Famous Modern Ghost Stories

"Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before Edward died," said Caroline Glynn.

She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity.Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent.She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family.The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty, she filled a great rocking-chair with her superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black silks whispering and her black frills fluttering.Even the shock of death—for her brother Edward lay dead in the house—could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanor.

But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and distress in response.

"I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so near his end," she said with an asperity which disturbed slightly the roseate curves of her beautiful mouth.

"Of course he did not know," murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone.

"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly.She turned on her sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion.Then she shrank as if from the other's possible answer.

Rebecca gasped again.The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was now sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and was eyeing them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her face.

"What do you mean?"said she impartially to them both.Then she, too, seemed to shrink before a possible answer.She even laughed an evasive sort of laugh.

"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly.She rose and crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness.

"Where are you going?"asked Mrs. Brigham.

"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the chamber of death.

"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.

After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.

"Did Henry have many words with him?"she asked.

"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her.She had not resumed rocking.She still sat up straight, with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead, between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.

"Did you—ever hear anything?"she asked in a low voice with a glance toward the door.

"I was just across the hall in the south parlor, and that door was open and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.

"Then you must have——"

"I couldn't help it."

"Everything?"

"Most of it."

"What was it?"

"The old story."

"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him."

Rebecca nodded, with a fearful glance at the door.

When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed."I know how he felt," said she."It must have looked to him as if Edward was living at his expense, but he wasn't."

"No, he wasn't."

"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will, and Henry ought to have remembered it."

"Yes, he ought."

"Did he say hard things?"

"Pretty hard, from what I heard."

"What?"

"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he thought he had better go away."

"What did Edward say?"

"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if he was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then——"

"What?"

"Then he laughed."

"What did Henry say?"

"I didn't hear him say anything, but——"

"But what?"

"I saw him when he came out of this room."

"He looked mad?"

"You've seen him when he looked so."

Emma nodded.The expression of horror on her face had deepened.

"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched him?"

"Yes.Don't!"

Then Caroline reentered the room; she went up to the stove, in which a wood fire was burning—it was a cold, gloomy day of fall—and she warmed her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated.She glanced at the door, which was still ajar; it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer.She rose and pushed it together with a sharp thud, which jarred the house.Rebecca started painfully with a half-exclamation.Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.

"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," she said.

Mrs. Brigham, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.

"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days," replied Caroline.

"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.

"Hush," said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.

"Nobody can hear with the door shut.I say again I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself.I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the very night before he died.Edward was enough sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults."

"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry that last night.I don't know but he did from what Rebecca overheard."

"Not so much cross, as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating," sniffed Rebecca.

"What do you really think ailed Edward?"asked Emma in hardly more than a whisper.She did not look at her sister.

"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and had spasms, but what do you think made him have them?"

"Henry called it gastric trouble.You know Edward has always had dyspepsia."

Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment."Was there any talk of an—examination?"said she.

Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.

"No," said she in a terrible voice."No."

The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding through their eyes.

The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from without made the door shake ineffectually."It's Henry," Rebecca sighed rather than whispered.Mrs. Brigham settled herself, after a noiseless rush across the floor, into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at last yielded and Henry Glynn entered.He cast a covertly sharp, comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm; at Rebecca quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face and only one small uncovered reddened ear as attentive as a dog's, and at Caroline sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the stove.She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear, and defiance of the fear and of him.

Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others.Both had the same hard delicacy of form and aquilinity of feature.They confronted each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity.

Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face.He looked suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness appeared in his face.He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance.He leaned his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham.

"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.

She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners.She was susceptible to praise.

"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will never grow older," said Caroline in a hard voice.

Henry looked at her, still smiling."Of course, we none of us forget that," said he, in a deep, gentle voice; "but we have to speak to the living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and the living are as dear as the dead."

"Not to me," said Caroline.

She rose and went abruptly out of the room again.Rebecca also rose and hurried after her, sobbing loudly.

Henry looked slowly after them.

"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he.

Mrs. Brigham rocked.A confidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her.Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and naturally.

"His death was very sudden," said she.

Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving.

"Yes," said he, "it was very sudden.He was sick only a few hours."

"What did you call it?"

"Gastric."

"You did not think of an examination?"

"There was no need.I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his death."

Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very soul.Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice.She rose, tottering on weak knees.

"Where are you going?"asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice.

Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she had to do—some black for the funeral—and was out of the room.She went up to the front chamber which she occupied.Caroline was there.She went close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each other.

"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!"said Caroline finally in an awful whisper.

"I won't," replied Emma.

That afternoon the three sisters were in the study.

Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material.At last she laid her work on her lap.

"It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light," said she.

Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca, in her usual place on the sofa.

"Rebecca, you had better get a lamp," she said.

Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her agitation.

"It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet," she said in a piteous, pleading voice like a child's.

"Yes, we do," returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily."I can't see to sew another stitch."

Rebecca rose and left the room.Presently she entered with a lamp.She set it on the table, an old-fashioned card-table which was placed against the opposite wall from the window.That opposite wall was taken up with three doors; the one small space was occupied by the table.

"What have you put that lamp over there for?"asked Mrs. Brigham, with more of impatience than her voice usually revealed."Why didn't you set it in the hall, and have done with it?Neither Caroline nor I can see if it is on that table."

"I thought perhaps you would move," replied Rebecca hoarsely.

"If I do move, we can't both sit at that table.Caroline has her paper all spread around.Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the middle of the room, then we can both see?"

Rebecca hesitated.Her face was very pale.She looked with an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.

"Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?"asked Caroline, almost fiercely."Why do you act so, Rebecca?"

Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room without another word.Then she seated herself on the sofa and placed a hand over her eyes as if to shade them, and remained so.

"Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why you didn't want the lamp?"asked Mrs. Brigham kindly.

"I always like to sit in the dark," replied Rebecca chokingly.Then she snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep.Caroline continued to write, Mrs. Brigham to sew.

Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall.The glance became a steady stare.She looked intently, her work suspended in her hands.Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches, then she looked again, and again turned to her task.At last she laid her work in her lap and stared concentratedly.She looked from the wall round the room, taking note of the various objects.Then she turned to her sisters.

"What is that?" said she.

"What?"asked Caroline harshly.

"That strange shadow on the wall," replied Mrs. Brigham.

Rebecca sat with her face hidden; Caroline dipped her pen in the inkstand.

"Why don't you turn around and look?"asked Mrs. Brigham in a wondering and somewhat aggrieved way.

"I am in a hurry to finish this letter," replied Caroline shortly.

Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and began walking round the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on the shadow.

Then suddenly she shrieked out:

"Look at this awful shadow!What is it?Caroline, look, look!Rebecca, look!What is it?"

All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone.Her handsome face was livid with horror.She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow.

Then after a shuddering glance at the wall Rebecca burst out in a wild wail.

"Oh, Caroline, there it is again, there it is again!"

"Caroline Glynn, you look!"said Mrs. Brigham."Look!What is that dreadful shadow?"

Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.

"How should I know?"she said.

"It has been there every night since he died!"cried Rebecca.

"Every night?"

"Yes; he died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights," said Caroline rigidly.She stood as if holding her calm with a vise of concentrated will.

"It—it looks like—like—" stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense horror.

"I know what it looks like well enough," said Caroline."I've got eyes in my head."

"It looks like Edward," burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear."Only——"

"Yes, it does," assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone matched her sisters', "only—Oh, it is awful!What is it, Caroline?"

"I ask you again, how should I know?"replied Caroline."I see it there like you.How should I know any more than you?"

"It must be something in the room," said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly around.

"We moved everything in the room the first night it came," said Rebecca; "it is not anything in the room."

Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury."Of course it is something in the room," said she."How you act!What do you mean talking so?Of course it is something in the room."

"Of course it is," agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously."It must be something in the room."

"It is not anything in the room," repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror.

The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered.He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of the others.He stood staring at the shadow on the wall.

"What is that?"he demanded in a strange voice.

"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said faintly.

Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer.His face showed a gamut of emotions.Horror, conviction, then furious incredulity.Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room.He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall.Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.

"It must be something in the room!"he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash.

His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident upon his face, until one almost lost sight of his lineaments.Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes.Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline's hand.They both stood in a corner out of his way.For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal.He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow he flung it to the floor.

Then suddenly he desisted.He laughed.

"What an absurdity," he said easily."Such a to-do about a shadow."

"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to make natural.As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.

"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of," said Caroline.

Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face.Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking.Henry lifted the chair with a show of anxiety.

"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly.He laughed again, looking at his sisters."Did I scare you?"he said."I should think you might be used to me by this time.You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look—queer, like—and I thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to without any delay."

"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked Caroline dryly, with a slight glance at the wall.

Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.

"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he laughed again."A man is a fool to try to account for shadows."

Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept his back to the wall—as did, indeed, the others.

Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up the rear.She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.

"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered to Caroline after supper.

"Very well; we will sit in the south room," replied Caroline."I think we will sit in the south parlor," she said aloud; "it isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold."

So they all sat in the south room with their sewing.Henry read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table.About nine o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study.The three sisters looked at one another.Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly round her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.

"What are you going to do?"inquired Rebecca agitatedly.

"I am going to see what he is about," replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously.

As she spoke she pointed to the study door across the hall; it was ajar.Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed.It was still ajar and a streak of light showed from top to bottom.

Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door.She stood there, her eye at the crack.

In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes.Caroline sewed steadily.What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this:

Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts with an old sword which had belonged to his father all over and through the intervening space.Not an inch was left unpierced.He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections.He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow remained unmoved.Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror.

Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly.Mrs. Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her before she related what she had seen.

"He looked like a demon," she said again."Have you got any of that old wine in the house, Caroline?I don't feel as if I could stand much more."

"Yes, there's plenty," said Caroline; "you can have some when you go to bed."

"I think we had all better take some," said Mrs. Brigham."Oh, Caroline, what——"

"Don't ask; don't speak," said Caroline.

"No, I'm not going to," replied Mrs. Brigham; "but——"

Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlor was deserted.Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light before he came upstairs.They had been gone about an hour when he came into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study.He set it on the table, and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down.His face was terrible, his fair complexion showed livid, and his blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections.

Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library.He set the lamp on the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall.Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his former frenzy.Nothing affected the shadow.Then he returned to the south room with the lamp and again waited.Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall.It was midnight before he went upstairs.Mrs. Brigham and the other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.

The next day was the funeral.That evening the family sat in the south room.Some relatives were with them.Nobody entered the study until Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the night.He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before the light.

The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to the city for three days.The sisters looked at him with surprise.He very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglected on account of Edward's death.

"How can you leave your patients now?"asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly.

"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied Henry easily."I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford."

"Consultation?"inquired Mrs. Brigham.

"I have business," replied Henry.

Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.

After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after all, Henry had not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and she thought it very strange.

"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a shudder.

"What do you mean?"inquired Caroline.

"Nothing," replied Rebecca.

Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next.The third day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city had come.

"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea of a doctor leaving his patients at such a time as this, and the idea of a consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and now he has not come. I don't understand it, for my part."

"I don't either," said Rebecca.

They were all in the south parlor.There was no light in the study; the door was ajar.

Presently Mrs. Brigham rose—she could not have told why; something seemed to impel her—some will outside her own.She went out of the room, again wrapping her rustling skirts round that she might pass noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.

"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking voice.

Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only remaining lamp in the room, and followed her sister.Rebecca had risen, but she stood trembling, not venturing to follow.

The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on the south door on the other side of the house from the study.Rebecca, after hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door; she remembered that the servant was out.

Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study.Caroline set the lamp on the table.They looked at the wall, and there were two shadows.The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall.Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand."Here is—a telegram," she gasped."Henry is—dead."

---

The Messenger

By ROBERT W.CHAMBERS

R.W.C.

---

R.W.C.

I

"The bullet entered here," said Max Fortin, and he placed his middle finger over a smooth hole exactly in the center of the forehead.

I sat down upon a mound of dry seaweed and unslung my fowling piece.

The little chemist cautiously felt the edges of the shot-hole, first with his middle finger, and then with his thumb.

"Let me see the skull again," said I.

Max Fortin picked it up from the sod.

"It's like all the others," he repeated, wiping his glasses on his handkerchief."I thought you might care to see one of the skulls, so I brought this over from the gravel pit.The men from Bannalec are digging yet.They ought to stop."

"How many skulls are there altogether?"I inquired.

"They found thirty-eight skulls; there are thirty-nine noted in the list.They lie piled up in the gravel pit on the edge of Le Bihan's wheat field.The men are at work yet.Le Bihan is going to stop them."

"Let's go over," said I; and I picked up my gun and started across the cliffs, Portin on one side, Môme on the other.

"Who has the list?"I asked, lighting my pipe."You say there is a list?"

"The list was found rolled up in a brass cylinder," said the chemist.He added: "You should not smoke here.You know that if a single spark drifted into the wheat—"

"Ah, but I have a cover to my pipe," said I, smiling.

Fortin watched me as I closed the pepper-box arrangement over the glowing bowl of the pipe.Then he continued:

"The list was made out on thick yellow paper; the brass tube has preserved it.It is as fresh to-day as it was in 1760.You shall see it."

"Is that the date?"

"The list is dated 'April, 1760.'The Brigadier Durand has it.It is not written in French."

"Not written in French!"I exclaimed.

"No," replied Fortin solemnly, "it is written in Breton."

"But," I protested, "the Breton language was never written or printed in 1760."

"Except by priests," said the chemist.

"I have heard of but one priest who ever wrote the Breton language," I began.

Fortin stole a glance at my face.

"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 armor.

Durand pursed up his lips, twisted his tremendous mustache, and hooked his thumbs in his saber belt.

"As for me," he said, "I am in favor 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 sailcloth 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, saber 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 Portin at the Groix Inn?"

Le Bihan turned red, but Durand rattled his saber 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.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 1730.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 pipe stem 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 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.

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-colored 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."For I knew now that I had mistaken a round stone for a skull each time, and had pushed a couple of big pebbles into the pit instead of the skull itself.

"By jingo!"said I, "I'm nervous; my liver must be in a devil of a condition if I see such things when I'm awake!Lys will know what to give me."

I felt mortified and irritated and sulky, and thought disgustedly of Le Bihan and Max Fortin.

But after a while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the sun low dipping in the western ocean.As the twilight fell for a moment over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart, the happiness that all men know—all men who have loved.

Slowly the purple mist crept out over the sea; the cliffs darkened; the forest was shrouded.

Suddenly the sky above burned with the afterglow, and the world was alight again.

Cloud after cloud caught the rose dye; the cliffs were tinted with it; moor and pasture, heather and forest burned and pulsated with the gentle flush.I saw the gulls turning and tossing above the sand bar, their snowy wings tipped with pink; I saw the sea swallows sheering the surface of the still river, stained to its placid depths with warm reflections of the clouds.The twitter of drowsy hedge birds broke out in the stillness; a salmon rolled its shining side above tidewater.

The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the silence.I sat motionless, holding my breath as one who listens to the first low rumor of an organ.All at once the pure whistle of a nightingale cut the silence, and the first moonbeam silvered the wastes of mist-hung waters.

I raised my head.

Lys stood before me in the garden.

When we had kissed each other, we linked arms and moved up and down the gravel walks, watching the moonbeams sparkle on the sand bar as the tide ebbed and ebbed.The broad beds of white pinks about us were atremble with hovering white moths; the October roses hung all abloom, perfuming the salt wind.

"Sweetheart," I said, "where is Yvonne?Has she promised to spend Christmas with us?"

"Yes, Dick; she drove me down from Plougat this afternoon.She sent her love to you.I am not jealous.What did you shoot?"

"A hare and four partridges.They are in the gun room.I told Catherine not to touch them until you had seen them."

Now I suppose I knew that Lys could not be particularly enthusiastic over game or guns; but she pretended she was, and always scornfully denied that it was for my sake and not for the pure love of sport.So she dragged me off to inspect the rather meager game bag, and she paid me pretty compliments, and gave a little cry of delight and pity as I lifted the enormous hare out of the sack by his ears.

"He'll eat no more of our lettuce," I said attempting to justify the assassination.

"Unhappy little bunny—and what a beauty!O Dick, you are a splendid shot, are you not?"

I evaded the question and hauled out a partridge.

"Poor little dead things'" said Lys in a whisper; "it seems a pity—doesn't it, Dick?But then you are so clever——"

"We'll have them broiled," I said guardedly, "tell Catherine."

Catherine came in to take away the game, and presently 'Fine Lelocard, Lys's maid, announced dinner, and Lys tripped away to her boudoir.

I stood an instant contemplating her blissfully, thinking, "My boy, you're the happiest fellow in the world—you're in love with your wife'"

I walked into the dining-room, beamed at the plates, walked out again; met Tregunc in the hallway, beamed on him; glanced into the kitchen, beamed at Catherine, and went up stairs, still beaming.

Before I could knock at Lys's door it opened, and Lys came hastily out.When she saw me she gave a little cry of relief, and nestled close to my breast.

"There is something peering in at my window," she said.

"What!"I cried angrily.

"A man, I think, disguised as a priest, and he has a mask on.He must have climbed up by the bay tree."

I was down the stairs and out of doors in no time.The moonlit garden was absolutely deserted.Tregunc came up, and together we searched the hedge and shrubbery around the house and out to the road.

"Jean Marie," said I at length, "loose my bulldog—he knows you—and take your supper on the porch where you can watch.My wife says the fellow is disguised as a priest, and wears a mask."

Tregunc showed his white teeth in a smile."He will not care to venture in here again, I think, Monsieur Darrel."

I went back and found Lys seated quietly at the table.

"The soup is ready, dear," she said."Don't worry; it was only some foolish lout from Bannalec.No one in St.Gildas or St.Julien would do such a thing."

I was too much exasperated to reply at first, but Lys treated it as a stupid joke, and after a while I began to look at it in that light.

Lys told me about Yvonne, and reminded me of my promise to have Herbert Stuart down to meet her.

"You wicked diplomat!"I protested."Herbert is in Paris, and hard at work for the Salon."

"Don't you think he might spare a week to flirt with the prettiest girl in Finistere?"inquired Lys innocently.

"Prettiest girl!Not much!"I said.

"Who is, then?"urged Lys.

I laughed a trifle sheepishly.

"I suppose you mean me, Dick," said Lys, coloring up.

"Now I bore you, don't I?"

"Bore me?Ah, no, Dick."

After coffee and cigarettes were served I spoke about Tregunc, and Lys approved.

"Poor Jean!He will be glad, won't he?What a dear fellow you are!"

"Nonsense," said I; "we need a gardener; you said so yourself, Lys."

But Lys leaned over and kissed me, and then bent down and hugged Môme—who whistled through his nose in sentimental appreciation.

"I am a very happy woman," said Lys.

"Môme was a very bad dog to-day," I observed.

"Poor Môme!"said Lys, smiling.

When dinner was over and Môme lay snoring before the blaze—for the October nights are often chilly in Finistere—Lys curled up in the chimney corner with her embroidery, and gave me a swift glance from under her dropping lashes.

"You look like a schoolgirl, Lys," I said teasingly."I don't believe you are sixteen yet."

She pushed back her heavy burnished hair thoughtfully.Her wrist was as white as surf foam.

"Have we been married four years?I don't believe it," I said.

She gave me another swift glance and touched the embroidery on her knee, smiling faintly.

"I see," said I, also smiling at the embroidered garment."Do you think it will fit?"

"Fit?"repeated Lys.Then she laughed

"And," I persisted, "are you perfectly sure that you—er—we shall need it?"

"Perfectly," said Lys.A delicate color touched her cheeks and neck.She held up the little garment, all fluffy with misty lace and wrought with quaint embroidery.

"It is very gorgeous," said I; "don't use your eyes too much, dearest.May I smoke a pipe?"

"Of course," she said selecting a skein of pale blue silk.

For a while I sat and smoked in silence, watching her slender fingers among the tinted silks and thread of gold.

Presently she spoke: "What did you say your crest is, Dick?"

"My crest?Oh, something or other rampant on a something or other——"

"Dick!"

"Dearest?"

"Don't be flippant."

"But I really forget.It's an ordinary crest; everybody in New York has them.No family should be without 'em."

"You are disagreeable, Dick.Send Josephine upstairs for my album."

"Are you going to put that crest on the—the—whatever it is?"

"I am; and my own crest, too."

I thought of the Purple Emperor and wondered a little.

"You didn't know I had one, did you?"she smiled.

"What is it?"I replied evasively.

"You shall see.Ring for Josephine."

I rang, and, when 'Fine appeared, Lys gave her some orders in a low voice, and Josephine trotted away, bobbing her white-coiffed head with a "Bien, Madame!"

After a few minutes she returned, bearing a tattered, musty volume, from which the gold and blue had mostly disappeared.

I took the book in my hands and examined the ancient emblazoned covers.

"Lilies!"I exclaimed.

"Fleur-de-lis," said my wife demurely.

"Oh!"said I, astonished, and opened the book.

"You have never before seen this book?"asked Lys, with a touch of malice in her eyes.

"You know I haven't.Hello!What's this?Oho!So there should be a de before Trevec?Lys de Trevec?Then why in the world did the Purple Emperor——"

"Dick!"cried Lys.

"All right," said I."Shall I read about the Sieur de Trevec who rode to Saladin's tent alone to seek for medicine for St.Louise?Or shall I read about—what is it?Oh, here it is, all down in black and white—about the Marquis de Trevec who drowned himself before Alva's eyes rather than surrender the banner of the fleur-de-lis to Spain?It's all written here.But, dear, how about that soldier named Trevec who was killed in the old fort on the cliff yonder?"

"He dropped the de, and the Trevecs since then have been Republicans," said Lys—"all except me."

"That's quite right," said I; "it is time that we Republicans should agree upon some feudal system.My dear, I drink to the king!"and I raised my wine glass and looked at Lys.

"To the king," said Lys, flushing.She smoothed out the tiny garment on her knees; she touched the glass with her lips; her eyes were very sweet.I drained the glass to the king.

After a silence I said: "I will tell the king stories.His majesty shall be amused."

"His majesty," repeated Lys softly.

"Or hers," I laughed."Who knows?"

"Who knows?"murmured Lys; with a gentle sigh.

"I know some stories about Jack the Giant-Killer," I announced."Do you, Lys?"

"I?No, not about a giant-killer, but I know all about the werewolf, and Jeanne-la-Flamme, and the Man in Purple Tatters, and—O dear me, I know lots more."

"You are very wise," said I."I shall teach his majesty, English."

"And I Breton," cried Lys jealously.

"I shall bring playthings to the king," said I—"big green lizards from the gorse, little gray mullets to swim in glass globes, baby rabbits from the forest of Kerselec——"

"And I," said Lys, "will bring the first primrose, the first branch of aubepine, the first jonquil, to the king—my king."

"Our king," said I; and there was peace in Finistere.

I lay back, idly turning the leaves of the curious old volume.

"I am looking," said I, "for the crest."

"The crest, dear?It is a priest's head with an arrow-shaped mark on the forehead, on a field——"

I sat up and stared at my wife.

"Dick, whatever is the matter?"she smiled."The story is there in that book.Do you care to read it?No?Shall I tell it to you?Well, then: It happened in the third crusade.There was a monk whom men called the Black Priest.He turned apostate, and sold himself to the enemies of Christ.A Sieur de Trevec burst into the Saracen camp, at the head of only one hundred lances, and carried the Black Priest away out of the very midst of their army."

"So that is how you come by the crest," I said quietly; but I thought of the branded skull in the gravel pit, and wondered.

"Yes," said Lys."The Sieur de Trevec cut the Black Priest's head off, but first he branded him with an arrow mark on the forehead.The book says it was a pious action, and the Sieur de Trevec got great merit by it.But I think it was cruel, the branding," she sighed.

"Did you ever hear of any other Black Priest?"

"Yes.There was one in the last century, here in St.Gildas.He cast a white shadow in the sun.He wrote in the Breton language.Chronicles, too, I believe.I never saw them.His name was the same as that of the old chronicler, and of the other priest, Jacques Sorgue.Some said he was a lineal descendant of the traitor.Of course the first Black Priest was bad enough for anything.But if he did have a child, it need not have been the ancestor of the last Jacques Sorgue.They say he was so good he was not allowed to die, but was caught up to heaven one day," added Lys, with believing eyes.

I smiled.

"But he disappeared," persisted Lys.

"I'm afraid his journey was in another direction," I said jestingly, and thoughtlessly told her the story of the morning.I had utterly forgotten the masked man at her window, but before I finished I remembered him fast enough, and realized what I had done as I saw her face whiten.

"Lys," I urged tenderly, "that was only some clumsy clown's trick.You said so yourself.You are not superstitious, my dear?"

Her eyes were on mine.She slowly drew the little gold cross from her bosom and kissed it.But her lips trembled as they pressed the symbol of faith.

III

About nine o'clock the next morning I walked into the Groix Inn and sat down at the long discolored oaken table, nodding good-day to Marianne Bruyere, who in turn bobbed her white coiffe at me.

"My clever Bannalec maid," said I, "what is good for a stirrup-cup at the Groix Inn?"

"Schist?"she inquired in Breton.

"With a dash of red wine, then," I replied.

She brought the delicious Quimperle cider, and I poured a little Bordeaux into it.Marianne watched me with laughing black eyes.

"What makes your cheeks so red, Marianne?"I asked."Has Jean Marie been here?"

"We are to be married, Monsieur Darrel," she laughed.

"Ah!Since when has Jean Marie Tregunc lost his head?"

"His head?Oh, Monsieur Darrel—his heart, you mean!"

"So I do," said I."Jean Marie is a practical fellow."

"It is all due to your kindness—" began the girl, but I raised my hand and held up the glass.

"It's due to himself.To your happiness, Marianne"; and I took a hearty draught of the schist."Now," said I, "tell me where I can find Le Bihan and Max Fortin."

"Monsieur Le Bihan and Monsieur Fortin are above in the broad room.I believe they are examining the Red Admiral's effects."

"To send them to Paris?Oh, I know.May I go up, Marianne?"

"And God go with you," smiled the girl.

When I knocked at the door of the broad room above little Max Fortin opened it.Dust covered his spectacles and nose; his hat, with the tiny velvet ribbons fluttering, was all awry.

"Come in, Monsieur Darrel," he said; "the mayor and I are packing up the effects of the Purple Emperor and of the poor Red Admiral."

"The collections?"I asked, entering the room."You must be very careful in packing those butterfly cases; the slightest jar might break wings and antennas, you know."

Le Bihan shook hands with me and pointed to the great pile of boxes.

"They're all cork lined," he said, "but Fortin and I are putting felt around each box.The Entomological Society of Paris pays the freight."

The combined collection of the Red Admiral and the Purple Emperor made a magnificent display.

I lifted and inspected case after case set with gorgeous butterflies and moths, each specimen carefully labelled with the name in Latin.There were cases filled with crimson tiger moths all aflame with color; cases devoted to the common yellow butterflies; symphonies in orange and pale yellow; cases of soft gray and dun-colored sphinx moths; and cases of grayish nettle-bed butterflies of the numerous family of Vanessa.

All alone in a great case by itself was pinned the purple emperor, the Apatura Iris, that fatal specimen that had given the Purple Emperor his name and quietus.

I remembered the butterfly, and stood looking at it with bent eyebrows.

Le Bihan glanced up from the floor where he was nailing down the lid of a box full of cases.

"It is settled, then," said he, "that madame, your wife, gives the Purple Emperor's entire Collection to the city of Paris?"

I nodded.

"Without accepting anything for it?"

"It is a gift," I said.

"Including the purple emperor there in the case?That butterfly is worth a great deal of money," persisted Le Bihan.

"You don't suppose that we would wish to sell that specimen, do you?"I answered a trifle sharply.

"If I were you I should destroy it," said the mayor in his high-pitched voice.

"That would be nonsense," said I, "like your burying the brass cylinder and scroll yesterday."

"It was not nonsense," said Le Bihan doggedly, "and I should prefer not to discuss the subject of the scroll."

I looked at Max Portin, who immediately avoided my eyes.

"You are a pair of superstitious old women," said I, digging my hands into my pockets; "you swallow every nursery tale that is invented."

"What of it?"said Le Bihan sulkily; "there's more truth than lies in most of 'em."

"Oh!"I sneered, "does the Mayor of St.Gildas and St.Julien believe in the loup-garou?"

"No, not in the loup-garou."

"In what, then—Jeanne-la-Flamme?"

"That," said Le Bihan with conviction, "is history."

"The devil it is!"said I; "and perhaps, Monsieur the mayor, your faith in giants is unimpaired?"

"There were giants—everybody knows it," growled Max Fortin.

"And you a chemist!"I observed scornfully.

"Listen, Monsieur Darrel," squeaked Le Bihan; "you know yourself that the Purple Emperor was a scientific man.Now suppose I should tell you that he always refused to include in his collection a Death's Messenger?"

"A what?"I exclaimed.

"You know what I mean—that moth that flies by night; some call it the Death's Head, but in St.Gildas we call it 'Death's Messenger.'"

"Oh!"said I, "you mean that big sphinx moth that is commonly known as the 'death's-head moth.'Why the mischief should the people here call it death's messenger?"

"For hundreds of years it has been known as death's messenger in St. Gildas," said Max Fortin. "Even Froissart speaks of it in his commentaries on Jacques Sorgue's ChroniclesThe book is in your library."

"Sorgue?And who was Jacques Sorgue?I never read his book."

"Jacques Sorgue was the son of some unfrocked priest—I forget. It was during the crusades."

"Good Heavens!"I burst out, "I've been hearing of nothing but crusades and priests and death and sorcery ever since I kicked that skull into the gravel pit, and I am tired of it, I tell you frankly.One would think we lived in the dark ages.Do you know what year of our Lord it is, Le Bihan?"

"Eighteen hundred and ninety-six," replied the mayor.

"And yet you two hulking men are afraid of a death's-head moth."

"I don't care to have one fly into the window," said Max Fortin; "it means evil to the house and the people in it."

"God alone knows why he marked one of his creatures with a yellow death's head on the back," observed Le Bihan piously, "but I take it that he meant it as a warning; and I propose to profit by it," he added triumphantly.

"See here, Le Bihan," I said; "by a stretch of imagination one can make out a skull on the thorax of a certain big sphinx moth.What of it?"

"It is a bad thing to touch," said the mayor wagging his head.

"It squeaks when handled," added Max Fortin.

"Some creatures squeak all the time," I observed, looking hard at Le Bihan.

"Pigs," added the mayor.

"Yes, and asses," I replied."Listen, Le Bihan: do you mean to tell me that you saw that skull roll uphill yesterday?"

The mayor shut his mouth tightly and picked up his hammer.

"Don't be obstinate," I said; "I asked you a question."

"And I refuse to answer," snapped Le Bihan."Fortin saw what I saw; let him talk about it."

I looked searchingly at the little chemist.

"I don't say that I saw it actually roll up out of the pit, all by itself," said Fortin with a shiver, "but—but then, how did it come up out of the pit, if it didn't roll up all by itself?"

"It didn't come up at all; that was a yellow cobblestone that you mistook for the skull again," I replied."You were nervous, Max."

"A—a very curious cobblestone, Monsieur Darrel," said Fortin.

"I also was a victim to the same hallucination," I continued, "and I regret to say that I took the trouble to roll two innocent cobblestones into the gravel pit, imagining each time that it was the skull I was rolling."

"It was," observed Le Bihan with a morose shrug.

"It just shows," said I, ignoring the mayor's remark, "how easy it is to fix up a train of coincidences so that the result seems to savor of the supernatural.Now, last night my wife imagined that she saw a priest in a mask peer in at her window——"

Fortin and Le Bihan scrambled hastily from their knees, dropping hammer and nails.

"W-h-a-t—what's that?"demanded the mayor.

I repeated what I had said.Max Fortin turned livid.

"My God!"muttered Le Bihan, "the Black Priest is in St.Gildas!"

"D-don't you—you know the old prophecy?"stammered Fortin; "Froissart quotes it from Jacques Sorgue:

"Aristide Le Bihan," I said angrily, "and you, Max Fortin, I've got enough of this nonsense!Some foolish lout from Bannalec has been in St.Gildas playing tricks to frighten old fools like you.If you have nothing better to talk about than nursery legends I'll wait until you come to your senses.Good-morning."And I walked out, more disturbed than I cared to acknowledge to myself.

The day had become misty and overcast.Heavy, wet clouds hung in the east.I heard the surf thundering against the cliffs, and the gray gulls squealed as they tossed and turned high in the sky.The tide was creeping across the river sands, higher, higher, and I saw the seaweed floating on the beach, and the lancons springing from the foam, silvery threadlike flashes in the gloom.Curlew were flying up the river in twos and threes; the timid sea swallows skimmed across the moors toward some quiet, lonely pool, safe from the coming tempest.In every hedge field birds were gathering, huddling together, twittering restlessly.

When I reached the cliffs I sat down, resting my chin on my clenched hands.Already a vast curtain of rain, sweeping across the ocean miles away, hid the island of Groix.To the east, behind the white semaphore on the hills, black clouds crowded up over the horizon.After a little the thunder boomed, dull, distant, and slender skeins of lightning unraveled across the crest of the coming storm.Under the cliff at my feet the surf rushed foaming over the shore, and the lancons jumped and skipped and quivered until they seemed to be but the reflections of the meshed lightning.

I turned to the east.It was raining over Groix, it was raining at Sainte Barbe, it was raining now at the semaphore.High in the storm whirl a few gulls pitched; a nearer cloud trailed veils of rain in its wake; the sky was spattered with lightning; the thunder boomed.

As I rose to go, a cold raindrop fell upon the back of my hand, and another, and yet another on my face.I gave a last glance at the sea, where the waves were bursting into strange white shapes that seemed to fling out menacing arms toward me.Then something moved on the cliff, something black as the black rock it clutched—a filthy cormorant, craning its hideous head at the sky.

Slowly I plodded homeward across the somber moorland, where the gorse stems glimmered with a dull metallic green, and the heather, no longer violet and purple, hung drenched and dun-colored among the dreary rocks.The wet turf creaked under my heavy boots, the black-thorn scraped and grated against knee and elbow.Over all lay a strange light, pallid, ghastly, where the sea spray whirled across the landscape and drove into my face until it grew numb with the cold.In broad bands, rank after rank, billow on billow, the rain burst out across the endless moors, and yet there was no wind to drive it at such a pace.

Lys stood at the door as I turned into the garden, motioning me to hasten; and then for the first time I became conscious that I was soaked to the skin.

"However in the world did you come to stay out when such a storm threatened?"she said."Oh, you are dripping!Go quickly and change; I have laid your warm underwear on the bed, Dick."

I kissed my wife, and went upstairs to change my dripping clothes for something more comfortable.

When I returned to the morning room there was a driftwood fire on the hearth, and Lys sat in the chimney corner embroidering.

"Catherine tells me that the fishing fleet from Lorient is out.Do you think they are in danger, dear?"asked Lys, raising her blue eyes to mine as I entered.

"There is no wind, and there will be no sea," said I, looking out of the window.Far across the moor I could see the black cliffs looming in the mist.

"How it rains!"murmured Lys; "come to the fire, Dick."

I threw myself on the fur rug, my hands in my pockets, my head on Lys's knees.

"Tell me a story," I said."I feel like a boy of ten."

Lys raised a finger to her scarlet lips.I always waited for her to do that.

"Will you be very still, then?"she said.

"Still as death."

"Death," echoed a voice, very softly.

"Did you speak, Lys?"I asked, turning so that I could see her face.

"No; did you, Dick?"

"Who said 'death'?"I asked, startled.

"Death," echoed a voice, softly.

I sprang up and looked about.Lys rose too, her needles and embroidery falling to the floor.She seemed about to faint, leaning heavily on me, and I led her to the window and opened it a little way to give her air.As I did so the chain lightning split the zenith, the thunder crashed, and a sheet of rain swept into the room, driving with it something that fluttered—something that flapped, and squeaked, and beat upon the rug with soft, moist wings.

We bent over it together, Lys clinging to me, and we saw that it was a death's-head moth drenched with rain.

The dark day passed slowly as we sat beside the fire, hand in hand, her head against my breast, speaking of sorrow and mystery and death.For Lys believed that there were things on earth that none might understand, things that must be nameless forever and ever, until God rolls up the scroll of life and all is ended.We spoke of hope and fear and faith, and the mystery of the saints; we spoke of the beginning and the end, of the shadow of sin, of omens, and of love.The moth still lay on the floor quivering its somber wings in the warmth of the fire, the skull and ribs clearly etched upon its neck and body.

"If it is a messenger of death to this house," I said, "why should we fear, Lys?"

"Death should be welcome to those who love God," murmured Lys, and she drew the cross from her breast and kissed it.

"The moth might die if I threw it out into the storm," I said after a silence.

"Let it remain," sighed Lys.

Late that night my wife lay sleeping, and I sat beside her bed and read in the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue.I shaded the candle, but Lys grew restless, and finally I took the book down into the morning room, where the ashes of the fire rustled and whitened on the hearth.

The death's-head moth lay on the rug before the fire where I had left it.At first I thought it was dead, but when I looked closer I saw a lambent fire in its amber eyes.The straight white shadow it cast across the floor wavered as the candle flickered.

The pages of the Chronicle of Jacques Sorgue were damp and sticky; the illuminated gold and blue initials left flakes of azure and gilt where my hand brushed them.

"It is not paper at all; it is thin parchment," I said to myself; and I held the discolored page close to the candle flame and read, translating laboriously:

"I, Jacques Sorgue, saw all these things.And I saw the Black Mass celebrated in the chapel of St.Gildas-on-the-Cliff.And it was said by the Abbé Sorgue, my kinsman: for which deadly sin the apostate priest was seized by the most noble Marquis of Plougastel and by him condemned to be burned with hot irons, until his seared soul quit its body and fly to its master the devil.But when the Black Priest lay in the crypt of Plougastel, his master Satan came at night and set him free, and carried him across land and sea to Mahmoud, which is Soldan or Saladin.And I, Jacques Sorgue, traveling afterward by sea, beheld with my own eyes my kinsman, the Black Priest of St.Gildas, borne along in the air upon a vast black wing, which was the wing of his master Satan.And this was seen also by two men of the crew."

I turned the page.The wings of the moth on the floor began to quiver.I read on and on, my eyes blurring under the shifting candle flame.I read of battles and of saints, and I learned how the Great Soldan made his pact with Satan, and then I came to the Sieur de Trevec, and read how he seized the Black Priest in the midst of Saladin's tents and carried him away and cut off his head first branding him on the forehead."And before he suffered," said the Chronicle, "he cursed the Sieur de Trevec and his descendants, and he said he would surely return to St.Gildas.'For the violence you do to me, I will do violence to you.For the evil I suffer at your hands, I will work evil on you and your descendants.Woe to your children, Sieur de Trevec!'" There was a whirr, a beating of strong wings, and my candle flashed up as in a sudden breeze.A humming filled the room; the great moth darted hither and thither, beating, buzzing, on ceiling and wall.I flung down my book and stepped forward.Now it lay fluttering upon the window sill, and for a moment I had it under my hand, but the thing squeaked and I shrank back.Then suddenly it darted across the candle flame; the light flared and went out, and at the same moment a shadow moved in the darkness outside.I raised my eyes to the window.A masked face was peering in at me.

Quick as thought I whipped out my revolver and fired every cartridge, but the face advanced beyond the window, the glass melting away before it like mist, and through the smoke of my revolver I saw something creep swiftly into the room.Then I tried to cry out, but the thing was at my throat, and I fell backward among the ashes of the hearth.

---

When my eyes unclosed I was lying on the hearth, my head among the cold ashes.Slowly I got on my knees, rose painfully, and groped my way to a chair.On the floor lay my revolver, shining in the pale light of early morning.My mind clearing by degrees, I looked, shuddering, at the window.The glass was unbroken.I stooped stiffly, picked up my revolver and opened the cylinder.Every cartridge had been fired.Mechanically I closed the cylinder and placed the revolver in my pocket.The book, the Chronicles of Jacques Sorgue, lay on the table beside me, and as I started to close it I glanced at the page.It was all splashed with rain, and the lettering had run, so that the page was merely a confused blur of gold and red and black.As I stumbled toward the door I cast a fearful glance over my shoulder.The death's-head moth crawled shivering on the rug.

IV

The sun was about three hours high.I must have slept, for I was aroused by the sudden gallop of horses under our window.People were shouting and calling in the road.I sprang up and opened the sash.Le Bihan was there, an image of helplessness, and Max Fortin stood beside him polishing his glasses.Some gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle, and I could hear them around the corner of the house, stamping, and rattling their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my stable.

Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious questions.

"I don't know," I answered."I am going out to see what it means."

"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said, giving me a troubled look.But I kissed her and laughed at her until she smiled too.Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried down the stairs.

The first person I saw standing in the road was the Brigadier Durand.

"Hello!"said I, "have you come to arrest me again?What the devil is all this fuss about, anyway?"

"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly, "and for a sufficient reason, I think.Look there, Monsieur Darrel!"

He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.

"Good heavens!"I cried, "where did that puddle of blood come from?"

"That's what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel.Max Fortin found it at daybreak.See, it's splashed all over the grass, too.A trail of it leads into your garden, across the flower beds to your very window, the one that opens from the morning room.There is another trail leading from this spot across the road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit, and thence across the moor to the forest of Kerselec.We are going to mount in a minute and search the bosquets.Will you join us?Bon Dieu!but the fellow bled like an ox.Max Fortin says it's human blood, or I should not have believed it."

The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment, rubbing his glasses with a colored handkerchief.

"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles me: the corpuscles are yellow.I never saw any human blood before with yellow corpuscles.But your English Doctor Thompson asserts that he has——"

"Well, it's human blood, anyway—isn't it?"insisted Durand, impatiently.

"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.

"Then it's my business to trail it," said the big gendarme, and he called his men and gave the order to mount.

"Did you hear anything last night?"asked Durand of me.

"I heard the rain.I wonder the rain did not wash away these traces."

"They must have come after the rain ceased.See this thick splash, how it lies over and weighs down the wet grass blades.Pah!"

It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from it, my throat closing in disgust.

"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those Biribi fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra glass of cognac into their hides and quarreled on the road.Some of them were slashed, and staggered to your house.But there is only one trail, and yet—and yet, how could all that blood come from only one person?Well, the wounded man, let us say, staggered first to your house and then back here, and he wandered off, drunk and dying, God knows where.That's my theory."

"A very good one," said I calmly."And you are going to trail him?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"At once.Will you come?"

"Not now.I'll gallop over by-and-bye.You are going to the edge of the Kerselec forest?"

"Yes; you will hear us calling.Are you coming, Max Fortin?And you, Le Bihan?Good; take the dog-cart."

The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and presently returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre shone on his saddle; his pale yellow and white facings were spotless.The little crowd of white-coiffed women with their children fell back as Durand touched spurs and clattered away followed by his two troopers.Soon after Le Bihan and Max Fortin also departed in the mayor's dingy dog-cart.

"Are you coming?"piped Le Bihan shrilly.

"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the house.

When I opened the door of the morning room the death's-head moth was beating its strong wings against the window.For a second I hesitated, then walked over and opened the sash.The creature fluttered out, whirred over the flower beds a moment, then darted across the moorland toward the sea.I called the servants together and questioned them.Josephine, Catherine, Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the slightest disturbance during the night.Then I told Jean Marie to saddle my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.

"Dearest," I began, going to her.

"You must tell me everything you know, Dick," she interrupted, looking me earnestly in the face.

"But there is nothing to tell—only a drunken brawl, and some one wounded."

"And you are going to ride—where, Dick?"

"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest.Durand and the mayor, and Max Fortin, have gone on, following a—a trail."

"What trail?"

"Some blood."

"Where did they find it?"

"Out in the road there."Lys crossed herself.

"Does it come near our house?"

"Yes."

"How near?"

"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving in.

Her hand on my arm grew heavy."I dreamed last night——"

"So did I—" but I thought of the empty cartridges in my revolver, and stopped.

"I dreamed that you were in great danger, and I could not move hand or foot to save you; but you had your revolver, and I called out to you to fire——"

"I did fire!"I cried excitedly.

"You—you fired?"

I took her in my arms. "My darling," I said "something strange has happened—something that I cannot understand as yet.But, of course, there is an explanation.Last night I thought I fired at the Black Priest."

"Ah!"gasped Lys.

"Is that what you dreamed?"

"Yes, yes, that was it!I begged you to fire——"

"And I did."

Her heart was beating against my breast.I held her close in silence.

"Dick," she said at length, "perhaps you killed the—the thing."

"If it was human I did not miss," I answered grimly."And it was human," I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to pieces."Of course it was human!The whole affair is plain enough.Not a drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke, for which he has suffered.I suppose I must have filled him pretty full of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest.It's a terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves till I am as hysterical as a schoolgirl," I ended angrily.

"You fired—but the window glass was not shattered," said Lys in a low voice.

"Well, the window was open, then.And as for the—the rest—I've got nervous indigestion, and a doctor will settle the Black Priest for me, Lys."

I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse at the gate.

"Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others."

"I will go, too."

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, Dick."

"Don't, Lys."

"I shall suffer every moment you are away."

"The ride is too fatiguing, and we can't tell what unpleasant sight you may come upon.Lys, you don't really think there is anything supernatural in this affair?"

"Dick," she answered gently, "I am a Bretonne."With both arms around my neck, my wife said, "Death is the gift of God.I do not fear it when we are together.But alone—oh, my husband, I should fear a God who could take you away from me!"

We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children.Then Lys hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and down the garden waiting for her.

She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets.I swung her into the saddle, gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.

Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like this, with Lys in the saddle beside me, no matter what had happened or might happen was impossible.Moreover, Môme came sneaking after us.I asked Tregunc to catch him, for I was afraid he might be brained by our horses' hoofs if he followed, but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was trotting along the highroad."Never mind," I thought; "if he's hit he'll live, for he has no brains to lose."

Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our Lady of St.Gildas when I joined her.She crossed herself, I doffed my cap, then we shook out our bridles and galloped toward the forest of Kerselec.

We said very little as we rode.I always loved to watch Lys in the saddle.Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the incarnation of youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like threaded gold.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy Môme come bounding cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our horses' heels.Our road swung close to the cliffs.A filthy cormorant rose from the black rocks and flapped heavily across our path.Lys's horse reared, but she pulled him down, and pointed at the bird with her riding crop.

"I see," said I; "it seems to be going our way.Curious to see a cormorant in a forest, isn't it?"

"It is a bad sign," said Lys."You know the Morbihan proverb: 'When the cormorant turns from the sea, Death laughs in the forest, and wise woodsmen build boats.'"

"I wish," said I sincerely, "that there were fewer proverbs in Brittany."

We were in sight of the forest now; across the gorse I could see the sparkle of gendarmes' trappings, and the glitter of Le Bihan's silver-buttoned jacket.The hedge was low and we took it without difficulty, and trotted across the moor to where Le Bihan and Durand stood gesticulating.

They bowed ceremoniously to Lys as we rode up.

"The trail is horrible—it is a river," said the mayor in his squeaky voice."Monsieur Darrel, I think perhaps madame would scarcely care to come any nearer."

Lys drew bridle and looked at me.

"It is horrible!"said Durand, walking up beside me; "it looks as though a bleeding regiment had passed this way.The trail winds and winds about here in the thickets; we lose it at times, but we always find it again.I can't understand how one man—no, nor twenty—could bleed like that!"

A halloo, answered by another, sounded from the depths of the forest.

"It's my men; they are following the trail," muttered the brigadier."God alone knows what is at the end!"

"Shall we gallop back, Lys?"I asked.

"No; let us ride along the western edge of the woods and dismount.The sun is so hot now, and I should like to rest for a moment," she said.

"The western forest is clear of anything disagreeable," said Durand.

"Very well," I answered; "call me, Le Bihan, if you find anything."

Lys wheeled her mare, and I followed across the springy heather, Môme trotting cheerfully in the rear.

We entered the sunny woods about a quarter of a kilometer from where we left Durand.I took Lys from her horse, flung both bridles over a limb, and, giving my wife my arm, aided her to a flat mossy rock which overhung a shallow brook gurgling among the beech trees.Lys sat down and drew off her gauntlets.Môme pushed his head into her lap, received an undeserved caress, and came doubtfully toward me.I was weak enough to condone his offense, but I made him lie down at my feet, greatly to his disgust.

I rested my head on Lys's knees, looking up at the sky through the crossed branches of the trees.

"I suppose I have killed him," I said."It shocks me terribly, Lys."

"You could not have known, dear.He may have been a robber, and—if—not—did—have you ever fired your revolver since that day four years ago when the Red Admiral's son tried to kill you?But I know you have not."

"No," said I, wondering."It's a fact, I have not.Why?"

"And don't you remember that I asked you to let me load it for you the day when Yves went off, swearing to kill you and his father?"

"Yes, I do remember.Well?"

"Well, I—I took the cartridges first to St.Gildas chapel and dipped them in holy water.You must not laugh, Dick," said Lys gently, laying her cool hands on my lips.

"Laugh, my darling!"

Overhead the October sky was pale amethyst, and the sunlight burned like orange flame through the yellow leaves of beech and oak.Gnats and midges danced and wavered overhead; a spider dropped from a twig halfway to the ground and hung suspended on the end of his gossamer thread.

"Are you sleepy, dear?"asked Lys, bending over me.

"I am—a little; I scarcely slept two hours last night," I answered.

"You may sleep, if you wish," said Lys, and touched my eyes caressingly.

"Is my head heavy on your knees?"

"No, Dick."

I was already in a half doze; still I heard the brook babbling under the beeches and the humming of forest flies overhead.Presently even these were stilled.

The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, my ears ringing with a scream, and I saw Lys cowering beside me, covering her white face with both hands.

As I sprang to my feet she cried again and clung to my knees.I saw my dog rush growling into a thicket, then I heard him whimper, and he came backing out, whining, ears flat, tail down.I stooped and disengaged Lys's hand.

"Don't go, Dick!"she cried."O God, it's the Black Priest!"

In a moment I had leaped across the brook and pushed my way into the thicket.It was empty.I stared about me; I scanned every tree trunk, every bush.Suddenly I saw him.He was seated on a fallen log, his head resting in his hands, his rusty black robe gathered around him.For a moment my hair stirred under my cap; sweat started on forehead and cheek bone; then I recovered my reason, and understood that the man was human and was probably wounded to death.Ay, to death; for there at my feet, lay the wet trail of blood, over leaves and stones, down into the little hollow, across to the figure in black resting silently under the trees.

I saw that he could not escape even if he had the strength, for before him, almost at his very feet, lay a deep, shining swamp.

As I stepped forward my foot broke a twig.At the sound the figure started a little, then its head fell forward again.Its face was masked.Walking up to the man, I bade him tell where he was wounded.Durand and the others broke through the thicket at the same moment and hurried to my side.

"Who are you who hide a masked face in a priest's robe?"said the gendarme loudly.

There was no answer.

"See—see the stiff blood all over his robe," muttered Le Bihan to Fortin.

"He will not speak," said I.

"He may be too badly wounded," whispered Le Bihan.

"I saw him raise his head," I said, "my wife saw him creep up here."

Durand stepped forward and touched the figure.

"Speak!"he said.

"Speak!"quavered Fortin.

Durand waited a moment, then with a sudden upward movement he stripped off the mask and threw back the man's head.We were looking into the eye sockets of a skull.Durand stood rigid; the mayor shrieked.The skeleton burst out from its rotting robes and collapsed on the ground before us.From between the staring ribs and the grinning teeth spurted a torrent of black blood, showering the shrinking grasses; then the thing shuddered, and fell over into the black ooze of the bog.Little bubbles of iridescent air appeared from the mud; the bones were slowly engulfed, and, as the last fragments sank out of sight, up from the depths and along the bank crept a creature, shiny, shivering, quivering its wings.

It was a death's-head moth.

---

I wish I had time to tell you how Lys outgrew superstitions—for she never knew the truth about the affair, and she never will know, since she has promised not to read this book.I wish I might tell you about the king and his coronation, and how the coronation robe fitted.I wish that I were able to write how Yvonne and Herbert Stuart rode to a boar hunt in Quimperle, and how the hounds raced the quarry right through the town, overturning three gendarmes, the notary, and an old woman.But I am becoming garrulous and Lys is calling me to come and hear the king say that he is sleepy.And his highness shall not be kept waiting.

THE KING'S CRADLE SONG

---

Lazarus

By LEONID ANDREYEV

TRANSLATED BY ABRAHAM YARMOLINSKY

I

When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three nights he had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and returned alive to his dwelling, for a long time no one noticed in him those sinister oddities, which, as time went on, made his very name a terror.Gladdened unspeakably by the sight of him who had been returned to life, those near to him caressed him unceasingly, and satiated their burning desire to serve him, in solicitude for his food and drink and garments.And they dressed him gorgeously, in bright colors of hope and laughter, and when, like to a bridegroom in his bridal vestures, he sat again among them at the table, and again ate and drank, they wept, overwhelmed with tenderness.And they summoned the neighbors to look at him who had risen miraculously from the dead.These came and shared the serene joy of the hosts.Strangers from far-off towns and hamlets came and adored the miracle in tempestuous words.Like to a beehive was the house of Mary and Martha.

Whatever was found new in Lazarus' face and gestures was thought to be some trace of a grave illness and of the shocks recently experienced.Evidently, the destruction wrought by death on the corpse was only arrested by the miraculous power, but its effects were still apparent; and what death had succeeded in doing with Lazarus' face and body, was like an artist's unfinished sketch seen under thin glass.On Lazarus' temples, under his eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks, lay a deep and cadaverous blueness; cadaverously blue also were his long fingers, and around his fingernails, grown long in the grave, the blue had become purple and dark.On his lips the skin, swollen in the grave, had burst in places, and thin, reddish cracks were formed, shining as though covered with transparent mica.And he had grown stout.His body, puffed up in the grave, retained its monstrous size and showed those frightful swellings, in which one sensed the presence of the rank liquid of decomposition.But the heavy corpse-like odor which penetrated Lazarus' graveclothes and, it seemed, his very body, soon entirely disappeared, the blue spots on his face and hands grew paler, and the reddish cracks closed up, although they never disappeared altogether.That is how Lazarus looked when he appeared before people, in his second life, but his face looked natural to those who had seen him in the coffin.

In addition to the changes in his appearance, Lazarus' temper seemed to have undergone a transformation, but this circumstance startled no one and attracted no attention.Before his death Lazarus had always been cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke.It was because of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him.But now Lazarus had grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as deprived of depth and significance, as those sounds with which animals express pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger.They were the words that one can say all one's life, and yet they give no indication of what pains and gladdens the depths of the soul.

Thus, with the face of a corpse which for three days had been under the heavy sway of death, dark and taciturn, already appallingly transformed, but still unrecognized by anyone in his new self, he was sitting at the feasting table, among friends and relatives, and his gorgeous nuptial garments glittered with yellow gold and bloody scarlet.Broad waves of jubilation, now soft, now tempestuously sonorous surged around him; warm glances of love were reaching out for his face, still cold with the coldness of the grave; and a friend's warm palm caressed his blue, heavy hand.And music played the tympanum and the pipe, the cithara and the harp.It was as though bees hummed, grasshoppers chirped and birds warbled over the happy house of Mary and Martha.

II

One of the guests incautiously lifted the veil.By a thoughtless word he broke the serene charm and uncovered the truth in all its naked ugliness.Ere the thought formed itself in his mind, his lips uttered with a smile:

"Why dost thou not tell us what happened yonder?"

And all grew silent, startled by the question.It was as if it occurred to them only now that for three days Lazarus had been dead, and they looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer.But Lazarus kept silence.

"Thou dost not wish to tell us,"—wondered the man, "is it so terrible yonder?"

And again his thought came after his words.Had it been otherwise, he would not have asked this question, which at that very moment oppressed his heart with its insufferable horror.Uneasiness seized all present, and with a feeling of heavy weariness they awaited Lazarus' words, but he was silent, sternly and coldly, and his eyes were lowered.And as if for the first time, they noticed the frightful blueness of his face and his repulsive obesity.On the table, as though forgotten by Lazarus, rested his bluish-purple wrist, and to this all eyes turned, as if it were from it that the awaited answer was to come.The musicians were still playing, but now the silence reached them too, and even as water extinguishes scattered embers, so were their merry tunes extinguished in the silence.The pipe grew silent; the voices of the sonorous tympanum and the murmuring harp died away; and as if the strings had burst, the cithara answered with a tremulous, broken note.Silence.

"Thou dost not wish to say?"repeated the guest, unable to check his chattering tongue.But the stillness remained unbroken, and the bluish-purple hand rested motionless.And then he stirred slightly and everyone felt relieved.He lifted up his eyes, and lo!straightway embracing everything in one heavy glance, fraught with weariness and horror, he looked at them,—Lazarus who had arisen from the dead.

It was the third day since Lazarus had left the grave.Ever since then many had experienced the pernicious power of his eye, but neither those who were crushed by it forever, nor those who found the strength to resist in it the primordial sources of life,—which is as mysterious as death,—never could they explain the horror which lay motionless in the depth of his black pupils.Lazarus looked calmly and simply with no desire to conceal anything, but also with no intention to say anything; he looked coldly, as he who is infinitely indifferent to those alive.Many carefree people came close to him without noticing him, and only later did they learn with astonishment and fear who that calm stout man was, that walked slowly by, almost touching them with his gorgeous and dazzling garments.The sun did not cease shining, when he was looking, nor did the fountain hush its murmur, and the sky overhead remained cloudless and blue.But the man under the spell of his enigmatical look heard no more the fountain and saw not the sky overhead.Sometimes, he wept bitterly, sometimes he tore his hair and in frenzy called for help; but more often it came to pass that apathetically and quietly he began to die, and so he languished many years, before everybody's very eyes, wasted away, colorless, flabby, dull, like a tree, silently drying up in a stony soil.And of those who gazed at him, the ones who wept madly, sometimes felt again the stir of life; the others never.

"So thou dost not wish to tell us what thou hast seen yonder?"repeated the man.But now his voice was impassive and dull, and deadly gray weariness showed in Lazarus' eyes.And deadly gray weariness covered like dust all the faces, and with dull amazement the guests stared at each other and did not understand wherefore they had gathered here and sat at the rich table.The talk ceased.They thought it was time to go home, but could not overcome the flaccid lazy weariness which glued their muscles, and they kept on sitting there, yet apart and torn away from each other, like pale fires scattered over a dark field.

But the musicians were paid to play and again they took their instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and studied sorrow began to flow and to rise.They unfolded the customary melody but the guests hearkened in dull amazement.Already they knew not wherefore is it necessary, and why is it well, that people should pluck strings, inflate their cheeks, blow in thin pipes, and produce a bizarre, many-voiced noise.

"What bad music," said someone.

The musicians took offense and left.Following them, the guests left one after another, for night was already come.And when placid darkness encircled them and they began to breathe with more ease, suddenly Lazarus' image loomed up before each one in formidable radiance: the blue face of a corpse, grave-clothes gorgeous and resplendent, a cold look, in the depths of which lay motionless an unknown horror.As though petrified, they were standing far apart, and darkness enveloped them, but in the darkness blazed brighter and brighter the supernatural vision of him who for three days had been under the enigmatical sway of death.For three days had he been dead: thrice had the sun risen and set, but he had been dead; children had played, streams murmured over pebbles, the wayfarer had lifted up hot dust in the highroad,—but he had been dead.And now he is again among them,—touches them,—looks at them,—looks at them!and through the black discs of his pupils, as through darkened glass, stares the unknowable Yonder.

III

No one was taking care of Lazarus, for no friends no relatives were left to him, and the great desert which encircled the holy city, came near the very threshold of his dwelling.And the desert entered his house, and stretched on his couch, like a wife and extinguished the fires.No one was taking care of Lazarus.One after the other, his sisters—Mary and Martha—forsook him.For a long while Martha was loath to abandon him, for she knew not who would feed him and pity him, she wept and prayed.But one night, when the wind was roaming in the desert and with a hissing sound the cypresses were bending over the roof, she dressed noiselessly and secretly left the house.Lazarus probably heard the door slam; it banged against the side-post under the gusts of the desert wind, but he did not rise to go out and to look at her that was abandoning him.All the night long the cypresses hissed over his head and plaintively thumped the door, letting in the cold, greedy desert.

Like a leper he was shunned by everyone, and it was proposed to tie a bell to his neck, as is done with lepers, to warn people against sudden meetings.But someone remarked, growing frightfully pale, that it would be too horrible if by night the moaning of Lazarus' bell were suddenly heard under the windows,—and so the project was abandoned.

And since he did not take care of himself, he would probably have starved to death, had not the neighbors brought him food in fear of something that they sensed but vaguely.The food was brought to him by children; they were not afraid of Lazarus, nor did they mock him with naive cruelty, as children are wont to do with the wretched and miserable.They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus answered them with the same coldness; he had no desire to caress the black little curls, and to look into their innocent shining eyes.Given to Time and to the Desert, his house was crumbling down, and long since had his famishing, lowing goats wandered away to the neighboring pastures.And his bridal garments became threadbare.Ever since that happy day, when the musicians played, he had worn them unaware of the difference of the new and the worn.The bright colors grew dull and faded; vicious dogs and the sharp thorn of the Desert turned the tender fabric into rags.

By day, when the merciless sun slew all things alive, and even scorpions sought shelter under stones and writhed there in a mad desire to sting, he sat motionless under the sunrays, his blue face and the uncouth, bushy beard lifted up, bathing in the fiery flood.

When people still talked to him, he was once asked:

"Poor Lazarus, does it please thee to sit thus and to stare at the sun?"

And he had answered:

"Yes, it does."

So strong, it seemed, was the cold of his three days' grave, so deep the darkness, that there was no heat on earth to warm Lazarus, nor a splendor that could brighten the darkness of his eyes.That is what came to the mind of those who spoke to Lazarus, and with a sigh they left him.

And when the scarlet, flattened globe would lower, Lazarus would set out for the desert and walk straight toward the sun, as though striving to reach it.He always walked straight toward the sun and those who tried to follow him and to spy upon what he was doing at night in the desert, retained in their memory the black silhouette of a tall stout man against the red background of an enormous flattened disc.Night pursued them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on their brain.Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death alone could efface it.

But there were people who lived far away, who never saw Lazarus and knew of him only by report.With daring curiosity, which is stronger than fear and feeds upon it, with hidden mockery, they would come to Lazarus who was sitting in the sun and enter into conversation with him.By this time Lazarus' appearance had changed for the better and was not so terrible.The first minute they snapped their fingers and thought of how stupid the inhabitants of the holy city were; but when the short talk was over and they started homeward, their looks were such that the inhabitants of the holy city recognized them at once and said:

"Look, there is one more fool on whom Lazarus has set his eye,"—and they shook their heads regretfully, and lifted up their arms.

There came brave, intrepid warriors, with tinkling weapons; happy youths came with laughter and song; busy tradesmen, jingling their money, ran in for a moment, and haughty priests leaned their crosiers against Lazarus' door, and they were all strangely changed, as they came back.The same terrible shadow swooped down upon their souls and gave a new appearance to the old familiar world.

Those who still had the desire to speak, expressed their feelings thus:

"All things tangible and visible grew hollow, light, and transparent,—similar to lightsome shadows in the darkness of night;

"for, that great darkness, which holds the whole cosmos, was dispersed neither by the sun or by the moon and the stars, but like an immense black shroud enveloped the earth and, like a mother, embraced it;

"it penetrated all the bodies, iron and stone,—and the particles of the bodies, having lost their ties, grew lonely; and it penetrated into the depth of the particles, and the particles of particles became lonely;

"for that great void, which encircles the cosmos, was not filled by things visible: neither by the sun, nor by the moon and the stars, but reigned unrestrained, penetrating everywhere, severing body from body, particle from particle;

"in the void hollow trees spread hollow roots threatening a fantastic fall; temples, palaces, and horses loomed up and they were hollow; and in the void men moved about restlessly but they were light and hollow like shadows;

"for, Time was no more, and the beginning of all things came near their end: the building was still being built, and builders were still hammering away, and its ruins were already seen and the void in its place; the man was still being born, but already funeral candles were burning at his head, and now they were extinguished, and there was the void in place of the man and of the funeral candles.

"and wrapped by void and darkness the man in despair trembled in the face of the Horror of the Infinite."

Thus spake the men who had still a desire to speak.But, surely, much more could have told those who wished not to speak, and died in silence.

IV

At that time there lived in Rome a renowned sculptor.In clay, marble, and bronze he wrought bodies of gods and men, and such was their beauty, that people called them immortal.But he himself was discontented and asserted that there was something even more beautiful, that he could not embody either in marble or in bronze."I have not yet gathered the glimmers of the moon, nor have I my fill of sunshine," he was wont to say, "and there is no soul in my marble, no life in my beautiful bronze."And when on moonlit nights he slowly walked along the road, crossing the black shadows of cypresses, his white tunic glittering in the moonshine, those who met him would laugh in a friendly way and say:

"Art thou going to gather moonshine, Aurelius?Why then didst thou not fetch baskets?"

And he would answer, laughing and pointing to his eyes:

"Here are the baskets wherein I gather the sheen of the moon and the glimmer of the sun."

And so it was: the moon glimmered in his eyes and the sun sparkled therein.But he could not translate them into marble and therein lay the serene tragedy of his life.

He was descended from an ancient patrician race, had a good wife and children, and suffered from no want.

When the obscure rumor about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife and friends and undertook the far journey to Judea to see him who had miraculously risen from the dead.He was somewhat weary in those days and he hoped that the road would sharpen his blunted senses.What was said of Lazarus did not frighten him: he had pondered much over Death, did not like it, but he disliked also those who confused it with life.

thought he, and there is no better thing for a man to do than to delight in life and in the beauty of all things living.He had even a vainglorious desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of his own view and restore his soul to life, as his body had been restored.This seemed so much easier because the rumors, shy and strange, did not render the whole truth about Lazarus and but vaguely warned against something frightful.

Lazarus had just risen from the stone in order to follow the sun which was setting in the desert, when a rich Roman attended by an armed slave, approached him and addressed him in a sonorous tone of voice:

"Lazarus!"

And Lazarus beheld a superb face, lit with glory, and arrayed in fine clothes, and precious stones sparkling in the sun.The red light lent to the Roman's face and head the appearance of gleaming bronze—that also Lazarus noticed.He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary eyes.

"Yes, thou art ugly, my poor Lazarus,"—quietly said the Roman, playing with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his hands.But thou art stout, and, as the great Cæsar used to say, fat people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why men fear thee.Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is late, and I have no shelter."

Never had anyone asked Lazarus' hospitality.

"I have no bed," said he.

"I am somewhat of a soldier and I can sleep sitting," the Roman answered."We shall build a fire."

"I have no fire."

"Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two friends.I think thou wilt find a bottle of wine."

"I have no wine."

The Roman laughed.

"Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second life.No wine!Why, then we shall do without it: there are words that make the head go round better than the Falernian."

By a sign he dismissed the slave, and they remained all alone.And again the sculptor started speaking, but it was as if, together with the setting sun, life had left his words; and they grew pale and hollow, as if they staggered on unsteady feet, as if they slipped and fell down, drunk with the heavy lees of weariness and despair.And black chasms grew up between the words—like far-off hints of the great void and the great darkness.

"Now I am thy guest, and thou wilt not be unkind to me, Lazarus!"—said he."Hospitality is the duty even of those who for three days were dead.Three days, I was told, thou didst rest in the grave.There it must be cold ...and that is whence comes thy ill habit of going without fire and wine.As to me, I like fire; it grows dark here so rapidly....The lines of thy eyebrows and forehead are quite, quite interesting: they are like ruins of strange palaces, buried in ashes after an earthquake.But why dost thou wear such ugly and queer garments?I have seen bridegrooms in thy country, and they wear such clothes—are they not funny—and terrible....But art thou a bridegroom?"

The sun had already disappeared, a monstrous black shadow came running from the east—it was as if gigantic bare feet began rumbling on the sand, and the wind sent a cold wave along the backbone.

"In the darkness thou seemest still larger, Lazarus, as if thou hast grown stouter in these moments.Dost thou feed on darkness, Lazarus?I would fain have a little fire—at least a little fire, a little fire.I feel somewhat chilly, your nights are so barbarously cold....Were it not so dark, I should say that thou wert looking at me, Lazarus.Yes, it seems to me, thou art looking....Why, thou art looking at me, I feel it,—but there thou art smiling."

Night came, and filled the air with heavy blackness.

"How well it will be, when the sun will rise to-morrow anew....I am a great sculptor, thou knowest; that is how my friends call me.I create.Yes, that is the word ...but I need daylight.I give life to the cold marble, I melt sonorous bronze in fire, in bright hot fire....Why didst thou touch me with thy hand?"

"Come"—said Lazarus—"Thou art my guest."

And they went to the house.And a long night enveloped the earth.

The slave, seeing that his master did not come, went to seek him, when the sun was already high in the sky.And he beheld his master side by side with Lazarus: in profound silence were they sitting right under the dazzling and scorching sunrays and looking upward.The slave began to weep and cried out:

"My master, what has befallen thee, master?"

The very same day the sculptor left for Rome.On the way Aurelius was pensive and taciturn, staring attentively at everything—the men, the ship, the sea, as though trying to retain something.On the high sea a storm burst upon them, and all through it Aurelius stayed on the deck and eagerly scanned the seas looming near and sinking with a thud.

At home his friends were frightened at the change which had taken place in Aurelius, but he calmed them, saying meaningly:

"I have found it."

And without changing the dusty clothes he wore on his journey, he fell to work, and the marble obediently resounded under his sonorous hammer.Long and eagerly worked he, admitting no one, until one morning he announced that the work was ready and ordered his friends to be summoned, severe critics and connoisseurs of art.And to meet them he put on bright and gorgeous garments, that glittered with yellow gold—and—scarlet byssus.

"Here is my work," said he thoughtfully.

His friends glanced and a shadow of profound sorrow covered their faces.It was something monstrous, deprived of all the lines and shapes familiar to the eye, but not without a hint at some new, strange image.

On a thin, crooked twig, or rather on an ugly likeness of a twig rested askew a blind, ugly, shapeless, outspread mass of something utterly and inconceivably distorted, a mad leap of wild and bizarre fragments, all feebly and vainly striving to part from one another.And, as if by chance, beneath one of the wildly-rent salients a butterfly was chiseled with divine skill, all airy loveliness, delicacy, and beauty, with transparent wings, which seemed to tremble with an impotent desire to take flight.

"Wherefore this wonderful butterfly, Aurelius?"said somebody falteringly.

"I know not"—was the sculptor's answer.

But it was necessary to tell the truth, and one of his friends who loved him best said firmly:

"This is ugly, my poor friend.It must be destroyed.Give me the hammer."

And with two strokes he broke the monstrous man into pieces, leaving only the infinitely delicate butterfly untouched.

From that time on Aurelius created nothing.With profound indifference he looked at marble and bronze, and on his former divine works, where everlasting beauty rested.With the purpose of arousing his former fervent passion for work and, awakening his deadened soul, his friends took him to see other artists' beautiful works,—but he remained indifferent as before, and the smile did not warm up his tightened lips.And only after listening to lengthy talks about beauty, he would retort wearily and indolently:

"But all this is a lie."

And by the day, when the sun was shining, he went into his magnificent, skilfully built garden and having found a place without shadow, he exposed his bare head to the glare and heat.Red and white butterflies fluttered around; from the crooked lips of a drunken satyr, water streamed down with a splash into a marble cistern, but he sat motionless and silent,—like a pallid reflection of him who, in the far-off distance, at the very gates of the stony desert, sat under the fiery sun.

V

And now it came to pass that the great, deified Augustus himself summoned Lazarus.The imperial messengers dressed him gorgeously, in solemn nuptial clothes, as if Time had legalized them, and he was to remain until his very death the bridegroom of an unknown bride.It was as though an old, rotting coffin had been gilt and furnished with new, gay tassels.And men, all in trim and bright attire, rode after him, as if in bridal procession indeed, and those foremost trumpeted loudly, bidding people to clear the way for the emperor's messengers.But Lazarus' way was deserted: his native land cursed the hateful name of him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and people scattered at the very news of his appalling approach.The solitary voice of the brass trumpets sounded in the motionless air, and the wilderness alone responded with its languid echo.

Then Lazarus went by sea.And his was the most magnificently arrayed and the most mournful ship that ever mirrored itself in the azure waves of the Mediterranean Sea.Many were the travelers aboard, but like a tomb was the ship, all silence and stillness, and the despairing water sobbed at the steep, proudly curved prow.All alone sat Lazarus exposing his head to the blaze of the sun, silently listening to the murmur and splash of the wavelets, and afar seamen and messengers were sitting, a vague group of weary shadows.Had the thunder burst and the wind attacked the red sails, the ships would probably have perished, for none of those aboard had either the will or the strength to struggle for life.With a supreme effort some mariners would reach the board and eagerly scan the blue, transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink shoulder flash in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur dash along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof.But the sea was like a wilderness, and the deep was dumb and deserted.

With utter indifference did Lazarus set his feet on the street of the eternal city.As though all her wealth, all the magnificence of her palaces built by giants, all the resplendence, beauty, and music of her refined life were but the echo of the wind in the wilderness, the reflection of the desert quicksand.Chariots were dashing, and along the streets were moving crowds of strong, fair, proud builders of the eternal city and haughty participants in her life; a song sounded; fountains and women laughed a pearly laughter; drunken philosophers harangued, and the sober listened to them with a smile; hoofs struck the stone pavements.And surrounded by cheerful noise, a stout, heavy man was moving, a cold spot of silence and despair, and on his way he sowed disgust, anger, and vague, gnawing weariness.Who dares to be sad in Rome, wondered indignantly the citizens, and frowned.In two days the entire city already knew all about him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and shunned him shyly.

But some daring people there were, who wanted to test their strength, and Lazarus obeyed their imprudent summons.Kept busy by state affairs, the emperor constantly delayed the reception, and seven days did he who had risen from the dead go about visiting others.

And Lazarus came to a cheerful Epicurean, and the host met him with laughter on his lips:

"Drink, Lazarus, drink!"—shouted he."Would not Augustus laugh to see thee drunk!"

And half-naked drunken women laughed, and rose petals fell on Lazarus' blue hands.But then the Epicurean looked into Lazarus' eyes, and his gaiety ended forever.Drunkard remained he for the rest of his life; never did he drink, yet forever was he drunk.But instead of the gay reverie which wine brings with it, frightful dreams began to haunt him, the sole food of his stricken spirit.Day and night he lived in the poisonous vapors of his nightmares, and death itself was not more frightful than her raving, monstrous forerunners.

And Lazarus came to a youth and his beloved, who loved each other and were most beautiful in their passions.Proudly and strongly embracing his love, the youth said with serene regret:

"Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy.Is there anything stronger than love?"

And Lazarus looked.And for the rest of their life they kept on loving each other, but their passion grew gloomy and joyless, like those funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky.Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants of the silent Nothingness.Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the boundless Dark.

And Lazarus came to a haughty sage, and the sage said to him:

"I know all the horrors thou canst reveal to me.Is there anything thou canst frighten me with?"

But before long the sage felt that the knowledge of horror was far from being the horror itself, and that the vision of Death, was not Death.And he felt that wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.And it vanished, the dividing-line between knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, top and bottom, and the shapeless thought hung suspended in the void.Then the sage clutched his gray head and cried out frantically:

"I cannot think!I cannot think!"

Thus under the indifferent glance for him, who miraculously had risen from the dead, perished everything that asserts life, its significance and joys.And it was suggested that it was dangerous to let him see the emperor, that it was better to kill him and, having buried him secretly, to tell the emperor that he had disappeared no one knew whither.Already swords were being whetted and youths devoted to the public welfare prepared for the murder, when Augustus ordered Lazarus to be brought before him next morning, thus destroying the cruel plans.

If there was no way of getting rid of Lazarus, at least it was possible to soften the terrible impression his face produced.With this in view, skillful painters, barbers, and artists were summoned, and all night long they were busy over Lazarus' head.They cropped his beard, curled it, and gave it a tidy, agreeable appearance.By means of paints they concealed the corpse-like blueness of his hands and face.Repulsive were the wrinkles of suffering that furrowed his old face, and they were puttied, painted, and smoothed; then, over the smooth background, wrinkles of good-tempered laughter and pleasant, carefree mirth were skillfully painted with fine brushes.

Lazarus submitted indifferently to everything that was done to him.Soon he was turned into a becomingly stout, venerable old man, into a quiet and kind grandfather of numerous offspring.It seemed that the smile, with which only a while ago he was spinning funny yarns, was still lingering on his lips, and that in the corner of his eye serene tenderness was hiding, the companion of old age.But people did not dare change his nuptial garments, and they could not change his eyes, two dark and frightful glasses through which looked at men, the unknowable Yonder.

VI

Lazarus was not moved by the magnificence of the imperial palace.It was as though he saw no difference between the crumbling house, closely pressed by the desert, and the stone palace, solid and fair, and indifferently he passed into it.And the hard marble of the floors under his feet grew similar to the quicksand of the desert, and the multitude of richly dressed and haughty men became like void air under his glance.No one looked into his face, as Lazarus passed by, fearing to fall under the appalling influence of his eyes; but when the sound of his heavy footsteps had sufficiently died down, the courtiers raised their heads and with fearful curiosity examined the figure of a stout, tall, slightly bent old man, who was slowly penetrating into the very heart of the imperial palace.Were Death itself passing, it would be faced with no greater fear: for until then the dead alone knew Death, and those alive knew Life only—and there was no bridge between them.But this extraordinary man, although alive, knew Death, and enigmatical, appalling, was his cursed knowledge."Woe," people thought, "he will take the life of our great, deified Augustus," and they sent curses after Lazarus, who meanwhile kept on advancing into the interior of the palace.

Already did the emperor know who Lazarus was, and prepared to meet him.But the monarch was a brave man, and felt his own tremendous, unconquerable power, and in his fatal duel with him who had miraculously risen from the dead he wanted not to invoke human help.And so he met Lazarus face to face:

"Lift not thine eyes upon me, Lazarus," he ordered."I heard thy face is like that of Medusa and turns into stone whomsoever thou lookest at.Now, I wish to see thee and to have a talk with thee, before I turn into stone,"—added he in a tone of kingly jesting, not devoid of fear.

Coming close to him, he carefully examined Lazarus' face and his strange festal garments.And although he had a keen eye, he was deceived by his appearance.

"So.Thou dost not appear terrible, my venerable old man.But the worse for us, if horror assumes such a respectable and pleasant air.Now let us have a talk."

Augustus sat, and questioning Lazarus with his eye as much as with words, started the conversation:

"Why didst thou not greet me as thou enteredst?"

Lazarus answered indifferent:

"I knew not it was necessary."

"Art thou a Christian?"

"No."

Augustus approvingly shook his head.

"That is good.I do not like Christians.They shake the tree of life before it is covered with fruit, and disperse its odorous bloom to the winds.But who art thou?"

With a visible effort Lazarus answered:

"I was dead."

"I had heard that.But who art thou now?"

Lazarus was silent, but at last repeated in a tone of weary apathy:

"I was dead."

"Listen to me, stranger," said the emperor, distinctly and severely giving utterance to the thought that had come to him at the beginning, "my realm is the realm of Life, my people are of the living, not of the dead.Thou art here one too many.I know not who thou art and what thou sawest there; but, if thou liest, I hate thy lies, and if thou tellst the truth, I hate thy truth.In my bosom I feel the throb of life; I feel strength in my arm, and my proud thoughts, like eagles, pierce the space.And yonder in the shelter of my rule, under the protection of laws created by me, people live and toil and rejoice.Dost thou hear the battle-cry, the challenge men throw into the face of the future?"

Augustus, as in prayer, stretched forth his arms and exclaimed solemnly:

"Be blessed, O great and divine Life!"

Lazarus was silent, and with growing sternness the emperor went on:

"Thou art not wanted here, miserable remnant, snatched from under Death's teeth, thou inspirest weariness and disgust with life; like a caterpillar in the fields, thou gloatest on the rich ear of joy and belchest out the drivel of despair and sorrow.Thy truth is like a rusty sword in the hands of a nightly murderer,—and as a murderer thou shalt be executed.But before that, let me look into thine eyes.Perchance, only cowards are afraid of them, but in the brave they awake the thirst for strife and victory; then thou shalt be rewarded, not executed....Now, look at me, Lazarus."

At first it appeared to the deified Augustus that a friend was looking at him,—so soft, so tenderly fascinating was Lazarus' glance.It promised not horror, but sweet rest and the Infinite seemed to him a tender mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother.But stronger and stronger grew its embraces, and already the mouth, greedy of hissing kisses, interfered with the monarch's breathing, and already to the surface of the soft tissues of the body came the iron of the bones and tightened its merciless circle,—and unknown fangs, blunt and cold, touched his heart and sank into it with slow indolence.

"It pains," said the deified Augustus, growing pale."But look at me, Lazarus, look."

It was as though some heavy gates, ever closed, were slowly moving apart, and through the growing interstice the appalling horror of the Infinite poured in slowly and steadily.Like two shadows there entered the shoreless void and the unfathomable darkness; they extinguished the sun, ravished the earth from under the feet, and the roof from over the head.No more did the frozen heart ache.

"Look, look, Lazarus," ordered Augustus tottering.

Time stood still, and the beginning of each thing grew frightfully near to its end.Augustus' throne just erected, crumbled down, and the void was already in the place of the throne and of Augustus.Noiselessly did Rome crumble down, and a new city stood on its site and it too was swallowed by the void.Like fantastic giants, cities, states, and countries fell down and vanished in the void darkness—and with uttermost indifference did the insatiable black womb of the Infinite swallow them.

"Halt!"—ordered the emperor.

In his voice sounded already a note of indifference, his hands dropped in languor, and in the vain struggle with the onrushing darkness his fiery eyes now blazed up, and now went out.

"My life thou hast taken from me, Lazarus,"—said he in a spiritless, feeble voice.

And these words of hopelessness saved him.He remembered his people, whose shield he was destined to be, and keen salutary pain pierced his deadened heart."They are doomed to death," he thought wearily."Serene shadows in the darkness of the Infinite," thought he, and horror grew upon him."Frail vessels with living seething blood with a heart that knows sorrow and also great joy," said he in his heart, and tenderness pervaded it.

Thus pondering and oscillating between the poles of Life and Death, he slowly came back to life, to find in its suffering and in its joys a shield against the darkness of the void and the horror of the Infinite.

"No, thou hast not murdered me, Lazarus," said he firmly, "but I will take thy life.Be gone."

That evening the deified Augustus partook of his meats and drinks with particular joy.Now and then his lifted hand remained suspended in the air, and a dull glimmer replaced the bright sheen of his fiery eye.It was the cold wave of Horror that surged at his feet.Defeated, but not undone, ever awaiting its hour, that Horror stood at the emperor's bedside, like a black shadow all through his life; it swayed his nights, but yielded the days to the sorrows and joys of life.

The following day, the hangman with a hot iron burned out Lazarus' eyes.Then he was sent home.The deified Augustus dared not kill him.

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Lazarus returned to the desert, and the wilderness met him with hissing gusts of wind and the heat of the blazing sun.Again he was sitting on a stone, his rough, bushy beard lifted up; and the two black holes in place of his eyes looked at the sky with an expression of dull terror.Afar-off the holy city stirred noisily and restlessly, but around him everything was deserted and dumb.No one approached the place where lived he who had miraculously risen from the dead, and long since his neighbors had forsaken their houses.Driven by the hot iron into the depth of his skull, his cursed knowledge hid there in an ambush.As though leaping out from an ambush it plunged its thousand invisible eyes into the man,—and no one dared look at Lazarus.

And in the evening, when the sun, reddening and growing wider, would come nearer and nearer the western horizon, the blind Lazarus would slowly follow it.He would stumble against stones and fall, stout and weak as he was; would rise heavily to his feet and walk on again; and on the red screen of the sunset his black body and outspread hands would form a monstrous likeness of a cross.

And it came to pass that once he went out and did not come back.Thus seemingly ended the second life of him who for three days had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and rose miraculously from the dead.

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The Beast with Five Fingers

By W.F.HARVEY