high on the left breast and a little below the collar-bone, and must
have toppled forward at once across the step, and died where he fell.
The chair had been righted and set in place, perhaps by Ann when she
washed down the step. A well-defined line across the floor showed
where the cleaning had begun, and behind it the scanty furniture of
the place had not been disturbed. At the back, in one corner stood
an old drum, with dust and droppings of leaf-mould in the wrinkles of
its sagged parchment, and dust upon the drumsticks thrust within its
frayed strapping; in the corner opposite an old military chest which
held the bunting for the flagstaff--a Union flag, a couple of
ensigns, and half a dozen odd square-signals and pennants. I stooped
over this, and as I did so I observed that there were finger-marks on
the dust at the edge of the lid; but, lifting it, found the flags
inside neatly rolled and stowed in order. On the table lay my
father's Bible and his pocket Virgil, the latter open and laid face
downwards. I picked it up, and the next moment came near to dropping
it again with a shiver, for a dry smear of blood crossed the two
pages.

Here, not to complicate mysteries, let me tell at once what Ann told
me later--that she had found the book lying in the blood-dabbled
grass before the step, when it must have fallen from my father's
hand, and had replaced it upon the table. But for the moment,
surmising another clue, I stared at the page--a page of the seventh
"Aeneid"--and at the stain which, as if to underline them, started
beneath the words--

"Hic domus, haec patria est. Genitor mihi talia namque
(Nunc repeto) Anchises fatorum arcana reliquit."