l 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 extremely 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