The darkness, the dash of water, the wind whistling about the crazy wooden buildings and through the rigging of ships, made the water-front vocal with the shouting of the storm demons as we alighted.
My guide was before us, and we followed him down the pier, struggling against the gusts.
“Do we cross the bay?” I asked, as Mrs. Knapp clung to my arm. “It's not safe for you in a small boat.”
“There's a tug waiting for us,” Mrs. Knapp explained.
A moment later we saw its lights, and the fire of its engine-room shot a cheerful glow into the storm. The little vessel swung uneasily at its berth as we made our way aboard, and with shouts of men and clang of bells it was soon tossing on the dark waters of the bay. Out from the shelter of the wharves the wind buffeted us wildly, and the black waves were threshed into phosphorescent foam against the sides of the tug, while their crests, self-luminous, stretched away in changing lines of faint, ghostly fire.
The cabin of the tug was fitted with a shelf table, and over it swung a lamp of brass that gave a dim light to the little room. Mrs. Knapp seated herself here, as the boat pitched and tossed and trembled at the strokes of the waves and quivered to the throbbing of the screw, spread out the paper I had given her, and studied the diagram and the jumble of letters with anxious attention.
“It is the same,” she said at last; “in part, at least.”
“The same as what?” I asked.
“As the one I got word of to-night, you know,” she replied.
“No—I didn't know.”