“What do un look like?”
“Like a dead corp.”
“Aw, my dear,” said Maggot, “lev us keep away. It can do no good to we.”
Acting on this opinion the men rowed past the object that was floating on the sea, and soon after began to fish; but they had not fished long when the dead body, drifted probably by some cross-current, appeared close to them again. Seeing this they changed their position, but ere long the body again appeared.
“P’raps,” observed Maggot, “there’s somethin’ in its pockets.”
As the same idea had occurred to John Cock, the men resolved to examine the body, so they rowed up to it and found it to be that of an elderly man, much decomposed, and nearly naked. A very short examination sufficed to show that the pockets of such garments as were still upon it were empty, and the men were about to let it go again, when Maggot exclaimed—
“Hold fast, Jack, I see somethin’ tied round the waist of he; a sort o’ belt it do seem.”
The belt was quickly removed and the body released, when it sank with a heavy plunge, but ere long reappeared on the surface. The fishermen rowed a considerable distance away from it, and then shipped their oars and examined the belt, which was made of linen. Maggot sliced it up as he would have ripped up a fish, and laid bare, to the astonished gaze of himself and his friend, a number of glittering gems of various colours, neatly and firmly embedded in cotton, besides a variety of rings and small brooches set with precious stones.
“Now, I tell ’ee,” said Maggot, “’tis like as this here will make our fortin’, or else git we into trouble.”
“Why, whatever shud we git into trouble ’bout it for?” said John Cock. “’Tis like as not they ain’t real—only painted glass, scarce wuth the trouble o’ car’in’ ashore.”