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Rh saw a man crawling queerly among the rocks. His movements were so suspicious that I dismounted and followed him.

I gained fast and finally a full look as he passed around a big boulder intensified my surprise. It was the cripple of the pueblo, the old mañangete.

He was labouring heavily, dragging himself on his hands, his big chest wet with perspiration, and a glint of baneful determination in his eye. After a dolorous scramble through putrescent vegetation and leprous rocks, he slid down a little ravine into a cup-like depression bare of plant life except at the farther end, where a gigantic banyan embraced the earth with its huge tentacle roots.

He crawled to the middle of the clearing, and then he stopped, on his hands and knees, looking at something on the ground which I could not see. I waited for half an hour, but he remained thus in this strange posture and I silently crawled back and away.

The next morning, early, I was back at the place. I slid down the little ravine into the cup-like depression. It was deserted. A white object on the ground caught my eye. It was a human skull.

It was a human skull, white and polished with age. And its lower jaw was twisted in a most abominable grin.

I touched the thing to roll it over. It was fast. I