He turned on his light, and quickly gathered together his hockey
sweater, his watch-cap, and an old pair of trousers. He made them into a
bundle with a few other things. Then he wrote a letter, containing many
good arguments, and pinned it on Felicia's door. He tiptoed downstairs
and out into the night. From the street he could see the faint green
light from his mother's room, where Miss McClough was sitting. He turned
and ran quickly, without stopping to think.

No one was abroad but an occasional policeman, twirling his night-stick.
On the wharves the daylight confusion was dispelled; there was no
clatter of teaming, no sound but the water fingering dank piles, and the
little noises aboard sleeping vessels. But the _Celestine_ was awake.
Lights gleamed aboard her, men were stirring, the great mass of her
canvas blotted half the stars. She was sailing, that night, for Rio de
Janeiro.

Ken slipped into the shadow of a pile-head, waiting his chance. His
heart beat suffocatingly; his hands were very cold. Quietly he stepped
under the gang-plank, swung a leg over it, drew himself aboard, and lay
flat on deck beside the rail of the _Celestine_ in a pool of shade. A
man tripped over him and stumbled back with an oath. The next instant
Ken was hauled up into the light of a lantern.

"Stowaway, eh?" growled a squat man in dungaree. "Chuck him overboard,
Sam, an' let him swim home to his mamma."

In that moment, Ken knew that he could never have sailed with the
_Celestine_, that he would have slipped back to the wharf before she
cast loose her hawsers. He looked around him as if he had just awakened