We tacked close to a buoy off Southsea beach. "Ay, sir, there was a
pretty blaze just here not many years ago," he remarked. "Now I mind it
was in '95--that's the year my poor girl Betty died--the mother of Jerry
there. You've heard talk of the _Boyne_--a fine ship she was, of
ninety-eight guns. While she, with the rest of the fleet, was at anchor
at Spithead, one morning a fire broke out in the admiral's cabin, and
though officers and men did their best to extinguish it, somehow or
other it got the upper hand of them all; but the boats from the other
ships took most of them off, though some ten poor fellows perished, they
say. One bad part of the business was, that the guns were all loaded
and shotted, and as the fire got to them they went off, some of the
shots reaching Stokes Bay, out there beyond Haslar, and others falling
among the shipping. Two poor fellows aboard the _Queen Charlotte_ were
killed, and another wounded, though she and the other ships got under
way to escape mischief. At about half-past one she burnt from her
cables, and came slowly drifting in here till she took the ground. She
burnt on till near six in the morning, when the fire reached the
magazine, and up she blew with an awful explosion. We knew well enough
that the moment would come, and it was a curious feeling we had waiting
for it. Up went the blazing masts and beams and planks, and came
scattering down far and wide, hissing into the water; and when we looked
again after all was over, not a timber was to be seen."

Bob also pointed out the spot where nearly a century before the _Edgar_
had blown up, and every soul in her had perished, and also where the
_Royal George_ and the brave Admiral Kempenfeldt, with eight hundred
men, had gone down several years before the destruction of the _Boyne_.
"Ay, sir, to my mind it's sad to think that the sea should swallow up so
many fine fellows as she does every year, and yet we couldn't very well
do without her, so I suppose it's all right. Mind your head-sheets,
Jerry, or she'll not come about in this bobble," he observed, as we were
about to tack round the buoy.

Having kept well to the eastward, we were now laying up to windward of
the fleet. There were line-of-battle ships, and frigates, and
corvettes, and huge Indiamen as big-looking as many line-of-battle
ships, and large transports, and numberless merchantmen--ships and
barques, and brigs and schooners; but as to what the _Barbara_ wa