The man in the boat snatched his hook again and reached for the thing as it floated. Somebody threw him a length of line, and with this he made it fast to his boat, and began pulling toward the stairs, towing it. I was puzzled to guess what the object might be. It was no part of the lighter's rudder, for it lay in, rather than on, the water, and it rolled and wallowed, and seemed to tug heavily, so that the boatman had to pull his best. I wondered if he had caught some curious water-creature—a porpoise perhaps, or a seal, such as had been flung ashore in a winter storm at Blackwall a year before.
Viney and Grandfather Nat had turned their steps toward the stairs, and as they neared, my grandfather, lifting his eyes, saw the boatman and his prize, and saw the watermen leaving their boats for the foreshore. With a quick word to Viney he hastened down the stairs; and Viney himself, less interested, followed half way down, and waited.
The boatman brought up alongside the foreshore, and he and another hauled at the tow-rope. The thing in the water came in, rolling and bobbing, growing more hideously distinct as it came; it checked at the mud and stones, turned over, and with another pull lay ashore, staring and grey and streaming: a dead man.
The lips were pulled tight over the teeth, and, the hair being fair, it was the plainer to see that one side of the head and forehead was black and open with a great wound. The limbs lay limp and tumbled, all; but one leg fell aside with so loose a twist that plainly it was broken, and I heard, afterwards, that it was the leg that had caused the difficulty with the hawser.
Grandfather Nat, down at the waterside, had no sooner caught sight of the dead face than with wide eyes he turned to Viney, and shouted the one word "Look!" Then he went and took another view, longer and closer; and straightway came back in six strides to the stairs, whereon Viney was no longer standing, but sitting, his face tallowy and his grin faded.
"See him?" cried Grandfather Nat in a hushed voice. "See him! It's Marr himself, if I know him at all! Come—come and see!"
Viney pulled his arm from the old man's grasp, turned, and crawled up a stair or two. "No," he said faintly, "I—I won't, now—I—they'd know me p'raps, some of them." His breath was short, and he gulped. "Good God," he said presently, "it's him—it's him sure enough. And the clothes he had on.... But ... Cap'en—Cap'en Nat; go an' try his pockets.—Go on. There's a pocket-book—leather pocket-book.... Go on!"
"What's the good?" asked Captain Nat, with a lift of the eyebrows, and the same low voice. "What's the good? I can't fetch it away, with all them witnesses. Go yourself, an' say you're his pardner; you'd have a chance then."
"No—no. I—it ain't good enough. You know 'em; I don't. I'll stand in with you—give you a hundred if it's all there! Square 'em—you know 'em!"
"If they're to be squared you can do it as well as me. There'll be an inquest on this, an' evidence. I ain't going to be asked what I did with the man's pocket-book. No. I don't meddle in this, Mr. Viney. If it ain't good enough for you to get it for yourself, it ain't good enough for me to get it for you."