Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/267

258 aloft, and, without the knowledge of a failure—grotesque but for its climax—to mock his eyes, Yen Sung sank straightway to the ground and reached a farther goal.

There is very little to add to the story of his end.

The effect of lightning upon the object which it strikes is curious and diverse. Yen Sung supplied another instance of this purely scientific phenomenon, for when his body came to be unrobed, those who stood by were startled for the moment to see the perfect outline of a cross charged with three letters impressed with unmistakable clearness upon his breast.

At first it was intended that he should be buried in a secluded corner of the old churchyard at Overbury; but to many influential parishioners the thought of a pagan finding a resting-place within their hallowed "God's Acre" was repugnant. In the end a site deemed more suitable was found in a neighbouring cemetery, where he sleeps in an unconsecrated plot set apart for suicides and the unbaptised.

Hampton Hill, 1904.