, because once more I had missed Romance by an inch.

Someone kicked at the locked door. A voice cried--I could not help
thinking--warningly, "Seraphina, Seraphina," and another voice said with
excessive softness, "_Senorita! Voyons! quelle folie_."

She sprang at me. Her hand hurt my wrist as she dragged me aft. I
scrambled clumsily into the recess of the counter, and put my head out.
The night air was very chilly and full of brine; a little boat towing
by a long painter was sheering about in the phosphorescent wake of the
ship. The sea itself was pallid in the light of the moon, invisible to
me. A little astern of us, on our port quarter, a vessel under a press
of canvas seemed to stand still; looming up like an immense pale ghost.
She might have been coming up with us, or else we had just passed her--I
couldn't tell. I had no time to find out, and I didn't care. The great
thing was to get hold of the painter. The whispers of the girl urged me,
but the thing was not easy; the rope, fastened higher up, streamed
away out of reach of my hand. At last, by watching the moment when it
slacked, and throwing myself half out of the stern window, I managed to
hook it with my finger-tips. Next moment it was nearly jerked away from
me, but I didn't lose it, and the boat taking a run just then under the
counter, I got a good hold. The sound of another kick at the door made
me swing myself out, head first, without reflection. I got soused to the
waist before I had reached the bows of the boat. With a frantic effort
I clambered up and rolled in. When I got on my legs, the jerky motion
of tossing had ceased, the boat was floating still, and the light of
the stern windows was far away already. The girl had managed to cut the
painter.

The other vessel was heading straight for me, rather high on the water,
broad-beamed, squat, and making her way quietly, like a shadow. The
land might have been four or five miles away--I had no means of knowing
exactly. It looked like a high black cloud, and purple-gray mists here
and there among the peaks hung like scarves.

I got an oar over the stern to scull, but I was not fit for much
exertion. I stared at the ship I had left. Her stern windows glimmered
with a slight up-and-down motion; her sails seemed to fall into black
confusion against the blaze of the moon; faint cries came to me out of
her, and by the alteration of her shape I understood that she was being
brought to, preparatory to lower