ach one's fancy silently carried out the picture
further; they saw the body itself on the stretcher; the bier was
depicted with distinctness as if it were a concrete token of the
mysterious deed; a carpenter even drew it in chalk in bold strokes on
the wall of the court-house. A woman who suffered from insomnia stated
that she was sitting at the window that night and in spite of the
darkness, recognized Bancal as well as the soldier, Colard, who were
bearing the two front handles of the bier. Furthermore, she had heard
the laborer, Missonier, who closed the procession, cursing. Summoned
before the magistrate, she fell into a contradictory mood, which was
excused on the score of her readily-comprehended excitement. But the
words had been said; what weight should be attached to them depended on
the force and peculiarity of the circumstances; the lightly spoken word
weighed as heavily in the ears of the chance auditor as if it had
been his own guilt, so that he sought to free himself of the burden
and passed it on as if it would burn his tongue should he delay
but a moment. Perhaps it was this sleepless woman, perhaps the
lips of nameless Rumor herself, that enriched the picture of this
murder-caravan with the figure of a tall, broad-shouldered man, armed
with a double-barreled gun, who headed the procession. Now the
gray web had a central point, and received a sort of illumination and
vividness through the probable and penetrable criminality of a single
individual. Twelve hours more, and every child knew the exact order of
the nocturnal procession: first, the tall, powerful man with the
double-barreled gun, then Bancal, Bach and Bousquier, bearing the bier,
then the humpbacked Missonier, as rear-guard. At the last houses of the
town the road to the river grew narrow and steep; as there was not room
enough for two people to walk abreast, Bousquier and Colard had to
carry the body alone, and it was Bousquier, not Missonier, who cursed,
on that account, cursed so loud that the licentiate, Coulon, was
startled from his sleep and called for his servant. On the steep place
in front of the vineyards the body of the dead man was unwrapped and
thrown into the water, and when that had been done, the tall, powerful
man, pointing his gun at his confederates, imposed eternal silence upon
them.

By this action the stranger with the double-barreled gun emerged
completely from the mist of legend and the position of a merely
picturesque