“What is the service, my lord?” asked the latter.

“Suppression of mutiny,” said St. Vincent grimly. “Damned bloody mutiny. It might be ‘94 over again. Did you ever know Chadwick—Lieutenant Augustine Chadwick?”

“Midshipman with me under Pellew, my lord.”

“Well, he’s—ah, here’s my damned coach at last. What about Lady Barbara?”

“I’ll take my own carriage back to Bond Street,” said Barbara, “and I’ll send it back for Horatio at the Admiralty. Here it comes now.”

The carriage, with Brown and the coachman on the box, drew up behind St. Vincent’s coach, and Brown sprang down.

“Very good, then. Come on, Hornblower. Your servant, ma’am, again.”

St. Vincent climbed in heavily, with Hornblower beside him, and the horses’ hoofs clashed on the cobbles as the heavy vehicle crawled forward. The pale sunlight flickered through the windows on St. Vincent’s craggy face as he sat stoop-shouldered on the leather seat; some urchins in the street caught sight of the gaily attired individuals in the coach and yelled ‘Hooray’, waving their tattered caps.

“Chadwick had Flame, eighteen-gun brig,” said St. Vincent. “The crew’s mutinied in the Bay of the Seine and are holding him and the other officers hostage. They turned a master’s mate and four loyal hands adrift in the gig with an ultimatum addressed to the Admiralty. The gig made Bembridge last night, and the papers have just reached me—here they are.”

St. Vincent shook in his gnarled hand the despatch and the enclosures which he had clasped since he received them in Westminster Abbey.

“What’s the ultimatum, my lord?”

“Amnesty—oblivion. And hang Chadwick. Otherwise they turn the brig over to the French.”