and Startop to keep before the tide, that she
might see us lying by for her, and I adjured
Provis to sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He
answered cheerily, "Trust to me, dear boy," and
sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which
was very skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us
come up with her, and fallen alongside. Leaving
just enough room for the play of the oars, she kept
alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling
a stroke or two when we pulled. Of the two
sitters, one held the rudder lines, and looked at
us attentively—as did all the rowers; the other
sitter was wrapped up, much as Provis was, and
seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction
to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word
was spoken in either boat.

Startop could make out, after a few minutes,
which steamer was first, and gave me the word
"Hamburg," in a low voice as we sat face to
face. She was nearing us very fast, and the
beating of her paddles grew louder and louder.
I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us,
when the galley hailed us. I answered.

"You have a returned Transport there," said
the man who held the lines. "That's the man,
wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Mag-
witch, otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man,
and call upon him to surrender, and you to
assist."

At the same moment, without giving any
audible direction to his crew, he ran the galley
aboard of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke
ahead, had got their oars in, had run athwart us,
and were holding on to our gunwale, before we
knew what they were doing. This caused great
confusion on board the steamer, and I heard
them calling to us, and heard the order given to
stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt
her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the
same moment, I saw the steersman of the galley
lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw
that both boats were swinging round with the
force of the tide, and saw that all hands on
board the steamer were running forward quite
frantically. Still in the same moment, I saw
the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and
pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking
sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment,
I saw that the face disclosed, was the face of
the other convict of long ago. Still in the same
moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a
white terror on it that I shall never forget, and
heard a great cry on board the steamer and a
loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink
from under me.

It was but for an instant that I seemed to
struggle with a thousand mill-weirs and a thousand
flashes of light; that instant past, I was
taken on board the galley. Herbert was there,
and Startop was there; but our boat was gone,
and the two convicts were gone.

What with the cries aboard the steamer, and
the furious blowing-off of her steam, and her
driving on, and our driving on, I could not at
first distinguish sky from water or shore from
shore; but, the crew of the galley righted her with
great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong
strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man
looking silently and eagerly at the water astern.
Presently a dark object was seen in it, bearing
towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but
the steersman held up his hand, and all softly
backed water, and kept the boat straight and
true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to
be Magwitch, swimming, but not swimming
freely. He was taken on board, and instantly
manacled at the wrists and ankles.

The galley was kept steady, and the silent
eager look-out at the water was resumed. But,
the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and
apparently not understanding what had happened,
came on at speed. By the time she had been
hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting
away from us and we were rising and falling in
a troubled wake of water. The look-out was
kept, long after all was still again and the two
steamers were gone; but, everybody knew that
it was hopeless now.

At length we gave it up, and pulled under
the shore towards the tavern we had lately left,
where we were received with no little surprise.
Here, I was able to get some comforts for
Magwitch—Provis no longer—who had received
some very severe injury in the chest and a deep
cut in the head.

He told me that he believed himself to have
gone under the keel of the steamer, and to have
been struck on the head in rising. The injury
to his chest (which rendered his breathing ex-
tremely painful) he thought he had received
against the side of the galley. He added that
he did not pretend to say what he might or
might not have done to Compeyson, but, that in
the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak
to identify him, that villain had staggered up
and staggered back, and they had both gone
overboard together; when the sudden wrenching
of him (Magwitch) out of our boat, and the
endeavour of his captor to keep him in it, had
capsized us. He told me in a whisper that
they had gone down, fiercely locked in each
other's arms, and that there had been a struggle
under water, and that he had disengaged
himself, struck out, and swum away.

I never had any reason to doubt the exact
truth of what he thus told me. The officer who
steered the galley gave the same account of
their going overboard.

When I asked this officer's permission to
change the prisoner's wet clothes by purchasing
any spare garments I could get at the public-house,
he gave it readily: merely observing that
he must take charge of everything his prisoner
had about him. So the pocket-book which had
once been in my hands, passed into the officer's.
He further gave me leave to accompany the
prisoner to London; but, declined to accord that
grace to my two friends.

The Jack at the Ship was instructed where
the drowned man had gone down, and undertook
to search for the body in the places where it
was likeliest to come ashore. His interest in
its recovery seemed to me to be much heightened
when he heard that it had stockings on.