“Dead?”
“More than dead; if that were possible. On bending over him, I saw that he had been beheaded!”
“What! His head cut off?”
“Just so. I did not know it, till I knelt down beside him. He was upon his face—with the head in its natural position. Even the hat was still on it!
“I was in hopes he might be asleep; though I had a presentiment there was something amiss. The arms were extended too stiffly for a sleeping man. So were the legs. Besides, there was something red upon the grass, that in the dim light I had not at first seen.
“As I stooped low to look at it, I perceived a strange odour—the salt smell that proceeds from human blood.
“I no longer doubted that it was a dead body I was bending over; and I set about examining it.
“I saw there was a gash at the back of the neck, filled with red, half-coagulated blood. I saw that the head was severed from the shoulders!”
A sensation of horror runs through the auditory—accompanied by the exclamatory cries heard on such occasions.
“Did you know the man?”