It was full twelve o’clock, and the last rope was being loosed from the moorings.  “Ting-ting,” went the engine-room bell.  “Thud-thud,” started the great screw that would not stop again for so many restless hours.  The huge vessel shuddered throughout her frame like an awakening sleeper, and growing quick with life, forged an inch or two a-head.  Next, a quartermaster, came with two men to hoist up the gangway, when suddenly a boat shot alongside and hooked on, amongst the occupants of which Arthur had no difficulty in recognizing Mrs. Carr, who sat laughing, like Pleasure, at the helm.  The other occupants of the boat, who were not laughing, he guessed to be her servants and the lady who figured on the passenger-list as Miss Terry, a stout, solemn-looking person in spectacles.

“Now, then, Agatha,” called out Mrs. Carr from the stern-sheets, “be quick and jump up.”

“My dear Mildred, I can’t go up there; I can’t, indeed.  Why, the thing’s moving.”

“But you must go up, or else be pulled up with a rope.  Here, I will show the way,” and, moving down the boat, she sprang boldly, as it rose with the swell, into the stalwart arms of the sailor who was waiting on the gangway landing-stage, and thence ran up the steps to the deck.

“Very well, I am going to Madeira.  I don’t know what you are going to do; but you must make up your mind quick.”

“Can’t hold on much longer, mum,” said the boatman, “she’s getting way on now.”

“Come on, mum; I won’t let you in,” said the man of the ladder, seductively.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, what shall I do?” groaned Miss Terry, wringing the hand that was not employed in holding on.

“John,” called Mrs. Carr to a servant who was behind Miss Terry, and looking considerably alarmed, “don’t stand there like a fool; put Miss Terry on to that ladder.”

Mrs. Carr was evidently accustomed to be obeyed, for, thus admonished, John seized the struggling and shrieking Miss Terry, and bore her to the edge of the boat, where she was caught by two sailors, and, amidst the cheers of excited passengers, fairly dragged on to the deck.

“Oh!  Mrs. Carr,” said the chief officer, reproachfully, when Miss Terry had been satisfactorily deposited on a bench, “you are late again; you were late last voyage.”

“Not at all, Mr. Thompson.  I hate spending longer than is necessary aboard ship, so, when the train got in, I took a boat and went for a row in the harbour.  I knew that you would not go without me.”

“Oh, yes, we should have, Mrs. Carr; the skipper heard about it because he waited for you before.”

“Well, here I am, and I promise that I won’t do it again.”

Mr. Thompson laughed, and passed on.  At this moment Mrs. Carr perceived Arthur, and, bowing to him, they fell into conversation about the scenery through which the boat was passing on her way to the open sea.  Before very long, indeed, as soon as the vessel began to rise and fall upon the swell, this talk was interrupted by a voice from the seat where Miss Terry had been placed.