t lay in the slip; they walked forward and stood in the
crowd by the bow chains. The flag new over Castle William; late
sunshine turned river and bay to a harbour in fairyland, where,
through the golden haze, far away between forests of
pennant-dressed masts, a warship lay all aglitter, the sun striking
fire from her guns and bright work, and setting every red bar of
her flag ablaze.

"The _Pocahontas_, sloop of war from Charleston bar," said a man in
the crowd. "She came in this morning at high water. She got to
Sumter too late."

"Yes. Powhatan had already knocked the head off John Smith,"
observed Berkley thoughtfully. "They did these things better in
colonial days."

Several people began to discuss the inaction of the fleet off
Charleston bar during the bombardment; the navy was freely
denounced and defended, and Berkley, pleased that he had started a
row, listened complacently, inserting a word here and there
calculated to incite several prominent citizens to fisticuffs. And
the ferry-boat started with everybody getting madder.

But when fisticuffs appeared imminent in mid-stream, out of
somewhat tardy consideration for Ailsa he set free the dove of
peace.

"Perhaps," he remarked pleasantly, "the fleet _couldn't_ cross the
bar. I've heard of such things."

And as nobody had thought of that, hostilities were averted.

Paddle-wheels churning, the rotund boat swung into the Brooklyn
dock. Her gunwales rubbed and squeaked along the straining piles
green with sea slime; deck chains clinked, cog-wheels clattered,
the stifling smell of dock water gave place to the fresher odour of
the streets.

"I would like to walk uptown," said Ailsa Paige. "I really don't
care to sit still in a car for two miles. You need not come any
farther--unless you care to."

He said airily: "A country ramble with a pretty girl is always
agreeable to me. I'll come if you'll let me."

She looked up at him, perplexed, undecided.

"Are you making fun of Brooklyn, or of me?"

"Of neither. May I come?"

"If you care to," she said.

They walked on together up Fulton Street, following the stream of
returning sight-seers and business men, passing recruiting stations
where red-legged infantry of the 14th city regiment stood in groups
reading the extras just issued by the _Eagle_ and _Brooklyn Times_
concerning the bloody riot in Baltimore and the attack on the 6th
Massachusetts. Everywhere, too, soldiers of the 13th, 38t