She waited not for any head-gear, but forth into the May sunlight she rushed, and I with her, and shouted at the top of my lungs to the slaves for my horse, then went myself, having no mind to wait, and hustled the poor beast from his feed-bin, and was on his back and at a hard gallop to the wharf, with Mistress Catherine following as fast as she was able.  Now and then, when I turned, I saw her slim green shape advancing, looking for all the world to my fancy like some nymph who had been changed into a river-reed and had gotten life again.

When I reached the wharf, with my horse all afoam, there was indeed the Golden Horn down the river, coming in.  The tide and the wind had been against her, or she would have reached shore ere now.  Then along the bank I urged my horse, and in some parts, where there was no footing and the tangle of woods too close, into the stream we plunged and swam, then up bank again, and so on with a mighty splatter of mire and water and rain of green leaves and blossoms from the low hang of branches through which we tore way, till we came abreast of the Golden Horn.  Then I hallooed, first making sure that there was no one lurking near to overhear, and waved my handkerchief, keeping my horse standing to his fetlocks in the current, until over the water came an answering halloo from the Golden Horn, and I could plainly see Captain Calvin Tabor on the quarter-deck.  The ship was not far distant, and I could have swam to her, and would have, though the tide was strong, had there been no other way.

“Halloo,” shouted Captain Tabor, and two more men came running to the side, then more still, till it was overhung by a whole row of red English faces.

“Halloo!” shouted I.

“What d’ye lack?  What’s afoot?  Halloo!”

“Send a boat, for God’s sake,” I shouted back.  “News, news; keep where ye be.  Do not land.  Send a boat!”

“Is it the convict tutor, Wingfield?” shouted the captain.

I called back yes, and repeated my demand that he send a boat for God’s sake.

Then I saw a great running hither and thither, and presently a boat touched water from the side of the Golden Horn with a curious lapping dip, and I was off my horse and tied him fast to a tree on the bank, with loose rein that he might crop his fill of the sweet spring herbage, and when the boat touched bank was in her and speedily aboard the ship.

Captain Tabor was leaning over the bulwarks, and his ruddy face was pale, and his look of devil-may-care gayety somewhat subdued.

When I gained the deck forward he came and grasped me by the arm, and led me into his own cabin, having first shouted forth to his mate an order to drop anchor and keep the ship in midstream.

“Now, in the name of all the fiends, what is afoot?” he cried out, though with a cautious cock of his eyes toward the deck, for English sailors are not black slaves when it comes to discussing matters of weight.