At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern
we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here
I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,--Provis no longer,--who
had received some very severe injury in the Chest, and a deep cut in the
head.
He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the
steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to
his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought
he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not
pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, but
that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him,
that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had both gone
overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of
our boat, and the endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized
us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in
each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and
that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.
I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me.
The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going
overboard.
When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's
wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the
public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take
charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book
which had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further
gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to
accord that grace to my two friends.
The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone
down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was
likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to
be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it
took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may
have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in
various stages of decay.
We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch
was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop
were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful
parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that
was my place henceforth while he lived.