But at last they showed, by their resistance, that they had clawed hold of something.
"Draw slowly," said Sir. Atkins, "and, if it is, be men, and hold fast."
The men drew slowly, slowly, and presently there rose to the surface a Thing to strike terror and loathing into the stoutest heart.
The mutilated remains of a human face and body.
The greedy pike had cleared, not the features only, but the entire flesh off the face; but had left the hair, and the tight skin of the forehead, though their teeth had raked this last. The remnants they had left made what they had mutilated doubly horrible; since now it was not a skull; not a skeleton; but a face and a man gnawed down to the bones and hair and feet. These last were in stout shoes that resisted even those voracious teeth; and a leathern stock had offered some little protection to the throat.
The men groaned, and hid their faces with one hand, and pulled softly to the shore with the other; and then, with half-averted faces, they drew the ghastly remains and fluttering rags gently and reverently to land.
Mr. Atkins yielded to Nature, and was violently sick at the sight he had searched for so eagerly.
As soon as he recovered his powers, he bade the constables guard the body (it was a body, in law), and see that no one laid so much as a finger on it until some magistrate had taken a deposition. He also sent a messenger to Mr. Houseman, telling him the corpus delicti was found. He did this, partly to show that gentleman he was right in his judgment, and partly out of common humanity; since, after this discovery, Mr. Houseman's client was sure to be tried for her life.
A magistrate soon came, and viewed the remains, and took careful notes of the state in which they were found.
Houseman came, and was much affected, both by the sight of his dead friend, so mutilated, and by the probable consequences to Mrs. Gaunt. However, as lawyers fight very hard, he recovered himself enough to remark that there were no marks of violence before death, and insisted on this being inserted in the magistrate's notes.