The gardener gazed and gazed, and his intent regard crumpled his brow, for he seemed ambitious to be able to say he could see the ship. After a considerable pause, during a portion of which the man sheltered his eyes with his hand, he exclaimed: "If the _Minorca's_ a three-masted vessel, square rigged forward, and fore-and-aft rigged on the mizzen-mast, then all that I can say is, your honour, she ain't among that shipping down there." Without speech the Admiral walked away swiftly on the stout staff he was used to carry, striking the sward with it till you witnessed the energy of his thoughts with each blow, and, entering the hall of Old Harbour House, took down from its brackets a very handsome, and for those times, powerful telescope with which he returned to the place he had left, where he might obtain the best view of the Harbour that was to be got from the grounds of the mansion. He levelled the tubes at the shipping, but witnessed no signs of the _Minorca_. He was amazed. The glass sank in his hand, and he rubbed his naked eye and fastened it again upon the Harbour. The vessel was to sail at half-past twelve, and it was now about a quarter past ten, and the _Minorca_ was gone. The old gentleman took aim with his glass at the little breadth of sea that was in sight, in a hopeless way conceiving that a sail, invisible to his bare vision, might leap into the lenses out of the distant blue recess, and proclaim herself to his nautical eye as the ship that was gone. Nothing was in sight. He stood musing. It was, as we have seen, about a quarter past ten. Captain Acton would not have completed his business until something after eleven. Should the Admiral invade him with the announcement of this strange disappearance of his ship? He considered the matter a little, and concluded that it must be impossible but that, although Captain Acton had been silent on the subject at the breakfast table, he must know the business of his ship, and that it was understood between him and Mr Lawrence that if the wind served, or anything unforeseen befell, or if Mr Lawrence in his judgment chose to sail before the time announced, he was at liberty to let go his fasts and blow into the open at any hour he pleased. Thus it struck the old man, though secretly he did not regard his own reasoning as sagacious. Nevertheless he determined to await Captain Acton's arrival from the business which was holding him in his library; so he lighted his pipe afresh with his singular little pistol-shaped pipe-lighter and struck about the grounds with his staff, blowing great clouds out of the depth of his meditation, and often heaving a sailor's blessing at the two points of cliff which interrupted the view of the sea to east and west of the coast. It was a few minutes past eleven when Captain Acton came out of the house talking to Miss Acton, who was followed by her own and Lucy's dog. "Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, Admiral!" exclaimed Captain Acton.