with some difficulty to the rough,
dark pavement, called out for a boat by all means.

"I will see him but for a minute," he said; "but it will be better than
nothing. I should be loath to make such a journey without result."

"Find us a boat," said Brunow. He spoke in such a voice as a man might
have used if he had ordered his own execution, and I remarked that at
the time. I can see now that a hundred thousand things were happening to
advise me of the truth, but I was as ignorant and as unsuspicious of it
as if I had been a baby. The man at the door lounged out into the road,
and with a turn of the head invited us to follow him. We obeyed this
voiceless bidding, and in a very little while found ourselves on a rough
quay at the river-side. We descended a set of break-neck steps, and in
another minute found ourselves afloat. The man pulled with leisurely,
strong strokes to where a boat lay in midstream, with its green light
towards us; and nearing the vessel, raised a hoarse cry, "Ship ahoy
there!" The cry was answered from aboard the boat, and a ladder was
lowered to us by which we climbed on deck. Brunow went first, Ruffiano
followed, and I went third. It struck me as a surprising thing that at
the very minute on which my foot struck the ladder the boat shot from
under me. I sang out aloud to the man to ask where he was going, but he
returned no answer save in a sneering and insolent-sounding growl, which
might have meant anything or nothing. My conclusion was that he was
coming back in time to take us away again, and I gave the matter no
further heed, but followed Ruffiano on deck, still unsuspicious. My
first surprise came when a man in a dreadnaught jacket and a sou'wester
asked in German, "Is that the man?" and, without waiting for an answer,
sang below, "Full steam ahead!" Even then I had no idea of a plan to
carry off anybody, but I was astonished to find a man talking German and
giving orders in German on a craft which I had imagined to be Italian.

"But why full steam ahead?" I asked Brunow; and he turned upon me in the
darkness with a faltering in his voice.

"I don't know," he said. "There's something infernally strange about all
this. Have we been trapped? This fellow's a German."

"Trapped!" I answered. "How should we be trapped?"

"This," cried Brunow, in a loud and quavering tone, "is not the ship I
meant to board. There's some mistake here! Hi, you there!"

"Halloa!" said the man in the dreadnaugh