Fortin leaned against the cliff, polishing his
glasses and examining us with vague, near-sighted eyes; and Le Bihan,
the mayor, planted himself in our midst, rolling up the scroll and
tucking it under his arm. "First of all," he began in a shrill voice, "I am going to light my
pipe, and while lighting it I shall tell you what I have heard about
the attack on the fort yonder. My father told me; his father told him." He jerked his head in the direction of the ruined fort, a small, square
stone structure on the sea cliff, now nothing but crumbling walls. Then
he slowly produced a tobacco pouch, a bit of flint and tinder, and a
long-stemmed pipe fitted with a microscopical bowl of baked clay. To
fill such a pipe requires ten minutes' close attention. To smoke it to
a finish takes but four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It
is the crystallization of everything Breton. "Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette. "The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was dismantled
twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1739. In 1760 it was
carried by assault by the English. They came across from the island
of Groix--three shiploads--and they stormed the fort and sacked St.
Julien yonder, and they started to burn St. Gildas--you can see the
marks of their bullets on my house yet; but the men of Bannalec and the
men of Lorient fell upon them with pike and scythe and blunderbuss,
and those who did not run away lie there below in the gravel pit
now--thirty-eight of them." "And the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked, finishing my cigarette. The mayor had succeeded in filling his pipe, and now he began to put
his tobacco pouch away. "The thirty-ninth skull," he mumbled, holding the pipestem between his
defective teeth--"the thirty-ninth skull is no business of mine. I have
told the Bannalec men to cease digging." "But what is--whose is the missing skull?" I persisted curiously. The mayor was busy trying to strike a spark to his tinder. Presently he
set it aglow, applied it to his pipe, took the prescribed four puffs,
knocked the ashes out of the bowl, and gravely replaced the pipe in his
pocket. "The missing skull?" he asked. "Yes," said I impatiently. The mayor slowly unrolled the scroll and began to read, translating
from the Breton into French. And this is what he read:

                                     "ON THE CLIFFS OF ST. GILDAS,

                                            "_April 13, 1760_. "On this day, by order of the Count of Soisic, general in
     chief of the Breton forces now lying in Kerselec Forest, the
     bodies of thirty-eight English soldiers of the 27th, 50th,
     and 72d regiments of Foot were buried in this spot, together
     with their arms and equipments." The mayor paused and glanced at me reflectively. "Go on, Le Bihan," I said. "With them," continued the mayor, turning the scroll and reading on the
other side, "was buried the body of that vile traitor who betrayed the
fort to the English. The manner of his death was as follows: By order
of the most noble Count of Soisic, the traitor was first branded upon
the forehead with the brand of an arrowhead. The iron burned through
the flesh, and was pressed heavily so that the brand should even burn
into the bone of the skull. The traitor was then led out and bidden to
kneel. He admitted having guided the English from the island of Groix. Although a priest and a Frenchman, he had violated his priestly office
to aid him in discovering the password to the fort. This password he
extorted during confession from a young Breton girl who was in the
habit of rowing across from the island of Groix to visit her husband
in the fort. When the fort fell, this young girl, crazed by the death
of her husband, sought the Count of Soisic and told how the priest had
forced her to confess to him all she knew about the fort. The priest
was arrested at St. Gildas as he was about to cross the river to
Lorient. When arrested he cursed the girl, Marie Trevec----"

"What!" I exclaimed, "Marie Trevec!" "Marie Trevec," repeated Le Bihan; "the priest cursed Marie Trevec, and
all her family and descendants. He was shot as he knelt, having a mask
of leather over his face, because the Bretons who composed the squad of
execution refused to fire at a priest unless his face was concealed. The priest was l'Abbé Sorgue, commonly known as the Black Priest on
account of his dark face and swarthy eyebrows. He was buried with a
stake through his heart." Le Bihan paused, hesitated, looked at me, and handed the manuscript
back to Durand. The gendarme took it and slipped it into the brass
cylinder. "So," said I, "the thirty-ninth skull is the skull of the Black Priest." "Yes," said Fortin. "I hope they won't find it." "I have forbidden them to proceed," said the mayor querulously. "You
heard me, Max Fortin." I rose and picked up my gun. Môme came and pushed his head into my hand. "That's a fine dog," observed Durand, also rising. "Why don't you wish to find his skull?" I asked Le Bihan. "It would be
curious to see whether the arrow brand really burned into the bone." "There is something in that scroll that I didn't read to you," said the
mayor grimly. "Do you wish to know what it is?" "Of course," I replied in surprise. "Give me the scroll again, Durand," he said; then he read from
the bottom: "I, l'Abbé Sorgue, forced to write the above by my
executioners, have written it in my own blood; and with it I leave my
curse. My curse on St. Gildas, on Marie Trevec, and on her descendants. I will come back to St. Gildas when my remains are disturbed. Woe to
that Englishman whom my branded skull shall touch!" "What rot!" I said. "Do you believe it was really written in his own
blood?" "I am going to test it," said Fortin, "at the request of Monsieur le
Maire. I am not anxious for the job, however." "See," said Le Bihan, holding out the scroll to me, "it is signed,
'l'Abbé Sorgue.'" I glanced curiously over the paper. "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 recognised 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 sombre
robe of a priest among the crosses of the little graveyard. "They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now," muttered Max
Fortin.