The murdered man had been found lying under the canes on the wayside not a rood from the church. A dog smelling at it had caused the body to be sought out and discovered. He had been dead but a few hours; apparently killed by a knife, thrust under his left shoulder, which had struck straight under his heart. The agitation in the people was great; the uproar deafening. Someone had sent for the carabineers, but their nearest picket was two miles off, and they had not yet arrived. The dead man still lay where he had fallen; everyone was afraid to touch him.
'Does his wife know?' said Don Gesualdo, in a strange, hoarse voice.
'His wife will not grieve,' said a man in the crowd, and there was a laugh, subdued by awe, and the presence of death and of the priest.
The vicar, with a strong shudder of disgust, held up his hand in horror and reproof, then bent over the dead body where it lay amongst the reeds.
'Bring him to the sacristy,' he said, to the men nearest him. 'He must not lie there like a beast, unclean, by the roadside; go, fetch a hurdle, a sheet, anything.'
But no one of them would stir.
'If we touch him they will take us up for murdering him,' they muttered as one man.
'Cowards! Stand off; I will carry him indoors,' said the priest.
'You are in full canonicals!' cried Candida, twitching at his sleeve.
But Don Gesualdo did not heed her. He was brushing off with a tender hand the flies which had begun to buzz about the dead man's mouth. The flies might have stung and eaten him all the day through for what anyone of the little crowd would have cared; they would not have stretched a hand even to drag him into the shade.