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
Little gray messenger, Robed like painted Death, Your robe is dust.
Whom do you seek Among lilies and closed buds At dusk?
Among lilies and closed buds At dusk, Whom do you seek, Little gray messenger, Robed in the awful panoply Of painted Death?
R.W.C.
From The Mystery of Choice, by Robert W. Chambers. Published, 1897, by D. Appleton and Company. Copyright by Robert W. Chambers. By permission of Robert W. Chambers.
All-wise, Hast thou seen all there is to see with thy two eyes?
Dost thou know all there is to know, and so, Omniscient, Darest thou still to say thy brother lies?
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 gla.s.ses 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, Mome 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 bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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 Mome 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s of silver b.u.t.tons 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 bra.s.s 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 coa.r.s.e writing, now faded to a dull brown.