This state of suspense was horrible, so with one accord we drove the obscene creatures from their perch, and stepping forward, looked into the rank tuft. Heaven and earth! what a sight was _there_--Stretched on the ground, embedded in the quill-like guinea-grass that bristled up all around him, lay poor Jessamy on his face; his clothes soaked and soiled by the rain of the two preceding nights, and the vile poaching of the vultures now congregated in the tree above, which appeared to have been circling round and round him, from the filth and dirt, and trodden appearance of the herbage; but as yet deterred from making an attack. The majesty of the human form, all dim and mangled though it was, like a faint, but sacred halo, had quelled the fierceness of their nature, and the body of the suicide was still unbroken, even after the lapse of two days, except by the shattering of the pistol-shot fired by his own sacrilegious hands. Had it been the carcass of an ox, twelve hours could not have run by, before the naked skeleton would have been bleaching in the sun and wind. There was a broken halter hanging from the branch above him. "I cannot look at him," said my uncle, shrinking back in disgust; and as he spoke, the John Crows dropped down again, and began to move warily about the body, but still afraid to attack it. Finding that we were not retreating, however, the creatures flew up into the tree once more; and our eyes following them, we saw at least a score clustered immediately overhead, all ready, no doubt, to devour the carcass, so soon as those below should give the signal. It seemed probable that he had tied his horse to the branch above where he lay, and that the animal had subsequently, when impelled by hunger, broken the halter. He had laid his hat on the sward close beside him, with his watch and silk handkerchief in it, and drawn off his gloves, which were placed, seemingly with some care, on the edge of it. He had then apparently knelt, shot himself through the head, and fallen on his face across the pistol. As we approached, the buzz of flies that rose up!--and the incipient decomposition that appeared on the hands! We waited to see the body turned--but the ghastly and shattered forehead--the hair clotted in black gore--the brains fermenting through the eyes--the mask of festering and putrifying and crawling matter that was left on the ground, with the print of the features in it--Horrible--most horrible!