“The vind be strong off shore,” said Tris Penrose the Cornish fisherman.  “Aw, she cannot sail in the teeth o’ it.”

“How far is it to Mud Island?” asked Fernando.

“It be about five mile,” the fisherman answered.

“I am going out to that headland!” he said pointing to the rocky promontory.

“It be dangerous, Capen; the ship’s big guns, they reach to the headland;” but Fernando insisted on being rowed to the headland, and four fishermen, including Tris Penrose, took him to it in a boat.  The memories this early morning visit awoke in his breast are indescribable.  Years seemed to have been rolled back, and he was once more with Morgianna, within the pale of hope.  Ascending the promontory, he saw the Xenophon lying at anchor not over three or four miles away.  Two boats loaded down with marines put off from the ship and rowed to the point of land half a mile away.  There they landed, formed, and marched to reinforce Matson on the neck of the peninsula.  Three hundred men and two small cannon were now on land.

Fernando went back, convinced that for some hours at least the attack would be delayed.  Lieutenant Willard was working with a will to strengthen the redoubt.  Bomb-proof apartments were made for the women and children.  They were still uncertain of the fate of Baltimore, and knew that the whole coast was threatened by the British fleet.

While sitting at breakfast, Fernando received a note from Captain Lane informing him that a sudden attack of rheumatism prevented him from leaving his bed, and asked him to call at the house if he wished to consult him.  Never in his life was Fernando more glad to receive a summons, and never did he so dread answering it.

“I am foolish!” he thought.  “She cares nothing for me.  She has told me as much, and she cannot have changed her mind.  I will go, but as the commandant and not as a supplicant—­or lover.”

Fernando was in the uniform of a captain of infantry of 1812, the handsomest uniform ever adopted by the American army.  His dark blue coat, buttoned to his chin, his sash, his belt and gilt sword, his chapeau-bras with flowing plume, set off his manly form.

Fernando, as he ascended the path to the house, did not dream that he was heroic or fine-looking.

When he reached the house, he paused a moment on the piazza, just as he had on that evening five years before, to school his rebellious heart.  To his knock a servant answered, and he was hurried up to the room of Captain Lane.  At every corner he expected Morgianna; but she did not appear.  Perhaps she was with her father; but no, the captain was alone.

“It’s too bad, Captain Stevens,” the old sea-dog declared.  “Here I am with this infernal rheumatism holding me down like an anchor, when we are threatened with a squall.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, captain,” said Fernando.  “I fancy there are young men enough to fight our battles.”