“I’ve everything to win,” Joe had returned. “The only thing that makes me feel a bit faint-hearted over it, is that I’m afraid it’s not my duty that drives me to it, but the praise of men, leastways of a woman. What would Aggy think of me if I was to let them drown out there and go to my bed and sleep? I must go.” “Very well, Joe,” returned Percivale, “I daresay you are right. You can row, of course?” “I can row hard, and do as I’m told,” said Joe. “All right,” said Percivale; “come along.” This I heard afterwards. We were now hurrying against the wind towards the mouth of the canal, some twenty men hauling on the tow-rope. The critical moment would be in the clearing of the gates, I thought, some parts of which might remain swinging; but they encountered no difficulty there, as I heard afterwards. For I remembered that this was not my post, and turned again to follow the doctor. “God bless you, my men!” I said, and left them. They gave a great hurrah, and sped on to meet their fate. I found Turner in the little public-house, whither they had carried the body. The woman was quite dead. “I fear it is an emigrant vessel,” he said. “Why do you think so?” I asked, in some consternation. “Come and look at the body,” he said. It was that of a woman about twenty, tall, and finely formed. The face was very handsome, but it did not need the evidence of the hands to prove that she was one of our sisters who have to labour for their bread. “What should such a girl be doing on board ship but going out to America or Australia--to her lover, perhaps,” said Turner. “You see she has a locket on her neck; I hope nobody will dare to take it off. Some of these people are not far derived from those who thought a wreck a Godsend.” A sound of many feet was at the door just as we turned to leave the house. They were bringing another body--that of an elderly woman--dead, quite dead. Turner had ceased examining her, and we were going out together, when, through all the tumult of the wind and waves, a fierce hiss, vindictive, wrathful, tore the air over our heads. Far up, seawards, something like a fiery snake shot from the high ground on the right side of the bay, over the vessel, and into the water beyond it. “Thank God! that’s the coastguard,” I cried.