if to accentuate
the fact that we had already drawn more than our share of good fortune,
the gale veered round to the east, and settled down to blow again in
real hard earnest, bringing up with it a heavy sea. It was tack and
tack all through the night, and we were always hard put to it to keep
the ugly cutter afloat. Indeed, when some of the heavier squalls
snorted down on to us, we simply had to heave-to. It was just a choice
between that and being blown bodily under water.

The dawn was gray and wretched, but from the moment we sighted the last
point the weather began to improve. The air cleared up, the gale began
to ease, and when we ran in under Fort Isabelle just as the sunrise gun
was fired, we saw that the day was going to turn out a fine one.

The long snug harbour of Mahon, which was in the days of canvas wings
almost always filled with craft refuging, is now in this era of steam
usually tenantless. So it was a bit of a surprise to us to find the
English Channel Fleet lying there at anchor. The big war steamers were
getting their matutinal scrub, and were alive with blue-and-white-clothed
men. They looked very strong, very trim, very seaworthy, and the bitter
contrast between them and our tattered selves made me curse them with
sailor's point and fluency. Not so Haigh. He didn't mind a bit; rather
enjoyed the _rencontre_, in fact; and producing a frayed _Royal I_----
blue ensign, ran it up to the peak and dipped it in salute. If I
remember right it was the _Immortalite_ we met first, and down went the
_St. George's_ flag from her poop staff three times in answering
salutation, whilst every pair of eyes on her decks was glued on the
ugly cutter, their owners wondering where she had popped up from. And
so we passed her particularly Britannic Majesty's ships _Anson_,
_Rodney_, _Camperdown_, _Curlew_, and _Howe_, and dropped our kedge
overboard (at the end of the main halliards) close inside the
torpedo-catcher _Speedwell_.

The strain was over. We staggered below and dropped into a dead sleep.
Had there been a ton of diamonds waiting on the cliff road beside us,
with half Mahon rushing to loot them, we could not have been induced to
budge.

CHAPTER VII.

A DIPLOMATIC REMOVAL.

Individually the Minorcan is very amiably disposed towards the
inhabitants of those other islands, Great Britain and Ireland. It is a
matter of Spanish history that Minorca for many years groaned under
English rule; and as p