'Tell me,' I said, 'about this place where the road leads,' and I
pointed down.

Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer, before he answered, 'It
is unholy.'

'What is unholy?' I enquired.

'The village.'

'Then there is a village?'

'No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years.' My curiosity was piqued,
'But you said there was a village.'

'There was.'

'Where is it now?'

Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed
up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said, but roughly I
gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been
buried in their graves; and sounds were heard under the clay, and when
the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy with life, and
their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye,
and their souls!--and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled
away to other places, where the living lived, and the dead were dead and
not--not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As
he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It