The crowd grew thinner and thinner, yet the two men made no movement towards departure. It seemed to Crawshay impossible that after all they had gone through they should have failed. The journey in the fast motor car, after a breakdown of the Chicago Limited, rushing through the night like some live monster, tearing now through a plain of level lights, as they passed through some great city, vomiting fire and flame into the black darkness of the country places. It was like the ride of madmen, and more than once they had both hung on to their seats in something which was almost terror. "How are we going?" Crawshay had asked perpetually. "Still that infernal half-hour," was the continual reply. "We are doing seventy, but we don't seem to be able to work it down." A powerful automobile had taken them through the streets of New York, and lay now a wreck in one of the streets a mile from the dock. They had finished the journey in a taxicab, and the finish had been this--half an hour late! Yet they lingered, with their eyes fixed upon the disappearing ship. "I guess there's nothing more we can do," Hobson said at last grudgingly. "We can lay it up for them on the other side, and we can talk to her all the way to Liverpool on the wireless, but if there is any scoop to be made the others'll get it--not us." "If only we could have got on board!" Crawshay muttered. "It's no use thinking of a tug, I suppose?" The American shook his head. "She's too far out," he replied gloomily. "There's nothing to be hired that could catch her." Crawshay's hand had suddenly stolen to his chin. There was a queer light in his eyes. He clutched at his companion's arm. "You're wrong, Hobson," he exclaimed. "There is! Come right along with me. We can talk as we go." "Are you crazy?" the American demanded. "Not quite," the other answered. "Hurry up, man." "Where to?" "To New Jersey. I've got Government orders, endorsed by your own Secretary of War. It's a hundred to one they won't listen to me, but we've got to try it." He was already dragging his companion down the wooden way. His whole expression had changed. His face was alight with the joy of an idea. Already Hobson, upon whom the germ of that idea had dawned, began to be infected with his enthusiasm. "It's a gorgeous stunt," he acknowledged, as he followed his companion into a taxicab. "If we bring it off, it's going to knock the movies silly." Katharine, weary at last of waving her hand to the indistinct blur of faces upon the dock, picked up the great clusters of roses which late arrivals had thrust into her arms at the last moment, and descended to her stateroom upon the saloon deck. She spent only a few minutes looking at the arrangement of her things, and then knocked at the door of the stateroom exactly opposite. A thick-browed, heavy-looking man, sombrely and professionally dressed, opened the door. "Are you wanting me, Doctor Gant?" she asked. The doctor shook his head.