Alas, poor Admiral! The knell of thy freedom has sounded. Shut thyself in thy house as thou wilt: close thy shutters; make fast thy doors; yea, train the little brass cannon on the Walk: nothing will help. Thy fair enemy is cruising at the harbour’s mouth, with pennons flaunting to the breeze, and all her deadly armoury of sighs, tears, threats, reproaches and languishing glances made ready for action; and nothing thou canst do will serve. Through long years thou hast sailed light-heartedly from many ports, leaving broken, or, at any rate, damaged hearts behind thee. Now the Hour of Retribution has struck, and the Avenger is here. Thy day of conquests is past, and it is thou who wilt be led captive in chains of roses. There is none to sympathise with thee. On the contrary, it is my firm conviction that the whole Walk will hang out banners to celebrate thy defeat. *CHAPTER XIII* *IN WHICH ADMIRAL SIR PETER ANTROBUS IS MORE THAN EVER DETERMINED TO FIRE THE LITTLE BRASS GUN* [Illustration: Chapter XIII headpiece] Mrs. Poskett found herself—if you did not count the Eyesore: and nobody ever had counted him, yet—alone in the Walk. The sun had set, and the evening twilight itself had almost merged into night. The river gleamed a pale green, as if it were loath to surrender the last remnant of day. It was a propitious hour for amorous dalliance, but Mrs. Poskett felt she had much to do ere she could hope to be engaged in any such pleasant pastime. She sat some moments under the elm considering her position. She was face to face with a difficult problem. Here she was, under the elm, and there was Sir Peter, safely barricaded in his own house. That he was not in a good humour she knew. The house looked forbidding. The door was tightly closed. The windows were shut, and the blinds drawn. Somewhere behind those drawn blinds the Admiral was fuming. She yearned to hold his hand and comfort him and soothe his feelings, wounded, as well she knew, by the sneers and open mutiny of the Walk. But how to get at him? She could not go to his house. She could not call him. All the conventions and proprieties rose up like an impregnable wall against either of those courses. And even if she called him, he would not come. On the contrary, he would retire like Hamlet to some more remote part of his ramparts, and pretend he had n’t heard her. She must employ some stratagem. But what stratagem? Pomander Walk was not a good nursery for stratagems, she thought, little knowing how many plots and schemes and conspiracies had been concocted and were still seething all around her.