came to the wind on the
other tack under her short canvas; her lower deck ports were closed, the
hammock cloths like a ridge of unmelted snow lying along her rail.

It was evident she was kept standing off and on outside the harbour,
as an armed man may pace to and fro before a gate. With the hum of six
hundred wakeful lives in her flanks, the tap-tapping of a drum, and the
shrill modulations of the boatswain's calls piping some order along her
decks, she floated majestically across our path. But the only living
being we saw was the red-coated marine on sentry by the lifebuoys,
looking down at us over the taffrail. We passed so close to her that
I could distinguish the whites of his eyes, and the tompions in the
muzzles of her stern-chasers protruding out of the ports belonging to
the admiral's quarters.

I knew her. She was Rowley's flagship. She had thrown the shadow of her
sails upon the end of my first sea journey. She was the man-of-war going
out for a cruise on that day when Carlos, Tomas, and myself arrived in
Jamaica in the old _Thames_. And there she was meeting me again, after
two years, before Havana--the might of the fortunate isle to which we
turned our eyes, part and parcel of my inheritance, formidable with the
courage of my countrymen, humming with my native speech--and as foreign
to my purposes as if I had forfeited forever my birthright in her
protection. I had drifted into a sort of outlaw. You may not break the
king's peace and be made welcome on board a king's ship. You may not
hope to make use of a king's ship for the purposes of an elopement.
There was no room on board that seventy-four for our romance.

As it was, I very nearly hailed her. What would become of us if the
Lion had already left Havana? I thought. But no. To hail her meant
separation--the only forbidden thing to those who, in the strength of
youth and love, are permitted to defy the world together.

I did not hail; and the marine dwindled to a red speck upon the noble
hull forging away from us on the offshore tack. The brazen clangour of
bells seemed to struggle with the sharp puff of the breeze that sent us
in.

The shipping in harbour was covered with bunting in honour of the
feast-day; for the same reason, there was not a sign of the usual crowd
of small boats that give animation to the waters of a port; the middle
of the harbour was strangely empty. A solitary bumboat canoe, with a
yellow bunch of bananas in the bow, and an