It was not worth while to risk either their boats or their lives, even in the face of the fifty, one hundred, two hundred _lira_ which she flaunted in their unperturbed faces.
Grating and rocking against the quayside, above the heads of the group about her, she caught sight of a white-painted steam launch, with a high-standing bow, and on it a uniformed officer, smoking in the rain.
She approached him without hesitation.

Could he, in any way, carry her out to her steamer?
She pointed to where the lights of the _Slavonia_ shone and glimmered through the gray darkness.

They looked indescribably warm and homelike to her peering eyes.
The officer looked her up and down in stolid Austrian amazement, trying to catch a glimpse of her face through her wet and flattened traveling veil.

Could he take her out to her steamer?
No; he was afraid not.
Yes, it was true he had steam up, and that his crew were aboard, but this was the official patrol of the Captain of the Port--it was not to carry passengers--it was solely for the imperial service of the Austrian Government.
She pleaded with him, weeping.

He was sorry, but the Captain of the Port would permit no such irregularity.
"Where is the Captain of the Port, then ?" she demanded.
The officer puffed his cigar slowly, and looked her up and down once more.