t 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.

I drew the thick air to my lung depths. The man who would breathe no
more was not as rigid as I stood. But there was no use in attempting
such a thing!

The turnkey opened a gap of doorway through which he could see the
candles and the bed. He opened no wider than the breadth of the priest,
who stepped out as the sacristan bent for the portables.

There was lightning in my arm as it took the sacristan around the neck
and let him limp upon the stones. The tail of the priest's cassock was
scarcely through the door.

"Eh bien! sacristan," called the turnkey. "Make haste with your load. I
have this death to report. He is not so pretty that you must stand
gazing at him all night!"

I had the surplice over the sacristan's head and over mine, and backed
out with my load, facing the room.

If my jailer had thrust his candle at me, if the priest had turned to
speak, if the man in the cell had got his breath before the bolt was
turned, if my white surplice had not appeared the principal part of me
in that black place--.

It was impossible!--but I had done it.

V

The turnkey's candle made a star-point in the corridor. He walked ahead
of the priest and I walked behind. We descended to the entrance where
the man with the big book sat taking stock of another wretch between
officers. I saw as I shaded my face with the load, that his inattentive
eye dwelt on my surplice, which would have passed me anywhere in France.

"Good-night, monsieur the cure," said the turnkey, letting us through
the outer door.

"Goo