job with no mistake, and in a time of crisis
like this, that is essential. You have given him the right to order the
militia to obey him, and nothing could be better. He will organize like
a master. We haven't forgotten his fight on the Ariadne. Didn't the
admiral tell the story at the dinner we gave him of how this ex-convict
and mutineer, by sheer genius, broke the power of the French at the
critical moment and saved our fleet, though it was only three-fourths
that of the French?"

"You don't think the French will get us some day?" asked the governor
with a smile.

"I certainly don't since our defences have been improved. Look at the
sixty big cannon on Fort Augusta! They'd be knocked to smithereens
before they could get into the quiet waters of the harbour. Don't forget
the narrows, your honour. Then there's the Apostle's Battery with its
huge shot, and the guns of Fort Royal would give them a cross-fire that
would make them sick. Besides, we could stop them within the shoals
and reefs and narrow channels before they got near the inner circle.
It would only be the hand of God that would get them in, and it doesn't
work for Frenchmen these days, I observe. No, this place is safe, and
King's House will be the home of British governors for many a century."

"Ah, that's your gallant faith, and no doubt you are right, but go on
with your tale of the hounds," said Lord Mallow.

"Your honour, as the hounds went away with Michael Clones there was
greater applause than I have ever seen in the island except when Rodney
defeated De Grasse. Imagine a little sloop in the wash of the seas and
the buccaneers piling down on him, and no chance of escape, and then a
great British battleship appearing, and the situation saved--that was
how we were placed here till the hounds arrived.

"Your honour, this morning's--this early morning's exit of the hounds
was like a procession of veterans to Walhalla. There was the sun
breaking over the tops of the hills, a crimsonish, greyish, opaline
touch of soft sprays or mists breaking away from the onset of the
sunrise; and all the trees with night-lips wet sucking in the sun and
drinking up the light like an overseer at a Christmas breakfast; and you
know what that is. And all the shore, rocky and sandy, rough and smooth,
happy and homely, shimmering in the radiance. And hundreds of Creoles
and coloured folk beating the ground in agitation, and slaves a-plenty
carrying boxes to the ships tha