Perhaps the little fellows had already decided to break the news to her gently, for they nudged each other, and the oldest one said, sorrowfully:
“It looked like him, but maybe ’tain’t. Please come with us and see!”
“I will come,” she said, “but wait; you said he groaned.”
“Before we got to him it sounded like groans, but when we found him he was dead.”
“Dead as a door nail!” sobbed little Laurie, awesomely, while the eyes of the smallest one brimmed over with tears.
It needed no more to make the excited woman follow their guidance back to the cave, as they persisted in calling it, taking with her some water and a bottle of wine.
She soon found that the little boys had told her the truth.
The body of Chester Olyphant lay seemingly lifeless on the ground, the brown curls matted with blood from a wound on the side of the head.
“Oh, who has done this awful murder?” she moaned, as she listened at his heart for a throb of life.
It seemed to her there was a faint, irregular beat, and she hastened to apply her restoratives, eliciting a low sound like a gasp or sigh.