The owner of the deep voice was a large man who sloped off in all directions. A huge scratch-wig was pulled over his forehead. The other would have attracted attention anywhere. Above a tightly buttoned snuff-colored coat appeared a thin pinched face, whose little eyes looked out above prominent cheek bones, and whose chin was thrust forward from a voluminous neckcloth. His movements were quick and active as a weasel's. As he peered through the mist he pointed with his finger as if he were following something of whose constantly changing position he were not exactly sure. "Yes; there it is," he said at last. "Gadzooks, it's a man's body! Here goes for it." The little man vaulted to the top of the wall, and made a beautiful clean-cut dive out into the water. The counter-current set up by the ebb tide swirled softly against the sea-wall. It was easier swimming than a few rods further out. "Hulloa!" called a voice at last. "Hulloa! This way," answered the large man, who was deftly casting loose a stout rope made fast to a ring-bolt in one of the stone posts. "Here. This way." "I have him," said the one in the water, panting slightly. "But whether alive or dead I know not. It's the body of a lad," he added, as he caught the rope the big man hurled to him. Quickly he tied the end under Carter's armpits, and finding room for his fingers and toes in clefts in the masonry, he climbed unassisted to the Battery wall. Together both men pulled the apparently drowned boy to the top. "Jabez, you are one of the greatest I know of," said the big man, as he helped to carry the senseless figure to a grass-plot. "Tush!" was the answer. "I'm a good swimmer, mayhap, for my light weight and growing years, that's all." Indeed, this had been proved, for the small one had not even paused to remove his coat. "The lad's alive," he went on, speaking with his ear pressed close to Carter's chest. "Bear a hand quickly, we must get him in-doors." "Ay, but where?" rejoined the larger. "To our friend the widow's. 'Tis but a step." Again they picked up their burden and disappeared in the mist. When Carter Hewes came to his senses he found himself in a little room that was nearly filled by the big four-poster bed in which he lay. His head throbbed, and he felt faint and weary. But the feeling of being safe and warm was so comforting that he did not at once worry as to his whereabouts. Some persons were talking close to him; he could hear the words they said, but at first he could not raise himself. At last he got up, however, on his elbow. The voices came from behind the closed door at the head of his bed. "I am sick of hiding here like a fat badger in a strange hole that, by-the-way, is much too small for comfort," grumbled a deep voice. "Take heart. It's for a righteous cause," answered a high-pitched one. "Why not declare ourselves, and have it done with?" returned the first.