They walked to the margin of the little wood, and arrived at the source of the stream that ran glittering and straying like pearls amidst the tall sweet green grass that grew in the bed of it. Reuben grasped Christian by the arm.
“What’s that?” he cried.
It was a human skull, and close beside it were the complete bones of a human skeleton, together with a little heap of rags. It looked as though the stuff had been raked together for removal and forgotten.
“That wasn’t how they was left,” exclaimed Christian, coming to a halt and looking at the bones and rags. “There’s been a hand arter me here in that job.”
“A boat’s crew may ha’ landed and shovelled the stuff together out of a sort o’ respect for the remains of something that might have been a sailor,” exclaimed Reuben. “Where’s the tree with the hole in it?”
Christian walked to the place where he had been seated when his eye went to the skeleton aloft.
“That’ll be the tree,” said he.
It was a large tree, the trunk of the bigness of an English chestnut, but dwarfed in altitude; its beauty was in the spread and curve of its branches. In the hinder part of the trunk—speaking with regard to its bearings from the source of the stream—about five feet above the ground, was a large hole, partly concealed by the festooning drapery of the leaves of a rich and vigorous parasite, which soared in coils to the summit of the tree. Christian put his hand in.
“Stand by for snakes!” shouted Reuben.