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find it. If your people won't help me, I will get others."
    The old man looked over his shoulder and spoke a name. From the little crowd of silent spectators came a child, a small girl of about nine years old. He laid his hand upon her head.
    "This child," he said to Victor, "has seen and spoken with the 'sacerdotesse'. Other children, in the past, have seen them too. Only to children, and then rarely, do they show themselves. She will tell you what she saw."
    The child began her recitation, in a high sing-song voice, her eyes fixed upon Victor; and he could tell, he said, that it was a tale she had repeated so many times, to the same listeners, that it was now a chant, a lesson learnt by heart. And it was all in patois. Not one word could Victor understand. When she had finished the old man acted as interpreter; and from force of habit he too declaimed as the child had done, his tone taking that same sing-song quality.
    "I was with my companions on Monte Verità. A storm came, and my companions ran away. I walked, and lost myself, and came to the place where the wall is, and the windows. I cried; I was afraid. She came out of the wall, the tall and splendid one, and another with her, also young and beautiful. They comforted me and I wanted to go inside the walls with them, when I heard the singing from the tower, but they told me it was forbidden. When I was thirteen years old I could return to live with them. They wore white raiment to the knees, their arms and legs were bare, the hair close to the head. They were more beautiful than the people of this world. They led me back from Monte Verità, down the track where I could find my way. Then they went from me. I have told all I know."
    The old man watched Victor's face when he had finished his recital. Victor said the faith that must have been put in the child's statement astounded him. It was obvious, he thought, that the child had fallen asleep, and dreamt, and translated her dream into reality.
    "I am sorry," he told his interpreter, "but I can't believe the child's tale. It is imagination."
    Once again the child was called and spoken to, and she at once ran out of the house and disappeared.
    "They gave her a circlet of stones on Monte Verità," said the old man. "Her parents keep it locked up, in case of evil. She has gone to ask for it, to show you."
    In a few moments the child returned, and she put into Victor's hand a girdle, small enough to encompass a narrow waist, or else to hang about the neck. The stones, which looked like quartz, were cut and shaped by hand, fitting into one another in hollowed grooves. The craftsmanship was fine, even exquisitely done. It was not the rude handiwork of peasants, done of a winter's evening, to pass the time. In silence Victor handed the circlet back to the child.
    "She may have found it on the mountain side," he said.
    "We do not work thus," answered the old man, "nor the people in the valley, nor even in the cities of this country, where I have been. The child was given the circlet, as she has told us, by those who inhabit Monte Verità."
    Victor knew then that further argument was useless. Their obstinacy was too strong, and their superstition proof against all worldly sense. He asked if he might remain in the house another day and night.
    "You are welcome to stay," said the old man, "until you know the truth."
    One by one the neighbours dispersed, the routine of the quiet day was resumed. It was as though nothing had happened. Victor went out again, this time towards the northern shoulder of the mountain. He had not gone far before he realised that this ridge was unclimbable, at any rate without skilled help and equipment. If Anna had gone that way she had found certain death.
    He came back to the village, which, situated as it was on the eastern slopes, had already lost the sun. He went into the living-room, and saw that there was a meal there prepared for him, and his mattress lay on the floor before the hearth. He was too