He heard her voice now as clearly as if she were standing here on this rapidly drying deck. "Keep this around your neck, darling Richard. I shall take it off again only when you are lying by my side as my lover."

He felt the engraving on the back of the locket. Like the small wisp of hair, it was new, something she had caused to be done in London while he had been at the Admiralty.

So simply said, as if she were speaking to him even as he recalled it.

May Fate always guide you. May love always protect you.

He walked to the nettings, and shaded his eyes to watch some gulls. It made him tremble merely to think of her, how they had loved in Antigua and in Cornwall for so short a time together.

He moved his head slightly, holding his breath. The sun was strong but not yet high enough to-He hesitated, then looked hard at the horizon's glittering line.

Nothing happened. The mist did not edge out like some evil disease to mock his left eye. Nothing.

Allday was looking aft and saw Bolitho's expression, and felt like praying. It was like seeing the face of a man on the scaffold when given a last-minute reprieve.

"Deck there! " Every face looked up. "Sail on the starboard quarter! "

Poland called sharply, "Mr Williams, I'd be obliged if you would take a glass aloft! "

The first lieutenant seized a telescope from the midshipman on watch and hurried to the main shrouds. He looked surprised: Bolitho guessed it was at his captain's unusual courtesy, rather than the task.

Truculent 's sails were barely filling, and yet the stranger's topgallants seemed to be speeding down on a converging tack at a tremendous rate.

He had seen it many times. The same stretch of ocean, with one ship all but becalmed, and another with every stitch of canvas filled to the brim.

Poland glanced at Bolitho, his features expressionless. But his fingers were opening and closing at his sides, betraying his agitation.