"It is Sacrifice Rock," explained Monsieur. "From the days of the Pilgrims to our own, no Indian passes this way without laying some offering upon it. It would have been buried long ago, but that the spring and autumn winds sweep away all the lighter deposits. You would find the hollow at its back half filled with them. Once there may have been human sacrifices,--tradition says so, at least; but now there is seldom anything more precious than what you see."
"But to what deity were the offerings made?"
"Some savage Manitou, no doubt, but no one can say with certainty anything about it. The degenerate half-breeds who live in this vicinity only keep up the custom from tradition. They are called Christians now, you know, and are quite above such idolatrous practices."
"At any rate, I will add my contribution to this altar of an unknown God. Besides, there are some blackberries that I must have," exclaimed Optima, releasing her active limbs from the carriage in a very summary fashion.
Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and Monsieur cried cheerily,--
"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by mice."
And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so piteously that the listener could not choose but go.
And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent lights played over a world of weltering black waters,--as he told how, after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and tenderly cared for it,--as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath their smiling surface.