His quick glance took in all Farlingford in one comprehensive
verdict. There was nothing to be made of it. It was uninteresting
because it obviously had no future, nor encouraged any enterprise.
He looked across the marshes indifferently, following the line of
the river as it made its devious way between high dykes to the sea.
And suddenly his eye lighted. There was a sail to the south. A
schooner was standing in to the river mouth, her sails glowing
rosily in the last of the sunset light.

Colville turned to see whether River Andrew had noticed, and saw
that landsman looking skyward with an eye that seemed to foretell
the early demise of a favouring wind.

"That's 'The Last Hope,'" he said, in answer to Dormer Colville's
question. "And it will take all Seth Clubbe's seamanship to save
the tide. 'The Last Hope.' There's many a 'Hope,' built at
Farlingford, and that's the last, for the yard is closed and there's
no more building now."

The Marquis de Gemosac had turned away from the grave, but as
Colville approached him he looked back to it with a shake of the
head.

"After eight centuries of splendour, my friend," he said. "Can that
be the end--that?"

"It is not the end," answered Colville, cheerfully. "It is only the
end of a chapter. Le roi est mort--vive le roi!"

He pointed with his stick, as he spoke, to the schooner creeping in