Mr Martin Forester was growing anxious. He pulled out his watch and looked at it, then glanced up at the sky before turning his gaze impatiently towards the shoreline. It was getting late and wanted only six minutes to sunset, but an advancing overcast had obscured the setting sun to cause a premature darkness. He did not like the look of the weather. The ship, although anchored in the lee of the high land half a mile to the south of her, lifted to a low swell rolling along the coast, and the wind was strong enough, even here, to set up a mournful moan in the rigging. Beyond Bull Point to the westward the Atlantic was brewing an unseasonal gale. He felt the vessel, lying with her head to the west, snub to her cable as the flood tide surged past her hull and fought for mastery of her with the wind in her rigging. If the wind got up any more, he knew she would see-saw back and forth, her cable occasionally jumping against the whelps on the windlass gypsy with a judder, until the tide turned and she lay betwixt wind and tide, rolling to the swell. It was not going to be a pleasant night. Not for mid-July, anyway, he concluded, giving vent to his feelings.

'Damn it!' he muttered.

Sensing rather than hearing the mate's agitation, the quartermaster on the port side of the bridge above the paddle-box lowered the long watch-glass and announced helpfully, 'No sign of the boat yet, sir.'