After we had explained the matter more fully, he assured us that no messenger had come from the _prefecto_; this, which at first we thought to be a lie, was no doubt true.

He was plainly scared.

He begged us to be careful lest the people, who were ignorant, should overhear us.
He told us that a year before Don Carlos (Lumholtz) had been there; that he, too, had wanted skulls, and that the town officials had given him permission to dig some from the graveyard; that this caused so much excitement and so many threats that the permission had to be revoked.

He feared the people had already heard our wishes and were even then in an ugly mood--a thing which seemed likely from an inspection of the faces in the doorway and windows.

He said, however, that Don Carlos afterward secured some skulls from an ancient burial-place not distant from the village, and, if we pleased to wait in Cheran through the morrow, as it was now too late, five in the evening, to do aught, he would gladly show us the burial place of the ancients, where no doubt abundant skulls could be secured.