Seas of South Africa by Philip Roy Read Free Book Online

question told me it would haunt me. I had to return so that I could know I had done the right thing. It was enough that he had attacked me. I didn’t want him to haunt me, too.
    So I shut off the kettle and sailed down the mainland side of the island slowly and cautiously. It was shallow, but that was not a problem as long as I didn’t try to submerge. At the first sign of trouble, I would simply turn around, crank up the engine, and take off.
    It was hard to see the beach clearly in the darkness and fog. I tried to identify the spot where I had run through the trees,but too many places looked the same. I went down until I was sure we had passed the spot, turned around, and started back up. Maybe he had gotten to his feet and walked away, or maybe they had carried him, or . . . I hated to think of it . . . buried him already. If I didn’t see a body on the beach, I would sail away. I wasn’t going to search the whole island for him.
    After a while, I thought maybe we were next to the beach where the fight took place, but I wasn’t sure. There was no body on the sand, at least none that I could see. I stopped the sub, stood up on the hatch with the binoculars, and stared through the mist. No, there was nothing there. Maybe he had survived, after all. Maybe they had stopped fighting, or he had taken them to whatever it was they were looking for—money probably, or the treasure he had talked about. But no, there was nobody here. I started the engine again, and continued.
    Just a little further north, where the sand gave way to a rocky area, I thought I saw a dark shape on the ground. I stood up on the hatch again, and looked. Yup, looked like a body to me. I shut the engine, inflated the kayak, closed the hatch behind me, and paddled to the beach. I looked carefully to make sure there was no one else around. The closer I got to the dark shape, the more certain I felt it was him. When I climbed out of the kayak and pulled it up onto the beach, I knew for sure. He was lying face down on the rocks, not moving at all. I had seen dead bodies before. There’s somethingdifferent in the look of a dead body, even in the dark. It’s hard to explain, but once a person is dead, their body is no different from the body of a dead cow, or even a dead tree. It is no longer a person. It becomes something else.
    Even though I was certain he was dead, I approached carefully. What if he were playing dead? What if he were wounded, but still alive, just waiting for me to get close enough that he could stab me?
    I stepped closer, reached over, and poked him with the paddle. It was like poking a heavy bag of sand. He was definitely dead. I came closer still, bent down, and pulled him over. He was so heavy! I figured I’d better check his pulse. I didn’t want to, but thought I should. His hands were large, and scarred, like his face. I put my fingers on his wrist, where the pulse ought to be. There was no warmth there, the way there should be in a living body. I couldn’t find a pulse. I moved my fingers several times looking for one. I pressed harder. No, there was nothing there.
    I stood up and stared at him. He had been stabbed many times. I could see the tears in his clothing and the darkness of blood. There was blood on his neck and chin. He had such a frightening face. He had been such a frightening man. But a strange feeling came over me, I didn’t know why. I suddenly imagined him as he might have been when he was just a little boy—because there had been a time, a long time ago, when he had been a boy, just like any other boy. Here, now, he was lying dead on a beach, murdered. How sad it was, that a littleboy, any boy, would ever end up like this. Who even knew all he had done in his life? How many crimes had he committed? Had he ever done anything good? Had he ever loved anyone? Surely somebody must have loved him, once upon a time? As I stood and stared at him, I started to feel terribly sad