Disease had lately threatened her life, but even Death refused to have her. At what she believed to be her last hour she provided for her only child, the apple of her eye, her solitary joy, by placing him in safety, but beyond the power of a recalling cry from her lips. She had then put aside money for her sepulchre.
Death had disdained her, and she was now wandering about alone with the vast world as a tomb and a solitude, and a broken heart and the fate of an outcast, and the undying gnawing remorse for company, with for the sustentation of her living body the money she had devised for its decay. An illness had taken away her voice, which was her bread.
Just as the boat shoved off, Red Jim reached the head of the stairs, and stood there regarding the progress of his patron. He noticed that the ebb tide was running very fast, and that the men kept the boat heading a little up stream to make allowance for leeway. He noticed that Crawford was the last passenger on the starboard side, and that, therefore, he would be on the inside when the boat got alongside. "I hope," thought Red Jim, "that there's some nice fresh paint or a nice long nail waiting for him when he's going up the side."
He saw the boat touch the side, and Crawford stagger instantly to his feet. He saw him sway to and fro, and then suddenly fall back against the hulk, boom the boat off with his legs, and drop overboard between the boat and the hulk.
Red Jim uttered a loud shout of triumph, and then began shouting and dancing like mad for joy.
"He'll shoot in under the hulk and be drowned!" cried Red Jim exultingly.
Then an oath:
"That ---- woman's got him!
"Catch him! Hold him!" cried the boatmen. "Hold on for your life or he'll be sucked under!"
The veiled woman had seized the sinking man and thrown herself on her knees--was holding on with all the power of her enfeebled arms.