g, fanshaped, from under the
counter into the troubled toss and windy distance, as though he wished
to make sure that he was steering straight; the other two of my crew
were at work forward on jobs to which, not being a sailor, I should be
unable to give a name.

Thus passed the morning. There was no tedium. If ever there came a
halt in our chat there were twenty things over the side to look at, to
fill the pause with colour and beauty. It might be a tall,
slate-coloured, steam tank, hideous with gaunt leaning funnel and
famished pole-masts, and black fans of propeller beating at the
stern-post like the vanes of a drowning windmill amid a hill of froth,
yet poetised in spite of herself into a pretty detail of the
surrounding life through the mere impulse and spirit of the bright seas
through which she was starkly driving. Or it was a full-rigged ship,
homeward bound, with yearning canvas and ocean-worn sides, figures on
her poop crossing from rail to rail to look at what was passing, and
seamen on her forecastle busy with the ship's ground tackle.

It was shortly after twelve that the delicate shadow of the high land
of Beachy Head showed over the yacht's bow. By one o'clock it had
grown defined and firm, with the glimmering streak of its white
ramparts of chalk stealing out of the blue haze.

"There's Old England, Grace!" said I. "How one's heart goes out to the
sight of the merest shadow of one's own soil! The _Spitfire_ has seen
the land; has she not quickened her pace?"

"I ought to wish it was the Cornwall coast," she answered; "but I am
enjoying this now," she added smiling.

"How close do you intend to run in?" I called to Caudel.

He rolled up to us and answered:

"No call, I think, sir, to haul in much closer. The land trends in
down Brighton and Worthing way, and there'll be nothen to see till
we're off St. Catherine's Point."

"Well, you know our destination, Caudel. Carry the yacht to it in your
own fashion. But mind you get there," said I, looking at Grace.

I was made happy by finding my sweetheart with some appetite for dinner
at one o'clock. She no longer sighed; no regrets escaped her; her
early alarm had disappeared; the novelty of the situation was wearing
off; she was now realising again what I knew she had realised
before--to judge by her letters--though the excitement and terrors of
the elopement had broken in upon and temporarily disordered her
perception; she was now fully r