Drinkwater nodded. 'I gathered as much. He seemed a little nervous of me last evening.'

Poulter smiled. 'You come with a formidable reputation, Sir Nathaniel. Quier's a fine seaman, but unfortunately he was overridden in the boat at Flatholm a day or two ago ... It serves ill in front of the men.'

'Of course. I shall endeavour to take advantage of my grey hairs, though he seems determined to have a shot at the landing.'

'Yes. The business at Flatholm was unfortunate in that Captain Drew was proved right...'

'And thus considers himself a greater expert than formerly, while Quier feels a touch humiliated, eh?'

Poulter nodded. 'Indeed. Quier was not at fault, merely a trifle cautious...'

'Because, no doubt, Captain Drew was in the boat beside him?'

'Exactly so.'

'Well, we shall have to see what we can do to moderate matters,' Drinkwater said.

'I hope you won't mistake my meaning, Sir Nathaniel, but...'

'Think no more of it, Poulter,' Drinkwater replied reassuringly and then, seeing Drew lower the glass and turn towards them again, he called out, 'Well, what d'you make of it?'

'It's not so bad,' Drew answered, leaning against the cant of the deck and waving the telescope at the headland that lay like a grey dragon sprawling along the southern horizon on their port bow. Its extremity dipped to the sea, and just above the declivity stood the squat lighthouse of Hartland Point, revealed in a sudden patch of brightness that banished the monotone and threw up the fissured rock, patches of vegetation and the white structure of the lighthouse and its dwellings.

'See, the sun's coming out!' Drew threw the remark out with a flourish.

A few moments later sunlight spread across the sea, transforming the grey waste into a sparkling vista of tumbling waves through which, it suddenly seemed, Vestal's passage was an exuberant progress. As if to emphasize the change of atmosphere, a school of bottle-nosed dolphins appeared on the starboard bow, racing in to close the plunging steam-ship and gambol about her bow under the dipping white figurehead.