The landing was fixed for that night, and was to be effected by a vessel now cruising outside the Heads.
She understood it all now.

She remembered Marion's speech about the importance of the bluff for military purposes; she remembered the visit of the officers from the Fort opposite.

The strangers were stealing a march upon the Government, and by night would be in possession.

It was perhaps an evidence of her newly awakened and larger comprehension that she took no thought of her loss of home and property,--perhaps there was little to draw her to it now,--but was conscious only of a more terrible catastrophe--a catastrophe to which she was partly accessory, of which any other woman would have warned her husband--or at least those officers of the Fort whose business it was to--Ah, yes! the officers of the Fort--only just opposite to her! She trembled, and yet flushed with an inspiration.

It was not too late yet--why not warn them NOW?
But how?
A message sent by Saucelito and the steamboat to San Francisco--the usual way--would not reach them tonight.