Harry Clayton felt his breath come thick and fast as he caught sight of
the low place by his side. It was a boat-house evidently, and was
roughly built of the hole-filled planks torn from the side of some ship
taken to the breaker's yard. The door was secured with a large rusty
padlock, and the amphibious-looking man, now introduced as "my mate,"
had evidently been doing duty as a sentry, seated upon a post, and
smoking a long clay pipe, troubled not in the slightest degree that
within a few feet, dripping, soddened, battered by contact with pier and
pile, lay the nameless dead, separated from him only by that badly-hung
door facing the river, and through whose rifts and cracks and
treenail-holes the interior could easily have been viewed.
The strongest of nerve might have shuddered as the man who had been
keeping guard noisily unfastened the padlock, drew it from the staple,
and was about to throw open the door of the hovel, when Harry abruptly
arrested him.
"Are you sure that this answers to the description given?" he said,
hoarsely.
"Sure on it! Oh yes, sir; that's right enough. You needn't go in
without you like: you may take our word for it. But as soon as you're
saddersfied, we must go and tell the perlice, or else there'll be a
rumpus. They won't like it as it is, and'll be wanting to go in for the
reward; but we looks to you, sir, as a genleman, to make all that
right."
"I'll see justice done you," said Harry, still hesitating.
"Thanky, sir! You see, about them police, there's the inquiss, and the
doctor, and the jury, and all of them to see it; but you may take our
word for it as it's all right: it's him, sure enough."
"How--how do you suppose it happened?--by accident?"
"Well, sir," said the first man, "it don't look very accidental when a
poor chap's got two knife-holes in his chest, and a cut across the head
enough to do for any man. You may call it a accident if you like, but
accidents don't turn a chap's pockets inside out, and take his watch and
ring."
Harry glanced again shudderingly at the door. Should he go in, or
should he stay? It was cruel work, but he had promised the father, and
the duty must be performed. He could not help dreading to gaze upon the
fair frank face that he knew of old; and as he thought, he recalled it,
with its insolent smile of triumph, when they parted at the station.
And now, barbarously mutilated, sullied with mud and water, perhaps it
would be so changed as to be beyond the power of recognition.
And yet he knew that it must be done--that it was impossible for him to
take the men's judgment, which must needs be of the most partial
character.
There was nothing else for it, then, but to go, and he motioned to the
man to throw open the door.
"I don't know as I'd go, sir, if I was you," said the man who had been
his guide. "Give it up, sir, and take our word for it. We're used to
this sorter thing; but it ain't pleasant to look at I wouldn't go in,
sir, if I was you."
The man became so importunate at last, on seeing Harry's firmness, that
the latter grew angry, for he had now nerved himself for his task; and
without waiting to hear more, he muttered the two words, "Poor Lionel!"
threw back the door, and strode in.
Almost as soon as he had crossed the threshold the door swung to behind
him, leaving the place in semi-obscurity, for it was only illumined by
the faint pencils of light that streamed in through the treenail-holes
of the old planks,
But there was light enough to show Harry that he was standing in a place
whose floor was of muddy shingle stones, with a plank laid down the
centre, worn and furrowed by the long coursing to and fro upon it of the
iron keel of some boat. A few broken oars and a small skiff's mast were
leaned against the side in company with a boathook and a rude pole.
Upon a peg hard by was a coil of rope and a grapnel; and again, in other
parts, coils of rope and four-fluked, sharp-pointed grapnels, which made
the visitor shudder as he thought of their purpose. Pieces of old iron,
fragments of chain, scraps of rope, a ragged old ship's fender, and some
pieces of drift wood, muddy, sodden, and jagged with old red
water-corroded nails, were all that remained to take his attention, as
his eyes wandered round the place, studiously avoiding and leaving to
the last that which he had expressly come to see.
Oars, boathook, mast, cordage, they were all there, but where was the
boat's sail? It was not in the boat--that he had seen when outside with
the men.
Harry Clayton felt as if his mind were divided, and one portion were set
in array against the other, questioning and responding, for the response
was plain enough, and he knew that answer, though he had not seen that
sail--could not see it now.
As he stood gazing upon the faint rays streaming down from between two
loose tiles, falling here straight, there aslant, but all to cross and
form a curious network of light with the rays pouring in from the side,
he told himself that he was a coward; but the defensive part of his
intelligence whispered in return, had this been the body of a stranger
lying at his feet he could have calmly and sadly gazed upon the dead.
But it was the dread of looking upon his friend--upon the man whom of
late, but for a hard battle with self, he could have struck down as an
enemy--to look upon him cut off in the flower of his youth, and by some
dreadful death, in the midst of a wild freak, perhaps of dissipation.