"After that we sat quiet, he an' I, all the night through, never
takin' our clothes off. An' at daybreak Isaac walked down to the
shore. There was nothin' to see but two bodies, an' he buried them
an' waited for more. That evenin' another came in, an' next day,
two; an' so on for a se'nnight. Ten bodies in all he picked up and
buried i' the meadow below. An' on the fourth day he picked up a
body wi' one finger missin', under the Nare Head. 'Twas the young
man he had driven forth, who had wandered there an' broke his neck.
Isaac buried him too. An' that was all, except two that the
coastguard found an' held an inquest over an' carr'd off to
churchyard.
"So it befell; an' for five year' neither Isaac nor me opened mouth
'pon it, not to each other even. An' then, one noonday, a sailor
knocks at the door; an' goin' out, I seed he was a furriner, wi'
great white teeth showin' dro' his beard. 'I be come to see Mister
Isaac Lenine,' he says, in his outlandish English. So I called Isaac
out; an' the stranger grips 'en by the hand an' kisses 'en, sayin',
'Little father, take me to their graves. My name is Feodor Himkoff,
an' my brother Dmitry was among the crew of the _Viatka_. You would
know his body, if you buried it, for the second finger was gone from
his right hand. I myself--wretched one!--chopped it by bad luck when
we were boys, an' played at wood cuttin' wi' our father's axe.
I have heard how they perished, far from aid, and how you gave 'em
burial in your own field: and I pray to all the saints for you,' he
says.
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