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