"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---- Hello! 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, its 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 were-wolves 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 uphill 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. II. When I entered my garden I saw Môme sprawling on the stone doorstep. He
eyed me sideways and flopped his tail. "Are you not mortified, you idiot dog?" I said, looking about the upper
windows for Lys. Môme rolled over on his back and raised one deprecating forepaw, as
though to ward off calamity. "Don't act as though I was in the habit of beating you to death," I
said, disgusted. I had never in my life raised whip to the brute. "But
you are a fool dog," I continued. "No, you needn't come to be babied
and wept over; Lys can do that, if she insists, but I am ashamed of
you, and you can go to the devil." Môme slunk off into the house, and I followed, mounting directly to my
wife's boudoir. It was empty. "Where has she gone?" I said, looking hard at Môme, who had followed
me. "Oh! I see you don't know. Don't pretend you do. Come off that
lounge! Do you think Lys wants tan-coloured hairs all over her lounge?" I rang the bell for Catherine and 'Fine, but they didn't know where
"madame" had gone; so I went into my room, bathed, exchanged my
somewhat grimy shooting clothes for a suit of warm, soft knickerbockers,
and, after lingering some extra moments over my toilet--for I was
particular, now that I had married Lys--I went down to the garden and
took a chair out under the fig-trees. "Where can she be?" I wondered. Môme came sneaking out to be comforted,
and I forgave him for Lys's sake, whereupon he frisked. "You bounding cur," said I, "now what on earth started you off across
the moor? If you do it again I'll push you along with a charge of dust
shot." As yet I had scarcely dared think about the ghastly hallucination of
which I had been a victim, but now I faced it squarely, flushing a
little with mortification at the thought of my hasty retreat from the
gravel pit. "To think," I said aloud, "that those old woman's tales of Max Fortin
and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what didn't exist at all! I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark bedroom."