She sat down again, and mechanically took out some biscuits that she had brought, foreseeing that her waiting might be long. But she could not eat one of them; eating seemed to jar with the mental tenseness of the moment; and her undeviating gaze continued to follow the lessened ship with the fidelity of a balanced needle to a magnetic stone, all else in her being motionless.
The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails went, and then her top-gallants. She was now no more than a dead fly's wing on a sheet of spider's web; and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The admiral's flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very truck of the last topmast stole away.
The Victory was gone.
Anne's lip quivered as she murmured, without removing her wet eyes from the vacant and solemn horizon, '"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters--"'
'"These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep,"' was returned by a man's voice from behind her.
Looking round quickly, she saw a soldier standing there; and the grave eyes of John Loveday bent on her.
''Tis what I was thinking,' she said, trying to be composed.
'You were saying it,' he answered gently.
'Was I?--I did not know it. . . . How came you here?' she presently added.
'I have been behind you a good while; but you never turned round.'
'I was deeply occupied,' she said in an undertone.
'Yes--I too came to see him pass. I heard this morning that Lord Nelson had embarked, and I knew at once that they would sail immediately. The Victory and Euryalus are to join the rest of the fleet at Plymouth. There was a great crowd of people assembled to see the admiral off; they cheered him and the ship as she dropped down. He took his coffin on board with him, they say.'
'His coffin!' said Anne, turning deadly pale. 'Something terrible, then, is meant by that. O, why would Bob go in that ship? doomed to destruction from the very beginning like this!'
'It was his determination to sail under Captain Hardy, and under no one else,' said John. 'There may be hot work; but we must hope for the best.. And observing how wretched she looked, he added, 'But won't you let me help you back. If you can walk as far as Hope Cove it will be enough. A lerret is going from there across the bay homeward to the harbour in the course of an hour; it belongs to a man I know, and they can take one passenger, I am sure.'
She turned her back upon the Channel, and by his help soon reached the place indicated. The boat was lying there as he had said. She found it to belong to the old man who had been with her at the Bill, and was in charge of his two younger sons. The trumpet-major helped her into it over the slippery blocks of stone, one of the young men spread his jacket for her to sit on, and as soon as they pulled from shore John climbed up the blue-grey cliff, and disappeared over the top, to return to the mainland by road.