r disquieting shape, indicated the
presence of the dead.

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!"

quoted Attwater, as he entered by the open gateway into that unholy
close. "Coral to coral, pebbles to pebbles," he said; "this has been the
main scene of my activity in the South Pacific. Some were good, and some
bad, and the majority (of course and always) null. Here was a fellow,
now, that used to frisk like a dog; if you had called him he came like
an arrow from a bow; if you had not, and he came unbidden, you should
have seen the deprecating eye and the little intricate dancing step.
Well, his trouble is over now, he has lain down with kings and
councillors; the rest of his acts, are they not written in the book of
the chronicles? That fellow was from Penrhyn; like all the Penrhyn
islanders he was ill to manage; heady, jealous, violent: the man with
the nose! He lies here quiet enough. And so they all lie.

'And darkness was the burier of the dead!'"

He stood, in the strong glow of the sunset, with bowed head; his voice
sounded now sweet and now bitter with the varying sense.

"You loved these people?" cried Herrick, strangely touched.

"I?" said Attwater. "Dear no! Don't think me a philanthropist. I dislike
men, and hate women. If I like the islanders at all, it is because you
see them here plucked of their lendings, their dead birds and cocked
hats, their petticoats and coloured hose. Here was one I liked though,"
and he set his foot upon a mound. "He was a fine savage fellow; he had a
dark soul; yes, I liked this one. I am fanciful," he added, looking hard
at Herrick, "and I take fads. I like you."

Herrick turned swiftly and looked far away to where the clouds were
beginning to troop together and amass themselves round the obsequies of
day. "No one can like me," he said.

"You are wrong there," said the other, "as a man usually is about
himself. You are attractive, very attractive."

"It is not me," said Herrick; "no one can like me. If you knew how I
despised myself--and why!" His voice rang out in the quiet graveyard.

"I knew that you despised yourself," said Attwater. "I saw the blood
come into your face to-day when you remembered Oxford. And I could have
blushed for you myself, to see a man, a gentleman, with these two vulgar
wolves."

Herrick faced him with a thrill. "Wolves?" he repeated.

"I said wolves, and vulgar wolves," said Attwater. "Do you know that
to-day, when I came on boar