"Do you see any thing?" asked his wife, clinging to him.
"No—but it's certain to be the sperret," returned the man.
And they leant on each other for support.
At the next moment the four men came from the interior of the room where they had deposited the corpse; and the two old people began to breathe more freely.
The gardener hurried his wife and companions down the narrow staircase, and pushed them all hastily from the threshold of the little door, which he carefully locked behind him.
Then, having given the stranger a surly kind of invitation to step in and refresh himself, he led the way to the offices at the opposite extremity of the building.
But scarcely had the party gained the servants' hall, when the old gardener, whose mind was powerfully excited by all that had just occurred, hastened abruptly away; and, rushing up the great staircase, he burst into the drawing-room, exclaiming, "A corpse! a corpse!"
CHAPTER CCXLVII.
THE STRANGER WHO DISCOVERED THE CORPSE.
Perhaps there is no other cry in the world, save that of "Fire!" more calculated to spread terror and dismay, when falling suddenly and unexpectedly upon the ears of a party of revellers, than that of "A corpse! a corpse!"
Before a single question can be put, or a word of explanation be given, each one who hears that ominous announcement revolves a thousand dread conjectures in his mind: for although that cry might in reality herald nothing more appalling than a case of sudden death from natural causes, yet the imagination instinctively associates it with the foulest deed of treachery and murder.