Great Expectations

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.