"Oh!" said I; "then they were ancestors of my wife."

"Do you fear the curse?" asked Le Bihan.

"What?" I laughed.

"There was the case of the Purple Emperor," said Max Fortin timidly.

Startled for a moment, I faced him, then shrugged my shoulders and
kicked at a smooth bit of rock which lay near the edge of the pit,
almost embedded in gravel.

"Do you suppose the Purple-Emperor drank himself crazy because he was
descended from Marie Trevec?" I asked contemptuously.

"Of course not," said Max Fortin hastily.

"Of course not," piped the mayor. "I only--Hellow! what's that you're
kicking?"

"What?" said I, glancing down, at the same time involuntarily giving
another kick. The smooth bit of rock dislodged itself and rolled out of
the loosened gravel at my feet.

"The thirty-ninth skull!" I exclaimed. "By jingo, it's the noddle of the
Black Priest! See! there is the arrowhead branded on the front!"

The mayor stepped back. Max Fortin also retreated. There was a pause,
during which I looked at them, and they looked anywhere but at me.