The father gazed again across the darkened sea. He was leaving his only son behind him, and all the pride of wealth and self and power had been stripped from him. All he could think of to say as he shook hands with David was:
"Arthur was very fond of you, and I am sorry that I came between you two."
CHAPTER VII THE BONDS OF SYMPATHY
The Black Star Line wharf in North River was crowded with cheering men, women, and children. Their fluttering handkerchiefs looked like a sudden flurry of snow. The roar of steam whistles from a hundred harbor craft rose above the din on the wharf. Past the Battery was creeping a sea-stained liner, her great steel prow so crushed and battered that the thousands who watched her wondered how she could have been kept afloat. The news of her coming had been sent by wireless, and a fleet of the company's tugs had hurried to sea to meet her.
The kinfolk and friends of those on board had been kept in a state of panicky alarm, day after day, by the flaring newspaper head-lines which sent the Roanoke to the bottom and raised her again, in hourly "extras."
The band on the promenade deck was lustily playing "home again, home again, from a foreign shore," as the tugs poked their noses against the black side of the ocean cripple and began to nudge her into her berth. David Downes was looking for friends on the wharf, but he scanned the masses of upturned faces in vain, until the bos'n prodded him in the ribs, and said:
"Cast your eye on the end of the pier, boy. I see a red spot. It vas Becket or else there is a fire just broke out. Nobody has as red-headed a head as that crazy feller."