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“I hadn’t fairly caught my breath, before another man stepped out! He put his foot down upon nothing, same as the first, overbalanced just the same, and shot after him base-over-top into the water.

“Close ‘pon the second man’s heels appeared a third. . . . Yes, sir, I know now what a woman feels like when she’s goin’ to have the scritches. I’d have asked someone to pinch me in the fleshy part o’ the leg, to make sure I was alive an’ awake, but the power o’ speech was taken from us. We just stuck an’ stared.

“What beat everything was the behaviour of the train, so to say. There it stood, like as if it’d pulled up alongside the pool for the very purpose to unload these unfort’nit’ men; an’ yet takin’ no notice whatever. Not a sign o’ the guard–not a head poked out anywheres in the line o’ windows–only the sun shinin’, an’ the steam escapin’, an’ out o’ the rear compartment this procession droppin’ out an’ high-divin’ one after another.

“Eight of ’em! Eight, as I am a truth-speakin’ man–but there! you saw ’em with your own eyes. Eight! and the last of the eight scarce in the water afore the engine toots her whistle an’ the train starts on again, round the curve an’ out o’ sight.

“She didn’ leave us no time to doubt, neither, for there the poor fellas were, splashin’ an’ blowin’, some of ’em bleatin’ for help, an’ gurglin’, an’ for aught we know drownin’ in three-to-four feet o’ water. So we pulled ourselves together an’ ran to give ’em first aid.

“It didn’ take us long to haul the whole lot out and ashore; and, as Providence would have it, not a bone broken in the party. One or two were sufferin’ from sprains, and all of ’em from shock (but so were we, for that matter), and between ’em they must ha’ swallowed a bra’ few pints o’ water, an’ muddy water at that. I can’t tell ezackly when or how we discovered they was all blind, or near-upon blind. It may ha’ been from the unhandiness of their movements an’ the way they clutched at us an’ at one another as we pulled ’em ashore. Hows’ever, blind they were; an’ I don’t remember that it struck us as anyways singular, after what we’d been through a’ready. We fished out a concertina, too, an’ a silver-mounted flute that was bobbin’ among the weeds.

“The man the concertina belonged to–a tall fresh-complexioned young fella he was, an’ very mild of manner–turned out to be a sort o’ leader o’ the party; an’ he was the first to talk any sense. ‘Th-thank you,’ he said. ‘They told us Penzance was the next stop.’

“‘Hey?’ says I.

“‘They told us,’ he says again, plaintive-like, feelin’ for his spectacles an’ not finding ’em, ‘that Penzance was the next stop.’

“‘Bound for Penzance, was you?’ I asks.

“‘For the Land’s End,’ says he, his teeth chatterin’. I set it down the man had a stammer, but ’twas only the shock an’ the chill of his duckin’.

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘this ain’t the Land’s End, though I dessay it feels a bit like it. Then you wasn’ thrown out?’ I says.

“‘Th-thrown out?’ says he. ‘N-no. They told us Penzance was the next stop.’

“‘Then,’ says I, ‘if you got out accidental you’ve had a most providential escape, an’ me an’ my mates don’t deserve less than to hear about it. There’s bound to be inquiries after you when the guard finds your compartment empty an’ the door open. May be the train’ll put back; more likely they’ll send a search-party; but anyways you’re all wet through, an’ the best thing for health is to off wi’ your clothes an’ dry ’em, this warm afternoon.’

“‘I dessay,’ says he, ‘you’ll have noticed that our eyesight is affected.’