At dawn they were weighing anchor, but the big ship had not yet swung her nose to the west when Foster again appeared on the dripping deck and again found Ray almost at the same spot. Some of the same lights, a very few, were still faintly to be seen to the west of the Piazza, and Ray's signal glasses were lifted to his eyes. Aloft the sentinel stars were paling, their night watch ended. Ashore, along the quays and basin and about the Dogana, the lantern lights told of the stir of coming day and departing shipping. Beyond the heavy smoke all about the lone and threatening mountain, the skies were taking on a rose hue of their own that dulled the glow of the sluggish streams rolling ever down those scarred and desolate slopes. Near by in silvery chime ship after ship announced the passing of the night hours, the birth of the infant day, and a long, light-girdled shape, floating easily close at hand on the swelling tide, slowly changed from shadowy black to gray, from gray to violet, and finally--as the still invisible sun peered long leagues away beyond the Italian mountains, beyond the Adriatic wave, above the dim Ægean shore, and sent his flashing signals through the upper ether--from cream to snowy white, there lay the _Hohenzollern_, "all a taunto and impatient" for her westward voyage for "Gib," for the Azores, for home, and they of the bulkier, heavier transport envied possibly the lithe and lissome build of the famous pleasure craft, once the pride of the old German Lloyds. She might follow in the run past Ischia and Sicily. She would lead far in the chase for Sandy Hook. "Been up all night, Sandy?" hailed Foster sharply, believing it high time to break in upon these romantic moonings. "No," said the young soldier slowly. "I've been--down." "Poor boy," thought Foster, as he turned away. "He looks it! Poor, nonsensical, damn little fool!" Yet Foster was not so very big, so very wise, so very safe and sure. He had yet to know for himself much that Ray knew now. CHAPTER IV "SHE IS COMING HERE!"