We betook ourselves in the first place--by Joshua’s rather insistent wish, but, secretly, against our own--to the ruins, and for an hour poked about among them wearily, loitering after our guest, and supplying, scarcely volunteering, all that of their history with which we were acquainted--impersonally, that is to say. The truth is, the place had become odious to us--as full of sordid significances as is a house in which a murder has been committed, when we know ourselves subpoena’d to give evidence on the crime. But naturally our companion felt none of this, and was only absorbed and interested, so far as appeared, in the archaeological testimony. Once, at the end, he paused, as fatality would have it, close by the plinth and the encumbered thicket. I glanced at Harry. _A second time, patiently and scrupulously, had the hole been stopped, and the traces of our visit effaced._ What did the man mean? Did he, in his diseased imagination, think thus to convince us in the face of our actual experience? It was like enough. His unnerving dreams are so real to the drunkard, he cannot but think that others must see what he sees and be blind to what he has successfully hidden from himself. He is like the ostrich in his amazing digestion of both facts and fables, Whether he puts fire in his stomach or his head in the sand, he is equally the confident and incurable dupe of his own imagination. Suddenly Joshua, after a prolonged reverie, half turned to us. “Are there any legends of crypts, underground vaults, anything that we have not seen about here?” he demanded. I was startled; I could not order my thoughts. I mumbled out involuntarily-- “I--there used to be a talk of smugglers.” He turned upon me like a snapping dog. “Smugglers! What about them?” Harry glanced at me warningly. “O!” I said, recovering myself with a flush, “it was an old tale when we came, Mr. Pilbrow; and, since, the weather and the coastguard have been knocking it to pieces between them.” He stood thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “So?” he murmured. “Knocking what to pieces?” “Why, the tale,” said I; for I did not wish to be more particular. I don’t know if he understood my reluctance. He did not persist in his questions, anyhow, but lapsed into a brown study. He seemed to have forgotten our presence. “So it ever vanishes,” he muttered, with a stark and melancholy frown. “From Dungeness to Spurn Head it is always the same. The past breaks away and falls into the sea as I approach. The ghosts lead, the mirage beckons me; and, behold! the precipice and the boom of waters where I had thought a treasure house!” He gave a sigh that was nothing less than heart-rending. A certain awe and discomfort kept us mute. Here was some tragedy beyond our guessing, but to which we were guiltily conscious that our secretiveness contributed. Then in a moment he turned upon us with a laugh in which there was not even a tinge of mirth.