“First at the rendezvous!” said Bolton. “Come this way, sir. It does my heart good to see you again. I’ve twelve dozen sherry here I’ll be glad to hear your opinion of. Where are those glasses, steward? Your very good health, sir!”

Captain Bolton’s after cabin was furnished with a luxury which contrasted oddly with Hornblower’s. There were satin cushions on the lockers; the swinging lamps were of silver, and so were the table appointments on the white linen cloth on the table. Bolton had been lucky in the matter of prize money when in command of a frigate—a single cruise had won him five thousand pounds—and Bolton had started life before the mast. The momentary jealousy which Hornblower experienced evaporated as he noted the poor taste of the cabin fittings, and remembered how dowdy Mrs Bolton had looked when he saw her last. More than anything else, Bolton’s obvious pleasure at seeing him, and the genuine respect he evinced in his attitude towards him, combined to give Hornblower a better opinion of himself.

“From the rapidity with which you reached the rendezvous, it appears that your passage was even quicker than ours,” said Bolton, and the conversation lapsed into technicalities, which endured even after dinner was served.

And clearly Bolton had little idea of what kind of dinner to offer in this scorching heat. There was pea soup, excellent, but heavy. Red mullet—a last minute purchase in Port Mahon at the moment of sailing. A saddle of mutton. Boiled cabbage. A Stilton cheese, now a little past its best. A syrupy port which was not to Hornblower’s taste. No salad, no fruit, not one of the more desirable products of the Minorca Bolton had just left.

“Minorquin mutton, I fear,” said Bolton, carvers in hand. “My last English sheep died mysteriously at Gibraltar and provided dinner for the gunroom. But you will take a little more, sir?”

“Thank you, no,” said Hornblower. He had eaten manfully through a vast helping, and, gorged with mutton fat, was sitting sweating now in the sweltering cabin. Bolton pushed the wine back to him, and Hornblower poured a few drops into his half empty glass. A lifetime of practice had made him adept at appearing to drink level with his host while actually drinking one glass to three. Bolton emptied his own glass and refilled it.

“And now,” said Bolton, “we must await in idleness the arrival of SirMucho Pomposo, Rear Admiral of the Red.”

Hornblower looked at Bolton quite startled. He himself would never have risked speaking of his superior officer as Mucho Pomposo to anyone. Moreover, it had not occurred to him to think of Sir Percy Leighton in that fashion. Criticism of a superior who had yet to demonstrate to him his capacity one way or the other was not Hornblower’s habit; and possibly he was specially slow to criticise a superior who was Lady Barbara’s husband.

“Mucho Pomposo, I said,” repeated Bolton. He had drunk one glass more of port than was quite wise, and was pouring himself out another one. “We can sit and polish our backsides while he works that old tub of a Pluto round from Lisbon. Wind’s sou’easterly. So it was yesterday, too. If he didn’t pass the Straits two days back it’ll be a week or more before he appears. And if he doesn’t leave all the navigation to Elliott he’ll never arrive at all.”

Hornblower looked up anxiously at the skylight. If any report of his conversation were to reach higher quarters it would do Bolton no good. The latter interpreted the gesture correctly.

“Oh, never fear,” he said. “I can trust my officers. They don’t respect an admiral who’s no seaman any more than I do. Well, what have you to say?”

Hornblower proffered the suggestion that one of the two ships might push to the northward and begin the task of harassing the French and Spanish coast while the other stayed on the rendezvous awaiting the admiral.

“That’s a worthy suggestion,” said Bolton.

Hornblower shook off the lassitude occasioned by the heat and the vast meal inside him. He wanted the Sutherland to be despatched on this duty. The prospect of immediate action was stimulating. He could feel his pulse quickening at the thought, and the more he considered it the more anxious he was that the choice should fall on him. Days of dreary beating about on and off the rendezvous made no appeal to him at all. He could bear it if necessary—twenty years in the navy would harden anyone to waiting—but he did not want to have to. He did not want to.

“Who shall it be?” said Bolton. “You or me?” Hornblower took a grip of his eagerness.

“You are the senior officer on the station, sir,” he said. “It is for you to say.”

“Yes,” said Bolton, meditatively. “Yes.”

He looked at Hornblower with a considering eye.

“You’d give three fingers to go,” he said suddenly, “and you know it. You’re the same restless devil that you were in the Indefatigable. I remember beating you for it, in ‘93, or was it ‘94?”

Hornblower flushed hotly at the reminder. The bitter humiliation of being bent over a gun and beaten by the lieutenant of the midshipman’s berth rankled to this day when it was recalled to him. But he swallowed his resentment; he had no wish to quarrel with Bolton, especially at this juncture, and he knew he was exceptional in regarding a beating as an outrage.

“’93, sir,” he said. “I’d just joined.”

“And now you’re a post captain, and most noteworthy one in the bottom half of the list,” said Bolton. “God, how time flies. I’d let you go, Hornblower, for old times’ sake, if I didn’t want to go myself.”

“Oh,” said Hornblower. His evident disappointment made his expression ludicrous. Bolton laughed.

“Fair’s fair,” he said. “I’ll spin a coin for it. Agreed?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hornblower, eagerly. Better an even chance than no chance at all.

“You’ll bear me no malice if I win?”

“No, sir. None.”

With maddening slowness Bolton reached into his fob and brought out his purse. He took out a guinea and laid it on the table, and then, with the same deliberation, while Hornblower wrestled with his eagerness, he replaced the purse. Then he took up the guinea, and poised it on his gnarled thumb and forefinger.

“King or spade?” he asked, looking across at Hornblower.

“Spade,” said Hornblower, swallowing hard.

The coin rang as Bolton spun it in the air; he caught it, and crashed it on to the table.

“Spade it is,” he said, lifting his hand.

Bolton went through all the motions once more of taking out his purse, putting the guinea back, and thrusting the purse into his fob, while Hornblower forced himself to sit still and watch him. He was cool again now, with the immediate prospect of action.

“Damn it, Hornblower,” he said. “I’m glad you won. You can speak the Dago lingo, which is more than I can. You’ve had experience with ‘em in the South Sea. It’s the sort of duty just made for you. Don’t be gone more than three days. I ought to put that in writing, in case his High Mightiness comes back. But I won’t trouble. Good luck to you, Hornblower, and fill your glass.”

Hornblower filled it two-thirds full—if he left a little in the bottom he would only have drunk half a glass more than he wanted then. He sipped, and leaned back in his chair, restraining his eagerness as long as possible. But it overcame him at last, and he rose.

“God damn it, man, you’re not going?” said Bolton. Hornblower’s attitude was unmistakable, but he could not believe the evidence of his eyes.

“If you would permit me, sir,” said Hornblower. “There’s a fair wind—”

Hornblower was actually stammering as he tried to make all his explanations at once. The wind might change; if it was worth while separating it was better to go now than later; if the Sutherland were to stand in towards the coast during the dark hours there was a chance that she might snap up a prize at dawn—every sort of explanation except the true one that he could not bear to sit still any longer with immediate action awaiting him just over the horizon.