There were, in solemn truth. As we rode nearer to that jutting promontory, we saw that much of what the Douro had brought down was stopped by it; upon the frozen tongue of land protruding were mixed in confusion many things. The dead horse and another which had preceded it; some poor sheep, a dog, the little babe which had just passed before our eyes, and two or three dead men; some on their backs, their arms extended on that frozen refuge--one on his face.
Mostly they were peasants; their garb told that, also their rough, coarse hands, which showed black against the leper whiteness of the ice and snow beneath them. But he who lay upon his face was none such, his scarlet coat, guarded with galloon, had never graced a peasant's back, no more than any peasant had worn that sword (with now both blade and scabbard broken) that was by his side.
And halting upon the little ridge which made the summit of that promontory and gazing upon that man, I knew as well as if I could see his down-turned face, whose body it was stretched out there upon its icy bier.
Also I saw that she knew, too. Neither scarlet coat nor battered weapon was strange to her.
"I will descend," I said, speaking in a low voice, such as those assume who stand in presence of the dead. "I will descend and make sure," whereupon she bowed her head in reply, making no demur. At that moment she, perhaps, thought it best to make sure that he who had sought her soul's degradation would never traffic with another woman's honour.
But as I went down on foot now to that tongue of land on which the drowned reposed, I had another reason besides this of making sure that the body was that of her tempter, the Alcáide. I desired to discover if 'twas by the river alone that he had come to his death (borne down and into it by some streamlet nearer the Spanish border), and not by the avenging weapon of him who said that I should never have spared him, have never let him quit my side with life. For they might have met, I knew; the one who went first might have been belated on his road--snowbound; the second might have overtaken him, his vengeance have been swift and sure.
Stepping across the bodies of the drowned animals, avoiding those of the peasants, and putting gently aside that of the little babe, I reached him, recognising as I did so the coal black hair flecked and streaked with grey, the rings upon the hands stretched out, backs upward. Then I turned him over, seeing that the face was torn and cut by the jagged ice through which he had been hurried, also bruised and discoloured. But in all the body no sign of rapier wound, nor pistol shot, nor of avenging finger marks upon the throat.
So I went back to her and took my reins from her hands and once more we set out upon our way.
But the dark, lustrous eyes as they gazed into mine asked silent and unworded questions--so that I guessed my thoughts had been in her mind, too!--and when I answered with as equal a silence I knew that I had brought comfort to her heart.