Conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh at it; but Vorski said:
"Upon my word, I'm inclined to think you're right. It is a snore . . . . There must be some one here then?"
"It comes from over there," said Otto, "from that corner in the dark."
The light did not extend beyond the menhirs. Behind each of them opened a small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these and at once uttered a cry of amazement:
"Some one . . . yes . . . there is some one . . . . Look . . . ."
The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and hands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least a century must have passed over his head.
He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to his feet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those sacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which are actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was a handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, in a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel.
The old man went on snoring.
Vorski muttered:
"The miracle continues . . . . It's a priest . . . a priest like those of the olden time . . . of the time of the Druids."