He reached the great Druid monument without meeting a living soul on his way.  The sun was rising, and the mighty storm-clouds of the night were parting asunder wildly over the whole eastward horizon.  The waves still leaped and foamed gloriously:  but the gale had sunk to a keen, fresh breeze.  As Gabriel looked up, and saw how brightly the promise of a lovely day was written in the heavens, he trembled as he thought of the search which he was now about to make.  The sight of the fair, fresh sunrise jarred horribly with the suspicions of committed murder that were rankling foully in his heart.  But he knew that his errand must be performed, and he nerved himself to go through with it; for he dared not return to the cottage until the mystery had been cleared up at once and forever.

The Merchant’s Table was formed by two huge stones resting horizontally on three others.  In the troubled times of more than half a century ago, regular tourists were unknown among the Druid monuments of Brittany; and the entrance to the hollow place under the stones—­since often visited by strangers—­was at this time nearly choked up by brambles and weeds.  Gabriel’s first look at this tangled nook of briers convinced him that the place had not been entered perhaps for years, by any living being.  Without allowing himself to hesitate (for he felt that the slightest delay might be fatal to his resolution), he passed as gently as possible through the brambles, and knelt down at the low, dusky, irregular entrance of the hollow place under the stones.

His heart throbbed violently, his breath almost failed him; but he forced himself to crawl a few feet into the cavity, and then groped with his hand on the ground about him.

He touched something!  Something which it made his flesh creep to handle; something which he would fain have dropped, but which he grasped tight in spite of himself.  He drew back into the outer air and sunshine.  Was it a human bone?  No! he had been the dupe of his own morbid terror—­he had only taken up a fragment of dried wood!

Feeling shame at such self-deception as this, he was about to throw the wood from him before he re-entered the place, when another idea occurred to him.

Though it was dimly lighted through one or two chinks in the stones, the far part of the interior of the cavity was still too dusky to admit of perfect examination by the eye, even on a bright sunshiny morning.  Observing this, he took out the tinder-box and matches, which, like the other inhabitants of the district, he always carried about with him for the purpose of lighting his pipe, determining to use the piece of wood as a torch which might illuminate the darkest corner of the place when he next entered it.  Fortunately the wood had remained so long and had been preserved so dry in its sheltered position, that it caught fire almost as easily as a piece of paper.  The moment it was fairly aflame Gabriel went into the cavity, penetrating at once—­this time—­to its furthest extremity.