The crowd grew thinner and thinner, yet the two men made no movement
towards departure. It seemed to Crawshay impossible that after all
they had gone through they should have failed. The journey in the fast
motor car, after a breakdown of the Chicago Limited, rushing through
the night like some live monster, tearing now through a plain of level
lights, as they passed through some great city, vomiting fire and
flame into the black darkness of the country places. It was like the
ride of madmen, and more than once they had both hung on to their
seats in something which was almost terror. "How are we going?"
Crawshay had asked perpetually.

"Still that infernal half-hour," was the continual reply. "We are
doing seventy, but we don't seem to be able to work it down."

A powerful automobile had taken them through the streets of New York,
and lay now a wreck in one of the streets a mile from the dock. They
had finished the journey in a taxicab, and the finish had been
this--half an hour late! Yet they lingered, with their eyes fixed upon
the disappearing ship.

"I guess there's nothing more we can do," Hobson said at last
grudgingly. "We can lay it up for them on the other side, and we can
talk to her all the way to Liverpool on the wireless, but if there is
any scoop to be made the others'll get it--not us."

"If only we could have got on board!" Crawshay muttered. "It's no use
thinking of a tug, I suppose?"

The American shook his head.