"Not less'n four to the oars!" shouted a gruff voice, at the foot of the steps, where the salt water, splashing on the snow, had laid bare the green and slimy moss. Two or three volunteers stumbled down the steps, and the first boat got away, swinging down-stream at once, only to be brought slowly back, head to wind. She hung motionless a few yards from the quay, each dip of the oars stirring the water into a whirl of phosphorescence, and then forged slowly ahead. Septimus Marvin was not alone, but was accompanied by a bulky man, not unknown in Farlingford--John Turner, of Ipswich, understood to live "foreign," but to return, after the manner of East Anglians, when occasion offered. The rector was in oilskins and sou'wester, like any one else, and the gleam of his spectacles under the snowy brim of his headgear seemed to strike no one as incongruous. His pockets bulged with bottles and bandages. Under his arm he carried a couple of blanket horse-cloths, useful for carrying the injured or the dead. "The Curlo--the Inner Curlo--yes, yes!" he shouted in response to information volunteered on all sides. "Poor fellows! The Inner Curlo, dear, dear!" And he groped his way down the steps, into the first boat he saw, with a simple haste. John Turner followed him. He had tied a silk handkerchief over his soft felt hat and under his chin. "No, no!" he said, as Septimus Marvin made room for him on the after-thwart. "I'm too heavy for a passenger. Put my weight on an oar," and he clambered forward to a vacant thwart. "Mind you come back for us, River Andrew!" cried little Sep's thin voice, as the boat swirled down stream. His wavering bull's-eye lantern followed it, and showed River Andrew and another pulling stroke to John Turner's bow, for the banker had been a famous oar on the Orwell in his boyhood. Then, with a smack like a box on the ear, another snow-squall swept in from the sea, and forced all on the quay to turn their backs and crouch. Many went back to their homes, knowing that nothing could be known for some hours. Others crouched on the landward side of an old coal-shed, peeping round the corner. Miriam and Sep, and a few others, waited on the quay until River Andrew or another should return. It was an understood thing that the helpers, such as could man a boat or carry a drowned man, should go first. In a few minutes the squall was past, and by the light of the moon, now thinly covered by clouds, the black forms of the first to reach the other shore could be seen straggling across the marsh toward the great shingle-bank that lies between the river and the sea. Two boats were moored at the far side, another was just making the jetty, while a fourth was returning toward the quay. It was River Andrew, faithful to his own element, who preferred to be first here, rather than obey orders on the open beach.