On His Way

The sun hung well above the river mists and threw long, cherry-red
beams across the choppy channel where clotted jets of steam and smoke
from tug and steamer drifted with the fog; and still the captain of
the Volhynia and young Neeland sat together in low-voiced conference
in the captain's cabin; and a sailor, armed with cutlass and pistol,
stood outside the locked and bolted door.

Off the port bow, Liverpool spread as far as the eye could see through
the shredded fog; to starboard, off Birkenhead, through a haze of
pearl and lavender, the tall phantom of an old-time battleship loomed.
She was probably one of Nelson's ships, now only an apparition; but to
Neeland, as he caught sight of her dimly revealed, still dominating
the water, the old ship seemed like a menacing ghost, never to be laid
until the sceptre of sea power fell from an enervated empire and the
glory of Great Britain departed for all time. And in his Yankee heart
he hoped devoutly that such disaster to the world might never come
upon it.

Few passengers were yet astir; the tender had not yet come alongside;
the monstrous city beyond had not awakened.

But a boat manned by Liverpool police lay off the Volhynia's port;
Neeland's steamer trunk was already in it; and now the captain
accompanied him to the ladder, where a sailor took his suitcase and
the olive-wood box and ran down the landing stairs like a monkey.