"Let us go into the church, at all events, Lucy, if we find it open," said Charles. "You can rest yourself there in safety, while I and Hailes seek for some better place of shelter for you."
Lucy consented; for, to say the truth, she was too much fatigued to proceed any farther; and, on approaching the church, they saw that the door was half open. Charles unclosed it entirely, and led her in.
But the first sight that presented itself made them both draw hack. In the middle of the aisle two or three low benches had been put, side to side, so as to form a little sort of platform, over which was thrown a large table-cloth, brought from the vestry; but underneath that cloth was something stretched upon the benches, the outline of which was seen through the table-cloth, leaving no earthly doubt that it covered a dead body. Charles and Lucy, as we have said, both paused; but Hailes walked on, saying, merely, as he passed them; "It's some poor fellow who has been drowned last night in the storm. They always bring 'em to the churches, in this country, and put them down just so. I should not wonder if it were one of the men out of that cursed cutter; for she's struck on the reef, I'm very sure."
So saying, he walked to the benches and pulled back the table-cloth from the dead man's face. Lucy turned away her head with a shudder, but she was suddenly startled by hearing a loud exclamation, almost amounting to a shout, from the fisherman, and by feeling Charles Tyrrell suddenly dart forward from her side, as if something very extraordinary had occurred. She too raised her eyes, and saw her lover standing beside the little platform, with Hailes grasping him tight by the arm, and pointing, with a face as pale as death, to the countenance of the dead man before them. Charles Tyrrell too was very pale, and, notwithstanding the horror of the sight they were looking upon, she ran forward to his side, exclaiming:--
"What is the matter, Charles? For Heaven's sake, what is the matter?" but as her eyes also fell upon the face of the corpse, the words died away upon her lips, and she clung trembling to the arm of her lover; for there before them, stretched out in death, lay the form of one they had supposed to be dead many days before. It was that of Lieutenant Hargrave, calm, still, and ashy. The part of the body which Hailes had uncovered, displayed no clothing but a sailor's check shirt; but the countenance was not to be mistaken, and not a little was the agitation of the poor fisherman as he gazed upon the corpse, scarcely able to persuade himself that what he beheld was real.
No one spoke for several minutes, till at length Hailes put forth his hand, and touched the body with his finger; and then, as if Sir Charles Tyrrell had been affected by the same fancies as himself, he turned round, and said in a low voice:--
"It is flesh and blood, nevertheless."
"Certainly," replied Charles Tyrrell; "it is very extraordinary, there can be no doubt."
"Well, hang me!" replied Hailes, "if I did not think it was his ghost, when he came down after us to the boat, that night."
"Was it he who came down to the boat?" demanded Charles Tyrrell; "would to God I had known that!"