There he stood until the net was in and the motor started for the homeward run. The silent crew, sullen, unwilling, and gloomy as before, had begun once more the work of clearing fish and mussels from the net, and getting loose the rest. "All in the net to be thrown over," commanded Olaus. When Sven Elversson heard the order, he went up to the rest. The tears still flowed from his eyes, but he did not heed them. He took his place with the crew, and set to work, helping with their dreadful task. They came to one of the dead. Sven Elversson lifted him up, and loosened some of the meshes that had caught in the buttons of his uniform. It was an elderly man with a sailor's beard under his chin. Someone suggested that he was an Englishman. When he had got the body loose, Sven Elversson began hoisting it to the deck. "All that's in the net to go overboard," said the skipper, bending down toward the corpse. But Sven Elversson restrained him. "Will you not let this be laid to rest in holy ground, Olaus?" he said. Olaus did not answer directly. "Best to get these horrors away from the ship," he said. Sven Elversson clenched his teeth in the endeavour to keep back his tears, and said as firmly as he could: "If you throw this overboard, you will have to throw me, too." He was astonished to hear himself speaking so, but he could not help it. He felt that he would stand by his word. The others, too, saw that he meant what he said, and would never let the dead man go while he himself lived. The skipper swore, and turned away, but made no direct refusal, and the others understood that he agreed. Sven Elversson tried to lift the body, but it was too heavy for him. Then the young fellow newly joined came to his help, and together they laid the dead man by the bulwarks. The next body was loosed from the net, and laid beside the first without question. Two men carried it up to where Sven Elversson stood. "This one's a German," they said. To his surprise, Sven Elversson noted that the men on board had suddenly changed to a different expression, a different humour. They swore no longer, but spoke calmly and quietly. They no longer felt hatred toward these hosts of dead, that came and stole away their livelihood. They were accustomed to show respect and reverence to the dead, and something in their nature was more at ease to know that these drowned men of war were to be given decent burial. Sven Elversson, too, felt strangely easier in mind. His soul felt more at rest now than ever since the first day of his misfortune. He seemed to hear voices about him, thanking him for his charity to the bodies that once had been the dwellings of immortal souls. "Now you are loosed from the burden that was Lid upon you," said the voices. "Thus it was to come about. Your guilt is taken from you. You have risked your life to save the dead, and you have atoned for all."