“I sink,” said Turriff, speaking slowly in English now,—­“I sink we cannot make that mee-racle be done.”

“What miracle?” asked Trenholme.

Those of the men who understood any English laughed.

“Se miracle to make dis genteel-man, M. Saul, fetch se box.”

Trenholme then saw that Saul’s shudderings had come, upon him again at the mere suggestion.

“What am I to do, then?” he asked.

At this the men had a good deal of talk, and Turrif interpreted the decision.

“We sink it is for M. Bates to say what shall be done wit se box.  We sink we take se liberte to say to sis man—­’Stay here till some one go to-morrow and fetch M. Bates.’”

This struck Trenholme as just, and any objection he felt to spending the night under the same roof with the mysterious coffin did not seem worth remark.

As for Saul, he professed himself satisfied with the arrangement.  He was only too glad to have some one brought who would share his responsibility and attest, in part at least, his tale.

“Well,” said Trenholme, “I’ll go then.”

He felt for the key of the station in his pocket, and would have thanked the men and bid them “good evening,” had they not, rather clamorously, deprecated his intention.  Living, as they did, far from all organised justice, there was in them a rough sense of responsibility for each other which is not found in townsmen.

Trenholme shortly made out that they had decided that two of them should help him to guard the station that night, and were only disputing as to who should be allotted for the purpose.

“It isn’t at all necessary,” said Trenholme.

“We sink,” said Turrif, with his deliberate smile, “it will be best; for if you have not been wandering in your mind, some one else’s body has been wandering.”

Trenholme went back to his station in the not unpleasant company of two sturdy farmers, one young and vivacious, the other old and slow.  They found the place just as he had left it.  The coffin was empty, save for the sweet-scented cushion of roughly covered pine tassels on which the body of the gaunt old Cameron had been laid to rest.

The three men sat by the stove in the other room.  The smoke from their pipes dimmed the light of the lamp.  The quiet sounds of their talk and movements never entirely took from them the consciousness of the large dark silence that lay without.  No footfall broke it.  When they heard the distant rush of the night train, they all three went out to see its great yellow eye come nearer and nearer.

Trenholme had one or two packages to put in the van.  He and his companions exchanged greetings with the men of the train.

Just as he was handing in his last package, a gentlemanly voice accosted him.

“Station-master!” said a grey-haired, military-looking traveller, “Station-master!  Is there any way of getting milk here?”