We understood that she couldn't get into dock just then because of the tide, and that we must go on shore by tender.

A tender came off--some of the people on board it came on our deck.

There was a good deal of bustle.

I went down to my cabin to see after something or other.

Lisette came to me there, evidently much agitated, saying that her brother had come off on the tender to fetch her at once to their mother who was ill in London--dying.