and a howling wind from the channel, the little seaport city.

More officers than she had suspected, a few women, got out. The latter
Sara Lee's experience on the steamer enabled her to place; buyers mostly,
and Americans, on their way to Paris, blockade or no blockade, because
the American woman must be well and smartly gowned and hatted. A man
with a mourning band on his sleeve carried a wailing child.

The officers lighted cigarettes. The civilians formed a line on the
jetty under the roof of the shed, and waited, passports in hand, before
a door that gleamed with yellow light. Faces looked pale and anxious.
The blockade was on, and Germany had said that no ships would cross
that night.

As if defiantly the Boulogne boat, near at hand, was ablaze, on the shore
side at least, with lights. Stewards came and went. Beyond it lay the
harbor, dark and mysterious save where, from somewhere across, a
flashlight made a brave effort to pierce the fog.

One of the buyers ahead of Sara Lee seemed exhilarated by the danger
ahead.

"They'll never get us," she said. "Look at that fog!"

"It's lifting, dearie," answered a weary voice behind her. "The wind is
carrying it away."

When Sara Lee's turn came she was ready. A group of men in civilian
clothes, seated about a long table, looked her over carefully. Her
passports moved deliberately from hand to hand. A long business, and