"Oh, what is it? Speak, man," cried Talbot, in sudden fear which he could not explain. Philip Wilton had drawn near and was listening eagerly. "That ship there--the Radnor, you know--is lost, and all on board of her must have perished long since." "Yes, yes, it's awful; but what of that? what of Katharine?" "Don't you remember the note? Colonel Wilton and she were on the Radnor." The strain of the last hour had undermined the nervous strength of the young soldier. He looked at Seymour, half dazed. "It can't be," he murmured. "Why did you do it? How could you?" The world turned black before him. He reeled as if from a blow, and would have fallen if Seymour had not caught him. Philip strained his gaze out over the dark water. "Oh, my father, my father!" he cried. "Mr. Seymour, is there no hope, no chance?" "None whatever, my boy; they are gone." "Oh, Katharine, Katharine! Why did you do it, Seymour?" said Talbot, again. Seymour turned away in silence. He could not reply; now that it was done, he had no reason. The dim light from the binnacle lantern fell on the face of Bentley; tears were standing in the old man's eyes as he looked at them, and he said slowly, as if in response to Talbot's question,-- "For love of country, gentlemen." And this, again, is war upon the sea! BOOK III THE LION AT BAY CHAPTER XIX _The Port of Philadelphia_ The day before Christmas, the warden of the port of Philadelphia, standing glass in hand on one of the wharves, noticed a strange vessel slowly coming up the bay. This in itself was not an unusual sight. Many vessels during the course of a year arrived at, or departed from, the chief city of the American continent. Not so many small traders or coasting-vessels or ponderous East Indiamen, perhaps, as in the busy times of peace before the war began; but their place was taken by privateers and their prizes, or a ship from France, bringing large consignments of war material from the famous house of Rodrigo Hortalez & Co., of which the versatile and ingenuous [Transcriber's note: ingenious?] M. de Beaumarchais was the _deus ex machina_; and once in a while one of the few ships of war of the Continental navy, or some of the galleys or gunboats of Commodore Hazelwood's Pennsylvania State defence fleet. But the approaching ship was evidently neither a privateer nor a vessel of war, neither did she present the appearance of a peaceful merchantman. There was something curious and noteworthy in her aspect which excited the attention of the port warden, and then of the loungers along Front Street and the wharves, and speedily communicated itself to the citizens of the town, so that they began to hasten down to the river, in the cold of the late afternoon. Finally, no less a person than the military commander of the city himself appeared, followed by one or two aids, and attended by various bewigged and beruffled gentlemen of condition and substance; among whose finery