze hard enough.  The man would yell.  If I were swift as lightning and silent as force, they would take me in the act.  It was impossible.  But people who cannot do impossible things have to perish.

The priest dipped his thumb in oil, and with it crossed the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands of him who was leaving the use of these five senses and instruments of evil.

Then he placed a lighted candle in the stiffened fingers, and ended with—­

“Accipe lampadem ardentem custodi unctionem tuam.”

I said to myself—­“I cannot do it!  Nobody could!  It is impossible!”

The sacristan now began to strip the altar and pack all the sacred implements into their cases:  preparing his load in the center of the room.

The man was dead.

The sacristan’s last office was to fix the two lighted altar candles on the head and foot railing of the bed.  They showed the corpse in its appalling stillness, and stood like two angels, with the pit between them.

The sacristan rapped upon the door to let the turnkey know it was time to unlock.