n the tide and gently
heeling to the breeze. Sometimes a yacht would pass us, sometimes a
fishing-smack; but it was a lonely journey. The air was soft and
sweet--not like that of spring, but like that of a world which lives in
the promise of a coming spring and can wait. There were no sounds but
one sweet and familiar--the whisper, swelling and diminishing but never
dying, of foam at the cutwater.

Little Hythe seemed to have retired into itself for the winter. Its pier
was deserted by boats and men when we passed. Lower down on the other
side was Netley Hospital, with how many pains and agonies hidden behind
its long, imposing front. Opposite Netley the sea eats and bites like an
acid into a kind of mossy grass of rare and vivid green, making a
wonderful coast-line on a small scale, with bays and channels and
sounds.

We made for West Cowes, where the sea brims up to the streets and the
spray sometimes sprinkles the shop windows. Here the telegraph was set
in motion, asking Hurst Castle for news of the _Aurania_. But there was
no news, so, as it would take her two hours to reach Southampton after
passing the Castle, we went on past green promontories that dip into the
sea, right up to where the trees clothe them, past the towers of
Osborne, to Ryde. Again the telegraph asked the question, and again
there was a negative answer. Then we cut across the Solent towards
Southsea, watching the weird evolutions of a 35-knot torpedo-boat. It
darted about, annihilating the small distances of the Solent and making
a strange, buzzing noise like some foul fly. Vomiting flames and sparks,
it trailed a cloud in the air and snow upon the water. While we were
crawling across the river it had made a dozen journeys. Now it would be
down near Cowes, and now half-way up Southampton Water, and when one
looked again a few minutes afterwards it would be close astern,
overtaking us with the speed of a nightmare. I escaped from it at
Southsea, for there the wires told me something that sent me doubling to
the railway station, and thanking my stars that I was in time for a fast
train to Southampton. It arrived at half-past three, and at four the
_Aurania_ showed her nose round the corner of a dock shed. Ten minutes
later she was alongside and berthed, and the disembarkation began.

The total absence of any kind of popular demonstration was most
impressive. There was no crowd at all, and the barriers that had been
provided were not needed. Thi