had been noble. So careful was he, so fearful of facing
eternity and judgment--if drown he must--without them, that, although the
time was short and the danger instant, and the man by this time a coward,
he had stripped off oilskin coat and pea-jacket to indue them again and
button them over his treasure.

Yet either his hands were numb or the sea-water had penetrated these wraps
and damped the tag of the leathern case, making it difficult to open.
When at length he tugged the binoculars free and sighted them, it was to
catch one glimpse, and the last, of the child waving from the bulwarks.

"Good Lord deliver us!"

A high-crested wave blotted out the schooner's hull. She seemed to sink
behind it, almost to midway of her main shrouds. She would lift again
into sight as that terrible wave went by--

But she did not. The wave went by, but no portion of her hull appeared.
With a slow lurch forward she was gone, and the seas ran over her as
though she and her iniquity had never been.

In that one glimpse through his binoculars the master, and he alone of the
crew, had recognised the child--Calvin Rosewarne, his owner's son.

To their credit, the men pulled back for the spot where the _One-and-All_
had gone down. Not till an hour's battling had taught them the
hopelessness of a search hopeless from the first did they turn the boat
and head again for Brixham.

The news, telegraphed from Brixham, began to spread through Troy soon
after midday. Since the law allowed it, over-insurance was accepted by
public opinion in the port almost as a matter of ordinary business;
almost, but not quite. In his heart every citizen knew it to be damnable,
and voices had been raised in public calling it damnable. Men and women
who would have risked nothing to amend the law so far felt the public
conscience agreeing with their own that they talked freely of Rosewarne's
punishment as a judgment of God. Folks in the street canvassed the news,
insensibly sinking their voices as they stared across the water at the elm
trees of Hall. Behind those elms lay a house, and within that house would
be sitting a man overwhelmed by God's vengeance.

In the late afternoon a messenger knocked at Hester's door with a letter.
It was brought to her where she sat, with Mrs. Trevarthen, by Aunt
Butson's bedside, and it said--

"I wish to speak with you this evening, if you are willing."
"--S. Rosewarn