mis'ess, if so be you please.'

Anne took the glass, and he supported it by his arm. 'It is a large
ship,' she said, 'with three masts, three rows of guns along the side,
and all her sails set.'

'I guessed as much.'

'There is a little flag in front--over her bowsprit.'

'The jack.'

'And there's a large one flying at her stern.'

'The ensign.'

'And a white one on her fore-topmast.'

'That's the admiral's flag, the flag of my Lord Nelson. What is her
figure-head, my dear?'

'A coat-of-arms, supported on this side by a sailor.'

Her companion nodded with satisfaction. 'On the other side of that
figure-head is a marine.'

'She is twisting round in a curious way, and her sails sink in like old
cheeks, and she shivers like a leaf upon a tree.'

'She is in stays, for the larboard tack. I can see what she's been
doing. She's been re'ching close in to avoid the flood tide, as the wind
is to the sou'-west, and she's bound down; but as soon as the ebb made,
d'ye see, they made sail to the west'ard. Captain Hardy may be depended
upon for that; he knows every current about here, being a native.'

'And now I can see the other side; it is a soldier where a sailor was
before. You are _sure_ it is the Victory?'

'I am sure.'

After this a frigate came into view--the Euryalus--sailing in the same
direction. Anne sat down, and her eyes never left the ships. 'Tell me
more about the Victory,' she said.

'She is the best sailer in the service, and she carries a hundred guns.
The heaviest be on the lower deck, the next size on the middle deck, the
next on the main and upper decks. My son Ned's place is on the lower
deck, because he's short, and they put the short men below.'

Bob, though not tall, was not likely to be specially selected for
shortness. She pictured him on the upper deck, in his snow-white
trousers and jacket of navy blue, looking perhaps towards the very point
of land where she then was.

The great silent ship, with her population of blue-jackets, marines,
officers, captain, and the admiral who was not to return alive, passed
like a phantom the meridian of the Bill. Sometimes her aspect was that
of a large white bat, sometimes that of a grey one. In the course of
time the watching girl saw that the ship had passed her nearest point;
the breadth of her sails diminished by foreshortening, till she assumed
the form of an egg on end. After this something seemed to twinkle, and
Anne, who ha