“Look,” she said, kneeling down, an example that he followed. About six feet below them, which was the depth at which the corpses had originally been laid, could be seen fragments of lead and rotting wood projecting from the surface of the cliff, and, what was a more ghastly sight, eight inches or more of the leg-bones of a man, off which the feet had been washed away. On a ledge in the sandy cliff, about twenty-five feet from the top and sixty or so from the bottom, there lay quite a collection of human remains of all sorts and sizes, conspicuous among them being the bones which had composed the feet that belonged to the projecting shanks.
“Isn’t it dreadful?” said Eva, gazing down with a species of fascination; “just fancy coming to that! Look at that little baby’s skull just by the big one. Perhaps that is the mother’s. And oh, what is that buried in the sand?”
As much of the object to which she pointed at was visible looked like an old cannon-ball, but Jeremy soon came to a different conclusion.
“It is a bit of a lead coffin,” he said.
“Oh, I should like to get down there and find out what is in it. Can’t you get down?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I’ve done it as a boy,” he said, “when I was very light; but it is no good my trying now: the sand would give with me, and I should go to the bottom.”
He was willing to do most things to oblige this lovely creature, but Jeremy was above all things practical, and did not see the use of breaking his neck for nothing.
“Well,” she said, “you certainly are rather heavy.”
“Fifteen stone,” he said, mournfully.
“But I am not ten; I think I could get down.”