He took out a match. It felt dry, and the box was quite warm, but when he gave the match one rub on the sand-faced end, he obtained nothing but a faint line of light. He tried again and again, but in vain; and hesitated about testing another match till some hours had passed.
He could not resist the temptation, and taking another of the frail waxen tapers, he struck it sharply, and to his great delight it emitted a sharp, crackling sound. Another stroke and it flashed out, and there beamed steadily a tiny clear flame which lit up the place, revealing that it was just such a zorn as his touch and imagination had painted, while the water was about a couple of feet below where he knelt on the sand, and—
The young man uttered a wild cry of horror, the nearly extinct match fell from his fingers, and burned out sputtering on the wet sands at his feet.
His first effort was to crawl right away as high up as possible, and there, shuddering and confused, he sat, or, rather, crouched, gazing down beyond where the match had fallen.
At times he could see a tiny, wandering point of light in the water, which gradually faded out, and after this seemed to reappear farther away, but otherwise all was black and horrible once more. More than once he was tempted to walk down into the water and swim out, but in his half-delirious, fevered state he shrank from doing this, and waited there in the darkness, suffering agonies till, after what seemed to be an interminable time, there was a faint, pearly light in the place which gradually grew and grew till it became opalescent, then growing, and he knew that the sun had risen over the sea.
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 piece 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.