"Captain," said the officer, in a voice very low, but hurried and trembling with excitement, "Putchett's had a very narrow escape, and I hate to trouble him, but I must do my duty. There's been a five thousand dollar diamond traced to him. He advanced money on it, knowing it was stolen. I've searched his property and can't find it, but I'll bet a thousand it's on that string around his neck—that's Putchett all over. Now, you let me take it, and I'll let him alone; nobody else need know what's happened. He seems to have behaved himself here, judging by the good opinion folks have of him, and he deserves to have a chance which he won't get if I take him to jail."
The women had comprehended, from the look of the stranger and the captain, that something unusual was going on, and they had crowded nearer and nearer, until they heard the officer's last words.
"You're a dreadful, hateful man!" exclaimed little Alice.
The officer winced.
"Hush, daughter," said Alice's mother; then she said: "Let him take it, captain; it's too awful to think of a man's going right to prison from the gates of death."
The officer did not wait for further permission, but hastily opened the bathing-dress of the still insensible figure.
Suddenly the officer started back with an oath, and the people saw, fastened to a string and lying over Mr. Putchett's heart, a small scallop-shell, variegated with pink and yellow spots.
"It's one I gave him when I first came here, because he couldn't find any," sobbed little Alice.
The officer, seeming suddenly to imagine that the gem might be secreted in the hollow of the shell, snatched at it and turned it over. Mr. Putchett's arm suddenly moved; his hand grasped the shell and carried it toward his lips; his eyes opened for a moment and fell upon the officer, at the sight of whom Mr. Putchett shivered and closed his eyes again.
"That chill's a bad sign," muttered the captain.