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Famous Modern Ghost Stories (Various authors) online
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The Messenger
"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.