"Indeed, I have been here six weeks." She looked out over the shimmering moonlit waters of the Tagus and the shadowy, ghostly ships of the British fleet that rode at anchor there, and her eyes were wistful.

Her fingers, with that little gesture peculiar to her in moments of constraint, were again entwining themselves in her rope of pearls.

"Yes," she said almost musingly, "I think I must be going soon." He was dismayed.

He realised that the moment for action had come.

His heart was sounding the charge within him.