Two rows of slate beds, three of which only were occupied; two men and a boy, nude save a waistcloth; over their heads--sluggishly swayed by the air the new-comer had carelessly admitted--their clothes were hung like shapeless shadows.

They had been dredged up in the Isar's mud, found at a corner, dragged from under a cartwheel.

No one identifying them, they were deposited here; their fate?
dissection for the benefit of science, and interment of the detached portions in the pauper's hell.
Which had rung the bell?
Claudius investigated the three: the boy had been crushed by the sludge-basket of the steam-dredge; not a spark of life was left there, his companion was green and horrible; he, too, had passed the bourne.
But on the other row, alone, a robust man with disfigured face, and red whiskers, looked like a fresh cut alabaster statue.

Cold had blanched him; but a faint steam arose from his armpits, in the sepulchral light of a green-shaded gas-jet.

There heat remained to prove that the great furnace in the frame had not ceased to be fed.
The student bent over him to feel the heart, when, as promptly, he sprang back.