From the prison to London Pool was a journey of some distance across the streets of London.  Will Law called out to the driver with savagery in his voice.  He shouted, cursed, implored, promised, and betimes held one hand under the soft, heavy tresses of the head now sunk so humbly forward.

The mad ride ended at the quay on Thames side, where the shadows of the tall buildings lay rank and thick upon the earth, where tarry smells and evil odors filled the heavy air, penetrated none the less by the savor of the keen salt air.  More than one giant form was outlined in the broad stream, vessels tall and ghost-like in the gloom, shadowy, suggestive, bearing imprint and promise of far lands across the sea.

Here was the initial point of England’s greatness.  Here on this heavy stream had her captains taken ship.  Thence had sailed her admirals to encompass all the world.  In these dark massed shadows, how much might there not be of fate and mystery!  Whither might not these vessels carry one!  To France, to the far-off Indies, to the new-owned islands, to America with its little half-grown ports.  Whence and whither?  What might not one do, here at this gateway of the world?

“To the brigantine beyond!” cried Will Law to the wherryman who came up.  “We want Captain McMasters, of the Polly Perkins.  For God’s sake, quick!  There’s that afoot must be caught up within the moment, do you hear!”

The wherryman touched his cap and quickly made ready his boat.  Will Law, understanding naught of this swift coil of events, and not daring to leave Lady Catharine behind him at the carriage, made down the stairway, half carrying the drooping figure which now leaned weakly upon his shoulder.

“Pull now, man!  Pull as you never did before!” cried he, and the wherryman bent hard to his oars.

Yet great as was the haste of those who put forth into the foggy Thames, it was more than equalled by that of one who appeared upon the dock, even as the creak of the oars grew fainter in the gloom.  There came the rattle of wheels upon the quay, and the sound of a driver lashing his horses.  A carriage rolled up, and there sprang from the box a muffled figure which resolved itself into the very embodiment of haste.

“Hold the horses, man!” he cried to the nearest by-stander, and sprang swiftly to the head of the stairs, where a loiterer or two stood idly gazing out into the mist which overhung the water.

“Saw you aught of a man,” he demanded hastily, “a man and a woman, a tall young woman—­you could not mistake her?  ’Twas the Polly Greenway they should have found.  Tell me, for God’s sake, has any boat put out from this stair?”

“Why, sir,” replied one of the wherrymen who stood near by, pipe in mouth and hand in pocket, “since you mention it, there was a boat started but this instant for midstream.  They sought McMaster’s brigantine, the Polly Perkins, that lies waiting for the tide.  ’Twas, as you say, a young gentleman, and with him was a young woman.  I misdoubt the lady was ill.”