The conqueror took careful note of the spot in which he stood and bringing a knife from his pocket blazed the stem of a young tree that rose not very far from his victim.  Then he disappeared and peace reigned above the fallen.  So still he lay that another fox, scared from its siesta, poked a black muzzle round a rock and sniffed the air; but it trusted not appearances and having contemplated the recumbent object lifted its head, uttered a dubious bark and trotted away.  From on high an eagle also marked the fallen man, but swiftly soared upward to the crown of the mountain and disappeared.  The spot was lonely enough, yet a track ran within one hundred yards and it often happened that charcoal burners and their mules passed that way to the valleys.

None, however, came now as the sun turned westward and the cool shadow of the precipice began to creep over the little wilderness at its feet.  Many hours passed and then, after night had flooded the hollow, there sounded from close at hand strange noises and the intermittent thud of some metal weapon striking the earth.  The din ascended from a rock which lifted its grey head above a thicket of juniper; and here, while the flat summit of the boulder began to shine whitely under the rising moon, a lantern flickered and showed two shadows busy above the excavation of an oblong hole.  They mumbled together and dug in turn.  Then one dark figure came out into the open, took his bearings, flung lantern light on the blazed tree trunk, and advanced to a brown, motionless hump lying hard by.

Infinite silence reigned over that uplifted region.  Above, near the summit of the mountain, flashed the red eye of a charcoal burner’s fire; beneath only the plateau sloped to a ragged edge easterly, for the lake was hidden under the shoulder of the hills.  No firefly danced upon this height; but music there was, for a nightingale bubbled his liquid notes in a great myrtle not ten yards from where the still shape lay.

The dark, approaching figure saw the object of his search and came forward.  His purpose was to bury the victim, whom he had lured hither before destroying, and then remove any trace that might linger upon the spot where the body lay.  He bent down, put his hands to the jacket of the motionless man, and then, as he exerted his strength, a strange, hideous thing happened.  The body under his touch dropped to pieces.  Its head rolled away; its trunk became dismembered and he fell backward heaving an amorphous torso into the air.  For, exerting the needful pressure to move a heavy weight, he found none and tumbled to the ground, holding up a coat stuffed with grass.

The man was on his feet in an instant, fearing an ambush; but astonishment opened his mouth.

“Corpo di Bacco!” he cried, and the exclamation rang in a note of something like terror against the cliffs and upon the ear of his companion.  Yet no swift retribution stayed his steps; no shot rang out to arrest his progress.  He leaped away, dodging and bounding like a deer to escape the expected bullet and then disappeared behind the boulder.  But neither rascal delayed a moment.  Their mingled steps instantly rang out; then the clatter faded swiftly upon the night and silence returned.