The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

Finding no answer to this question, he turned reluctantly away, and began to explore other parts of the chamber. He made a careful examination of its flooring, allowing no part of it to escape him. With the spade he swept aside the black water from the tiny hollows, and with the pickaxe he probed the ground at various points, discovering everywhere stone pavement beneath the superficial covering of earth.

The object that he was hoping to find—a match-box, or a button bearing the maker's name; the dated sheet of a newspaper; a scrap of handwriting: a handkerchief, marked with the owner's initials: or some article of like character—existed only in his fancy. A thorough search on the part of the two friends failed to bring anything to light, either on the surface of the floor, or embedded within the clay.

There was nothing to indicate the date at which the tumulus had been last entered: whether ten, twenty, or a hundred years before. For all they could tell to the contrary, many centuries might have passed since its interior had been trodden by human footsteps.

Relinquishing at last his fruitless labours Idris seated himself on the edge of the Viking's tomb with disappointment written on his features.

"I have so long clung to the hope that this place would afford a clue to the finding of my father, that I cannot give up the notion even now, when its futility seems most apparent. You may think me fanciful, Godfrey, but something seems to whisper that there are traces of him here, if I did but know where to look for them. And yet, I suppose, we have done all that it is possible to do?"

He rose again from his seat and scrutinized the four walls of the chamber, sounding them with the pickaxe.

"There does not appear to be any cell or passage behind these," he muttered.

He turned his eyes upwards, and took a survey of the black tree trunks forming the roof of the chamber: and finished his investigations by probing the dust of the Viking's tomb with the end of the walking-stick, but made no further discovery.

"So end my hopes of finding my father," he muttered sadly. "My labour has been expended on a vain quest. Years of search throughout Europe: years of study over runic letters, end in—a dead man's bones!—How this old fellow grins! One would think he enjoys my discomfiture. I shall take his skull back with me."