Equally, of course, the Captain had to tell him what he knew--how the fort was built of solid masonry, sixteen feet thick, with two feet of armour-plating outside that; and how the little fortress, as it undoubtedly was, had a well dug deep down into the sands below the sea, to supply its garrison with fresh-water in the event of communication being cut off with the mainland. To provide against which contingency it was also provisioned and furnished with every requisite to stand a siege. He was explaining all this, when a large screw-steamer, high in the bows and low in the stern, crossed the _Bembridge Belle_ making for Portsmouth. "Hullo, ma'am!" cried the Captain, glad to have the opportunity of a sly dig at Mrs Gilmour in remembrance of her previous amusement at his expense, "there's your pig-boat!" "What!" said she innocently. "I don't understand you." "The Irish pig-boat, ma'am," he repeated, his beady black eyes twinkling and his bushy eyebrows moving up and down, as they always did when he said anything funny. "It brings your fellow-countrymen over here twice a week." "You're very complimentary, sir," said she. "Very complimentary, I declare!" "Not a bit of it, ma'am," he replied, delighted at the idea of her taking his remark seriously. "Don't you, in your `swate little island' call poor piggy `the jintleman who pays the rint,' eh?" "Sure," she retorted with a smile, taking up the cudgels on behalf of her country, "there are more pigs in England than what come over from Ireland!" "I cry a truce!" exclaimed the old sailor laughing heartily, Bob and Nell, too, as well as Dick, appreciating the joke hugely; "you had me there, ma'am, you had me there!" The _Bembridge Belle_ was now well across the waterway, rapidly nearing the pier from which they had originally started in the morning, and Mrs Gilmour was just saying what a very enjoyable day they had passed, in spite of all mishaps, while Nellie was priding herself on the grand collection of wild-flowers she had made with her aunt's help, and Bob and Dick busy over the bucket, showing Hellyer the various treasures they had picked up amongst the rocks on the shore; when, all at once, the bows of the steamer struck against something in the channel, with a concussion that threw nearly everybody off their feet--the shock being succeeded by a harsh grating sound as if her hull was gradually being ripped open. "Good gracious me!" cried out Mrs Gilmour, "what on earth is that?" Nobody, however, for the moment, attended to her: nobody, indeed, even heard the question; for the scene of quiet enjoyment which the deck had presented the moment before was changed to one of utter confusion, the shrieks of frightened women and hoarse cries of some of the men mingling with the screams of children and the noise of escaping steam, roaring up the funnel.