Brand was alone now, and for some minutes paced restlessly the small domed room with its glass vault and walls. The sun was high in the black, star-strewn heavens, the cloud-sea vanished into the heat of the day. Beneath rolled the blue Channel, and on either side the land went up to meet an immense horizon. Broad on the port beam lay the coast of France, beyond on the port bow the wide Atlantic loomed. There on the starboard side was the English land from Beachy Head, faint glimmering in the east, even to the Start in far-off Devonshire. At his very feet lay the green Isle of Wight masking a skein of intricate blue waters. There was Portsmouth, yonder Southampton, and northward Salisbury and Winchester, a score of cities, a thousand villages and farmsteads, where as the green melted away to blue, range beyond range of gently rolling downs, mist upon mist of exquisite rounded hills, up to the very stars of eternal night. And all the land must perish if he failed!
Someone was coming up the ladder, and presently Brand, turning away from the glass, encountered Lancaster.
The Prince saluted him, but Brand came forward, laying both hands upon his shoulders.
"My boy," he said, "where would you like to land?"
"Where you land, sir."
"I'd like to be sure of your safety, Lancaster, and I want to put you ashore."
"I'll see you damned first!"
Brand looked into his keen, fresh, comely face.
"You're most wonderfully like her," he said, absently; "and there's no bending her. I suppose you'll stay whether I like it or not. I've got to recapture Lyonesse."
"I want to see the game."