There was a good deal of disappointment among the passengers of the steamship _Paris_ as she steamed up from Sandy Hook toward quarantine, in the dusk of Friday evening of the week following Brent’s conversation by cable with his New York representative. The ship had failed by less than two hours to reach the quarantine station before sunset. The exasperating and absurd regulation under which the health officers of the port refuse to give pratique to any vessel between sunset and sunrise would, therefore, keep the ship’s company of a thousand persons prisoners for twelve long hours almost within sight of their destination. The delay was particularly annoying to Brent, whose rising apprehensions had made the voyage irksome and long. The splendid ship, only two years before the queen of the seas, had seemed slow. She had made her name and record. Her qualities and powers were known. Ships, like men, become time-servers and lose ambition. Not since she was first outstripped by a younger rival had the _Paris_ matched even her own best speed. Brent missed the exhilaration which the tingling nerves and throbbing pulses of the _Mystery_ had communicated to every one on board during her conquering voyage of a month before. The new-born ship, a third the size of this powerful leviathan, had seemed to feel a sympathetic yet absolute mastery of the element in which she moved, from the moment her prow first tossed aside the astonished waters of New York Bay. Neptune favored youth and audacity, and had contempt for age and experience and mere size. Like every one else, Brent watched the beautiful panorama on either side as the ship ran up the Narrows in the soft October twilight. No sooner had the anchor been dropped in the little quarantine cove than two steamboats came alongside. One was the mail boat, and Brent was cogitating the idea that perhaps a few dollars judiciously bestowed might enable him to smuggle himself over the side with the mail-bags, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a cheery voice said: “How are you, old fellow? Come along with me.” “Jack? This is good luck. How did you get aboard?” “Came down on the revenue cutter. Don’t say anything to the other passengers; but I’ve got a pass to take you right up to the city. You can’t take your baggage. Leave that till to-morrow and come along at once.” The two men climbed down the ladder over the side, and while the cutter was steaming back to the Battery, Wharton detailed the week’s rapid turn of events.