They passed downward into the water, which surged against the sides of the bell, and rippled over the lenses till they were close to the bulged wreck. Her starboard bow was completely smashed upon the rocks; the cargo had been washed out, and was still oozing forth by degrees. Already barnacles and weeds were growing on it, and dreary, dreary and desolate looked that shattered hull at the bottom of the sea; and Arthur surveyed it with tears of the keenest grief.
"Suppose a shark stuck its nose into the bell?" said Polkinghorne.
"A dead body? and, by Jove, here's one coming in grim earnest. On his face, it's a man. Women allus floats on their backs; how's that, Muster Lydiard?"
"My name is----" but he checked himself, for now a corpse, which Derrick had roused with his pole, came slowly athwart the stage at the bottom of the bell, and remained there.
Suddenly a cry escaped Arthur! The grey great coat upon it, all sodden and studded with weeds and limpets, he recognised as one usually worn by his lost father, and, longing to know more, he implored Derrick to examine it; for himself, he dared not move, or breathe, or think! Oh, could it be, that those poor remains, half devoured by fish, and floating face downward in the sea, were all that remained of his handsome and beloved father?
"Hold on, lad, shut your eyes; and I'll soon see," cried the resolute diver, as he lowered himself to the loathsome task of examining the remains.
Arthur dared not look; but ere long a cold metal watch was placed in his hand.
"It is not papa's," said he, with a sigh of relief, that ended in a cry of horror, for as those in charge of the bell began to raise it, the water surged within it and dashed about the corpse, which came against him again and again, till Derrick, who was investigating its pockets, thrust it with his pole out of the bell, which in another minute was suspended over the sunny surface of the sea.
"See, Muster Lydiard, I've found a pocket-book into that ere poor fellow's overcoat," said Derrick.
"It is my papa's!" shrieked the lad; "his old scarlet book, with his arms and crest upon it."
And in that book, safe and dry, were the lost will and certificate of marriage.
"But, oh," moaned the lad, when he had told his mother this startling occurrence, as he sank half sick upon her breast, "if that was poor papa I saw, he came from his grave in the sea, mamma, with those papers for you!"