“The purser’s wife!” exclaimed Larry.  “Perhaps your husband will bring the passenger list with him.  I would like to get it.  I am a newspaper reporter,” he added.

The woman, with a rapid movement, held out a bundle of papers to him.

“What are they?” Larry asked.

“The list of passengers!  You reporters!  I have heard of you in my country, but they do not such things as this!  Go to wrecks to meet the passengers when they come ashore!  You are very brave!”

“I think you were brave to come first across the waves,” replied Larry.  “The rope might break.”

“I had my baby,” was the answer, as if that explained it all.

“Do you think your husband would let me telegraph these names to my paper?” asked Larry.

“He gave them to me to bring ashore, in case—­in case the ship did not last,” the purser’s wife said, with a catch in her voice.  “You may use them, I say so.  I will make it right.”

This was just what Larry wanted.  The hardest things to get in an accident or a wreck are the names of the saved, or the dead and injured.  Chance had placed in Larry’s hands just what he wanted.

He hurried on with the woman, who told him her name was Mrs. Angelino.  He did not question her further, as he felt she must be suffering from the strain she had undergone.  In a short time they were safe at the station, and there Mrs. Needam provided warm and dry garments for mother and child, and gave Mrs. Angelino hot drinks.

“Ah, there is my reporter!” exclaimed the purser’s wife, when she was warm and comfortable, as she saw Larry busy scanning the list of passengers.  “He came quick to the wreck!”

“Can you lend me some paper?” Larry asked Mrs. Needam.

“What for?”

“I want to write an account of the rescue and copy these names.  I must hurry to the telegraph office.  I left my paper in the fisherman’s hut.”

“I’ll get you some,” said Captain Needam’s wife, and soon Larry was writing a short but vivid story of what had taken place, including a description of the storm, and the saving of the only woman on board, with her baby, by means of the breeches buoy.  Then he copied the list of names.

“There’s something I almost forgot,” said Larry when he had about finished.  “There’s that passenger who came ashore on the life-raft.  I wonder who he was?  I’ll ask Mrs. Angelino.”

But she did not know.  She was not aware that any one had come ashore on a raft, for, in the confusion of the breaking up of the ship in the storm, she thought only of her husband, her baby and herself.

“I can find out later,” Larry thought.

He gave the list back to Mrs. Angelino, and then, with a good preliminary story of the wreck, having obtained many facts from the purser’s wife, Larry set out through the storm for the nearest telegraph station.

“Don’t you want some hot coffee before you go?” asked Mrs. Needam.  “I’ve got lots—­ready for the poor souls that’ll soon be here.”