ired if it was possible to ascertain when the Cunard steamer
sailed.

"The _Slavonia_, madam, leaves the harbor at daybreak!"

"At daybreak! Then I must go on board tonight, at once!"

"I fear it is impossible, madam. The _bora_ is blowing, as you see,
and the harbor is empty!"

"But I _must_ get on board!" she cried, and this time her dismay and
despair were not mere dissimulation.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders, while Frank, calling out a
peremptory order, in Italian, to her driver, left him at the curb
looking after her through the driving rain, in bewilderment.

She went first to the steamship offices. They were closed. Then she
sought out the Cunard tender--it was lightless and deserted. Then she
hurried to the water-front, driving up and down along that lonely
stretch of deserted quays, back and forth, coaxing, wheedling, trying
to bribe indifferent and placid-eyed boatmen to row her out to her
steamer. It was useless. It could not be done. It was not worth
while to risk either their boats or their lives, even in the face of
the fifty, one hundred, two hundred _lira_ which she flaunted in their
unperturbed faces.

Grating and rocking against the quayside, above the heads of the group
about her, she caught sight of a white-painted steam launch, with a
high-standing bow, and on it a uniformed officer, smoking in the rain.

She approached him without hesitation. Could he, in any way, carry her
out to her steamer? She pointed to where the lights of the _Slavonia_
shone and glimmered through the gray darkness. They looked
indescribably warm and homelike to her peering eyes.

The officer looked her up and down in stolid Austrian amazement, trying
to catch a glimpse of her face through her wet and flattened traveling
veil. Could he take her out to her steamer? No; he was afraid not.
Yes, it was true he had steam up, and that his crew were aboard, but
this was the official patrol of the Captain of the Port--it was not to
carry passengers--it was solely for the imperial service of the
Austrian Government.

She pleaded with him, weeping. He was sorry, but the Captain of the
Port would permit no such irregularity.

"Where is the Captain of the Port, then?" she demanded.

The officer puffed his cigar slowly, and looked her up and down once
more. He was in his office in the Administration Building--but the
officer's shrug and smile told her that it was, in his eyes, no easy
thing to secure a