The English fleet, useless since Elizabeth, again was mistress of the seas. Russell passed unmolested between Spain and Italy, defied the remnant of the French fleet imprisoned in Toulon port, and dared the whole of the Mediterranean seaboard. Berkeley passed unmolested along the French coast, burnt Granville, shelled Calais and Dunkirk, and kept the English flag high and undisputed above the Channel. The man who had been the boy who had once passionately resolved to do these things found the realization of them different indeed to those bright imaginings. Attainment of fame, honour, power, success could not give more than a faint remembrance of the throb of exultation the youthful Prince had felt when he, penniless, unsupported, hampered in every possible way, had first flung his challenge to overwhelming odds. Then there had been everything to do; but ardent courage and unspoilt faith had gilded difficulties, and the heroic pride of youth had smiled at obstacles; now the loss of a love the boy had never dreamt of had made all things else appear small to the man. Twenty years of toil, of acquaintance with treachery, deceit, smallness, weakness, twenty years of misunderstood endeavour, of constant strain, of constant fatigue had done their work. The fine spirit did not shrink from its task, but never again could it recapture the early glow of hope, the early ecstasy of labour, the early pride of achievement. What was his achievement, after all. He might well think that the God he had served so patiently had mocked him. He had loved but to lose his love; he had bartered his personal ease, almost his liberty, almost his pride for bitter honours held in exile; his health was utterly worn out, his days were a continual weariness and pain; he was again as lonely as he had been when he was the prisoner of the States; he had no heir, and the main branch of his family died with him; if he could not finish himself his task he must entrust it to strangers to complete. Surely all was utter vanity and vexation. The cold consolations of a sombre faith only supported him. He clung to those beliefs in which Mary had died, and faced the few years that at best remained to him with the same high courage with which she had met her fate. He rose presently, in the perfect stillness, and went to the entrance of his tent, lifted the flap, and looked out. The French red flares on the towers of Namur were visible across the great plain of the Sambre and Meuse; the starlight showed the huge encampment stretching out of sight under the clear sky: near by a sentry paced with his musket over his shoulder; it was very hot and not a blade of grass stirred in the absolute arrested stillness. Presently a surgeon passed through the tents carrying a lantern and followed by a servant leading a mule laden with his chest. The light flickered awhile amid the canvas then disappeared; a dog barked and a man whistled to it; the silence fell again as intense as before.