“The last of the cargo’s going on board now, My Lord,” he said. “The logwood’s all in and the coir is on the quay. If Your Lordship and Her Ladyship will come on board this evening we’ll sail with the land breeze at dawn.”

“Thank you, captain. I am greatly obliged to you,” said Hornblower, trying not to be fulsome to make up for his coldness at the Governor’s party.

Pretty Jane was a flush-decked brig, save that amidships she carried a small but substantial deckhouse for her passengers. Barbara had inhabited it for five weeks on the outward voyage. Now they entered it together, with all the bustle of the ship’s getting ready for sea going on round them.

“I used to look at that other bed, dear,” she said to Hornblower as they stood in the deckhouse, “and I used to tell myself that soon my husband would be sleeping there. It seemed too good to be possible, dear.”

A noise outside distracted them.

“This case, ma’am?” asked the Government House servant who was bringing their baggage on board under Gerard’s supervision.

“That? Oh, I’ve asked the captain about that already. It’s to go in the steerage.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Delicacies in tin boxes,” explained Barbara to Hornblower.

“I brought them all the way out for you to enjoy while going home, dear.”

“You are too good to me,” said Hornblower.

A case that size and weight would be a nuisance in the deckhouse. In the steerage its contents would be readily accessible.

“What is coir?” asked Barbara, looking out to see one of the final bales going down the hatchway.

“The hairy husks of coconuts,” explained Hornblower.

“What in the world are we carrying those to England for?” asked Barbara.

“There are machines now which can weave it. They make coco-matting by the mile in England now.”

“And logwood?”

“They extract a dye from it. A bright red dye.”

“You are my unfailing source of information, dear,” said Barbara, “as well as everything else in life for me.”

“Here’s Their Excellencies coming, My Lord,” warned Gerard, arriving at the deckhouse door.

That meant the final goodbyes, in the dying evening. A painful, sad moment; much shaking of hands; kisses on each cheek for Barbara from Lady Hooper; the word ‘goodbye’ repeated over and over again, overwhelming in its finality. Goodbye to friends and to acquaintances, goodbye to Jamaica and to the command-in-chief. Goodbye to one life, with the next still to disclose itself. Goodbye to the last shadowy figure disappearing in the darkness of the quay, and then to turn again to Barbara standing beside him, permanent in these transitions,

In the first light of next morning Hornblower could hardly be blamed for being on deck, feeling oddly awkward with the necessity for keeping out of the way, watching while Knyvett warped the Pretty Jane away from the quay, to catch the land breeze and head out of the harbour. Luckily Knyvett was made of sturdy stuff, and was not in the least discomposed at having to handle his ship under the eye of an Admiral. The land breeze filled the sails; Pretty Jane gathered way. They dipped the flag to Fort Augusta, and then, with the helm hard over, came round to leave Drunken Cay and South Cay on their port side before beginning the long reach to the eastward. And Hornblower could relax and contemplate the new prospect of breakfasting with his wife on shipboard.

He surprised himself at the ease with which he accustomed himself to being a passenger. At first he was so anxious to give no indication of interference that he did not even dare to look into the binnacle to note their course. He was content to sit with Barbara in two hammock chairs in the shade of the deckhouse—there were beckets to which the chairs could be hooked to prevent them sliding down the deck to leeward as Pretty Jane heeled over—and think about nothing in particular, watching the flying fish furrowing the surface, and the patches of yellow Sargasso weed drift by, gold against the blue, and an occasional turtle swimming manfully along far from land. He could watch Captain Knyvett and his mate take their noon sights and assure himself that he had no interest at all in the figures they were obtaining—and in truth he was really more interested in the punctuality of mealtimes. He could crack an idle joke with Barbara to the effect that Pretty Jane had made this run so often she could be trusted to find her way home without supervision; and his mind was lazy enough to think that funny.

It was actually his first holiday after three years of strenuous work. During much of that time he had frequently been under severe strain, and during all of it he had been busy. He sank into idleness as a man might sink into a warm bath, with the difference that he had not expected to find this relaxation and ease in idleness, and (more important, perhaps) in the cessation of responsibility. Nothing mattered during those golden days. He was the person least concerned in all the ship, as Pretty Jane thrashed her way northward, in the burning question as to whether the wind would hold steady to enable her to weather Point Maysi, without having to go about, and he did not care when they did not succeed. He endured philosophically the long beat to windward back towards Haiti, and he smiled patronisinglv at the petty jubilation on board when they succeeded on the next tack and passed through the Windward Channel so that they might almost consider themselves out of the Caribbean. A persistent northward slant in the Trades kept them from attempting the Caicos Passage, and they had to hold away to the eastward for Silver Bank Passage. Caicos or Silver Bank—or for that matter Turks Island or Mouchoir—he did not care. He did not care whether he arrived home in August or September.

Yet his instincts were only dormant. That evening, when they were truly in the Atlantic, he felt restless and disturbed for the first time since leaving Jamaica. There was something heavy in the breathing of the air, and something unusual about the swell that was rolling the Pretty Jane so heavily. A gale before morning, he decided. A little unusual in these latitudes at this time of year, but nothing really to worry about. He did not trouble Barbara with his notions, but he woke several times in the night to find the ship still rolling heavily. When the watch was called he noted that all hands were kept on deck to shorten sail, and he was tempted to go out to see what was happening. A clatter outside awoke Barbara.

“What’s that?” she asked, sleepily.

“Only the deadlights, dear,” he answered.

Someone had slammed the deadlights against the deckhouse windows and clamped them home—Knyvett must be expecting to ship some heavy seas. Barbara went back to sleep, and Hornblower actually followed her example, but in half an hour he was awake again. The gale was unceasing, and the ship was working considerably in the swell, so that everything was groaning and creaking. He lay in the darkness to feel the ship heaving and lying over under him, and he could both hear and actually feel the vibration of the taut standing rigging transmitted to his bunk via the deck. He would like to go out and have a look at the weather, but he did not wish to disturb Barbara.

“Awake, dear?” said a small voice the other side of the deckhouse.

“Yes,” he answered.

“It seems to be getting rough.”

“A little,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about. Go to sleep again, dear.”

Now he could not go out because Barbara was awake and would know about it. He made himself lie still; it was pitch dark in the deckhouse with the deadlights in, and, perhaps because of the cessation of ventilation, it was now overpoweringly hot despite the gale. Pretty Jane was leaping about extravagantly, and every now and then lying over so far that he feared lest Barbara should be rolled out of her bunk. Then he was conscious of a change in the vessel’s behaviour, of a difference in the thunderous creaking that filled the darkness. Knyvett had hove the Pretty Jane to; she was not lying over, but she was pitching fantastically, indicating a really heavy sea outside. He wanted so much to go out and see for himself. He had no idea even of what the time was—it was far too dark to look at his watch. At the thought that it might be dawn he could restrain himself no longer.