no harm to tell you that Miss Harding and her party embarked this
morning on the freighter _Rufus Smith_, and I think it very likely
that the steamer has not left port. If you like I will send a man
to the water-front with you and you may be able to go on board and
have a talk with your aunt."

Did I thank him? I have often wondered when I waked up in the
night. I have a vision of myself dashing out of the hotel, and
then the hack that brought me is bearing me away. Bellboys hurled
my bags in after me, and I threw them largess recklessly. Some
arch-bellboy or other potentate had mounted to the seat beside the
driver. Madly we clattered over cobbled ways. Out on the smooth
waters of the roadstead lay ships great and small, ships with
stripped masts and smokeless funnels, others with faint gray
spirals wreathing upward from their stacks. Was one of these the
_Rufus Smith_, and would I reach her--or him--before the thin gray
feather became a thick black plume? I thought of my aunt at the
mercy of these unknown adventurers with whom she had set forth,
helpless as a little fat pigeon among hawks, and I felt,
desperately, that I must reach her, must save her from them and
bring her safe back to shore. How I was to do this at the eleventh
hour plus about fifty-seven minutes as at present I hadn't
considered. But experience had taught me that once in my clutches
Aunt Jane would offer about as much resistance as a slightly melted
wax doll. She gets so soft that you are almost afraid to touch her
for fear of leaving dents.

So to get there, get there, get there, was the one prayer of my
soul.