They had gone out upon the front porch. There, with Corporal Gray and a blank-faced trooper on guard, lay the silent form of Newton, its face covered with a newspaper. Almost every man of the gathered patrol knew a corpse when he saw one, and it took no second glance to know that Newton was quite dead. _4. The Mandifers_ Jager, bending, lifted the newspaper and then dropped it back. He said something that, for all his religiosity, might have been an oath. "What's the matter, sergeant?" demanded Lanark. Jager's brows were clamped in a tense frown, and his beard was actually trembling. "His face, sir. It's terrible." "A wound?" asked Lanark, and lifted the paper in turn. He, too, let it fall back, and his exclamation of horror and amazement was unquestionably profane. "There ain't no wound on him, Lieutenant Lanark," offered Suggs, pushing his wan, plump face to the forefront of the troopers. "We heard Newton yell--heard him from the top of the rock yonder." All eyes turned gingerly toward the promontory. "That's right, sir," added Corporal Gray. "I'd just sent Newton up, to relieve Josserand." "You heard him yell," prompted Lanark. "Go on, what happened?" "I hailed him back," said the corporal, "but he said nothing. So I climbed up--that north side's the easiest to climb. Newton was standing at the top, standing straight up with his carbine at the ready. He must have been dead right then." "You mean, he was struck somehow as you watched?" Gray shook his head. "No, sir. I think he was dead as he stood up. He didn't move or speak, and when I touched him he sort of coiled down--like an empty coat falling off a clothes-line." Gray's hand made a downward-floating gesture in illustration. "When I turned him over I saw his face, all twisted and scared-looking, like--like what the lieutenant has seen. And I sung out for Suggs and McSween to come up and help me bring him down." Lanark gazed at Newton's body. "He was looking which way?" "Over yonder, eastward." Gray pointed unsteadily. "Like it might have been beyond the draw and them trees in it." Lanark and Jager peered into the waning light, that was now dusk. Jager mumbled what Lanark had already been thinking--that Newton had died without wounds, at or near the moment when the horned image had been shattered upon the cellar floor. Lanark nodded, and dismissed several vague but disturbing inspirations. "You say he died standing up, Gray. Was he leaning on his gun?" "No, sir. He stood on his two feet, and held his carbine at the ready. Sounds impossible, a dead man standing up like that, but that's how it was." "Bring his blanket and cover him up," said Lanark. "Put a guard over him, and we'll bury him tomorrow. Don't let any of the men look at his face. We've got to give him some kind of funeral." He turned to Jager. "Have you a prayer-book, sergeant?"