aged in unmooring a small skiff, in which to pull off to a
handsome five-ton lugger-rigged boat that lay lightly straining at her
moorings in the tideway.

A few minutes later they were aboard the lugger, busily engaged in
loosing and setting the sails; and presently they were under way, having
slipped their moorings and transferred them to the skiff, which they
left behind to serve as a buoy to guide them to the moorings upon their
return. The lugger was a beautiful boat, according to the idea of
beauty that then prevailed, having been constructed by Mr George
Heard--familiarly known as Gramfer Heard--shipbuilder of Devonport, and
Dick Chichester's master, as a kind of yacht, for his own especial use
and enjoyment. She was a very roomy boat, being entirely open from stem
to stern, and was conveniently rigged with two masts, the main and
mizzen, upon which were set two standing lugs and a jib, the mizzen
sheet being hauled out to the end of a bumpkin; consequently when once
her sails were set she could easily be handled by one man.

Stukely, who was the master spirit, took the tiller, quite as a matter
of course, while Dick was perfectly content to tend the jib and main
sheets; and away they went down the Hamoaze, with the water buzzing and
foaming from the boat's lee bow and swirling giddily in her wake as she
sped swiftly along under the impulse of a fresh westerly breeze, the
full strength of which was however not yet felt, the lugger being under
the lee of Mount Edgecumbe, beautiful then as it is to-day. But the
prospect which delighted the eyes of the two friends--or of Stukely
rather, for Dick Chichester somehow seemed almost entirely to lack the
keen sense of beauty with which his friend was so bountifully endowed--
was very different from that which greets the eye of the beholder
to-day. Devonport and Stonehouse were mere villages; Mount Wise was
farm land; where the citadel now stands was a trumpery fort which a
modern gunboat would utterly destroy in half an hour; Drake's island was
fortified, it is true, but with a battery even more insignificant than
the citadel fort; while the Hoe showed a bare half-dozen buildings,
chief of which was the inn, afterwards re-named the Pelican Inn, in
honour of Drake's ship, famous as the spot behind which, eleven years
later, Drake and Hawkins played their never-to-be-forgotten game of
bowls.

As the boat slid out from under the lee of Drake's island, however, and
hea