“If you could give me notice of when you intend to sail, sir—I mean My Lord,” said Harcourt.

“Until dawn tomorrow in any case,” said Hornblower coming to a sudden decision; his day was full until then.

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

Would the grogshops of New Orleans waterfront be any different from the grogshops of Kingston or Port of Spain?

“Now perhaps I can have my breakfast, Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Unless you have any objection?”

“Aye aye, My Lord,” answered Gerard, carefully ignoring the sarcasm. He had long learned that his Admiral objected to nothing in the world as much as having to be active before breakfast.

It was after breakfast that a coloured man, trotting barefooted along the pier, came bearing on his head a basket of fruit which he handed in at the gangway at the moment when Hornblower was about to start off on his official round of calls.

“There’s a note with it, My Lord,” said Gerard. “Shall I open it?”

“Yes.”

“It is from Mr. Sharpe,” reported Gerard, after breaking the seal, and then some seconds later, “I think you had better read this yourself, My Lord.”

Hornblower took the thing impatiently.

My Lord [

I have imposed upon myself the pleasure of sending some fruit to Your Lordship.

It is my duty to inform Your Lordship that I have just received information that the freight which Count Cambronne brought out here from France, and which has been lying in bond in charge of the United States Customs Services, will shortly be transferred by lighter through the agency of a bonded carrier to the Daring.