now in rather a tumbledown condition)
which had once vied with a palace,--we mean Nonesuch House. The other
buildings stood close together in rows; and so valuable was every inch
of room accounted, that, in many cases, cellars, and even habitable
apartments, were constructed in the solid masonry of the piers.

Old London Bridge (the grandsire of the present erection) was supported
on nineteen arches, each of which

Would a Rialto make for depth and height!

The arches stood upon enormous piers; the piers on starlings, or
jetties, built far out into the river to break the force of the tide.

Roused by Ben's warning, the carpenter looked up and could just perceive
the dusky outline of the bridge looming through the darkness, and
rendered indistinctly visible by the many lights that twinkled from the
windows of the lofty houses. As he gazed at these lights, they suddenly
seemed to disappear, and a tremendous shock was felt throughout the
frame of the boat. Wood started to his feet. He found that the skiff had
been dashed against one of the buttresses of the bridge.

"Jump!" cried Ben, in a voice of thunder.

Wood obeyed. His fears supplied him with unwonted vigour. Though the
starling was more than two feet above the level of the water, he
alighted with his little charge--which he had never for an instant
quitted--in safety upon it. Poor Ben was not so fortunate. Just as he
was preparing to follow, the wherry containing Rowland and his men,
which had drifted in their wake, was dashed against his boat. The
violence of the collision nearly threw him backwards, and caused him to
swerve as he sprang. His foot touched the rounded edge of the starling,
and glanced off, precipitating him into the water. As he fell, he caught
at the projecting masonry. But the stone was slippery; and the tide,
which here began to feel the influence of the fall, was running with
frightful velocity. He could not make good his hold. But, uttering a
loud cry, he was swept away by the headlong torrent.

Mr. Wood heard the cry. But his own situation was too perilous to admit
of his rendering any assistance to the ill-fated waterman. He fancied,
indeed, that he beheld a figure spring upon the starling at the moment
when the boats came in contact; but, as he could perceive no one near
him, he concluded he must have been mistaken.

In order to make Mr. Wood's present position, and subsequent proceedings
fully intelligible, it may be necessary t