And the marks on the
limestone rock were made fifteen years ago, with some red substance. And
the characters on the seal are four thousand years old at least. Perhaps
much more." "Is it a hoax?" I said. "No, I anticipated that. I was not to be led to give my life to a
practical joke. I have tested the matter very carefully. Only one person
besides myself knows of the mere existence of that black seal. Besides,
there are other reasons which I cannot enter into now." "But what does it all mean?" I said. "I cannot understand to what
conclusion all this leads." "My dear Miss Lally, that is a question I would rather leave unanswered
for some little time. Perhaps I shall never be able to say what secrets
are held here in solution; a few vague hints, the outlines of village
tragedies, a few marks done with red earth upon a rock, and an ancient
seal. A queer set of data to go upon? Half-a-dozen pieces of evidence,
and twenty years before even so much could be got together; and who
knows what mirage or terra incognita may be beyond all this? I look
across deep waters, Miss Lally, and the land beyond may be but a haze
after all. But still I believe it is not so, and a few months will show
whether I am right or wrong." He left me, and alone I endeavored to fathom the mystery, wondering to
what goal such eccentric odds and ends of evidence could lead. I myself
am not wholly devoid of imagination, and I had reason to respect the
professor's solidity of intellect; yet I saw in the contents of the
drawer but the materials of fantasy, and vainly tried to conceive what
theory could be founded on the fragments that had been placed before me. Indeed, I could discover in what I had heard and seen but the first
chapter of an extravagant romance; and yet deep in my heart I burned
with curiosity, and day after day I looked eagerly in Professor Gregg's
face for some hint of what was to happen. It was one evening after dinner that the word came. "I hope you can make your preparations without much trouble," he said
suddenly to me. "We shall be leaving here in a week's time." "Really!" I said in astonishment. "Where are we going?" "I have taken a country house in the west of England, not far from
Caermaen, a quiet little town, once a city, and the headquarters of a
Roman legion. It is very dull there, but the country is pretty, and the
air is wholesome." I detected a glint in his eyes, and guessed that this sudden move had
some relation to our conversation of a few days before. "I shall just take a few books with me," said Professor Gregg, "that is
all. Everything else will remain here for our return. I have got a
holiday," he went on, smiling at me, "and I shan't be sorry to be quit
for a time of my old bones and stones and rubbish. Do you know," he went
on, "I have been grinding away at facts for thirty years; it is time for
fancies." The days passed quickly; I could see that the professor was all
quivering with suppressed excitement, and I could scarce credit the
eager appetence of his glance as we left the old manor house behind us,
and began our journey. We set out at mid-day, and it was in the dusk of
the evening that we arrived at a little country station. I was tired,
and excited, and the drive through, the lanes seems all a dream. First
the deserted streets of a forgotten village, while I heard Professor
Gregg's voice talking of the Augustan Legion and the clash of arms, and
all the tremendous pomp that followed the eagles; then the broad river
swimming to full tide with the last afterglow glimmering duskily in the
yellow water, the wide meadows, and the cornfields whitening, and the
deep lane winding on the slope between the hills and the water. At last
we began to ascend, and the air grew rarer; I looked down and saw the
pure white mist tracking the outline of the river like a shroud, and a
vague and shadowy country, imaginations and fantasy of swelling hills
and hanging woods, and half-shaped outlines of hills beyond, stand in
the distance the glare of the furnace fire on the mountain, growing by
turns a pillar of shining flame, and fading to a dull point of red. We
were slowly mounting a carriage drive, and then there came to me the
cool breath and the scent of the great wood that was above us; I seemed
to wander in its deepest depths, and there was the sound of trickling
water, the scent of the green leaves, and the breath of the summer
night. The carriage stopped at last, and I could scarcely distinguish
the form of the house as I waited a moment at the pillared porch; and
the rest of the evening seemed a dream of strange things bounded by the
great silence of the wood and the valley and the river. The next morning when I awoke and looked out of the bow window of the
big old-fashioned bedroom, I saw under a gray sky a country that was
still all mystery. The long, lovely valley, with the river winding in
and out below, crossed, in mid vision by a mediæval bridge of vaulted
and buttressed stone, the clear presence of the rising ground beyond,
and the woods that I had only seen in shadow the night before, seemed
tinged with enchantment, and the soft breath, of air that sighed in at
the opened pane was like no other wind. I looked across the valley, and
beyond, hill followed on hill as wave on wave, and here a faint blue
pillar of smoke rose still in the morning air from the chimney of an
ancient gray farmhouse, there was a rugged height crowned with dark
firs, and in the distance I saw the white streak of a road that climbed
and vanished into some unimagined country. But the boundary of all was a
great wall of mountain, vast in the west, and ending like a fortress
with a steep ascent and a domed tumulus clear against the sky. I saw Professor Gregg walking up and down the terrace path below the
windows, and it was evident that he was revelling in the sense of
liberty, and the thought that he had, for a while, bidden good-bye to
task-work. When I joined him there was exultation in his voice as he
pointed out the sweep of valley and the river that wound beneath the
lovely hills. "Yes," he said, "it is a strangely beautiful country; and to me, at
least, it seems full of mystery. You have not forgotten the drawer I
showed you, Miss Lally? No; and you have guessed that I have come here
not merely for the sake of the children and the fresh air?" "I think I have guessed as much as that," I replied; "but you must
remember I do not know the mere nature of your investigations; and as
for the connection between the search and this wonderful valley, it is
past my guessing." He smiled queerly at me. "You must not think I am making a mystery for
the sake of mystery," he said. "I do not speak out because, so far,
there is nothing to be spoken, nothing definite I mean, nothing that can
be set down in hard black and white, as dull and sure and irreproachable
as any blue book.