"It must be the Black Priest," I said. "He was the only man who wrote in
the Breton language. This is a wonderfully interesting discovery, for
now, at last, the mystery of the Black Priest's disappearance is cleared
up. You will, of course, send this scroll to Paris, Le Bihan?"
"No," said the mayor obstinately, "it shall be buried in the pit below
where the rest of the Black Priest lies."
I looked at him and recognized that argument would be useless. But still
I said, "It will be a loss to history, Monsieur Le Bihan."
"All the worse for history, then," said the enlightened Mayor of St.
Gildas.
We had sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The men of
Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers toward the St.
Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east, where already a knot of
white-coiffed women stood in attitudes of prayer; and I saw the somber
robe of a priest among the crosses of the little graveyard.
"They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now," muttered Max
Fortin.
"Respect the dead," repeated the Mayor of St. Gildas, looking after the
Bannalec men.
"It was written in that scroll that Marie Trevec, of Groix Island, was
cursed by the priest--she and her descendants," I said, touching Le
Bihan on the arm. "There was a Marie Trevec who married an Yves Trevec
of St. Gildas----"
"It is the same," said Le Bihan, looking at me obliquely.
"Oh!" said I; "then they were ancestors of my wife."
"Do you fear the curse?" asked Le Bihan.
"What?" I laughed.
"There was the case of the Purple Emperor," said Max Fortin timidly.
Startled for a moment, I faced him, then shrugged my shoulders and
kicked at a smooth bit of rock which lay near the edge of the pit,
almost embedded in gravel.
"Do you suppose the Purple-Emperor drank himself crazy because he was
descended from Marie Trevec?" I asked contemptuously.
"Of course not," said Max Fortin hastily.
"Of course not," piped the mayor. "I only--Hellow! what's that you're
kicking?"
"What?" said I, glancing down, at the same time involuntarily giving
another kick. The smooth bit of rock dislodged itself and rolled out of
the loosened gravel at my feet.
"The thirty-ninth skull!" I exclaimed. "By jingo, it's the noddle of the
Black Priest! See! there is the arrowhead branded on the front!"
The mayor stepped back. Max Fortin also retreated. There was a pause,
during which I looked at them, and they looked anywhere but at me.
"I don't like it," said the mayor at last, in a husky, high voice. "I
don't like it! The scroll says he will come back to St. Gildas when his
remains are disturbed. I--I don't like it, Monsieur Darrel--"
"Bosh!" said I; "the poor wicked devil is where he can't get out. For
Heaven's sake, Le Bihan, what is this stuff you are talking in the year
of grace 1896?"
The mayor gave me a look.
"And he says 'Englishman.' You are an Englishman, Monsieur Darrel," he
announced.
"You know better. You know I'm an American."
"It's all the same," said the Mayor of St. Gildas, obstinately.
"No, it isn't!" I answered, much exasperated, and deliberately pushed
the skull till it rolled into the bottom of the gravel pit below.
"Cover it up," said I; "bury the scroll with it too, if you insist, but
I think you ought to send it to Paris. Don't look so gloomy, Fortin,
unless you believe in werewolves and ghosts. Hey! what the--what the
devil's the matter with you, anyway? What are you staring at, Le Bihan?"
"Come, come," muttered the mayor in a low, tremulous voice, "it's time
we got out of this. Did you see? Did you see, Fortin?"
"I saw," whispered Max Fortin, pallid with fright.
The two men were almost running across the sunny pasture now, and I
hastened after them, demanding to know what was the matter.
"Matter!" chattered the mayor, gasping with exasperation and terror.
"The skull is rolling up hill again," and he burst into a terrified
gallop, Max Fortin followed close behind.
I watched them stampeding across the pasture, then turned toward the
gravel pit, mystified, incredulous. The skull was lying on the edge of
the pit, exactly where it had been before I pushed it over the edge. For
a second I stared at it; a singular chilly feeling crept up my spinal
column, and I turned and walked away, sweat starting from the root of
every hair on my head. Before I had gone twenty paces the absurdity of
the whole thing struck me. I halted, hot with shame and annoyance, and
retraced my steps.
There lay the skull.
"I rolled a stone down instead of the skull," I muttered to myself. Then
with the butt of my gun I pushed the skull over the edge of the pit and
watched it roll to the bottom; and as it struck the bottom of the pit,
Môme, my dog, suddenly whipped his tail between his legs, whimpered, and
made off across the moor.
"Môme!" I shouted, angry and astonished; but the dog only fled the
faster, and I ceased calling from sheer surprise.
"What the mischief is the matter with that dog!" I thought. He had never
before played me such a trick.
Mechanically I glanced into the pit, but I could not see the skull. I
looked down. The skull lay at my feet again, touching them.
"Good heavens!" I stammered, and struck at it blindly with my gunstock.
The ghastly thing flew into the air, whirling over and over, and rolled
again down the sides of the pit to the bottom. Breathlessly I stared at
it, then, confused and scarcely comprehending, I stepped back from the
pit, still facing it, one, ten, twenty paces, my eyes almost starting
from my head, as though I expected to see the thing roll up from the
bottom of the pit under my very gaze. At last I turned my back to the
pit and strode out across the gorse-covered moorland toward my home. As
I reached the road that winds from St. Gildas to St. Julien I gave one
hasty glance at the pit over my shoulder. The sun shone hot on the sod
about the excavation. There was something white and bare and round on
the turf at the edge of the pit. It might have been a stone; there were
plenty of them lying about.