“Hurry,� said Fay, muffling his face in the stern of the boat.
The rower nodded and dipped the oars into the dark water. The boat glided toward the ship. A voice called across the canal. Fay rose and stared back over the course they had come. Muffled shadows moved on the bank. A match was struck. This went out and left a flare still burning in his eyes. He touched the boatman’s shoulder.
“Faster,� he said. “Row faster!�
The boat reached the end of a rotting pier. Fay stretched his arms upward, grasped a string-piece and lifted himself to the cross planks.
He did not glance at the boat or the boatman as he hurried ashore and along the bank of the canal toward the quay where the ship was taking aboard the cattle-like passengers. A horn blared the night as he reached the gangplank.
He was one step advanced up this plank when a rattle and the thin honk of an auto horn caused him to turn his head over his shoulder.
The rubberless and decrepit motor car from the hotel
thrust a pair of pale lights through the gloom. On the driver’s seat of this car crouched a chauffeur who was staring at his steaming radiator.
A woman, with her form hidden by a long coat and her face masked beneath a broad-brimmed hat, sprang from the tonneau of the car, said something to the driver in a low voice and hurried in the direction of the gangplank.
Fay turned his head completely, grasped the handrail of the plank, and stared at this woman. Her figure, even under the coat, was familiar to him. He frowned slightly, let go his grip on the rail and backed down to the quay.