The Hanoverian only grunted, like the pig he was.
The tug sheered away; we looked up from our dancing cockle-shell to the Kaiser, looming vast above us, shutting out the stars. The glare of her lights, the throb of her engines were still the all-important facts of the universe, until—a long finger of light stretched out from Tarik’s Hill and touched us.
“You see?” said a voice in the dark beside us, “the searchlight! Gibraltar never sleeps.”
The searchlight faded, the tender turned her nose to shore. The Kaiser, a little floating bit of Germany, was left behind; before us towered England, a mighty Rock hung from peak to base with chains of diamond lights. The tender drew alongside the Old Mole. At the gate a young English sergeant in a smart uniform looked us over.
“Are you a British subject, sir?” he said to J., the first man ashore. J. said he was.
“Pass in, sir,” said the sergeant; then to me: “British subject, marm?”
“I am an American——” I began.
“One shilling, if you please, marm; after gunfire only subjects may enter Gibraltar without——”
“That is to say,” I explained, “I am the wife of this gentleman; you may consider me a—a British sub——”
“Very good, marm, certainly,” murmured the sergeant, consolingly; “pass in.”