were tied beneath her chin.
The breeze was playing with her disordered hair--hair now white as
the snow-flakes upon it, though grey when last I had seen it--but it
brought no colour to her face. As she bent over me to place her
shawl beneath my head, I saw that her blue eyes were strangely bright
and prominent.

"Thank God, you are alive! Does the bandage pain you? Can you
move?"

I feebly put my hand up and felt a handkerchief bound round my head.

"I was afraid--oh, so afraid!--that I had been too late. Yet God
only knows how I got down into your boat--in time--and without his
seeing me. I knew what he would do--I was listening behind the
partition all the time; but I was afraid he would kill you first."

"Then--you heard?"

"I heard all. Oh, if I were only a man--but can you stand? Are you
better now? For we must lose no time."

I weakly stared at her in answer.

"Don't you see? If you can stand and walk, as I pray you can, there
is no time to be lost. Morning is already breaking, and by this
evening you must catch him."

"Catch him?"

"Yes, yes. He has gone--gone to catch the first train for Cornwall,
and will be at Dead Man's Rock to-night. Quick! see if you cannot
rise."

I sat up. The water had dripped from me, forming a great pool at our
end of the boat. In it she was kneeling, and beside her lay a heavy
knife and the cords with which Simon Colliver had bound me.

"Yes," I said, "I will follow. When does the first train leave
Paddington?"

"At a quarter past nine," she answered, "and it is now about
half-past five. You have time to catch it; but must disguise
yourself first. He will travel by it, there is no train before.
Come, let me row you ashore."

With this she untied the painter, got out the sculls, sat down upon
the thwart opposite, and began to pull desperately for shore.
I wondered at her strength and skill with the oar.

"Ah," she said, "I see at what you are wondering. Remember that I
was a sailor's wife once, and without strength how should I have
dragged you on board this boat?"

"How did you manage it?"

"I cannot tell. I only know that I heard a splash as I waited under
the bows there, and then began with my hands to fend the boat around
the schooner for dear life. I had to be very silent. At first I
could see nothing, for it was dark towards the shore; but I cried to
Heaven to spare you for vengeance on that man, and then I saw
something black lying a