"Very well," said the captain. "It'll cost us only a wetting. Run her in, Congdon."
With all the coxswain's skill, and the oarsmen's technique, the passage of the surf was a lively one, and little driblets of water marked the trail of the officers as they shuffled up the beach.
The two slabs stood less than fifty yards beyond high water tide. Nearing them, the visitors saw that each marked a mound, but not until they were close up could they read the neat carving on the first. It ran as follows:
Here lies SOLOMON ANDERSON alias HANDY SOLOMON who murdered his employer, his captain, and his shipmates, and was found, dead of his deserts, on these shores, June 5, 1904.
This slab is erected as a memento of admiring esteem by the last of his victims.
"And you can kiss the Book on that."
"Percy Darrow fecit," said the surgeon. "You can kiss the Book on that, too."
"Then Slade was telling the truth!"
"Apparently. Seems good corroboration." The captain turned to the other mound. Its slab was carved by the same hand.
Sacred to the memory of an Ensign of the U. S. Navy, whose body, washed upon this coast, is here buried with all reverence, by strange hands; whose soul may God rest. "The seas shall sing his requiem." June the Sixth, MXMIV.