‘Tell me, child, what are you doing here?’
‘Scaring away the vultures,’ she replied, in a soft, musical voice, inexpressibly pleasing.
‘Are you a relation of the dead man?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
‘You knew him?’ I continued, ‘and you pity his unchristian death?’
But she was again silent, and I had to renew my questioning: ‘What was his name, and why was he put to death? What crime did he commit?’
‘His name was Nathaniel Alfinger, and he killed a man for a woman,’ said the maiden, distinctly and in the most unconcerned manner that it is possible to conceive, as if murder and hanging were the commonest and most uninteresting of all events. I was astounded, and gazed at her sharply, but her look was passive and calm, denoting nothing unusual. ‘Did you know Nathaniel Alfinger?’
‘No.’
‘Yet you came here to protect his corpse from the fowls?’
‘Yes.’