ian hell, a hell of incalculable cold.
Even the square stone tower of the church looked northern to the point
of heathenry, as if it were some barbaric tower among the sea rocks of
Iceland. It was a queer night for anyone to explore a churchyard. But,
on the other hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.

It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest in a sort of hump or
shoulder of green turf that looked grey in the starlight. Most of the
graves were on a slant, and the path leading up to the church was
as steep as a staircase. On the top of the hill, in the one flat and
prominent place, was the monument for which the place was famous. It
contrasted strangely with the featureless graves all round, for it was
the work of one of the greatest sculptors of modern Europe; and yet his
fame was at once forgotten in the fame of the man whose image he had
made. It showed, by touches of the small silver pencil of starlight, the
massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands sealed
in an everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a gun. The
venerable face was bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy
Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though suggested with the few
strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By his right side lay a
sword, of which the tip was broken off; on the left side lay a Bible. On
glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured
suburbans to see the sepulchre; but even then they felt the vast forest
land with its one dumpy dome of churchyard and church as a place oddly
dumb and neglected. In this freezing darkness of mid-winter one would
think he might be left alone with the stars. Nevertheless, in the
stillness of those stiff woods a wooden gate creaked, and two dim
figures dressed in black climbed up the little path to the tomb.

So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing could have been
traced about them except that while they both wore black, one man was
enormously big, and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost startlingly
small. They went up to the great graven tomb of the historic warrior,
and stood for a few minutes staring at it. There was no human, perhaps
no living, thing for a wide circle; and a morbid fancy might well have
wondered if they were human themselves. In any case, the beginning of
their conversation might have seemed strange. After the first silence
the small man said to the other:

"Where does a wise man hide a pebble