Still there was no answer; and from the disjointed phrases I heard, I could gather nothing. All at once I saw Wynnie looking over the wall, despair in her face, her wide eyes searching wildly through the crowd. I could not look at her till I knew the worst. The captain was talking to old Coombes. I went up to him. As soon as he saw me, he gave me his attention. “Where is Mr. Percivale?” I asked, with all the calmness I could assume. He took me by the arm, and drew me out of the crowd, nearer to the waves, and a little nearer to the mouth of the canal. The tide had fallen considerably, else there would not have been standing-room, narrow as it was, which the people now occupied. He pointed in the direction of the Castle-rock. “If you mean the stranger gentleman--” “And Joe Harper, the blacksmith,” I interposed. “They’re there, sir.” “You don’t mean those two--just those two--are drowned?” I said. “No, sir; I don’t say that; but God knows they have little chance.” I could not help thinking that God might know they were not in the smallest danger. But I only begged him to tell me where they were. “Do you see that schooner there, just between you and the Castle-rock?” “No,” I answered; “I can see nothing. Stay. I fancy I can. But I am always ready to fancy I see a thing when I am told it is there. I can’t say I see it.” “I can, though. The gentleman you mean, and Joe Harper too, are, I believe, on board of that schooner.” “Is she aground?” “O dear no, sir. She’s a light craft, and can swim there well enough. If she’d been aground, she’d ha’ been ashore in pieces hours ago. But whether she’ll ride it out, God only knows, as I said afore.” “How ever did they get aboard of her? I never saw her from the heights opposite.” “You were all taken up by the ship ashore, you see, sir. And she don’t make much show in this light. But there she is, and they’re aboard of her. And this is how it was.” He went on to give me his part of the story; but I will now give the whole of it myself, as I have gathered and pieced it together. Two men had been swept overboard, as Roxton said--one of them was Percivale--but they had both got on board again, to drift, oarless, with the rest--now in a windless valley--now aloft on a tempest-swept hill of water--away towards a goal they knew not, neither had chosen, and which yet they could by no means avoid.