"Had it been the body of a stranger!"
Then, as if a flash of light had illumined the meaning of those words,
he started. "Had it been the body of a stranger!" Why, after all,
might it not be the earthly clay of some one unknown. It would be
horrible still; but if he could bear back the tidings to that stricken
old man that Lionel might still be living--that this was not he--how he
could fervently say, "Thank Heaven!"
He stepped forward to where an old patched sail lay covering something
in a pool of mud and water. The sailcloth was stained and dabbled with
the mud; and a strange sense of shrinking seized upon Clayton as he
stooped to lift one end.
He knew which to lift, for through the bare old cloth the human form
could plainly be distinguished. It was not much to do to raise that
cloth at the end for a brief moment. He could recognise Lionel in an
instant; and nerving himself once more, he stooped hastily, raised the
covering, and dropped it again, to mutter--nay, to exclaim loudly, with
a fervour of tone that bespoke the intensity of the speaker's
feelings--"Thank God!"
Harry turned hastily away, and forced open the door to admit the light
of day, and to confront the bearer of the tidings and his mate; for his
glance had been but a momentary one. He had stood at the back, as he
raised the sail, and in that moment's glance he had seen no horrors--
none of the distortions left sometimes by a fearful death; he had seen
but one thing, and that was--
The man's hair was black!
Volume 3, Chapter VI.