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When it was over, the Jesuit took the book of the Gospels and the holy-water sprinkler, and went slowly out of the chapel, while the old man followed him, with a holy-water basin in one hand and a taper in the other. Then the police director left his hiding place, and stooping down, so as not to be seen, he crept to the chapel window, where he cowered down carefully, and the young man followed his example. They were now looking straight on his mother’s grave.

The Jesuit, followed by the superstitious old man, walked three times round the grave, then he remained standing before it, and by the light of the taper he read a few passages from the Gospel; then he dipped the holy-water sprinkler three times into the holy-water basin, and sprinkled the grave three times; then both returned to the chapel, knelt down outside it with their faces toward the grave, and began to pray aloud, until at last the Jesuit sprang up, in a species of wild ecstasy, and cried out three times in a shrill voice:

“Exsurge! Exsurge! Exsurge!”[1]

[1] Arise!

Scarcely had the last word of the exorcism died away when thick, blue smoke rose out of the grave, which rapidly grew into a cloud, and began to assume the outlines of a human body, until at last a tall, white figure stood behind the grave, and beckoned with its hand.

“Who art thou?” the Jesuit asked solemnly, while the old man began to cry.

“When I was alive, I was called Anna Maria B—-,” the ghost replied in a hollow voice.

“Will you answer all my questions?” the priest continued.

“As far as I can.”

“Have you not yet been delivered from purgatory by our prayers, and all the Masses for your soul, which we have said for you?”

“Not yet, but soon, soon I shall be.”

“When?”

“As soon as that blasphemer, my son, has been punished.”

“Has that not already happened? Has not your husband disinherited his lost son, and made the Church his heir, in his place?”

“That is not enough.”

“What must he do besides?”

“He must deposit his will with the Judicial Authorities as his last will and testament, and drive the reprobate out of his house.”

“Consider well what you are saying; must this really be?”

“It must, or otherwise I shall have to languish in purgatory much longer,” the sepulchral voice replied with a deep sigh; but the next moment it yelled out in terror:–

“Oh! Good Lord!” and the ghost began to run away as fast as it could. A shrill whistle was heard, and then another, and the police director laid his hand on the shoulder of the exorciser accompanied with the remark:–

“You are in custody.”

Meanwhile, the police sergeant and the policeman, who had come into the churchyard, had caught the ghost, and dragged it forward. It was the sexton, who had put on a flowing, white dress, and who wore a wax mask, which bore striking resemblance to his mother, as the son declared.

When the case was heard, it was proved that the mask had been very skillfully made from a portrait of the deceased woman. The Government gave orders that the matter should be investigated as secretly as possible, and left the punishment of Father K—- to the spiritual authorities, which was a matter of course, at a time when priests were outside the jurisdiction of the Civil Authorities; and it is needless to say that he was very comfortable during his imprisonment, in a monastery in a part of the country which abounded with game and trout.

The only valuable result of the amusing ghost story was that it brought about a reconciliation between father and son, and the former, as a matter of fact, felt such deep respect for priests and their ghosts in consequence of the apparition that a short time after his wife had left purgatory for the last time in order to talk with him–he turned Protestant.