corpse. I hesitated whether I should aid him in
getting up. I saw him struggling and clinging by the garments of the
body, which he tore--so tender was the material--into shreds. As his
hold gave way, he clutched the body itself, which, sinking with his
weight, disappeared, leaving him to clamber for support round the lower
part of the benches. I could not see him drown, though I shuddered at
the danger which awaited me when he might recover his position. At that
very moment I distinctly felt the bell ascending; and a fierce whirling
and boiling of the waters rushing into the void, would in an instant
have sucked him down to rise no more, if I had not seized him by the
bushy hair of the head. In that position I held him as firmly as my
impaired strength would permit. The bell still ascended, and the buoying
power of the water kept him swimming, and made him obey my slightest
impulse. The submersion and the contact into which he had come with the
corpse had manifestly removed the effects of the liquor, and his
imploring eye was eloquent in its appeal to me to continue my grasp.
This I did while the bell continued to ascend; the light began to
increase in the yolks of glass; and the voices of the men in the lighter
greeted my ear. In a moment afterwards, I saw the light of the sun
shining red through the windows; in another moment the circle of bright
effulgence between the bell and the sea met my enraptured eye. A loud
cry of terror came from the workmen as they saw the body of Vanderhoek
swimming in the sea. They ceased their process of raising; and swinging
the bell to a side, some one got hold of the German, and I let go the
grasp of his hair. Two or three more turns of the crane brought the bell
on a level with the lighter. I sprung down upon the deck, and fell back
in a swoon.

When I recovered, I saw several people standing round me, among whom
there was an individual who claimed, for a time, my undivided gaze. He
was a tall, handsome individual, dressed in deep mournings. He had a
white pocket handkerchief in his hands, which he applied frequently to
his eyes; and he looked at me anxiously as he saw me recovering from the
effects of the syncope into which I had fallen. He was proceeding to put
some questions to me, when Mr. W---- interfered, and stated that I ought
to be allowed time to collect my energies before my mind was led again
into the subject of what I had suffered during the time we were in the
deep. I w