“Ach!” he exclaimed; “we are unfortunate to meet a thing like this.”
There was no need of Paul Alexis’ medical skill to tell that this man was dead; a child would have known it. Before searching the pockets Steinmetz took out his own handkerchief and laid it over a face which had become unrecognizable. The horse was standing over them. It bent its head and sniffed wonderingly at that which had once been its master. There was a singular, scared look in its eyes.
Steinmetz pushed aside the enquiring muzzle.
“If you could speak, my friend,” he said, “we might want you. As it is, you had better continue your meal.”
Paul was unbuttoning the dead man’s clothes. He inserted his hand within the rough shirt.
“This man,” he said, “was starving. He probably fainted from sheer exhaustion and rolled out of the saddle. It is hunger that killed him.”
“With his pocket full of money,” added Steinmetz, withdrawing his hand from the dead man’s pocket and displaying a bundle of notes and some silver.
There was nothing in any of the other pockets—no paper, no clue of any sort to the man’s identity.
The two finders of this silent tragedy stood up and looked around them. It was almost dark. They were ten miles from a habitation. It does not sound much; but a traveller would be hard put to place ten miles between himself and a habitation in the whole of the British Islands. This, added to a lack of road or path which is unknown to us in England, made ten miles of some importance.
Steinmetz had pushed his fur cap to the back of his head, which he was scratching pensively. He had a habit of scratching his forehead with one finger, which denoted thought.
“Now, what are we to do?” he muttered. “Can’t bury the poor chap and say nothing about it. I wonder where his passport is? We have here a tragedy.”
He turned to the horse, which was grazing hurriedly.
“My friend of the four legs,” he said, “it is a thousand pities that you are dumb.”
Paul was still examining the dead man with that callousness which denotes one who, for love or convenience, has become a doctor. He was a doctor—an amateur. He was a Caius man.
Steinmetz looked down at him with a little laugh. He noticed the tenderness of the touch, the deft fingering which had something of respect in it. Paul Alexis was visibly one of those men who take mankind seriously, and have that in their hearts which for want of a better word we call sympathy.
“Mind you do not catch some infectious disease,” said Steinmetz gruffly. “I should not care to handle any stray muzhik one finds dead about the roadside; unless, of course, you think there is more money about him. It would be a pity to leave that for the police.”
Paul did not answer. He was examining the limp, dirty hands of the dead man. The fingers were covered with soil, the nails were broken. He had evidently clutched at the earth and at every tuft of grass, after his fall from the saddle.
“Look here, at these hands,” said Paul suddenly. “This is an Englishman. You never see fingers this shape in Russia.”
Steinmetz stooped down. He held out his own square-tipped fingers in comparison. Paul rubbed the dead hand with his sleeve as if it were a piece of statuary.
“Look here,” he continued, “the dirt rubs off and leaves the hand quite a gentlemanly color. This”—he paused and lifted Steinmetz’s handkerchief, dropping it again hurriedly over the mutilated face—“this thing was once a gentleman.”
“It certainly has seen better days,” admitted Steinmetz, with a grim humor which was sometimes his. “Come, let us drag him beneath that pine-tree and ride on to Tver. We shall do no good, my dear Alexis, wasting our time over the possible antecedents of a gentleman who, for reasons of his own, is silent on the subject.”
Paul rose from the ground. His movements were those of a strong and supple man, one whose muscles had never had time to grow stiff. He was an active man, who never hurried. Standing thus upright he was very tall—nearly a giant. Only in St. Petersburg, of all the cities of the world, could he expect to pass unnoticed—the city of tall men and plain women. He rubbed his two hands together in a singularly professional manner which sat amiss on him.
“What do you propose doing?” he asked. “You know the laws of this country better than I do.”
Steinmetz scratched his forehead with his forefinger.
“Our theatrical friends the police,” he said, “are going to enjoy this. Suppose we prop him up sitting against that tree—no one will run away with him—and lead his horse into Tver. I will give notice to the police, but I will not do so until you are in the Petersburg train. I will, of course, give the ispravnik to understand that your princely mind could not be bothered by such details as this—that you have proceeded on your journey.”
“I do not like leaving the poor beggar alone all night,” said Paul. “There may be wolves—the crows in the early morning.”
“Bah! that is because you are so softhearted. My dear fellow, what business is it of ours if the universal laws of nature are illustrated upon this unpleasant object? We all live on each other. The wolves and the crows have the last word. Tant mieux for the wolves and the crows! Come, let us carry him to that tree.”
The moon was just rising over the line of the horizon. All around them the steppe lay in grim and lifeless silence. In such a scene, where life seemed rare and precious, death gained in its power of inspiring fear. It is different in crowded cities, where an excess of human life seems to vouch for the continuity of the race, where, in
