"My horse threw me. I expect she's run off now," Rawne says, too cold and wet to think of a good lie.

The man with the lantern is tall, blonde, and severe. A bolt of fear hits him, momentarily convinced that Gaunt has come back to life and is here to welcome him into the afterlife. Did he die when his horse threw him?

But then he gets a better look at the man and no, it's some other blonde gentleman, with a giant black dog. An officer, he guesses, by his bearing. Perhaps Navy.