--hated you--and would
gain--as much as--as I. Seek her--if you--would-know----"

He fell prone on the lid and spoke no more.

And St. Georges, reeling back against the opposite bulkhead, stared
down at him, forgetting all that was taking place around the burning
transport in his misery at that revelation.

"Aurelie," he whispered, "Aurelie! Hated me, too, and hated her. O
God, pity me!"

And again above all else there rose the triumphant shout:

"Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
God save the king!"

NOTE.--The description of the battle of La Hogue is taken from many
sources, but principally from the narrative of the chaplain on board
the Centurion. It is the most full and complete, especially as regards
the ships engaged, which I know of. The worthy divine was a Fellow of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and this seems to have been his first
cruise. He returned "home" afterward, viz., to Oxford, and has left
very fervent expressions of gratitude at having been able to do so.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.

As he staggered back after that revelation, St. Georges noticed that
the great chant sounded less strongly and more distantly in his ears,
and, seized with a sudden apprehension, he rushed to the cabin
porthole.

Then he knew that what he had dreaded, that the idea which had sprung
into his mind a second before, as the sturdy English voices became
more hushed and subdued, was indeed an absolute fact--the flotilla was
retiring. It had finished its work of destruction--it was returning to
the man-of-war.

And he was left behind!

Behind! to fall into the hands of the French, who, he knew very well,
would come forth from the fort and batteries directly the conquerors
had withdrawn. He was in a trap from which there was no escape. He
would be found there, and his doom be swift.

Yet, in a moment, even as he glanced down at his enemy at his feet and
noted the set features--handsome as in life--the white face, the blood
at either side of the mouth, looking as before like two small
down-turned horns, he asked himself if he was indeed doomed? Also, why
stay there to be taken like a rat in a trap? The sea was beneath him;
a mile off was the English fleet. If he could swim to that, even
halfway to it, he could make signs and, perhaps, be seen and rescued;
at the worst it would but be death. And a more fearful death than any
the sea could bring awaited him if he remai