A man took it up, but only to hold it out to me. Some one had already ripped it up with a knife.
'His boots!' I suggested desperately.
In a moment they were drawn off, turned up, and shaken. But nothing fell out. The dead man had been stripped clean. There was not so much as a silver piece upon him.
We got to horse gloomily, one man the richer by his belt, another by his boots. His arms were gone already. And so we left him lying under the tree for the next traveller to bury, if he pleased. I know it has an ill sound now, but we were in an evil mood, and the times were rough.
'The dog is dead, let the dog lie!' one growled. And that was his epitaph.
With him disappeared, as it seemed to me, my last chance of recovering the necklace. Whoever had robbed him, that was gone. A week might see it pass through a score of hands, a day might see it broken up, and spent, a link here and a link there. It was gone, and I had to face the fact and make up my mind to its consequences.
I am bound to say that the reflection gave me less pain than I could have believed possible a few hours before. Then it would almost have maddened me. Now it troubled me, but not beyond endurance, leading me to go over with a jealous eye all the particulars of my interview with Marie, but renewing none of the shame which had attended the first discovery of my loss. By turning my head I could see the girl plodding patiently on, a little behind me in the ranks; and I turned often. It no longer pained me to meet her eyes.
An hour before sunset we crossed the brow of a low, furze-covered hill, and saw before us a shallow green valley or basin, through which the river wound in a hundred zigzags. The hovels of a small village, with one or two houses of a better size, stood dotted about the banks of the stream. Over the largest of the buildings a banner hung idly on a pole, and from this as from the centre of a circle ran out long rows of wattled huts, which in the distance looked like bee-hives. Endless ranks of horses stood hobbled in another place, with a forest of carts and sledges, and here a drove of oxen, and there a monstrous flock of sheep. One of the men with us blew a few notes on a trumpet; and the sound, being taken up at once and repeated, in a moment filled the mimic streets with a hurrying, buzzing crowd, that lent the scene all the animation possible.
'So, this is your camp?' my lady exclaimed, her eyes sparkling.
'This is my camp,' General Tzerclas answered quietly. 'And it and I are equally at your service. Presently we will bid you welcome after a more fitting fashion, Countess.'