“Killed him!  Course, when I heard that I was keener’n ever to get it.”

“Christmas!  I didn’t know it,” said Harvey, turning round.  “I’ll give you a dollar for it when I—­get my wages.  Say, I’ll give you two dollars.”

“Honest?  D’you like it as much as all that?” said Dan, flushing.  “Well, to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you—­to give; but I didn’t let on till I saw how you’d take it.  It’s yours and welcome, Harve, because we’re dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an’ so followin’.  Catch a-holt!”

He held it out, belt and all.

“But look at here.  Dan, I don’t see—­”

“Take it.  ’Tain’t no use to me.  I wish you to hev it.”  The temptation was irresistible.  “Dan, you’re a white man,” said Harvey.  “I’ll keep it as long as I live.”

“That’s good hearin’,” said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, anxious to change the subject:  “’Look’s if your line was fast to somethin’.”

“Fouled, I guess,” said Harve, tugging.  Before he pulled up he fastened the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheath click on the thwart.  “Concern the thing!” he cried.  “She acts as though she were on strawberry-bottom.  It’s all sand here, ain’t it?”

Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak.  “Hollbut’ll act that way ’f he’s sulky.  Thet’s no strawberry-bottom.  Yank her once or twice.  She gives, sure.  Guess we’d better haul up an’ make certain.”

They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and the hidden weight rose sluggishly.

“Prize, oh!  Haul!” shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, double shriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the dead Frenchman buried two days before!  The hook had caught him under the right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shoulders above water.  His arms were tied to his side, and—­he had no face.  The boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of the dory, and there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held on the shortened line.

“The tide—­the tide brought him!” said Harvey with quivering lips, as he fumbled at the clasp of the belt.

“Oh, Lord!  Oh, Harve!” groaned Dan, “be quick.  He’s come for it.  Let him have it.  Take it off.”

“I don’t want it!  I don’t want it!” cried Harvey.  “I can’t find the bu-buckle.”

“Quick, Harve!  He’s on your line!”

Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face under its streaming hair.  “He’s fast still,” he whispered to Dan, who slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far overside.  The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose to his knees, whiter than the fog.

“He come for it.  He come for it.  I’ve seen a stale one hauled up on a trawl and I didn’t much care, but he come to us special.”

“I wish—­I wish I hadn’t taken the knife.  Then he’d have come on your line.”