as a
signal to Murgatroyd to pay out and, crying out to the Frenchmen to come
and help me, began to haul upon the line I had brought aboard with me.
By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I
succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the
case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by
which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to
the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent. This also we
dragged away upon for dear life, and presently I had the satisfaction of
seeing the end of the _City of Cawnpore's_ towing-hawser being lighted
out over her bows. This was a heavy piece of cordage for us to handle,
but we dragged away at it breathlessly, and at length, when I had almost
begun to despair of getting it aboard in time, we hauled the end in over
the taffrail and, all hands of us seizing it, led it to the mizenmast,
round the foot of which I had the satisfaction of passing a couple of
turns and securing it. So far, so good; the most difficult part of my
task was now accomplished; for I knew that Murgatroyd would attend to
the work at his end of the hawser, and do everything that was necessary;
so I turned to the Frenchman who had assisted me aboard, and said:

"Are you the master of this barque, monsieur?"

"At your service, monsieur," he answered, bowing with all the grace of a
dancing-master.

"Very good," said I. "You have a lady on board, I think?"

"But yes, monsieur: my wife!" and he flourished his arm toward the
bundle of tarpaulin that still remained huddled up under the shelter of
the skylight.

"She will of course have to go first," I said. "Are there any
preparations she would wish to make before being transferred to the
other vessel?"

Without replying to my question, the man hurried away to the heap and,
unwrapping the tarpaulin, extricated a young, and rather pretty but
terribly frightened woman from its folds. As he did so, I saw that she
held a baby in her arms!

"What!" exclaimed I, as I joined the little group, "a baby also?"

"Yes, monsieur," answered the man. "You see we wrapped them both up in
a tarpaulin, to protect them as much as possible from the cruel sea."

"A very wise precaution," I commented. "But this increases our
difficulties somewhat: I greatly doubt whether mother and child will be
able to make the passage together. Madame will scarcely have the
strength to hold