"They 're taking the body away," whispered she, after a pause of death-like stillness. "Where to?" said I, half breathless with terror. "To the river! the stream runs fast, and the corpse will be down below Goose Island,--ay, in the Gulf, 'fore morning!" The two young girls, unable longer to control their feelings, here burst out a crying; and the old man, pulling out a rosary, turned to the wall and began his prayers. "'Tis a bloody place; glory be to God!" said Joe, at last, with a sigh, and clasped his hands before him, like one unable to decide on what course to follow. I saw, now, that all were so paralyzed by fear that it devolved upon me to act for the rest; so, summoning my best courage, I said, "Will you allow us to stay here for the night, since we are strangers, and do not know where to seek shelter?" She shook her head, not so much with the air of refusing my request as to convey that I had asked for something scarce worth the granting. "We only want a shelter for the night--" "And a bit to eat," broke in the old man, turning round from his prayers. "Sanctificatur in sec'la,--if it was only a bit of belly bacon, and--Tower of Ivory, purtect us--with a pot of praties, and--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--" "Is he a friar?" said the hag to me, eagerly; "does he belong to an 'ordher'?" "No," said I;" he's only a good Catholic." She wrung her hands, as if in disappointment; and then, taking up the lantern once more, said, "Come along! I 'll show yez where ye can stay." We followed, I leading the others, up a narrow and rickety stair, between two walls streaming with damp and patched with mould. When she reached the landing she searched for a moment for a key, which having found, she opened the door of a long low room, whose only furniture was a deal table and a few chairs; a candle stuck in a bottle, and some drinking-vessels of tin, were on the table, and a piece of newspaper containing some tobacco. "There," said she, lighting the candle, "you may stay here; 't is all I 'm able to do for yez, is to give ye shelter." "And nothing to eat?" ejaculated the old man, sorrowfully. "Hav' n't you a few potatoes?" said Joe. "I did n't taste food since yesterday morning," said the hag; "and that's what's to keep life in me to-morrow!" and as she spoke, she held out a fragment of blackened sea-biscuit such as Russian sailors call "rusk." "Well, by coorse, there's no use in talking," said Joe, who always seemed the first to see his way clearly. "Tis worse for the girls, for _we_ can take a draw of the pipe. Lucky for us we have it!" Meanwhile, the two girls had taken off their cloaks, and were busy gathering some loose sticks together, to make a fire,--a piece of practical wisdom I at once lent all aid to.