n, with a battalion of tugs pushing and pulling and straining and
panting, the ship swung in toward her dock, and soon she was near enough
for those on board to see the faces of the waiting crowd, and there were
cries of greeting and wavings of handkerchiefs, and the shedding of
happy tears--for it is good to get home! And at last the great hawsers
were flung out and made fast, and the voyage was ended.

At this moment, as at all others, the first-cabin passengers had the
precedence, and filed slowly down one gangplank, their landing-tickets
in their hands, while at another the stewards proceeded to yank off the
hand-baggage. Dan, leaning over the rail, watched the long line of
passengers surging slowly forward, and finally he saw Kasia and her
father. He would see them on the pier, of course, for it would take them
some time to get their baggage through, and he could explain to Kasia
about the other engagement. He followed them with his eyes--and then,
with a gasp of astonishment, he perceived just behind them, also moving
slowly down the gangplank, the Prince and the man who had called himself
Admiral Pachmann.

But those men could have nothing to do with Kasia! It was just an
accident that they happened to be behind her. And then he grasped the
rail and strained forward, scarcely able to believe his eyes. For
Pachmann had spoken to Vard, who nodded and walked hurriedly on with
him, while Kasia, with a mocking smile, tucked her hand within the
Prince's arm and fell into step beside him. Along the pier they hastened
to the entrance gates, passed through, and were lost in the crowd
outside.

Dan stood staring after them for yet a moment; then, with the careful
step of a man who knows himself to be intoxicated, he climbed painfully
to the boat-deck, dropped upon a bench there, and took his head in his
hands.

There, half an hour later, a steward found him.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "Are you ill?"

Dan looked up dazedly.

"No," he said. "Why?"

"The passengers are all off, sir. If you have any luggage, you'd better
be having it examined, sir."

"Thank you," said Dan, and got to his feet, descended to the lower deck,
surrendered his landing ticket, and went unsteadily down the gangplank.

The pier was littered with baggage and crowded with distracted men and
women watching the inspectors diving remorselessly among their tenderest
possessions. Each was absorbed in his own affairs, and none of them
noticed Da