The Secret of Sarek Part 48

"Don't touch it!" Conrad repeated, filled with alarm.

"What burnt Maguennoc will not burn me," replied Vorski, solemnly.

And, in bravado, swelling with pride and delight, he kept the mysterious stone in the hollow of his hand, which he clenched with all his strength:

"Let it burn me! I will let it! Let it sear my flesh! I shall be glad if it will!"

Conrad made a sign to him and put his finger to his lips.

"What's the matter?" asked Vorski. "Do you hear anything?"

"Yes," said the other.

"So do I," said Otto.

What they heard was a rhythmical, measured sound, which rose and fell and made a sort of irregular music.

"Why, it's close by!" mumbled Vorski. "It sounds as if it were in the room."

It was in the room, as they soon learnt for certain; and there was no doubt that the sound was very like a snore.

Conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh at it; but Vorski said:

"Upon my word, I'm inclined to think you're right. It _is_ a snore . . . . There must be some one here then?"

"It comes from over there," said Otto, "from that corner in the dark."

The light did not extend beyond the menhirs. Behind each of them opened a small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these and at once uttered a cry of amazement:

"Some one . . . yes . . . there is some one . . . . Look . . . ."

The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and hands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least a century must have pa.s.sed over his head.

He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to his feet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those sacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which are actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was a handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, in a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel.

The old man went on snoring.

Vorski muttered:

"The miracle continues . . . . It's a priest . . . a priest like those of the olden time . . . of the time of the Druids."

"And then?" asked Otto.

"Why, then he's waiting for me!"

Conrad expressed his brutal opinion:

"I suggest we break his head with his axe."

But Vorski flew into a rage:

"If you touch a single hair of his head, you're a dead man!"

"Still . . ."

"Still what?"

"He may be an enemy . . . he may be the one whom we were pursuing last night . . . . Remember . . . the white robe."

"You're the biggest fool I ever met! Do you think that, at his age, he could have kept us on the run like that?"

He bent over and took the old man gently by the arm, saying:

"Wake up! . . . It's I!"

There was no answer. The man did not wake up.

Vorski insisted.

The man moved on his bed of stones, mumbled a few words and went to sleep again.

Vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but more vigorously, and raised his voice:

"I say, what about it? We can't hang about all day, you know. Come on!"

He shook the old man more roughly. The man made a movement of irritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a few seconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angry voice, growled:

"Oh, rats!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE ANCIENT DRUID

The three accomplices, who were perfectly acquainted with all the niceties of the French language and familiar with every slang phrase, did not for a moment mistake the true sense of that unexpected exclamation. They were astounded.

Vorski put the question to Conrad and Otto.

"Eh? What does he say?"

"What you heard . . . . That's right," said Otto.

Vorski ended by making a fresh attack on the shoulder of the stranger, who turned on his couch, stretched himself, yawned, seemed to fall asleep again, and, suddenly admitting himself defeated, half sat up and shouted:

"When you've quite finished, please! Can't a man have a quiet snooze these days, in this beastly hole?"