o down twice.
The first time I couldn't find anything, though I went all through the
berth-deck. I came up to the wrecking-float and reported that I had
seen nothing. There were a lot of men there belonging to the wrecking
gang, and some correspondents of London papers. But they would have it
that she was below, and had me go down again. I did, and this time I
found her."

The mate paused a moment

"I'll have to tell you," he went on, "that when a body don't come to
the surface it will stand or sit in a perfectly natural position until
a current or movement of the water around touches it. When that
happens--well, you'd say the body was alive; and old divers have a
superstition--no, it AIN'T just a superstition, I believe it's so--that
drowned people really don't die till they come to the surface, and the
air touches them. We say that the drowned who don't come up still have
some sort of life of their own way down there in all that green
water . . . some kind of life . . . surely . . . surely. When I went
down the second time, I came across the door of what I thought at first
was the linen-closet. But it turned out to be a little stateroom. I
opened it. There was the girl. She was sitting on the sofa opposite
the door, with a little hat on her head, and holding a satchel in her
lap, just as if she was ready to go ashore. Her eyes were wide open,
and she was looking right at me and smiling. It didn't seem terrible
or ghastly in the least. She seemed very sweet. When I opened the
door it set the water in motion, and she got up and dropped the
satchel, and came toward me smiling and holding out her arms.

"I stepped back quick and shut the door, and sat down in one of the
saloon chairs to fetch my breath, for it had given me a start. The
next thing to do was to send her up. But I began to think. She seemed
so pretty as she was. What was the use of bringing her up--up there on
the wrecking float with that crowd of men--up where the air would get
at her, and where they would put her in the ground along o' the worms?
If I left her there she'd always be sweet and pretty--always be
nineteen; and I remembered what old divers said about drowned people
living just so long as they stayed below. You see, I was only a lad
then, and things like that impress you when you're young. Well, I
signaled to be hauled up. They asked me on the float if I'd seen
anything, and I said no. That was all there was to the affa