I leant against a tree for support and passed my hand
across my brow as if to banish a fearful dream. But it was no dream,
and when he turned to speak again I could see lurking beneath the
assumed expression of the man all the evil passions and foul
wickedness engraved upon the stone.

"'Well,' he remarked, 'stranger things than this have happened, but
not much. You seem distressed, Trenoweth. Surely I, if any one,
have the right to be annoyed. But you let your antiquarian zeal
carry you too far. It's hardly fair to dig these poor remains from
their sepulchre and leave them to bleach beneath this tropical sun,
even in the interest of science.'

"With this he knelt down and began to gather--very reverently, as I
thought--the bones into a heap, and replace them in their tomb.
This done, he kicked up a lump or two of turf from the little lawn
and pressed it down upon them, humming to himself all the while.
Finally he rose and turned again towards me--

"'You'll excuse me, Trenoweth. It's sentimental, no doubt, but I
have conceived a kind of respect for these remains. Suppose, for
example, this face was really a portrait of one of this buried pair.
Why, then the deceased was very like me. I forgive him for
caricaturing my features now; were he alive, it might be different.
But this place is sufficiently out of the way to prevent the
resemblance being noted by many. By the way, I forgot to ask how you
chanced on this spot. For my part, I thought that I heard something
moving in the thicket, so I followed the sound out of pure curiosity,
and came upon you. Well, well! it's a strange world; and it's a
wonderful thought too, that this may be the grave of some primaeval
ancestor of mine who roamed this Peak for his daily food--an ancestor
of some importance too, in his day, to judge by the magnificence of
his tomb. A poet might make something out of this: to-day face to
face with the day before yesterday. But that's the beauty of
archaeology. I did not know it was a pursuit of yours, and am glad
to see you are sufficiently recovered of your illness to take it up
again. Good-bye for the present. I am obliged to be cautious in
taking farewell of you, for we have such a habit of meeting
unexpectedly. So, as I have to be up and moving for the summit, I'll
say 'Good-bye for the present.' We may as well leave this image
where it is; the dead won't miss it, and it's handy by, at any rate.
_Addio_, Trenoweth, and