After partial unloading of cargo, taking on of other commodities, and the booking of a few new passengers, the ship weighs anchor. Long cruising in continental waters, stopping at numerous unimportant points, making little steerage exchanges, she anticipates extended voyage, and heading for the Atlantic, steams for New York.
Now the vessel veers little from direct courses. Late one cloudy afternoon she rounds Sandy Hook, and after a day's quarantine, finds a dock.
With strong sense of relief, Oswald quits the ship. He is taken by hack to a well-appointed hotel near junction of Thirty-third Street and Fifth Avenue.
CHAPTER XIX
THAMES PANTOMIMES
Covertly watching for new or suspicious faces, Pierre Lanier finds himself at the river-bank. His eyes bulge with frightened surprise.
Moving upstream, oars dipping in clear moonlight, is a familiar figure. Stoop and motion cannot be mistaken.
The father stares after that disappearing form. His indecision is short. Following along the bank, every sense alert, he resolves to watch his son and solve this enigma. Cautiously keeping out of view, Pierre is slightly in the rear of the boat. They are nearing the rustic seat where sat Oswald Langdon and Alice Webster on that fatal night years before. The boat stops at a projecting tree-branch. Pierre is petrified with a new fear! Dagger in hand, Paul examines this obstruction, looking thence toward either bank. He resumes the oars, again pausing at thick overhanging bushes. Peering under, around, and through the foliage, Paul rubs the glistening blade on upturned shoe-sole. Sheathing his weapon, he slowly moves toward the point whence the two bodies had disappeared into swollen stream. Directly opposite the rustic seat, he stops. Looking up, down, and across the river, Paul stands, steadying the boat with both oars, his thin-bladed dagger flashing from close-set jaws. Back and forth across the river, through moonlight shades, slowly moves this horrible tableau. Staring at reflected shadows, Paul shrinks backward. Dropping an oar, he grasps the pearl handle of his oft-whetted blade. With forward poise, in striking attitude, every nerve at tense strain, stands this crazed tragedian. Pierre is near enough to hear mutterings. Soon the relaxing form is again seated, while boat and dozing occupant drift downstream.