Outzen calmly. "But to disturb the
peace of the grave from sheer daring, with the fumes of the punch
still in your head,--that is a different matter,--that will surely be
punished!"

His words irritated me. It is not very flattering, particularly if one
is not yet twenty, to be told that you are about to perform a daring
deed simply because you are drunk. Without any further reply to his
protests I took the key from its place on the wall and ran downstairs
two steps at a time, vowing to myself that I would take home an arm
let cost what it would. I would show Outzen, and Soelling, and all the
rest, what a devil of a fellow I was.

My heart beat rapidly as I stole through the long dark corridor, past
the ruins of the old convent of St. Clara, into the so-called third
courtyard. Here I took a lantern from the hall, lit it and crossed to
the mill where the clay was prepared for the factory. The tall wheels
and cylinders, with their straps and bolts, looked like weird
creatures of the night in the dim light of my tallow candle. I felt my
courage sinking even here, but I pulled myself together, opened the
last door with my key and stepped out into the fourth courtyard. A
moment later I stood on the dividing line between the cemetery and the
factory.

The entire length of the tall blackened planking had been torn down.
The pieces of it lay about, and the earth had been dug up to
considerable depth, to make a foundation for a new wall between Life
and Death. The uncanny emptiness of the place seized upon me. I halted
involuntarily as if to harden myself against it. It was a raw, cold,
stormy evening. The clouds flew past the moon in jagged fragments, so
that the churchyard, with its white crosses and stones, lay now in
full light, now in dim shadow. Now and then a rush of wind rattled
over the graves, roared through the leafless trees, bent the
complaining bushes, and caught itself in the little eddy at the corner
of the church, only to escape again over the roofs, turning the old
weather vane with a sharp scream of the rusty iron.

I looked toward the left--there I saw several weird white shapes
moving gently in the moonlight. "White sheets," I said to myself,
"it's nothing but white sheets! This drying of linen in the churchyard
ought to be stopped."

I turned in the opposite direction and saw a heap of bones scarce two
paces distant from me. Holding my lantern lower, I approached them and
stretched out my hand--ther