The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

"I spoke truly," she answered, "being unaware at the time that my husband had secretly entrusted it to the care of his friend, Captain Rochefort."

"After stealing it from the body of his victim," added the stranger.

"His victim? There you err," cried Mrs. Breakspear with flashing eyes, loathing to answer the stranger, yet eager to vindicate her husband. "When my husband left the Armorique Club on that fatal evening he overtook M. Duchesne on his way home, and upon the latter's expressing regret for his violence of the preceding night a reconciliation took place. As a pledge of amity M. Duchesne, remembering the interest my husband had shown in the ring, made him a present of it: in return my husband insisted that Duchesne should accept the antique poniard purchased by him that morning. Thus they parted: the one with the ring, the other with the dagger. The assassin, whoever he was, that attacked Duchesne, must, during the struggle, have become possessed of the dagger, and with it he inflicted the fatal wound. Next morning, my husband, foreseeing that he might be accused of the murder, and aware that his possession of the ring would seem a suspicious circumstance, handed it to Captain Rochefort, enjoining him, very unwisely as I now perceive, to keep silent on the matter."

"And so," commented the stranger, "Captain Rochefort conspired to defeat the ends of justice."

"The word justice comes with an ill grace from the lips of a coward and a thief," retorted Mrs. Breakspear, her spirit rising, as it always rose, whenever her husband's innocence was put to the doubt. "Say, rather, that in concealing the ring Captain Rochefort was seeking to prevent the Law from drawing an erroneous conclusion."

"He failed, however," sneered the stranger, "for the Law pronounced your husband guilty—greatly to my interests. A pity they didn't guillotine him! Still, he is in prison: there let him rot! and—— Ah!" he muttered in a hoarse voice, breaking off abruptly. "In the name of hell, what's that?"

He could not have been a very brave man, Idris thought, for he seemed unable to keep his hand which rested on the table from shaking.

All three were silent, listening for a renewal of the sound. It soon came—a dull boom slowly rolling through the air like distant thunder.

With the air of one mad the stranger dashed to the window, and flinging wide the casement looked out into the night, a night of glory and beauty, such as is seldom seen in misty Brittany. The air from horizon to zenith was alive with countless stars that seemed to float like silver dust in the blue depth. Their faint light falling over a wide expanse of rippling sea, and on a long arc of yellow sand terminated at each end by dark cliffs, formed a picture that would have charmed the eye of an artist.