"I am going to test it," said Fortin, "at the request of Monsieur le Maire. I am not anxious for the job, however."
"See," said Le Bihan, holding out the scroll to me, "it is signed, 'l'Abbé Sorgue.'"
I glanced curiously over the paper.
"It must be the Black Priest," I said. "He was the only man who wrote in the Breton language. This is a wonderfully interesting discovery, for now, at last, the mystery of the Black Priest's disappearance is cleared up. You will, of course, send this scroll to Paris, Le Bihan?"
"No," said the mayor obstinately, "it shall be buried in the pit below where the rest of the Black Priest lies."
I looked at him and recognised that argument would be useless. But still I said, "It will be a loss to history, Monsieur Le Bihan."
"All the worse for history, then," said the enlightened Mayor of St. Gildas.
We had sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The men of Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers toward the St. Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east, where already a knot of white-coiffed women stood in attitudes of prayer; and I saw the sombre robe of a priest among the crosses of the little graveyard.
"They were thieves and assassins; they are dead now," muttered Max Fortin.
"Respect the dead," repeated the Mayor of St. Gildas, looking after the Bannalec men.