The horses were changed in a twinkling; the postillion scrambled into his saddle, and proceeded to tilt a black bottle against his lips during the remaining few seconds while the lock filled. The steersman was casting off the lines—Hornblower took the bowline from him—and the lockkeeper’s wife was thrusting at one upper gate while the lockkeeper, running up from the lower gate, thrust at the other. The postillion yelled and cracked his whip, the boat sprang forward while the helmsman leaped to his place astern, and they were off again with not a second wasted. Assuredly this canal traffic was a miracle of modernity, and it was gratifying to be on board the very fastest of the canal boats, the Queen Charlotte, that took priority over all other traffic. On her bow she carried a glittering scytheblade as the proud symbol of her superior importance. It would sever the towline of any approaching boat which did not drop her line quickly enough to let her through. The two score of farmers’ wives and wenches who sat aft in the second class with their chickens and ducks and eggs and butter were all of them travelling as much as twenty miles to market, in the confident expectation of returning the same day. Quite astonishing.

Here, as they climbed to the summit level, lock succeeded lock at frequent intervals, and at each the postillion held his black bottle to his lips, and his yells to his horses became more raucous and his whip-cracking more continuous. Hornblower obediently handed the bowline at each lock, despite Maria’s urgings to the contrary.

“My dear,” said Hornblower, “we save time if I do.”

“But it isn’t right,” said Maria. “He knows you’re a captain in the Navy.”

“He knows it too well,” said Hornblower with a lopsided smile. “And after all I have a command to take up.”

“As if it couldn’t wait,” snorted Maria.

It was hard to make Maria understand that to a captain his command was all in all, that he wished to lose not an hour, not a minute, in his journey to assume command of his sloop of war in London River; he was yearning to see what Atropos was like, with the mingled hope and apprehension that might be expected of an Oriental bridegroom affianced to a veiled bride—that was not a simile that it would be wise to mention to Maria, though.