one over
ag'in. It's a fearful thing is wather, and sometimes we have too
little of it, and sometimes more than we want--"

"Bear a hand, bear a hand, good woman," interrupted the boatswain,
impatiently. "We must clear the boat of you, and the sooner it is done
the better it will be for all of us."

"Don't grudge a poor morthal half a minute of life, at the last
moment," answered Biddy. "It's not long that I'll throuble ye, and so
no more need be said."

The poor creature then got on the quarter of the boat, without any
one's touching her; there she placed herself with her legs outboard,
while she sat on the gunwale. She gave one moment to the thought of
arranging her clothes with womanly decency, and then she paused to
gaze with a fixed eye, and pallid cheek, on the foaming wake that
marked the rapid course of the boat. The troughs of the sea seemed
less terrible to her than their combing crests, and she waited for the
boat to descend into the next.

"God forgive ye all, this deed, as I do!" said Biddy, earnestly, and
bending her person forward, she fell, as it might be "without hands,"
into the gulf of eternity. Though all strained their eyes, none of the
men, Jack Tier excepted, ever saw more of Biddy Noon. Nor did Jack see
much. He got a frightful glimpse of an arm, however, on the summit of
a wave, but the motion of the boat was too swift, and the surface of
the ocean too troubled, to admit of aught else.

A long pause succeeded this event. Biddy's quiet submission to her
fate had produced more impression on her murderers than the desperate,
but unavailing, struggles of those who had preceded her. Thus it is
ever with men. When opposed, the demon within blinds them to
consequences as well as to their duties; but, unresisted, the silent
influence of the image of God makes itself felt, and a better spirit
begins to prevail. There was not one in that boat who did not, for a
brief space, wish that poor Biddy had been spared. With most that
feeling, the last of human kindness they ever knew, lingered until the
occurrence of the dread catastrophe which, so shortly after, closed
the scene of this state of being on their eyes.

"Jack Tier," called out Spike, some five minutes after Biddy was
drowned, but not until another observation had made it plainly
apparent to him that the man-of-war's men still continued to draw
nearer, being now not more than fair musket shot astern.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Jack, coming qu