“Three years ago I was much heavier, and wore a full beard. Then these glasses, besides being invaluable for protection, are a pretty thorough disguise.”
“So they are. But the game is up now.”
“Yes.” The scientist drew the sheet back over the dead woman. “I suppose the sharp-shooters who did the job will report me safely out of the way. It’s only a question of when the burial party will come for me.”
“Then, why are we waiting?” cried Carroll.
“I couldn’t leave her lying here,” replied the other simply.
The sound of rhythmical labor came back to Carroll’s memory.
“You were digging her grave?”
The other nodded. Carroll, stiffly, for his knifed arm was painful, got out of his coat.
“Where’s an extra spade?” he asked.
When their labor was over, and the leper laid beneath the leveled soil, Carroll cut two branches from a near-by tree, trimmed them, bound them in the form of a cross, and fixed the symbol firmly in the earth at the dead woman’s head.