Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Polish-Greek-Belgian-Hungarian).djvu/148

146 laughing, pinched the face of the new-born babe whom Madame Puzzel swaddled on her knee. When the baby was well wrapped up, Madame Puzzel placed it in Dolf's arms and he kissed it cautiously with little smacks.

Reikje called Dolf to her side, took his head in her hand, and fell asleep until morning. Dolf put his head beside her on the pillow, and their breath and their hearts were as one during that sleep.

went off into the town one morning.

Funeral bells were tolling, and their knell echoed through the air like the hoarse cry of gulls and petrels above the shipwrecked.

A long procession disappeared through the church porch, and the altar draped in black shone with its many wax lights, which glistened as the tears in a widow's eyes.

"Who has died in the town?" Dolf asked of an old beggar sitting at the threshold of the church, his chin on his knees. "The son of a rich family, a man of property, Jacques Karnavash. Give a trifle for the repose of his soul."

Dolf took off his hat and entered the church.

He hid himself behind a pillar and saw the silver-nailed coffin disappear beneath the black catafalque.