"You mean--the Black Priest?" he asked. I nodded. Fortin opened his mouth to speak again, hesitated, and finally shut his
teeth obstinately over the wheat stem that he was chewing. "And the Black Priest?" I suggested encouragingly. But I knew it was
useless; for it is easier to move the stars from their courses than
to make an obstinate Breton talk. We walked on for a minute or two in
silence. "Where is the Brigadier Durand?" I asked, motioning Môme to come out of
the wheat, which he was trampling as though it were heather. As I spoke
we came in sight of the farther edge of the wheat field and the dark,
wet mass of cliffs beyond. "Durand is down there--you can see him; he stands just behind the Mayor
of St. Gildas." "I see," said I; and we struck straight down, following a sun-baked
cattle path across the heather. When we reached the edge of the wheat field, Le Bihan, the Mayor of St.
Gildas, called to me, and I tucked my gun under my arm and skirted the
wheat to where he stood. "Thirty-eight skulls," he said in his thin, high-pitched voice; "there
is but one more, and I am opposed to further search. I suppose Fortin
told you?" I shook hands with him, and returned the salute of the Brigadier Durand. "I am opposed to further search," repeated Le Bihan, nervously picking
at the mass of silver buttons which covered the front of his velvet and
broadcloth jacket like a breastplate of scale armour. Durand pursed up his lips, twisted his tremendous mustache, and hooked
his thumbs in his sabre belt. "As for me," he said, "I am in favour of further search." "Further search for what--for the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked. Le Bihan nodded. Durand frowned at the sunlit sea, rocking like a bowl
of molten gold from the cliffs to the horizon. I followed his eyes. On
the dark glistening cliffs, silhouetted against the glare of the sea,
sat a cormorant, black, motionless, its horrible head raised toward
heaven. "Where is that list, Durand?" I asked. The gendarme rummaged in his despatch pouch and produced a brass
cylinder about a foot long. Very gravely he unscrewed the head and
dumped out a scroll of thick yellow paper closely covered with writing
on both sides. At a nod from Le Bihan he handed me the scroll. But I
could make nothing of the coarse writing, now faded to a dull brown. "Come, come, Le Bihan," I said impatiently, "translate it, won't you? You and Max Fortin make a lot of mystery out of nothing, it seems." Le Bihan went to the edge of the pit where the three Bannalec men were
digging, gave an order or two in Breton, and turned to me. As I came to the edge of the pit the Bannalec men were removing
a square piece of sail-cloth from what appeared to be a pile of
cobblestones. "Look!" said Le Bihan shrilly. I looked. The pile below was a heap of
skulls. After a moment I clambered down the gravel sides of the pit and
walked over to the men of Bannalec. They saluted me gravely, leaning on
their picks and shovels, and wiping their sweating faces with sunburned
hands. "How many?" said I in Breton. "Thirty-eight," they replied. I glanced around. Beyond the heap of skulls lay two piles of human
bones. Beside these was a mound of broken, rusted bits of iron and
steel. Looking closer, I saw that this mound was composed of rusty
bayonets, sabre blades, scythe blades, with here and there a tarnished
buckle attached to a bit of leather hard as iron. I picked up a couple of buttons and a belt plate. The buttons bore the
royal arms of England; the belt plate was emblazoned with the English
arms, and also with the number "27." "I have heard my grandfather speak of the terrible English regiment,
the 27th Foot, which landed and stormed the fort up there," said one of
the Bannalec men. "Oh!" said I; "then these are the bones of English soldiers?" "Yes," said the men of Bannalec. Le Bihan was calling to me from the edge of the pit above, and I handed
the belt plate and buttons to the men and climbed the side of the
excavation. "Well," said I, trying to prevent Môme from leaping up and licking my
face as I emerged from the pit, "I suppose you know what these bones
are. What are you going to do with them?" "There was a man," said Le Bihan angrily, "an Englishman, who passed
here in a dog-cart on his way to Quimper about an hour ago, and what do
you suppose he wished to do?" "Buy the relics?" I asked, smiling. "Exactly--the pig!" piped the mayor of St. Gildas. "Jean Marie Tregunc,
who found the bones, was standing there where Max Fortin stands, and do
you know what he answered? He spat upon the ground, and said: 'Pig of
an Englishman, do you take me for a desecrator of graves?'" I knew Tregunc, a sober, blue-eyed Breton, who lived from one year's
end to the other without being able to afford a single bit of meat for
a meal. "How much did the Englishman offer Tregunc?" I asked. "Two hundred francs for the skulls alone." I thought of the relic hunters and the relic buyers on the battlefields
of our civil war. "Seventeen hundred and sixty is long ago," I said. "Respect for the dead can never die," said Fortin. "And the English soldiers came here to kill your fathers and burn your
homes," I continued. "They were murderers and thieves, but--they are dead," said Tregunc,
coming up from the beach below, his long sea rake balanced on his
dripping jersey. "How much do you earn every year, Jean Marie?" I asked, turning to
shake hands with him. "Two hundred and twenty francs, monsieur." "Forty-five dollars a year," I said. "Bah! you are worth more, Jean. Will you take care of my garden for me? My wife wished me to ask you. I think it would be worth one hundred francs a month to you and to me. Come on, Le Bihan--come along, Fortin--and you, Durand. I want somebody
to translate that list into French for me." Tregunc stood gazing at me, his blue eyes dilated. "You may begin at once," I said, smiling, "if the salary suits you?" "It suits," said Tregunc, fumbling for his pipe in a silly way that
annoyed Le Bihan. "Then go and begin your work," cried the mayor impatiently; and
Tregunc started across the moors toward St. Gildas, taking off his
velvet-ribboned cap to me and gripping his sea rake very hard. "You offer him more than my salary," said the mayor, after a moment's
contemplation of his silver buttons. "Pooh!" said I, "what do you do for your salary except play dominoes
with Max Fortin at the Groix Inn?" Le Bihan turned red, but Durand rattled his sabre and winked at Max
Fortin, and I slipped my arm through the arm of the sulky magistrate,
laughing. "There's a shady spot under the cliff," I said; "come on, Le Bihan, and
read me what is in the scroll." In a few moments we reached the shadow of the cliff, and I threw myself
upon the turf, chin on hand, to listen. The gendarme, Durand, also sat down, twisting his mustache into
needlelike points.