Roderick dismounted and examined the poor fellow, but he was manifestly dead, and there was no dwelling near to which he might carry him; so he drew the body up above high-water mark, to await the searchers who were sure to arrive shortly in search of plunder. He had visitations and a meeting to fill up his day on getting home--service due, as he told himself, to the living, and therefore more important than ceremonial cares for the dead. Hastening forward, he crossed the shingly beach at the mouth of the Effick, and reached the sands gathered about the base of the rocks, and sloping on the one side to the sea, on the other to the inner basin or firth of the little stream,--at high water a brimming lake, but now at the ebb a slimy hollow full of pools, boulders, seaweed, and mussel beds, where gulls and crows met to quarrel over the spoils of sea and land. There he came upon a sight sadder than the last, two women thrown together upon the sand, surrounded and partly covered with wreckage, as though a specially strong eddy had set in this direction, and there unburdened itself of its prey. The first he examined was clad in thin and peculiar garments of white cotton, a life-preserver was made fast about her body, and her hands clung with the inextricable grasp of death to the clothes of her companion. Her feet were bare, so was her head, her skin was a dark olive, and her dress and appearance showed her to be an Ayah or Indian maid, in attendance doubtless on some lady returning to Europe. Her long black hair was clotted and stained with blood, and closer inspection showed terrible wounds and bruises on the head, as though the waves had dashed and pounded her against the rocks before at length relinquishing their hold. Clearly there could be no hope of resuscitation there, and Roderick passed to the other. From under pieces of plank and broken cabin furniture he was able at last to disentangle the form of a lady. She too was encased in a life-preserver, which in her case too had failed to save her life. The cruel rocks and breakers had made sure of that. Her head and face especially showed contusions and bruises of the most dreadful description, and there was a distortion of the features, as though her last thought had been one of agony, in striking contrast to the calm which had settled on the face of her companion. The arms too were stretched out in an intensity of purpose that death had been unable to paralyze, and the fingers were clenched on a bit of a chain composed of coins connected by knotted links of gold. Could it be that the parting of this chain, and the severance from what it held, was the last agonizing idea which had passed through the poor creature's mind?