ms as how I might be just a leetle accomidatin', but I dunno, Mr.
Coroner, I've already got that place to fumigate out on account o' thar
havin' been sickness an' a woman present thar. An' now should ye see
fitten to carry that poor murdered feller in thar, Uncle Icky would sure
have to quit. It 'ould be just a leetle more'n he could stand. Don't
think I'm feared o' hants an' sich fer I hain't. It's just this: The
thoughts o' the poor devil, how he just lay thar on the bottom with his
eyes wide-open, an' him murdered--them thoughts would keep a-comin'
back. No, Mr. Coroner, you'd better not take him into the hut--not
unless you aim to buy Ichabod's Island."

The Coroner yielded to the old man's whim. He ordered the sodden and
twisted form laid out decently on the white smoothness of the beach.
Then, with the other men grouped about him, the Coroner selected a jury,
and a minute later the investigation was under way according to due form
of law. The only witnesses who were examined were the man who had
discovered the corpse, and Ichabod. There was small need of more. For
while the account of the finding of the body was completed within a few
minutes, Captain Ichabod's narrative continued for a full hour, during
which he told everything he knew concerning the wreck of _The Isabel_
and the subsequent events, including the kidnapping of Shrimp.

Most of the hearers, if not all, had heard previously broken bits of the
narrative. But now as they received the account in detail from beginning
to end they hung on the old fisherman's words, held by the weird spell
of this mystery of the sea.

At the conclusion of the testimony, the Coroner charged the jury
briefly, and sent them into the shack to agree upon a verdict. The
decision was not long delayed. Within ten minutes, the jury returned to
the beach and the foreman announced that they had agreed upon a verdict.
This was to the effect that the man had come to his death at the hands
of parties unknown, while confined against his will aboard the gasoline
yacht _Isabel_.

The Coroner complimented the jury upon their verdict and then discharged
the panel. He next arranged with one of the boatmen present for the
removal of the corpse to Beaufort, where he meant to have it embalmed
and held for a reasonable length of time before burial, for
identification. When these formalities were concluded the crowd quickly
scattered. Some hastened away to attend their nets, which had been
ne