I recognized my whilom friend, Mandy McGovern.

"Whut you all doin' down there ?" she called.

"Wait a minute; I'm comin', too." A moment later she appeared at the opening of the lower deck and craned out her long neck.

I then saw at her side the figure of a young woman, her hair fallen from its coils, her feet bare, her body wrapped apparently only in some light silken dressing to be thrown above her nightwear.

She, too, looked out into the darkness, but shrank back.
"Here, you," called out Mandy McGovern, "git hold of the end of this rope." She tossed to me the end of the gang-plank rope, by which the sliding stage was drawn out and in at the boat landings.