I stood at a backstay with a levelled glass steadied against it, and in the moment of the third explosion I saw smoke rise feathering from the deck of the hull; still watching, my breath so thick and difficult it was as though a hand was upon my throat, I marked that the smoke thickened; but I could not see the red of the flame, nor the figure of the person feeding it. I daresay I was as white as any corpse when I stepped over to the captain and, putting the glass into his hand, said: 'There is life there.' 'There's smoke arising from that wreck,' shouted someone forward. 'We're here for _some_ purpose, then, anyway,' cried Cliffe with a small oath, letting fall the glass to his side with the most extravagant grimace I had ever beheld in him. One saw the smoke easily now with the naked eye; it rose black against the whiteness past it, curled featherwise, and blew scattering against the face of the cliff. I levelled the glass again and saw the figure of a man walking toward the stump of the foremast; I watched him; in a few moments a square of colour rose to the summit of the mutilated spar, where it blew steadily; it was a large English ensign, Jack down. Bland let fly a fourth gun. 'Stop it!' roared Cliffe, 'we are seen! Hoist the ensign and dip it thrice.' The colour soared to the trysail gaff end; it blew out large on the bight of the halliards when it was dipped, and was easily within the observation of the man on the hull. When I looked through the glass once more I saw a second figure; it was upon the hull's quarter, where the rail or bulwarks rose to a height that hindered me from perceiving how it was clad. I asked Cliffe to look; he steadied the glass, and answered with a snap of his whole face, and a voice high-pitched with delight: 'As God's my hope, Mr. Moore, it's a woman!' The glass so shook in my hands that I could not use it; I took a few turns, then looked again. The figure watched us from the same place, but I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman. If it was a woman, then it might be Mrs. Burke. I wanted three figures to make _sure_ of Marie; I saw but two; where was the third? I strained my sight at the telescope with a heart of fever, half strangled by conflicting passions.