By this time the water-front was almost deserted. A patrol marched stolidly down the street; Enrico stepped into the shelter of a narrow courtyard until the khaki-clad party had disappeared; but before he could resume he had to await the passing of a gaitered and belted naval picquet. The coast cleared, he reached the Mole. A tramp steamer and a few feluccas were moored alongside. Farther out a tug was engaged in shepherding a couple of large lighters alongside an East-bound liner, while changing red, white, and green lights betokened the presence of swift-moving steamboats in the bay. Standing out against the faint starlight he could discern the "Golden Hind." Even as he looked a gleam of light shot through the windows of one of the compartments, and then another, both being almost instantly screened. "Two thousand five hundred pesetas," whispered Jaures to himself. "A good price for a little swim." Without troubling to remove any of his clothes, although he kicked off his canvas shoes, Enrico cautiously descended a flight of steps until his feet touched the water. Listening to assure himself that no one was about, he glided in as noiselessly as an eel, and swam with slow, steady strokes under the counter of the tramp and close to her wall sides until he gained her bows. Taking his bearings of the airship’s mooring-buoy, he resumed his easy progress cautiously lest feathers of phosphorescent spray should betray his presence. A quarter of an hour’s swim brought him up to the mooring-buoy. With considerable difficulty, for the large barrel-shaped buoy was coated with barnacles and slippery with seaweed, Enrico contrived to draw himself clear of the water. Again he waited, listening to the sounds emanating from the airship a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet overhead. The wire hawser, acting as a conductor, enabled him to hear with great distinctness, and possessing a good knowledge of English he was able to pick up scraps of conversation between the crew. That helped him but little, for they were talking of matters as remote from the topic of the great race as the Poles. Enrico Jaures next devoted his attention to the shackle that secured the thimble spliced in the end of the cable to the big ring bolt of the buoy. He grunted with satisfaction when he discovered that the shackle was threaded and not secured by a forelock, but at the same time he found by the sense of touch that whoever had been responsible for the job had done his work well by securing the pin by means of a piece of flexible wire. This latter Jaures managed to cast loose, then, with the aid of his marline-spike, he began to unfasten the shackle-pin, pausing occasionally as the strain on the wire rope increased.