The life of a country gentleman might be pleasant and secure but sometimes it was damnably dull.

“Very good, my lord.”

Hornblower took a glance in the ormolu mirror over the fireplace as Brown withdrew; his cravat and his shirt front were in good order, the sparse white hairs were tidy, and there was something of the old twinkle in the brown eyes under the snowwhite eyebrows. Brown returned and held the door as he made his announcement.

“Mr Napoleon Bonaparte.”

It was not the figure that the prints had made so familiar that came into the room. No green coat and white breeches, no cocked hat and epaulettes; the man who entered wore a civilian suit of grey, apparent under an unbuttoned cloak with a cape. The grey was nearly black with wet; the man was soaked to the skin, and as high as the knees of his tight strapped trousers he was plastered with mud; but he would have been a dandy had his clothes not been in so deplorable a condition. There was something about his figure that might recall Bonaparte’s—the short legs that made his height a little below average—and there might be something about the grey eyes that studied Hornblower so keenly in the candlelight, but the rest of his appearance was unexpectedly not even a parody or a travesty of the Emperor’s. He actually wore a heavy moustache and a little tuft of beard—if anyone could imagine the great Napoleon with a moustache!—and instead of the short hair with the lock drooping on the forehead this man wore his hair fashionably long; it would have been in ringlets over the ears if it had not been so wet that it hung in rats’ tails.

“Good evening, sir,” said Hornblower.

“Good evening. Lord Hornblower, I understand?”

“That is so.”

The newcomer spoke good English, but with a decided accent. But it did not seem to be the accent of a Frenchman.

“I must apologize for intruding upon you at this time.”