Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I
fell to thinking that a man does not carry exploded cartridge-cases,
especially "browns," which will not bear loading twice, about with him when
shooting. In other words, that cartridge-case had been fired inside the
crater. Consequently there must be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of
asking Gunga Dass, but checked myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the
body down on the edge of the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to
push it out and let it be swallowed up--the only possible mode of burial that
I could think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.
Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so--it was lying
face downward--I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open,
disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you that the dry
sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance showed that the
gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must have been fired
with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had
been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The
secret of the poor wretch's death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the
crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun--the gun
that fitted the brown cartridges.
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