“Oh, you’re here, Dorsey,” he said. “That’s for His Majesty at Windsor. See that the courier leaves within fifteen minutes. That’s for the telegraph to Plymouth. So’s that. That’s for Portsmouth. Have the copying begun immediately.”

It was interesting to watch Marsden in action; there was no trace of excitement in his voice, and although the successive sentences followed each other without a pause they did not come tumbling out. Each was clearly enunciated in a tone of apparent indifference. The papers Marsden brought in might be of vital importance — most certainly were — but Marsden acted as if he were handing out blank sheets in some meaningless ceremony. On their way to Barrow the cold eyes passed over Hornblower without affording him an opportunity of taking his leave.

“No further messages, Mr. Barrow?”

“None, Mr. Marsden.”

“There will be no confirmation from Plymouth before eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” remarked Marsden looking at the clock.

The telegraph in clear weather and daylight could transmit a message from Plymouth in fifteen minutes — Hornblower had noticed several of the huge semaphore standards during his recent journey; last year he had landed outside Brest and burned a similar machine. But a written message, carried by relays of mounted couriers (some of them riding through darkness) would take twentythree hours to make the journey. On wheels in his postchaise he himself had taken forty; it seemed now as if it were weeks, and not hours.

“This captured dispatch of Captain Hornblower’s is of interest, Mr. Marsden,” said Barrow; the tone of his voice seemed to echo Marsden’s apparent indifference. It was hard for Hornblower to decide whether it was imitation or parody.

Yet it was only a matter of moments for Marsden to read the dispatch and to grasp the important features of the writing of it.

“So now we might imitate a letter from His Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor Napoleon,” commented Marsden; the smile that accompanied the words was just as inhuman as the tone of his voice.

Hornblower was experiencing an odd reaction, possibly initialed by this last remark of Marsden’s. His head was swimming with hunger and fatigue; he was being projected into a world of unreality, and the unreality was being made still more unreal by the manner of these two cold-blooded gentlemen with whom he was closeted. There were stirrings in his brain. Wild — delirious — ideas were forming there, but no wilder than this world in which he found himself, where fleets were set in motion by a word and where an Emperor’s dispatches could be the subject of a jest. He condemned his notions to himself as lunatic nonsense, and yet even as he did so he found additions making their appearance in his mind, logical contributions building up into a fantastic whole.

Marsden was looking at him — through him — with those cold eyes.

“You may have done a great service for your King and Country,” said Marsden; the words might be interpreted as words of praise, perhaps, but the manner and expression would call for no modification if Marsden were a judge on the bench condemning a criminal.

“I hope I have done so, sir,” replied Hornblower.

“Exactly why do you hope that?”

It was a bewildering question, bewildering because its answer was so obvious.

“Because I am a King’s officer, sir,” said Hornblower.

“And not, Captain, because you expect any reward?”

“I had not thought of it, sir. It was only the purest chance,” answered Hornblower.

This was verbal fencing, and faintly irritating. Perhaps Marsden enjoyed the game. Perhaps years of having to throw cold water on the hopes of innumerable ambitious officers demanding promotion and employment had made the process habitual to him.

“A pity it is not a dispatch of real importance,” he said. “This only makes clear what we already could guess that Boney does not intend to send reinforcements to Martinique.”

“But with that for a model—” began Hornblower. The he stopped, angry with himself. His tumultuous thought would make greater nonsense still expressed in words.

“With this as a model?” repeated Marsden.

“Let us have your suggestion, Captain,” said Barrow.

“I can’t waste your time, gentlemen,” stammered Hornblower; he was on the verge of the abyss and striving unavailingly to draw back.

“You have given us an inkling, Captain,” said Barrow. “Please continue.”

There was nothing else to be done. An end to discretion.

“An order from Boney to Villeneuve, telling him to sail from Ferrol at all costs. It would have to give a reason — say that Décrès has escaped from Brest and will await him at a rendezvous off Cape Clear. So that Villeneuve must sail instantly — weigh, cut, or slip. A battle with Villeneuve is what England needs most — that would bring it about.”

Now he had committed himself. Two pairs of eyes were staring at him fixedly.

“An ideal solution, Captain,” said Marsden. “If only it could be done. How fine it would be if such an order could be delivered to Villeneuve.”

The Secretary to the Board of Admiralty probably received crackpot schemes for the destruction of the French Navy every day of the week.

“Boney will be sending orders from Paris, often enough,” went on Hornblower. He was not going to give up. “How often do you transmit orders from this office to CommandersinChief, sir? To Admiral Cornwallis, for instance? Once a week, sir? Oftener?”

“At least,” admitted Marsden.

“Boney would write more often than that, I think.”

“He would,” agreed Barrow.

“And those orders would come by road. Of course Boney would never trust the Spanish postal services. An officer — a French officer, one of the Imperial aidesde-camp — would ride with the orders through Spain, from the French frontier to Ferrol.”

“Yes?” said Marsden. He was at least interested enough to admit an interrogative note into the monosyllable.

“Captain Hornblower has been engaged on gathering information from the French coast for the last two years,” interposed Barrow. “His name was always appearing in Cornwallis’ dispatches, Mr. Marsden.”

“I know that, Mr. Barrow,” said Madden; there might even be a testy note in his voice at the interruption.

“The dispatch is forged,” said Hornblower, taking the final plunge. “A small party is landed secretly with it at a quiet spot on the Spanish Biscay coast, posing as French officials, or Spanish officials, and they travel slowly towards the frontier along the highroad. A succession of couriers is coming in the opposite direction, bearing orders for Villeneuve. Seize one of them — kill him, perhaps — or perhaps with the best of luck substitute the forged order for the one he is carrying. Otherwise one of the party turns back, posing as a French officer, and delivers the false letter to Villeneuve.”

There was the whole plan, fantastic and yet — and yet — at least faintly possible. At least not demonstrably impossible.

“You say you’ve seen these Spanish roads, Captain?” asked Barrow.

“I saw something of them, sir.”

Hornblower turned back from addressing Barrow to find Marsden’s gaze still unwavering, fixed on his face.

“Haven’t you any more to say, Captain? Surely you have.”

This might be irony; it might be intended to lure him into making a greater and greater fool of himself. But there was so much that was plainly obvious and which he had forborne to mention. His weary mind could still deal with such points, with a moment to put them in order.

“This is an opportunity, gentlemen. A victory at sea is what England needs more than anything else at this moment. Could we measure its value? Could we? It would put an end to Boney’s schemes. It would ease the strain of blockade beyond all measure. What would we give for the chance?”

“Millions,” said Barrow.

“And what do we risk? Two or three agents. If they fail, that is all we have lost. A penny ticket in a lottery. An infinite gain against an inconsiderable loss.”