NELSON AND THE NILE.
"With one of his precious limbs shot away,
Bold Nelson knowed well how to trick 'em;
So, as for the French, 'tis as much as to say,
We can tie up one hand, and then lick 'em."
DIBDIN.
Things in England began to look up. Those who preached revolution were
forced to hide their heads with shame after the great battle of
Camperdown. For this fight had completely restored confidence in our
country's powers, and for the time being the fears of invasion had fled
far away.
In many a lordly hall over all the land the feast was laid, on many a
lofty hill the bonfires blazed; it was indeed a season of great
rejoicing.
In one of the window recesses of Mr. Keane's somewhat lonesome and
dreary suburban mansion, as the shadows of evening fell on the almost
leafless elms around the house, sat Gerty. She was looking out into the
gathering night, looking out at the slowly-falling leaves; for though a
book lay in her lap, it was almost too dark to read. By her side sat a
beautiful deer-hound, with his muzzle leaning on her knee, and gazing up
into her face with his brown earnest eyes, as if he knew there was
sorrow at her heart.
He--Jack--had given her that dog as a puppy, and no power on earth could
make her part with him. As she turned her eyes from the window, she
noted his speaking look, and as she bent to caress him, a tear fell on
his rough gray neck.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and in rushed Mary the maid.
Mary seemed about half daft. She was waving aloft a copy of the _Times_,
and scarce could speak for excitement. But she managed to point to a
certain column.
"What is it, Mary? I cannot see."
"Which it's our boy Jack as is mentioned for conspeakyewous bravery.
Aren't you glad and proud?"
"Glad and proud? O Mary! silly child. And I am to be the bride of
another. Nay, father insists that I shall give Sir Digby his answer
to-night at the ball."
"An' I should do it, missus; that I should. I'd put it in fine polite
English, but I'd put it straight, all the same. When he knelt before
me,--'Jump up, old Granger,' I should say. 'Right about face. Shoulder
hip. Quick march. I loves another, and I cannot marry thee.'"
"O Mary," said Gerty, smiling in spite of herself, "how you talk! Hush,
child; not another word. I'm bound to make my father happy, and--I
will."
* * * * *
The ball to which Gerty and her father were going that evening was Sir
Digby's. This gentleman possessed both a town and a country house; but
if the truth must be told, he was at present absolutely living on his
future prospects.
"Well," he told one of his chief cronies that evening before the arrival
of the guests, "when my brother dies--and he is a terribly old buffer--I
shall drop into a nice thing. But it is just like my confounded luck
that he should linger so long. And to tell you the truth, D'Orsay, I'm a
bit pinched, and some of the Jews are pressing."
"Why don't you marry?"
"Well, I'm going to. Ah! she's a sweet young thing, Miss Keane; and
though the father is a skinflint, he's wealthy, and I'll make him settle
a bit before I give my ancient name away. Wager on that."
"Hold hard, Digby; I wouldn't be your friend if I didn't tell you."
"Didn't tell me what?"
"Why, man, haven't you heard? The firm of Griffin, Keane, and Co. is
ruined. 'Pon honour. South Sea biz, or something. Had it from a friend,
who had it from one of the firm. It's a secret, mind. But it is true."
"Good heavens, D'Orsay, you do not tell me so? Then I too am ruined!"
"What! you haven't proposed--you're not tied?"
"Nay, nay; all but. That is nothing, D'Orsay--nothing; but on the
strength of this marriage I have borrowed thousands. Fleet prison is my
fate if what you say is true."
"Look here, Digby," said D'Orsay, after a pause, "you are a man of the
world, like myself. Now if I were you, I should transfer my affections.
See?"
"In which quarter?"
"Why, there is Miss Gordon; a trifle old, to be sure, but positively
rolling in wealth, and rolling her eyes whenever she sees you."
Sir Digby muttered something about a bag of broken bottles, but D'Orsay
went on,--
"I'd marry _her_; 'pon honour I should."
"Think of life with that old hag."
"Think of life in the Fleet, my friend."
Sir Digby winced, and for a time made no reply.
"D'Orsay," he said at last, "I am a man, and, I trust, a gentleman. I'd
prefer to marry Gerty even--even--"
"If she were a beggar. Bravo, Digby!" And D'Orsay laughed in the way men
of the world do laugh.
"I didn't say that. I--I--'pon my soul, D'Orsay, I do not know what to
do."
* * * * *
Miss Gordon was the belle of that ball, as far at least as dress and
jewellery were concerned. She came of a noble family, too, and gave
herself all the airs common in those days to ladies of title--hauteur,
dignity, and condescension by turns. But towards Sir Digby she was as
soft and sweet as a three-month-old kitten.
If Sir Digby Auld had meant to propose to sweet Gerty Keane that night,
he never had a chance, for neither she nor her father appeared. It was
reported that he had had a fit. But this was not so. After he was
dressed, however, and the carriage waiting, he received a letter. He no
sooner read it than it dropped from his hands on the floor, and he
leaned back in his chair with his face to his hands.
Gerty was by his side in a moment.
"O father, are you ill?" she cried. "Shall I summon assistance?"
He recovered himself at once. "Nay, nay," he said; "only grief for the
death of an old friend." He smoothed her hair as he replied. "Gerty, we
will not go out to-night."
But the letter he picked off the floor and carefully put away in his
pocket-book.
* * * * *
A whole half-year passed away without any events transpiring that much
concern our narrative. Jack Mackenzie was still on the war-path, playing
havoc with the commerce of France and Spain. Indeed he had constituted
himself a kind of terror of the seas. His adventures were not only most
daring, but carried out with a coolness that proved they were guided by
a master mind. Indeed Jack Mackenzie and all his officers knew now to a
very nicety what might be done with the swift _Tonneraire_, and what
could not. Her bold young captain did not mean to be either captured or
sunk, and he was wise enough to run away whenever he found himself
overmatched. But this was not very often.
One surprise, during this time, Jack and his officers had received, and
it was a very happy one. While lying at anchor with Lord St. Vincent's
ships, one day a boat pulled off from the flagship, and there leaped
therefrom and came swiftly up the ladder--who but young Murray himself.
He saluted the quarter-deck, and he saluted Jack as he reported himself,
smiling all over like the happy boy he was.
"I've come on board to join, sir. Isn't it jolly, just? And I'm promoted
to a lieutenancy."
M'Hearty, Simmons, and every soul in the mess were most pleased to see
him, and that evening Murray was the hero of the hour; and a very long
and strange story he had to tell of his imprisonment, his harsh
treatment, and his making love to the prison-governor's daughter,
through whose cleverness he at last managed to escape, dressed as a
_grisette_.
He kept his messmates laughing till long after seven bells in the first
watch; and it must be said that not this night only, but every other
night, Murray infused into the mess a joy and jollity to which it had
been all winter a stranger.
* * * * *
Meanwhile a greater hero than Jack Mackenzie must hold the stage for a
brief spell--namely, Nelson himself. Napoleon Bonaparte, after lying
awake for a night or two, gave birth to a grand idea. Hyder Ali, in the
south of India, hated the British as one hates a viper, and gladly would
have crushed our power under his heel. But he needed help. It occurred
to Bonaparte to aid him, and so oust us from our Indian Empire, which
was then being quickly built up. It was a pretty idea, and well carried
out at the commencement; for Bonny, as our sailors called him, managed
to sail from France with thirty thousand veteran, well-tried troops; and
having the good luck to elude our fleet, he called at Malta, which he
quickly brought to terms, then made straight for Egypt. Here he landed
from his fleet, which I believe had orders to return, but did not.
With such men as those old troops of Napoleon's the conquest of Egypt
and the Mamelukes was but a picnic, and all very pleasant for Bonny and
his merry men, though sad enough for the country on which these human
locusts had alighted. Cairo fell, and the great warrior now set himself
to rebuild the constitution of the country and create a native army.
Lord St. Vincent sent the brave one-eyed, one-armed Nelson with a fleet
to destroy the French expedition. That he quickly would have done. He
speedily would have cooked his hare, but he had to catch it first. Where
ever was the French fleet? No one could tell him, and his adventures in
search of it would fill a goodly volume. It reads like one long
entrancing romance.
Jack Mackenzie, in his _Tonneraire_--the real name of the ship I am
bound not to mention--joined this fleet, and thus was present at the
great battle of the Nile.
Poor Nelson was almost worn out with anxiety and watching; but when he
arrived at Aboukir Bay and found the foe, all his courage and all his
calmness returned, and although the sun was slowly sinking in the west,
our Nelson resolved not to wait an hour even, but attack the enemy there
and then.