Half frantic with horror, a sudden resolve came upon him. There was so strong a light now in the cavern that he could dimly see the object which had caused him so much dread, an object which he had touched when he first waded in, and imagined to be a seal.
Trembling with excitement, he crept down to the water’s edge, waded in to his knees, and in haste, forcing himself now to act, he drew from where it lay entangled among the rocks the body of a drowned man, the remains of one of the brave fellows who had been lost at the wreck of Van Heldre’s vessel. The body was but slightly wedged in, just as it had been floated in by a higher tide than usual, and left on the far side of some pieces of rock when the water fell, but had not since risen high enough to float it out.
The horrifying object yielded easily enough as he drew it away along the surface, and he was about to wade and swim with it to the mouth, when he stopped short, for a sudden thought occurred to him.
It was a horrible thought, but in his excitement he did not think of that, for in the dim light he could see enough to show him that it was the body of a young man of about his own physique, still clothed and wearing a rough pea-jacket.
Disguise—a means of evading justice—the opportunity for commencing anew and existing till his crime had been forgotten, and then some day making himself known to those who thought him dead.
“They think me dead now,” he muttered, excitedly. “They must. They shall.”
Without pausing for further thought, and without feeling now the loathsome nature of the task, he quickly stripped the pea-jacket and rough vest from the dead form, and trembling with excitement now in place of fear, tore off his own upper garments, pausing for a few moments to take out pocket-book and case and cigars, but only to empty out the latter, thrust the book and case back, and at the end of a few minutes he was standing in shirt and trousers, the rough jacket and vest lying on the sands, and the form of the drowned sailor tightly buttoned in the dry garments just put on.
Harry stood trembling for a few minutes, shrinking from achieving his task. Then with the full knowledge that the body if borne out of the cave would be swept here and there by the current, perhaps for days, and finally cast ashore not many miles away, he softly waded into the water, drew the waif of the sea along after him, right away to the mouth of the cave, where he cautiously peered out, and made well sure that no fishermen were in sight before swimming with his ghastly burden along the zigzag channel, out beyond the rocks, where, after a final thrust, he saw the current bear it slowly away before he returned shuddering into the cave, and then landed on the dry sand to crawl up and crouch there.
“They think me dead,” he said in a husky whisper; “let them find that, and be sure.”
He was silent for a time, and then as the thoughts of the past flooded his soul, he burst into a wild fit of sobbing.