For the other was gazing attentively at something. Then without a word he dropped the end of his bridle, and clambering over a couple of boulders, was stooping over the object which had caught his eye.
It was something round and white. Maurice could see that much before following his companion, which, however, he hastened to do. Then both men stood staring down at the object.
The latter was embedded in a hole in the ground, firmly wedged between two rocks, half of it projecting. At first sight it might have been mistaken for an ostrich egg.
Renshaw bent down and picked up the object. Something of a tug was necessary to loosen it from the imprisoning rock. He held in his hand a human skull.
“What’s the matter, old chap?” said Sellon, wonderingly, noticing his companion’s face go deadly white, while the hand that held the skull trembled violently. “You seem rather knocked out of time, eh? A thing like that is a queerish sort of find in this God-forsaken corner; but surely your nerves are proof against such a trifle.”
“Trifle, do you call it?” replied Renshaw, speaking quickly and eagerly. “Look at the thing, man—look at it.”
“Well, I see it. What then?” said Maurice, wondering if his friend had gone clean off his head, and uncomfortably speculating on the extreme awkwardness of such an occurrence away here in the wilds.
“What then? Why, it is a white man’s skull.”
“How do you know that?” said Sellon, more curiously, bending down to examine the poor relic which seemed to grin piteously at them in the falling gloom. One side of the lower part was battered in—giving to the bony face and eyeless sockets a most grisly and leering expression.
“By the formation, of course. But, man alive, don’t you see what this find means—don’t you see what it means?”