Signals were now distinctly heard from the heights, and soldiers were gathered on the cliffs watching the ill-starred convict-ship. Oh, to see the arms of the maddened wretches stretched towards the shore! Some, like Captain Dorian, cast themselves in a frenzy upon the angry waters; some strive to lash themselves to spars; another boat is lowered, with provisions hastily thrown into it; three or four bold spirits tempt the surges in the fragile bark, and it is swept towards the river's mouth, is whirled round in the sparkling eddies, and disappears. It is of one of these "bold spirits" I have to speak. I have said that the convicts were relieved from their fetters as soon as the vessel became unmanageable. Sternly awaiting his fate in a dark corner of the labouring and bunting ship, sat a man of some eight-and-twenty years of age; his arms were clasped round a gun, and thus he steadied himself as well as he could. Strangely indifferent he seemed to the howling of the winds, the rattling of the cordage, the falling of spars, the crash of timbers, and the imprecations of his fellow-convicts amid the scream of frightened women. At times he sneered at the frantic gestures of a soldier's wife, who was sitting on the deck, with a baby on her lap, rocking herself to and fro and bemoaning her hard fate, and that of her family, most bitterly, at the same time directing her husband and children in certain preparations for leaving the ship, if they should be so fortunate as to succeed in doing so. Her advice and admonitions were interlarded with various expressions of terror, sorrow, affection, and anxiety. "Oh, Micky O'Toole! Och, wirasthrue, my darlint; sure when we played at the same door-step as childer, I didn't think we'd come to this. Och, Larry, my child, the mother that owns you is breaking her heart. Alice, say your prayers, fast--say them fast, allannan; true for ye, my darlints, this day we'll be in glory; pray up, Ally, pray up, Larry, the saints be wid us. Micky O'Toole, what did you do wid the little bundle of cloth I put up to go ashore wid? Oh, the vanity of me; sure didn't the priest tell me I'd be punished for setting myself up wid a sunshade (parasol), when you were made a corpular. Ochon a rhee, my heart is broke! "They'll be missing us at the harvest, Micky; they'll be dancing widout us, and we drowned--drowned. Oh, Micky!" A wailing cry from the baby made its mother weep more bitterly, but still she occasionally recalled her scattered wits to console her children.