Legion which put the altar up."

"Aye, but you gave some special name."

"Did I? How absurd! How should I ken what the name was?"

"You said something--'_Victrix_,' I think."

"I suppose I was guessing. It gives me the queerest feeling, this place,
as if I were not myself, but someone else."

"Aye, it's an uncanny place," said her husband, looking round with an
expression almost of fear in his bold grey eyes. "I feel it mysel'. I
think we'll just be wishin' you good evenin', Mr. Cunningham, and get
back to Melrose before the dark sets in."

Neither of them could shake off the strange impression which had been
left upon them by their visit to the excavations. It was as if some
miasma had risen from those damp trenches and passed into their blood.
All the evening they were silent and thoughtful, but such remarks as
they did make showed that the same subject was in the minds of each.
Brown had a restless night, in which he dreamed a strange connected
dream, so vivid that he woke sweating and shivering like a frightened
horse. He tried to convey it all to his wife as they sat together at
breakfast in the morning.

"It was the clearest thing, Maggie," said he. "Nothing that has ever
come to me in my waking life has been more clear than that. I feel as if
these hands were sticky with blood."

"Tell me of it--tell me slow," said she.

"When it began, I was oot on a braeside. I was laying flat on the
ground. It was rough, and there were clumps of heather. All round me
was just darkness, but I could hear the rustle and the breathin' of men.
There seemed a great multitude on every side of me, but I could see
no one. There was a low chink of steel sometimes, and then a number of
voices would whisper 'Hush!' I had a ragged club in my hand, and it had
spikes o' iron near the end of it. My heart was beatin' quickly, and I
felt that a moment of great danger and excitement was at hand. Once I
dropped my club, and again from all round me the voices in the darkness
cried, 'Hush!' I put oot my hand, and it touched the foot of another
man lying in front of me. There was some one at my very elbow on either
side. But they said nothin'.

"Then we all began to move. The whole braeside seemed to be crawlin'
downwards. There was a river at the bottom and a high-arched wooden
bridge. Beyond the bridge were many lights--torches on a wall. The
creepin' men all flowed towards the bridge. There had been no sound
of any kind, just a velvet