‘O God, let’s find his body,’ a woman called out.

‘Just a word; is it Commander Beauchamp?’ Killick said to her.

She was scarcely aware of a question.  ‘Here, this one,’ she said, and plucked a little boy of eight by the hand close against her side, and shook him roughly and kissed him.

An old man volunteered information.  ’That’s the boy.  That boy was in his father’s boat out there, with two of his brothers, larking; and he and another older than him fell overboard; and just then Commander Beauchamp was rowing by, and I saw him from off here, where I stood, jump up and dive, and he swam to his boat with one of them, and got him in safe:  that boy:  and he dived again after the other, and was down a long time.  Either he burst a vessel or he got cramp, for he’d been rowing himself from the schooner grounded down at the river-mouth, and must have been hot when he jumped in:  either way, he fetched the second up, and sank with him.  Down he went.’

A fisherman said to Killick:  ’Do you hear that voice thundering?  That’s the great Lord Romfrey.  He’s been directing the dragging since five o’ the evening, and will till he drops or drowns, or up comes the body.’

‘O God, let’s find the body!’ the woman with the little boy called out.

A torch lit up Lord Romfrey’s face as he stepped ashore.  ’The flood has played us a trick,’ he said.  ’We want more drags, or with the next ebb the body may be lost for days in this infernal water.’

The mother of the rescued boy sobbed, ‘Oh, my lord, my lord!’

The earl caught sight of Dr. Shrapnel, and went to him.

‘My wife has gone down to Mrs. Beauchamp,’ he said.  ’She will bring her and the baby to Mount Laurels.  The child will have to be hand-fed.  I take you with me.  You must not be alone.’

He put his arm within the arm of the heavily-breathing man whom he had once flung to the ground, to support him.

‘My lord! my lord!’ sobbed the woman, and dropped on her knees.

’What ‘s this?’ the earl said, drawing his hand away from the woman’s clutch at it.

‘She’s the mother, my lord,’ several explained to him.

‘Mother of what?’

‘My boy,’ the woman cried, and dragged the urchin to Lord Romfrey’s feet, cleaning her boy’s face with her apron.

‘It’s the boy Commander Beauchamp drowned to save,’ said a man.

All the lights of the ring were turned on the head of the boy.  Dr. Shrapnel’s eyes and Lord Romfrey’s fell on the abashed little creature.  The boy struck out both arms to get his fists against his eyelids.

This is what we have in exchange for Beauchamp!

It was not uttered, but it was visible in the blank stare at one another of the two men who loved Beauchamp, after they had examined the insignificant bit of mudbank life remaining in this world in the place of him.

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