She had not heard him. She watched the sails, misty and unreal like shells, the darker line of the slender hull beneath.

"What is she, Toby? Can you see her rig?"

The man sounded stunned. "Frigate. No doubt o' that. Seen too many o' they in an' out o' Carrick Roads over th' years! "

"Still, could be anyone. Ride down to the harbour an' see if you can discover anythin'…"

They both turned as she said quietly, "It is he."

She had extended the telescope to its full length. She waited for the horse to quieten so that she could stare without blinking. Then she said, "I can see her figurehead in the sunshine." She handed back the glass, her eyes suddenly blind. "Anemone…" She saw it in her mind's eye as she had seen it in reality, before the ship had tacked into shadow again: the full-breasted girl with the raised trumpet, her gilt paint so clear in the reflected glare. She repeated as if to herself, "Anemone… daughter of the wind."

She leaned her face against the horse. "Thank God. You came back to me."

Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho awoke from a disturbed sleep and stared up at the darkness of the small sleeping-cabin, his mind responding instantly to the sounds and movements around him. His sailor's instinct told him that like the cabin the sea was still dark outside this lithe, graceful hull: a command for which any young officer would give his right arm. He listened to the dull thud of the tiller head as it matched the rudder's strength against the sea and the wind's thrust in the sails, heard the sluice of water alongside as the frigate Anemone leaned over on a new tack to a different motion. Gone were the great soaring thrusts of the Western Ocean, through hard sunshine and lashing rain in equal portions. Here the seas were short and steep as the ship ploughed her way nearer to the land. Three weeks from the Caribbean. Adam had driven his Anemone like the thoroughbred she was.