Beyond the Boulder Bank the wind freshened. The lugger began to breast the water merrily, plumping into the swells with a delicious shock, shooting the water aside in spurts of foam, and ploughing a furrow white behind her. The Parson stared about him with startled eyes. "Good Lord!" he said, breathing deep, as one just awaking to a new and terrible danger. Kit looked at him, and was shocked at the change that had come over him. He could scarcely recognise in this grey-green spectre the roaring swordsman of the shingle-bank. "I'm tired," said the Parson suddenly, "very tired." He flopped forward on his knees. "My sins have found me out," he moaned. "May mother forgive me!" His courage had faded with his colour. Collapsing, he lay like a dead thing in a slop of sand and water at the bottom of the boat. Kit heard his voice as in a dream. The boy was sitting quite still, the smell of the sea in his nostrils, the wind in his hair, the hiss and flop of the waters in his ears. The life of the body was coming back to him. The good salt breeze flushed his veins. The tiller began to pull at his hand. The lugger swung and curtseyed, graceful as a dancing girl. She was alive. She was careering over the swells, snatching for her head. She knew her mission, and revelled in it. Nelson, Nelson, Nelson! she whispered, hissed, and sang the word. The boy began to hand her over the seas, as a man hands his lady down a ball-room. She was so swift so strong: throbbing-full of life. He loved her, and began to live again. Blob was sitting cocked up in the bows, pink as ever and as impassive. At the sight of the boy Kit felt a certain resentment, and, with the swift self-knowledge peculiar to him, was glad to feel it, for it told him he was coming round. He wished the boy to collapse alongside the Parson. Why didn't he, the silly little land-lubber? Kit, the one sailor aboard, here on his own element, wished to lord it out alone. "How d'you feel, Blob?" he called, hoping for the best. "Whoy," said Blob, the breeze in his teeth, "Oi'm that empty Oi can hear me innuds rollin. Oi could just fancy a loomp o porruk--fatty-loike." The Parson raised himself. "Swine," he moaned, "have you no soul?" He turned on his elbow. "Can't you take her where it's flatter?" he snarled. "I like a bit of a bobble myself, sir," answered Kit. "Calls himself a sailor!" sneered the other, and collapsed again. IV The frigate was drawing near, the lily flag of a Vice-Admiral of the White at her foretop-gallant mast-head. A tide of delicious tears surged up in the lad's heart as he beheld her. She was England; she was his own. He possessed her, and was she not beautiful?