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