heir innards. It's the only chance. Now give me that sail to cover
them--so. You'll live yet, Miss Beatrice, you ain't dead, I swear. Old
Eddard has saved you, Old Eddard and the good Goad together!"

Meanwhile the boat had been got round, and the men were rowing for
Bryngelly as warm-hearted sailors will when life is at stake. They all
knew Beatrice and loved her, and they remembered it as they rowed. The
gloom was little hindrance to them for they could almost have navigated
the coast blindfold. Besides here they were sheltered by the reef and
shore.

In five minutes they were round a little headland, and the lights of
Bryngelly were close before them. On the beach people were moving about
with lanterns.

Presently they were there, hanging on their oars for a favourable wave
to beach with. At last it came, and they gave way together, running the
large boat half out of the surf. A dozen men plunged into the water and
dragged her on. They were safe ashore.

"Have you got Miss Beatrice?" shouted a voice.

"Ay, we've got her and another too, but I doubt they're gone. Where's
doctor?"

"Here, here!" answered a voice. "Bring the stretchers."

A stout thick-set man, who had been listening, wrapped up in a dark
cloak, turned his face away and uttered a groan. Then he followed the
others as they went to work, not offering to help, but merely following.

The stretchers were brought and the two bodies laid upon them, face
downwards and covered over.

"Where to?" said the bearers as they seized the poles.

"The Vicarage," answered the doctor. "I told them to get things ready
there in case they should find her. Run forward one of you and say that
we are coming."

The men started at a trot and the crowd ran after them.

"Who is the other?" somebody asked.

"Mr. Bingham--the tall lawyer who came down from London the other day.
Tell policeman--run to his wife. She's at Mrs. Jones's, and thinks he
has lost his way in the fog coming home from Bell Rock."

The policeman departed on his melancholy errand and the procession moved
swiftly across the sandy beach and up the stone-paved way by which boats
were dragged down the cliff to the sea. The village of Bryngelly lay to
the right. It had grown away from the church, which stood dangerously
near the edge of the cliff. On the further side of the church, and a
little behind it, partly sheltered from the sea gales by a group of
stunted firs, was the Vicarage, a low single-st