travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw--I was the first to see
it--little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent
thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our
drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that
for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take
us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor's eyes when we should turn.

It was there that we heard the first cry.

"It's shoreward!" said Hansom.

"It is seaward!" cried the Doctor.

"It is behind us!" said I.

Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four
times in rapid succession,--hushing suddenly,--breaking into shrieks
like a frightened child's,--dying plaintively down.

We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took
the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about
it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our
left,--crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,--beckoning
us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly.

The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he
groped with them like a man struck blind.

"To die there,--in my very hearing,--without a chance--"