ss was
shivered by each stone. The signal of distress was evidently understood.
The light disappeared. The window was shortly after opened, and a rope
ladder, with a lighted horn lantern attached to it, let down.

Wood grasped his companion's arm to attract his attention to this
unexpected means of escape. The ladder was now within reach. Both
advanced towards it, when, by the light of the lantern, Wood beheld, in
the countenance of the stranger, the well-remembered and stern features
of Rowland.

The carpenter trembled; for he perceived Rowland's gaze fixed first
upon the infant, and then on himself.

"It _is_ her child!" shrieked Rowland, in a voice heard above the
howling of the tempest, "risen from this roaring abyss to torment me.
Its parents have perished. And shall their wretched offspring live to
blight my hopes, and blast my fame? Never!" And, with these words, he
grasped Wood by the throat, and, despite his resistance, dragged him to
the very verge of the platform.

All this juncture, a thundering crash was heard against the side of the
bridge. A stack of chimneys, on the house above them, had yielded to the
storm, and descended in a shower of bricks and stones.

When the carpenter a moment afterwards stretched out his hand, scarcely
knowing whether he was alive or dead, he found himself alone. The fatal
shower, from which he and his little charge escaped uninjured, had
stricken his assailant and precipitated him into the boiling gulf.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," thought the carpenter,
turning his attention to the child, whose feeble struggles and cries
proclaimed that, as yet, life had not been extinguished by the hardships
it had undergone. "Poor little creature!" he muttered, pressing it
tenderly to his breast, as he grasped the rope and clambered up to the
window: "if thou hast, indeed, lost both thy parents, as that terrible
man said just now, thou art not wholly friendless and deserted, for I
myself will be a father to thee! And in memory of this dreadful night,
and the death from which I have, been the means of preserving thee, thou
shalt bear the name of THAMES DARRELL."

No sooner had Wood crept through the window, than nature gave way, and
he fainted. On coming to himself, he found he had been wrapped in a
blanket and put to bed with a couple of hot bricks to his feet. His
first inquiries were concerning the child, and he was delighted to find
that it still lived and was doing