lled across the misty sea at his feet.
The hour was chilly, but it held the promise of a fine day; and in another
twenty minutes, when the golden sunlight touched the walls of the old
fortress and ran up the flagstaff above it in a needle of flame, he gazed
around him on his temporary home, on the magnificent harbour, on the town
of Falmouth climbing tier upon tier above the waterside, on the
scintillating swell of the Channel without, and felt his chest expand with
legitimate pride.

By this time the Doctor and Lieutenant Clogg had joined him, and their
faces too wore a hopefuller, more contented look. Life at Pendennis might
not prove so irksome after all, with plenty of professional occupation to
relieve it. Captain Pond slipped an arm within the Doctor's, and together
the three officers made a slow tour of the outer walls, plying Sergeant
Topase with questions and disregarding his sulky hints that he, for his
part, would be thankful to get a bite of breakfast.

"But what have we here?" asked Captain Pond suddenly, coming to a halt.

Their circuit had brought them round to the landward side of the fortress,
to a point bearing south by east of the town, when through a breach--yes,
a clean breach!--in the wall they gazed out across the fosse and along a
high turfy ridge that roughly followed the curve of the cliffs and of the
seabeach below. Within the wall, and backed by it,--save where the gap
had been broken,--stood a group of roofless and half-dismantled
outbuildings which our three officers studied in sheer amazement.

"What on earth is the meaning of this?"

"Married quarters," answered Sergeant Topase curtly. "You won't want
'em."

"Married quarters?"

"Leastways, that's what they was until three days ago. The workmen be
pullin' 'em down to put up new ones."

"And in pulling them down they have actually pulled down twelve feet of
the wall protecting the fortress?"

"Certainly: a bit of old wall and as rotten as touch. Never you fret: the
Frenchies won't be comin' along whilst _you're_ here!"--thus Sergeant
Topase in tones of fine sarcasm.

"By whose orders has this breach been made?" Captain Pond demanded
sternly.

"Nobody's. I believe, if you ask me, 'twas just a little notion of the
contractor's, for convenience of getting in his material and carting away
the rubbish. He'll fix up the wall again as soon as the job's over, and
the place will be stronger than ever."

"Monstrous!" exclaimed