breath intaken swiftly, soothed him. He fell into a waking dream.

It seemed to his wide eyes that the sea rose, heavenward as a wall;
its foot set in foam, its summit on a level with his face. Against
it a silver ladder leaned. He had but to mount that ladder to pluck
the island-jewel, the desire of his heart these many years.

He reached a hand into the night as though to realise his wish; and
even as he did so, the sloop barked.

A mortar hard by boomed; the sea splashed; the sloop scudded seaward,
laughing; and the dreamer awoke.

Behind him, hutted on the cliffs, lay the Army of England: [Footnote:
The Army of England was Napoleon's name for the Army of Invasion.]
such a sword, now two years a-tempering, as even he, the Great
Swordsman, had never wielded.

Beneath him in the dimming basin huddled 3000 gun-vessels, waiting
their call.

Before him, across the moon-white waste, under the North star, lay
that stubborn little land of Bibles and evening bells, of smoky cities,
and hedge-rows fragrant with dog-rose and honeysuckle, of apple-cheeked
children, greedy fighting-men, and still-eyed women who became the
mothers of indomitable seamen--that storm-beaten land which for so
long now, turn he where he would, had risen before him, Angel of the
Flaming Sword, and waved him back.

Between him and it ran a narrow lane of sea, the moon-road white across