"There's a tug waiting for us," Mrs. Knapp explained.
A moment later we saw its lights, and the fire of its engine-room shot a cheerful glow into the storm. The little vessel swung uneasily at its berth as we made our way aboard, and with shouts of men and clang of bells it was soon tossing on the dark waters of the bay. Out from the shelter of the wharves the wind buffeted us wildly, and the black waves were threshed into phosphorescent foam against the sides of the tug, while their crests, self-luminous, stretched away in changing lines of faint, ghostly fire.
The cabin of the tug was fitted with a shelf table, and over it swung a lamp of brass that gave a dim light to the little room. Mrs. Knapp seated herself here, as the boat pitched and tossed and trembled at the strokes of the waves and quivered to the throbbing of the screw, spread out the paper I had given her, and studied the diagram and the jumble of letters with anxious attention.
"It is the same," she said at last; "in part, at least."
"As the one I got word of to-night, you know," she replied.
"Of course not," said Mrs. Knapp. "But you might have guessed that I got my summons after you left, this evening. I should have spoken to you then if I had known. I was near coming to an explanation, as it was."
"There are a good many things I haven't guessed," I confessed.
"But," she continued, returning to the map, "this gives a different place. I was to go to the cross-road here,"--indicating the mark at the last branch.
"I'm glad to hear that," said I, taking out the diagram I had found in the citadel of the enemy. "This seems to point to a different place, too, and I really hope that the gentleman who drew this map is a good way off from the truth."
"Where did you get this?" exclaimed Mrs. Knapp.
I described the circumstances in as few words as I could command.
"They are ahead of us," she said in alarm.
"They have started first, I suppose," was my suggestion.
"Then our only hope is that they may not know the right place."
She was silent for a few minutes, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
I was moved by her signs of feeling. I thought they were for the boy and was about to ask what would happen to him in case he was found by the enemy, when she said: