It may be doubted whether Mordaunt Reeves was particularly sensitive to such influences; if he was, it may have been this distraction which made him slice his drive. The ball dwindled down the gradual slope towards the river; cleared in a couple of bounds the tussocks of thick grass that dotted the little valley, and buried itself at last in the osier bed at the foot of the arches. Gordon and he—they were partners—set out at once to retrieve it, distrusting the efforts of an inefficient caddie, who was nearer the spot. It was only a closer view that showed how well-chosen a lair was this for a golf-ball hard pressed in the chase. The ground was all tussocks of rank grass, with hidden runlets that made islands of them; stubborn little shoots of willow arrested the searching club. They might have spent a full half-hour in vain scrutiny, had not Reeves’s eye lighted suddenly on something he never looked to find there, a darker patch among the surrounding green, close to the foot of the first arch. It showed the outlines of a man. A dog sleeps on the alert, with the visible threat of waking at any moment. A man’s sleep is like the sleep of the horse; it imitates death. Reeves’s first idea was that this man who lay so still must be a tramp who had strayed off the London high-road, and was taking his siesta in the lee of the viaduct. Then a gleam of more than military intelligence assured him that on such an afternoon of downpour a man composing himself to sleep would have been under the arch, not by the side of it. “Hello!” he shouted uneasily to Gordon, “looks as if there was something wrong here.” Together they approached the prostrate body; it lay face downwards, and there was no movement of life. The thrill of distaste with which healthy nature shrinks from the sight of dissolution seized both of them. Gordon had served three years in the army, and had seen death; yet it was always death tricked out in the sacrificial garb of khaki; there was something different about death in a town-coat and striped grey trousers—it was a discord in the clear weather. The sun seemed to lose a shade of its brightness. Together they bent, and turned the body over, only to relinquish it again by a common instinct. Not only did the lolling head tell them that here the architecture of the human frame had been unknit; the face had disappeared, battered unrecognizably by some terrible and prolonged friction. They looked upwards, and knew at once that the sloping buttress of the arch, all of rough granite, must have intercepted a fatal fall, and added to its horror. Little about the head could be distinguished except closely-cut grey hair. “Poor devil,” said Gordon huskily. “Down from the line, I suppose.” “I say,” said Reeves, “we mustn’t let the caddie see this. Send him across to fetch the other two.” Marryatt and Carmichael were now close behind them, and came up almost immediately.