when the old scow,
having emptied itself of the water, reappeared at the surface and struck
the woman a buoyant blow that altered the course of her thought.

"Pore, brave man," the woman gasped. "He's got a wife, maybe. He said,
'God bless her,' an' he give his life for a poor creature like me. God
has took my baby. I can't do nothing for it now, but maybe I can save
this man's life before I die."

Indifferent to her personal fate, she drew intelligence from her spirit
of sacrifice, which is the only thing better than learning. She pushed
the scow down and under Phoebus with her remaining hand, till it
relieved her of a portion of the weight of his body, and rose up,
half-bearing the bronze-faced sailor's form, and animating her generous
purpose with the honest and happy smile he wore upon his face, even in
the vestibule of the eternal palace. Then, gathering the long meshes of
the iron chain up from its termination at her feet, she threw the longer
portion of it into the scow, so that it no longer became entangled in
the cross-branches and knots below, and she could lift also the iron
ball sufficiently to glide her feet along the tree.

With pain and difficulty, lessened by self-forgetfulness, she pushed the
scow and the body to the foot of the tree, and, feeling around its old
roots for further support, the red-eyed terrapins arose and swam around
her, disturbed in their possessions; but she feared no reptiles any
more, since Death, the mighty crocodile, had eaten the babe that she had
nursed but this morning.

She had intelligent remembrance enough to think of all the precautions
her deliverer had taken, and, when she had dragged his body on the shore
into the dense, scrubby woods, she also drew out the little scow and
heaped some dead brush upon it, and had scarcely concealed herself when
she heard voices from the river, and the report of a sail swung around
upon its boom, and of feet upon a deck. The voices said:

"If she's got off to Delaware, Joe Johnson won't have long to stay on
his visit; for all the beaks will gather fur him an' be started by John
M. Clayton."

"I'm sorry fur Joe," answered another voice; "he hoped to make one more
big scoop this trip, an' quit the Corners fur good."

"Let us sail by ole Ebenezer Johnson's roost at Broad Creek mouth, an'
peep up both forks of the river," said the other voice, receding; "it's
only a mile and a half. If we discover nothin', we'll run down the river
and