The face
twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not
good to see.
"He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by
these bushes."
When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by
the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment.
Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known
as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of
chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he
uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks.
_"From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided
death, O Lord, deliver us!"_
Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne
saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian's soul. When
again his words grew audible he was saying:
_"--That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor
forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy
Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it
hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may
take possession of eternal joys.
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