Peter had none of the superstitions of his race, or he would never have been our companion. "All right, massa; me look for Brer Spook." So saying, Peter walked into a kind of roofed over-room, open only at the front, and examined the floor with his lantern, stamping occasionally to detect any hollowness in the ground. "Nothing here, massa, but this dead fellow's leg-bone and little bits of broken jugs," and the dauntless Peter came out with his ghastly trophy. Moore seemed not to lose heart. "Perhaps," he said, "there is something on the roof. Peter, give me a back." Peter stooped down beside one of the wooden pillars and firmly grasped his own legs above the knee. Moore climbed on the improvised ladder, and was just able to seize the edge of the roof, as it seemed to be, with his hands. "Now steady, Peter," he exclaimed, and with a spring he drew himself up till his head was above the level of the roof. Then he uttered a cry, and, leaping from Peter's back retreated to the level where we stood in some confusion. "Good God!" he said, "what a sight!" "What on earth is the matter?" I asked. "Look for yourself, if you choose," said Moore, who was somewhat shaken, and at the same time irritated and ashamed. Grasping the lantern, I managed to get on to Peter's shoulders, and by a considerable gymnastic effort to raise my head to the level of the ledge, and at the same time to cast the light up and within. The spectacle was sufficiently awful. I was looking along a platform, on which ten skeletons were disposed at full length, with the skulls still covered with long hair, and the fleshless limbs glimmering white and stretching back into the darkness. On the right hand, and crouching between a skeleton and the wall of the chamber (what we had taken for a roof was the floor of a room raised on pillars), I saw the form of a man. He was dressed in gay colours, and, as he sat with his legs drawn up, his arms rested on his knees. On the first beholding of a dreadful thing, our instinct forces us to rush against it, as if to bring the horror to the test of touch. This instinct wakened in me. For a moment I felt dazed, and then I continued to stare involuntarily at the watcher of the dead. He had not stirred. My eyes became accustomed to the dim and flickering light which the lantern cast in that dark place. "Hold on, Peter," I cried, and leaped down to the floor of the cave. "It's all right, Moore," I said. "Don't you remember the picture in old Lafitau's 'Moeurs des Sauvages Americains'? We are in a burying-place of the Cherouines, and the seated man is only the kywash, 'which is an image of woode keeping the deade.'" "Ass that I am!" cried Moore. "I knew the cave led us from the Sachem's Cave to the Sachem's Mound, and I forgot for a moment how the fellows disposed of their dead. We must search the platform. Peter, make a ladder again." Moore mounted nimbly enough this time. I followed him.