In a moment deckhands caught the line and hauled up with it a rope ladder. This swung perilously—so the girls thought—over the green-and-white leaping waves.
A man started up the swinging ladder. The steamer dipped ever so little and he scrambled faster to keep out of the water’s reach.
“The waves act just like hungry wolves, or like dogs, leaping after their prey,” said Ruth reflectively. “See them! They almost caught his legs that time.”
Another man started up the ladder the moment the first one had swarmed over the rail. Then another came, and a fourth. Four men in all boarded the still fast-moving steamer. Everybody was talking eagerly about it, and nobody knew what it meant.
These men were surely not passengers who had been belated, for the launch still remained attached to the steamer.
Ruth and Helen went back into the saloon. There they saw their smiling porter, now in the neat black dress of a waiter, bustling about. “Any little t’ing I kin do fo’ yo’, missy?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” Ruth replied, smiling. But Helen burst out with: “Do tell us what those men have come aboard for?”
“Dem men from de po-lice launch?” inquired the black man.
“Yes. What are they after? Are they police?”
“Ya-as’m. Dem’s po-lice,” said the darkey, rolling his eyes. “Dey tell me dey is wantin’ a boy wot’s been stealin’—an’ he’s done got girl’s clo’es on, missy.”