I got there, in a boat hastily commandeered by the hotel clerk's deputy. I suppose he thought me a belated passenger for the Rufus Smith, for my baggage followed me into the boat. "Pronto!" he shouted to the native boatman as we put off. "Pronto!" I urged at intervals, my eyes upon the funnels of the Rufus Smith, where the outpouring smoke was thickening alarmingly. We brought up under the side of the little steamer, and the wide surprised face of a Swedish deckhand stared down at us.
"Let me aboard! I must come aboard!" I cried.
Other faces appeared, then a rope-ladder. Somehow I was mounting it—a dizzy feat to which only the tumult of my emotions made me indifferent. Bare brawny arms of sailors clutched at me and drew me to the deck. There at once I was the center of a circle of speechless and astonished persons, all men but one.
"Well?" demanded a large breezy voice. "What's this mean? What do you want aboard my ship?"
I looked up at a red-faced man in a large straw hat.
"I want my aunt," I explained.
"Your aunt?" he roared. "Why the devil should you think I've got your aunt?"
"You have got her," I replied with firmness. "I don't see her, but she's here somewhere."
The captain of the Rufus Smith shook two large red fists above his head.
"Another lunatic!" he shouted. "I'd as soon have a white horse and a minister aboard as to go to sea in a floating bedlam!"