Having got to bed a little before three, Strange was not best pleased to be woken again at seven by a knock on the door. He got up and found one of the inn-servants standing in the hallway.

“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, “but the port-admiral has sent to say the False Prelate is run upon Horse Sand. He has sent Captain Gilbey to fetch one of the magicians but the other magician has the headach and will not go.”

This was not perhaps as perfectly comprehensible as the man intended, and Strange suspected that, even if he had been rather more awake, he would not have understood it. Nevertheless it was clear that something had occurred and that he was required to go somewhere. “Tell Captain Whatever-it-is to wait,” he said with a sigh. “I am coming.”

He dressed and went downstairs. In the coffee-room he found a handsome young man in a captain’s uniform who was pacing up and down. This was Captain Gilbey. Strange remembered him from the ballroom – an intelligent-seeming man with pleasant manners. He looked greatly relieved to see Strange and explained that a ship, the False Prelate, had run upon one of the shoals at Spithead. It was an awkward situation. The False Prelate might be got off without serious damage or she might not. In the meantime the port-admiral sent his compliments to Mr Norrell and Mr Strange and begged that one or both of them go with Captain Gilbey to see if there was any thing that they could do.

A gig stood outside the Crown with one of the inn-servants at the horse’s head. Strange and Captain Gilbey got into it and Captain Gilbey drove them briskly through the town. The town was beginning to stir with a certain air of hurry and alarm. Windows were opening; heads in nightcaps were poking out of them and shouting down questions; people in the street were shouting back answers. A great many people seemed to be hurrying in the same direction as Captain Gilbey’s carriage.

When they reached the ramparts, Captain Gilbey halted. The air was cold and damp and there was a fresh breeze blowing off the sea. A little way out a huge ship was lying on her side. Sailors very small and black and far away could be seen clinging to the rail and clambering down the side of the ship. A dozen or so rowing boats and small sailing vessels were crowded around her. Some of the occupants of these boats appeared to be holding energetic conversations with the sailors on the ship.

To Strange’s unnautical eye, it looked very much as if the ship had simply lain down and gone to sleep. He felt that if he had been the Captain he would have spoken to her sternly and made her get up again.