"Yes, it was a man whose entire body, clothing and all, had dissolved into one blended mass, and so long ago that it looked rather like a great bas-relief of the human form projecting from the lighter-colored floor.
"The shape of the head and of the long hair and beard was complete. One outstretched arm lay along the floor, and the fingers could be traced by little ridges separate from each other. The protuberances of all the bony parts showed that the skeleton still resisted the disintegrating process of decay.
"What an awful death he must have experienced! For there was not a single other object in the small space which remained of the cavern; not a stone which might have served for a seat or a table; not an earthen vessel which might have contained a draught of water.
"The fate of this unhappy being was evident. Whether he had lived in the cavern or whether he had taken refuge in it from some great storm, he had clearly rushed to the back part of it to escape some enormous landslide and caving in at the front, which had opened toward the sea. He had been buried alive! Having exhausted the little air that remained to him, stricken down by terror, despair and suffocation, he had rendered up his soul to the great Giver in silence, darkness and solitude.
"These facts were so obvious that we all lifted our hats before speaking a word; thus paying the tribute of human sympathy to a fellow-creature eighteen hundred years after he had ceased to need it."
"How did you fix upon the date of his death?" asked the chaplain.
"You will see. A large cylindrical case of bronze was lying upon the breast of the dead man. He must have valued it highly, for he had clasped it to his bosom in the agonies of death. It was hermetically sealed with such ingenuity that we found considerable difficulty in breaking it open. It contained a parchment of great length, and rolled tightly around a little brass rod. The parchment was closely written in beautiful Greek characters. It was perfectly preserved. Two small gold coins fell out of the white dry sand with which the case had been filled. One of them bore the inscription of Tiberius Cæsar, and the other was stamped in the ninth year of the reign of the emperor Nero. Thus in the accidental grave of its author had his book been safely preserved amid all the mutations of the world."