Paul had leaped to the ground, and was already loosening the dead man’s foot from the stirrup.  He did it with a certain sort of skill, despite the stiffness of the heavy riding-boot, as if he had walked a hospital in his time.  Very quickly Steinmetz came to his assistance, tenderly lifting the dead man and laying him on his back.

“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 moujik 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.”