Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/142

 CHAPTER XIII

CONTAINS A SURPRISE

THE first object brought to light, about two feet beneath the surface, was a piece of dark grey woollen stuff which, when the mould was removed, proved to be part of a woman's skirt.

With frantic eagerness I got into the hole we had made and removed the soil with my hands, until I suddenly touched something hard.

A body lay there, doubled up and crushed into the well-like hole the men had dug.

Together we pulled it out, when, to my surprise, on wiping away the dirt from the hard waxen features, I recognized it as the body of Armida, the woman who had been my servant in Leghorn and who had afterwards married Olinto. Both had been assassinated!

When Muriel gazed upon the dead woman's face she gave vent to an expression of surprise. The body was evidently not that of the person she had expected to find.

"Who is she, I wonder?" my companion ejaculated. "Not a lady, evidently, by her dress and hands."

"Evidently not," was my response, for I still