the bows. Sometimes I
watched it with my naked eyes. Sometimes I hastened the approach of
the new things by bringing my field glasses to bear upon them. And,
all the time, I had a sense of satisfaction, as of something
pleasant which had just occurred.

At first the broad blue floor of the sea stretched right away on
every side without a sail anywhere to suggest that it was a medium
of traffic. The sky, a far paler blue, met the horizon all round. It
was only a slight restlessness over the surface that made the
Mediterranean distinguishable from a vast and still inland lake.
The ship plied steadily onward in the opposite direction to the sun,
which looked down upon the scene with its hot glance unmodified by
cloud or haze.

With my glasses I swept the empty waters. At last I saw, sketched
over there with palest touch, a line of mountains--just such a range
as a child would draw, one peak having a narrow point, another a
rounded summit. This land lay at so great a distance that it was
shadowless, and looked like a long bit of broken slate with its
jagged ends uppermost. I cast in my mind whether Gallipoli loomed
like this: and Gallipoli, somehow, seemed more peaceful since that
satisfying event of the morning.

I dropped my glasses. For the first time I realised that I was
setting out to do something difficult for England. Actually I! I
glowed in the thought, for to-day, if ever, I was in an heroic mood.
I touched for a moment the perfect patriotism. Yes, if Beauty
demanded it, I could give all for England--all.

As the day went by, we seemed to be rounding that mountainous
island, for it lingered on our port, always changing its aspect, but
always remaining beautiful.

The whole scene was Beauty. And this Beauty, urged the voice of the
priest, was to have something to say in moments when I must choose
between this bad deed and that good one. Of the two, I was to do the
one that was the more like the Mediterranean on a summer day.

Oh, I had a clear enough ideal now. And why had I never seen before,
as Monty had seen, that, just as there was far more beauty in seas
and hills than ugliness, so on the whole there was more goodness in
human characters than evil, and, assuredly, more happiness in life
than pain. And the old Colonel, too, had seen beauty in youth and
strength; he had seen it triumphing in Penny's death and in all this
sanguinary Dardanelles campaign.

Yes, I had closed on the idea. Even the lively e