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46 heard that there would be gun practice, and the passengers, at a shilling a head, wished to see the fun.

'But they didn't think,' said my informant, 'that I was the man who'd have been hung, drawn, and quartered if a life was lost. They anchored slap behind the Island I was firing at—experimental firing at a dummy gun, if you please, with six-inchers, twelve-pounders, and Maxims all turned loose together. They were angry when we told 'em to go away!'

Out of the strong-shouldered Atlantic swell—bluer than sapphires—rose the double-fanged rock of the Fastnet. We were close enough to see its steps and derricks and each wave as it shot thirty feet up the rocks—the Fastnet in fair weather. It was like meeting a policeman in evening dress. One does not think of the Fastnet save as a blessed welcoming wink of light through storm and thick weather.

The Irish coast is a never-failing surprise to the big Atlantic rollers. They trip and ground—you can see them check—on the shallows; fling up a scornful eyebrow and then lose their temper and shape in great lashings of creamy foam.

'That's Berehaven,' said the bridge, indicating an obscure aperture in the jagged coast-line. 'We shall find the Fleet round the corner. The tide's setting us up a little. Did you ever read "The Two Chiefs of Dunboy?" We shall open Dunboy House in a minute round the corner.'