light, the frowning
casemates specked with sentinels, and the line of the distant city
blurred with masts and spent steam. They saw, too, from their height
(they could look down the tender's smokestack) the sturdy figure of her
Captain, his white cap in relief against the green sea, and below him
the flat mass of people, their upturned faces so many pats of color on
a dark canvas.

With the hauling taut and making fast of the fore and aft hawsers, a
group of sailors broke away from the flat mass and began tugging at the
gangplank, lifting it into position, the boatswain's orders ringing
clear. Another group stripped off the tarpaulins from the piles of
luggage, and a third--the gangplank in place--swarmed about the heaps
of trunks, shouldering the separate pieces as ants shoulder grains of
sand, then scurrying toward the tender's rail, where other ants reached
down and relieved them of their loads.

The mass of people below now took on the shape of a funnel, its spout
resting on the edge of the gangplank, from out which poured a steady
stream of people up and over the Liner's side.

Two decks below where Miss Jennings and her fellow-travellers were
leaning over the steamer's rail craning their necks, other sights came
into view. Here not only the funnel-shaped mass could be seen, but the
faces of the individuals composing it, as well as their nationality and
class; whether first, second or steerage. There, too, was the line of
stewards reaching out with open hands, relieving the passengers of
their small belongings; here too stood the First Officer in white
gloves and gold lace bowing to those he knew and smiling at others; and
here too was a smooth-shaven, closely-knit young man in dark clothes
and derby hat, who had taken up his position just behind the First
Officer, and whose steady steel gray eyes followed the movements of
each and every one of the passengers from the moment their feet touched
the gangplank until they had disappeared in charge of the stewards.

These passengers made a motley group: first came a stout American with
two pretty daughters; then a young Frenchman and his valet; then a
Sister of Charity draped in black, her close-fitting, white, starched
cap and broad white collar framing her face, one hand clutching the
rope rail as she stepped feebly toward the steamer, the other grasping
a bandbox, her only luggage; next wriggled some college boys in twos
and threes, and then the rest of the hurry