have demonstrated the fact. The
periostea, denuded of their covering, were white and smooth, as if they
had been polished. But for some green mould of sea-mosses here and
there, they would have been like ivory. The cartilaginous divisions were
delicately inlaid and arranged. The tomb sometimes produces this dismal
mosaic work.

The body was, as it were, interred under the heap of dead crabs.
Gilliatt disinterred it.

Suddenly he stooped, and examined more closely.

He had perceived around the vertebral column a sort of belt.

It was a leathern girdle, which had evidently been worn buckled upon the
waist of the man when alive.

The leather was moist; the buckle rusty.

Gilliatt pulled the girdle; the vertebra of the skeleton resisted, and
he was compelled to break through them in order to remove it. A crust of
small shells had begun to form upon it.

He felt it, and found a hard substance within, apparently of square
form. It was useless to endeavour to unfasten the buckle, so he cut the
leather with his knife.

The girdle contained a little iron box and some pieces of gold. Gilliatt
counted twenty guineas.

The iron box was an old sailor's tobacco-box, opening and shutting with
a spring. It was very tight and rusty. The spring being completely
oxidised would not work.

Once more the knife served Gilliatt in a difficulty. A pressure with the
point of the blade caused the lid to fly up.

The box was open.

There was nothing inside but pieces of paper.

A little roll of very thin sheets, folded in four, was fitted in the
bottom of the box. They were damp, but not injured. The box,
hermetically sealed, had preserved them. Gilliatt unfolded them.

They were three bank-notes of one thousand pounds sterling each; making
together seventy-five thousand francs.

Gilliatt folded them again, replaced them in the box, taking advantage
of the space which remained to add the twenty guineas; and then reclosed
the box as well as he could.

Next he examined the girdle.

The leather, which had originally been polished outside, was rough
within. Upon this tawny ground some letters had been traced in black
thick ink. Gilliatt deciphered them, and read the words, "Sieur Clubin."

V

THE FATAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SIX INCHES AND TWO FEET

Gilliatt replaced the box in the girdle, and placed the girdle in the
pocket of his trousers.

He left the skeleton among the crabs, with the remains of the devil-fish
besi