long-stemmed pipe fitted with a microscopical bowl of baked clay. To
fill such a pipe requires ten minutes' close attention. To smoke it to a
finish takes but four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It is
the crystallization of everything Breton.

"Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette.

"The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was dismantled
twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1730. In 1760 it was
carried by assault by the English. They came across from the island of
Groix--three shiploads, and they stormed the fort and sacked St. Julien
yonder, and they started to burn St. Gildas--you can see the marks of
their bullets on my house yet; but the men of Bannalec and the men of
Lorient fell upon them with pike and scythe and blunderbuss, and those
who did not run away lie there below in the gravel pit now--thirty-eight
of them."

"And the thirty-ninth skull?" I asked, finishing my cigarette.

The mayor had succeeded in filling his pipe, and now he began to put his
tobacco pouch away.

"The thirty-ninth skull," he mumbled, holding the pipe stem between his
defective teeth--"the thirty-ninth skull is no business of mine. I have
told the Bannalec men to cease digging."

"But what is--whose is the missing skull?" I persisted curiously.

The mayor was busy trying to strike a spark to his tinder. Presently he
set it aglow, applied it to his pipe, took the prescribed four puffs,
knocked the ashes out of the bowl, and gravely replaced the pipe in his
pocket.

"The missing skull?" he asked.

"Yes," said I, impatiently.

The mayor slowly unrolled the scroll and began to read, translating from
the Breton into French. And this is what he read:

"ON THE CLIFFS OF ST. GILDAS,
APRIL 13, 1760.

"On this day, by order of the Count of Soisic, general in chief of the
Breton forces now lying in Kerselec Forest, the bodies of thirty-eight
English soldiers of the 27th, 50th, and 72d regiments of Foot were
buried in this spot, together with their arms and equipments."

The mayor paused and glanced at me reflectively.

"Go on, Le Bihan," I said.

"With them," continued the mayor, turning the scroll and reading on the
other side, "was buried the body of that vile traitor who betrayed the
fort to the English. The manner of his death was as follows: By order of
the most noble Count of Soisic, the traitor was fi