"Would it be about the story? Surely, they can't have found the man?"
"I wouldn't wonder; why, here's our little Frenchman, who wanted to tell us all about it yesterday. He'll know what's up; let's ask him."
"But he doesn't understand your French!"
Bob was not to be daunted. Walking across the snow to the edge of the wood, he took off his hat to the Frenchman, and asked him the question: "What are they doing up there, monsieur?"
The reply overwhelmed the young man by its velocity. He caught the word un mort, or thought that he did; but so great was the stranger's desire to tell him that a flood of terrible English followed upon the outbreak. The soldiers had been searching the snow for the body of a comrade, so much Bob made of it; and not only had they been searching, but the quest had been successful. They were now carrying the dead man down to Andana, whence the body would be conveyed in a sleigh to Martigny. With which intimation, and some incoherent reflections upon the whole tragedy, the Frenchman turned upon his heel and left them. His own curiosity would take him some distance in the wake of the procession. Like all his race, the psychology of crime fascinated him beyond any other study.
The youths, in their turn, were not a little awed by this gruesome spectacle, nor could they remain insensible to its romance. Down below, upon the plateau, were the first of the merrymakers, the outposts of a vigorous life, the careless creatures of laughter and the sunshine. Here upon the height, beneath a tracery of silver, upon a path still in shadow, were the emblems of death and eternal sleep. Stern figures, whose footfalls fell soft upon the untrodden snow, moved with military rhythm about the body of their comrade. None spoke, none paused, the faces of all were hard set and expressionless. To-morrow the whole of Switzerland would be talking of this crime; to-day it was but a muttered whisper, which hardly echoed in the woods which harboured it.
But of this the lads knew nothing, and when the procession disappeared from their view they went racing down to the Palace; where they arrived at the precise moment of Miss Marjory and Miss Nellie Rider's appearance, in virginal white.
The "girls" were dreadfully important people this morning. And how little they thought of the married women!
CHAPTER XIV
THE GENDARME PHILIP