'Indeed, Mr Marlowe, very pretty.' Drinkwater replaced the glass to his eye and steadied the long barrel of the telescope against the after starboard mizen backstay.

'Redolent of the blessings of peace,' Marlowe went on.

'Very redolent,' agreed his commander from the corner of his mouth.

Marlowe regarded the rather quaint figure. They were of a height, but there the resemblance ended. Against his own innate polish, Marlowe thought Captain Drinkwater something of a tarpaulin. True, his uniform glittered in the late April sunshine with as much pomp as Lieutenant Marlowe's own, and Captain Drinkwater did indeed sport the double bullion epaulettes of a senior post-captain, but judging by the way they sat upon his shoulders, he looked a little hunchbacked. As for the old-fashioned queue, well, quaint was not the word for it. It was like an old mare's braided tail, done up for a mid-summer horse fair! The irreverent thought caused him to splutter with a half-suppressed laugh. It sounded like a sneeze.

'God bless you, Mr Marlowe.' The glass remained steadfastly horizontal. "Tis the sun upon the water and all these gilded folderols I expect.'

Drinkwater swung his glass and raked the accompanying ships. To starboard His Britannic Majesty's ship-rigged yacht Royal Sovereign drove along under her topsails and a jib. She was ablaze with gilt gingerbread work and gaudy with silken banners. Aloft she bore the fouled anchor of Admiralty at the fore, the Union flag at her mizen with a huge red ensign at her peak, but at her main truck flew the white oriflamme of the Bourbons, its field resplendent with golden lilies. It denoted the presence on board of King Louis XVIII of France, on passage to his restoration as His Most Christian Majesty. Accompanying the king was a suite which included the Prince de Condé, the Due de Bourbon and the bitter-featured Duchesse d'Angoulême, the Orphan of the Temple, sole surviving child of the guillotined Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.