"Very well," was the answer. "Ten ships have struck; but five of the van
have tacked, and show an intention to bear down upon the Victory. I have
called two or three of our fresh ships around, and have no doubt of
giving them a drubbing."
"I hope none of our ships have struck," said Nelson.
"There is no fear of that," answered Hardy.
Then came a moment's silence, and then Nelson spoke of himself.
"I am a dead man, Hardy," he said. "I am going fast; it will be all
over with me soon. Come nearer to me. Let my dear Lady Hamilton have my
hair and all other things belonging to me."
"I hope it is not so bad as that," said Hardy, with much emotion. "Dr.
Beatty must yet hold out some hope of life."
"Oh, no, that is impossible," said Nelson. "My back is shot through:
Beatty will tell you so."
Captain Hardy grasped his hand again, the tears standing in his eyes,
and then hurried on deck to hide the emotion he could scarcely repress.
Life slowly left the frame of the dying hero: every minute he was nearer
death. Sensation vanished below his breast. He made the surgeon test and
acknowledge this.
"You know I am gone," he said. "I know it. I feel something rising in my
breast which tells me so."
"Is your pain great?" asked Beatty.
"So great, that I wish I were dead. Yet," he continued, in lower tones,
"one would like to live a little longer, too."
A few moments of silence passed; then he said in the same low tone,--
"What would become of my poor Lady Hamilton if she knew my situation?"
Fifteen minutes elapsed before Captain Hardy returned. On doing so, he
warmly grasped Nelson's hand, and in tones of joy congratulated him on
the victory which he had come to announce.
"How many of the enemy are taken, I cannot say," he remarked; "the
smoke hides them; but we have not less than fourteen or fifteen."
"That's well," cried Nelson, "but I bargained for twenty. Anchor, Hardy,
anchor!" he commanded, in a stronger voice.
"Will not Admiral Collingwood take charge of the fleet?" hinted Hardy.
"Not while I live, Hardy," answered Nelson, with an effort to lift
himself in his bed. "Do you anchor."
Hardy started to obey this last order of his beloved commander. In a low
tone Nelson called him back.
"Don't throw me overboard, Hardy," he pleaded. "Take me home that I may
be buried by my parents, unless the king shall order otherwise. And take
care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton.
Kiss me, Hardy."
The weeping captain knelt and kissed him.
"Now I am satisfied," said the dying hero. "Thank God, I have done my
duty."
Hardy stood and looked down, in sad silence upon him, then again knelt
and kissed him on the forehead.
"Who is that?" asked Nelson.
"It is I, Hardy," was the reply.
"God bless you, Hardy," came in tones just above a whisper.
Hardy turned and left. He could bear no more. He had looked his last on
his old commander.
"I wish I had not left the deck," said Nelson; "for I see I shall soon
be gone."
It was true; life was fast ebbing.
"Doctor," he said to the chaplain, "I have not been a _great_ sinner."
He was silent a moment, and then continued, "Remember that I leave Lady
Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country."
Words now came with difficulty.
"Thank God, I have done my duty," he said, repeating these words again
and again. They were his last words. He died at half-past four, three
and a quarter hours after he had been wounded.
Meanwhile, Nelson's prediction had been realized: twenty French ships
had struck their flags. The victory of Trafalgar was complete;
Napoleon's hope of invading England was at an end. Nelson, dying, had
saved his country by destroying the fleet of her foes. Never had a sun
set in greater glory than did the life of this hero of the navy of Great
Britain, the ruler of the waves.
_THE MASSACRE OF AN ARMY._
The sentinels on the ramparts of Jelalabad, a fortified post held by the
British in Afghanistan, looking out over the plain that extended
northward and westward from the town, saw a singular-looking person
approaching. He rode a pony that seemed so jaded with travel that it
could scarcely lift a foot to continue, its head drooping low as it
dragged slowly onward. The traveller seemed in as evil plight as his
horse. His head was bent forward upon his breast, the rein had fallen
from his nerveless grasp, and he swayed in the saddle as if he could
barely retain his seat. As he came nearer, and lifted his face for a
moment, he was seen to be frightfully pale and haggard, with the horror
of an untold tragedy in his bloodshot eyes. Who was he? An Englishman,
evidently, perhaps a messenger from the army at Cabul. The officers of
the fort, notified of his approach, ordered that the gates should be
opened. In a short time man and horse were within the walls of the town.
So pitiable and woe-begone a spectacle none there had ever beheld. The
man seemed almost a corpse on horseback. He had fairly to be lifted from
his saddle, and borne inward to a place of shelter and repose, while the
animal was scarcely able to make its way to the stable to which it was
led. As the traveller rested, eager questions ran through the garrison.
Who was he? How came he in such a condition? What had he to tell of the
army in the field? Did his coming in this sad plight portend some dark
disaster?
This curiosity was shared by the officer in command of the fort. Giving
his worn-out guest no long time to recover, he plied him with inquiries.
"You are exhausted," he said. "I dislike to disturb you, but I beg leave
to ask you a few questions."
"Go on sir; I can answer," said the traveller, in a weary tone.
"Do you bring a message from General Elphinstone,--from the army?"
"I bring no message. There is no army,--or, rather, I am the army," was
the enigmatical reply.
"You the army? I do not understand you."
"I represent the army. The others are gone,--dead, massacred,
prisoners,--man, woman, and child. I, Doctor Brydon, am the army,--all
that remains of it."
The commander heard him in astonishment and horror. General Elphinstone
had seventeen thousand soldiers and camp-followers in his camp at Cabul.
"Did Dr. Brydon mean to say----"
"They are all gone," was the feeble reply. "I am left; all the others
are slain. You may well look frightened, sir; you would be heart-sick
with horror had you gone through my experience. I have seen an army
slaughtered before my eyes, and am here alone to tell it."
It was true; the army had vanished; an event had happened almost without
precedent in the history of the world, unless we instance the burying of
the army of Cambyses in the African desert. When Dr. Brydon was
sufficiently rested and refreshed he told his story. It is the story we
have here to repeat.
In the summer of 1841 the British army under General Elphinstone lay in
cantonments near the city of Cabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in a
position far from safe or well chosen. They were a mile and a half from
the citadel,--the Bala Hissar,--with a river between. Every corner of
their cantonments was commanded by hills or Afghan forts. Even their
provisions were beyond their reach, in case of attack, being stored in a
fort at some distance from the cantonments. They were in the heart of a
hostile population. General Elphinstone, trusting too fully in the
puppet of a khan who had been set up by British bayonets, had carelessly
kept his command in a weak and untenable position.
The general was old and in bad health; by no means the man for the
emergency. He was controlled by bad advisers, who thought only of
returning to India, and discouraged the strengthening of the fortress.
The officers lost heart on seeing the supineness of their leader. The
men were weary of incessant watching, annoyed by the insults of the
natives, discouraged by frequent reports of the death of comrades, who
had been picked off by roving enemies. The ladies alone retained
confidence, occupying themselves in the culture of their gardens, which,
in the delightful summer climate of that situation, rewarded their
labors with an abundance of flowers.
As time went on the situation grew rapidly worse. Akbar Khan, the
leading spirit among the hostile Afghans, came down from the north and
occupied the Khoord Cabul Pass,--the only way back to Hindustan.
Ammunition was failing, food was decreasing, the enemy were growing
daily stronger and more aggressive. Affairs had come to such a pass that
but one of two things remained to do,--to leave the cantonments and seek
shelter in the citadel till help should arrive, or to endeavor to march
back to India.
On the 23d of December the garrison was alarmed by a frightful example
of boldness and ferocity in the enemy. Sir William Macnaughten, the
English envoy, who had left the works to treat with the Afghan chiefs,
was seized by Akbar Khan and murdered on the spot, his head, with its
green spectacles, being held up in derision to the soldiers within the
works.
The British were now "advised" by the Afghans to go back to India. There
was, in truth, nothing else to do. They were starving where they were.
If they should fight their way to the citadel, they would be besieged
there without food. They must go, whatever the risk or hardships. On
the 6th of January the fatal march began,--a march of four thousand five
hundred soldiers and twelve thousand camp-followers, besides women and
children, through a mountainous country, filled with savage foes, and in
severe winter weather.
The first day's march took them but five miles from the works, the
evacuation taking place so slowly that it was two o'clock in the morning
before the last of the force came up. It had been a march of frightful
conditions. Attacked by the Afghans on every side, hundreds of the
fugitives perished in those first five dreadful miles. As the advance
body waited in the snow for those in the rear to join them, the glare of
flames from the burning cantonments told that the evacuation had been
completed, and that the whole multitude was now at the mercy of its
savage foes. It was evident that they had a frightful gantlet to run
through the fire of the enemy and the winters chilling winds. The snow
through which they had slowly toiled was reddened with blood all the way
back to Cabul. Baggage was abandoned, and men and women alike pushed
forward for their lives, some of them, in the haste of flight, but
half-clad, few sufficiently protected from the severe cold.
The succeeding days were days of massacre and horror. The fierce
hill-tribes swarmed around the troops, attacking them in front, flank,
and rear, pouring in their fire from every point of vantage, slaying
them in hundreds, in thousands, as they moved hopelessly on. The
despairing men fought bravely. Many of the foe suffered for their
temerity. But they were like prairie-wolves around the dying bison; the
retreating force lay helpless in their hands; two new foes took the
place of every one that fell.
Each day's horrors surpassed those of the last. The camp-followers died
in hundreds from cold and starvation, their frost-bitten feet refusing
to support them. Crawling in among the rugged rocks that bordered the
road, they lay there helplessly awaiting death. The soldiers fell in
hundreds. It grew worse as they entered the contracted mountain-pass
through which their road led. Here the ferocious foe swarmed among the
rocks, and poured death from the heights upon the helpless fugitives. It
was impossible to dislodge them. Natural breastworks commanded every
foot of that terrible road. The hardy Afghan mountaineers climbed with
the agility of goats over the hill-sides, occupying hundreds of points
which the soldiers could not reach. It was a carnival of slaughter.
Nothing remained for the helpless fugitives but to push forward with all
speed through that frightful mountain-pass and gain as soon as possible
the open ground beyond.
Few gained it. On the fourth day from Cabul there were but two hundred
and seventy soldiers left. The fifth day found the seventeen thousand
fugitives reduced to five thousand. A day more, and these five thousand
were nearly all slain. Only twenty men remained of the great body of
fugitives which had left Cabul less than a week before. This handful of
survivors was still relentlessly pursued. A barrier detained them for a
deadly interval under the fire of the foe, and eight of the twenty died
in seeking to cross it. The pass was traversed, but the army was gone. A
dozen worn-out fugitives were all that remained alive.
On they struggled towards Jelalabad, death following them still. They
reached the last town on their road; but six of them had fallen. These
six were starving. They had not tasted food for days. Some peasants
offered them bread. They devoured it like famished wolves. But as they
did so the inhabitants of the town seized their arms and assailed them.
Two of them were cut down. The others fled, but were hotly pursued.
Three of the four were overtaken and slain within four miles of
Jelalabad. Dr. Brydon alone remained, and gained the fort alone, the
sole survivor, as he believed and reported, of the seventeen thousand
fugitives. The Afghan chiefs had boasted that they would allow only one
man to live, to warn the British to meddle no more with Afghanistan.
Their boast seemed literally fulfilled. Only one man had traversed in
safety that "valley of the shadow of death."
Fortunately, there were more living than Dr. Brydon was aware of. Akbar
Khan had offered to save the ladies and children if the married and
wounded officers were delivered into his hands. This was done. General
Elphinstone was among the prisoners, and died in captivity, a relief to
himself and his friends from the severe account to which the government
would have been obliged to call him.
Now for the sequel to this story of suffering and slaughter. The
invasion of Afghanistan by the English had been for the purpose of
protecting the Indian frontier. A prince, Shah Soojah, friendly to
England, was placed on the throne. This prince was repudiated by the
Afghan tribes, and to their bitter and savage hostility was due the
result which we have briefly described. It was a result with which the
British authorities were not likely to remain satisfied. The news of the
massacre sent a thrill of horror through the civilized world.
Retribution was the sole thought in British circles in India. A strong
force was at once collected to punish the Afghans and rescue the
prisoners. Under General Pollock it fought its way through the Khyber
Pass and reached Jelalabad. Thence it advanced to Cabul, the soldiers,
infuriated by the sight of the bleaching skeletons that thickly lined
the roadway, assailing the Afghans with a ferocity equal to their own.
Wherever armed Afghans were met death was their portion. Nowhere could
they stand against the maddened English troops. Filled with terror, they
fled for safety to the mountains, the invading force having terribly
revenged their slaughtered countrymen.
It next remained to rescue the prisoners. They had been carried about
from fort to fort, suffering many hardships and discomforts, but not
being otherwise maltreated. They were given up to the British, after the
recapture of Cabul, with the hope that this would satisfy these terrible
avengers. It did so. The fortifications of Cabul were destroyed, and the
British army was withdrawn from the country. England had paid bitterly
for the mistake of occupying it. The bones of a slaughtered army paved
the road that led to the Afghan capital.
_THE ROYAL AND DIAMOND JUBILEES OF QUEEN VICTORIA._
In the year 1887 came a great occasion in the life of England's queen,
that of the fiftieth anniversary of her reign, a year of holiday and
festivity that extended to all quarters of the world, for the broad
girdle of British dominion had during her reign extended to embrace the
globe. India led the way, the rejoicing over the royal jubilee of its
empress extending throughout its vast area, from the snowy passes of the
Himalayas on the north to the tropic shores of Cape Comorin on the
south. Other colonies joined in the festivities, the loyal Canadians
vieing with the free-hearted Australians, the semi-bronzed Africanders
and the planters of the West Indies, in the celebration of the joyous
anniversary year.
In the history of England there have been only four such jubilees, the
earlier ones being those of Henry III., Edward III., and George III. It
is a curious coincidence that of these three sovereigns preceding
Victoria whose reigns extended over fifty years, each of them was the
third of his name. Victoria broke the rule in this as well as in the
breadth and splendor of the jubilee display and rejoicings. To show this
a few lines must be devoted to these earlier occasions.
The reign of Henry III. was memorable as being that in which trial by
jury was introduced and the first real English Parliament, that summoned
by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was held. It was this that
gives eclat to the jubilee year, 1265, for it was in that year that the
first Parliament convened. Yet sorrow rather than rejoicing marked the
year, for the horrors of civil war rent the land and the bloody battle
of Evesham saddened all loyal souls.
The jubilee of Edward III. came in 1376, when that monarch entered the
fiftieth year of his reign. This was a year fitted for rejoicing, for
the age was one of glory and prosperity. The horrors of the "black
death," which had swept the land some twenty years before, were
forgotten and men were in a happy mood. We read of tournaments,
processions, feasts and pageantry in which all the people participated.
Yet sorrow came before the year ended, for the death of the "Black
Prince," the most brilliant hero of chivalry, was sorely mourned by his
father, the king, and by the subjects of the realm, while the rising
clouds of civil war threw a gloom on the end of the jubilee year, as
they had on that of Henry.
More than four centuries elapsed before another jubilee year arrived,
that of George III., the fiftieth year of whose reign came in 1810. It
was a year of festivities that spread widely over the land, the people
entering into it with all the Anglo-Saxon love of holiday. In addition
to the grand state banquets, splendid balls, showy reviews and general
illuminations, there were open-air feasts free to all, at which bullocks
were roasted whole, while army and navy deserters were pardoned,
prisoners of war set free, and a great subscription was made for the
release from prison of poor debtors.
Yet there was little in the character of the king or the state of the
country to justify these festivities. England was then in the throes of
its struggle with Napoleon; the king had lost his reason, the Prince of
Wales acting as regent; the only reason for rejoicing was that the
inglorious career of George III. seemed nearing its end. Yet he survived
for ten years more, not dying until 1820, and surpassing all
predecessors in the length of his reign.
When, in the year 1887, Queen Victoria reached the fiftieth year of her
reign, there were none of these causes for sorrow in her realm. England
was in the height of prosperity, free from the results of blighting
pestilence, disastrous wars, desolating famine, or any of the horrors
that steep great nations in heart-breaking sorrow. The empire was
immense in extent, prosperous in all its parts, and the queen was
beloved throughout her wide dominions as no monarch of England had ever
been before. Thus it was a year in which the people could rejoice
without a shadow to darken their joy and with warm love for their queen
to make their hilarity a real instead of a simulated one.
It was in far-off India, of which Victoria had been proclaimed empress
ten years before, that the first note of rejoicing was heard. The 16th
of February was selected as the date of the imperial festival, which was
celebrated all over the land, even in Mandalay, the capital of the
newly-conquered state of Upper Burmah. Europeans and natives alike took
part in the ceremonies and rejoicings, which embraced banquets, plays,
reviews, illuminations, the distribution of honors, the opening in honor
of the empress of libraries, colleges and hospitals, and at Gwalior the
cancelling of the arrears of the land-tax amounting to five million
dollars.
The fiftieth year of the queen's reign would be completed on the 20th of
June, but in the preceding months of the year many preliminary
ceremonies took place in England. Among these was a splendid reception
of the queen at Birmingham, which city she visited on the 23d of March.
The streets were richly decorated with flags, festoons, triumphal
arches, banks of flowers, and trophies illustrating the industries of
that metropolis of manufacture, while the streets were thronged with
half a million of rejoicing people. A striking feature of the occasion
was a semi-circle of fifteen thousand school-children, a mile long, the
teachers standing behind each school-group, and a continuous strain of
"God Save the Queen" hailing the royal progress along the line.
On the 4th of May the queen received at Windsor Castle the
representatives of the colonial governments, whose addresses showed that
during her reign the colonial subjects of the empire had increased from
less than 2,000,000 to more than 9,000,000 souls, the Indian subjects
from 96,000,000 to 254,000,000, and those of minor dependencies from
2,000,000 to 7,000,000.
There were various other incidents connected with the Jubilee during
May, one being a visit of the queen to the American "Wild West Show,"
and another the opening of the "People's Palace" at Whitechapel, in
which fifteen thousand troops were ranged along seven miles of
splendidly decorated streets, while the testimony of the people to their
affection for their queen was as enthusiastic as it had been at
Birmingham. Day after day other ceremonial occasions arrived, including
banquets, balls, assemblies and public festivities of many kinds, from
the feeding of four thousand of the poor at Glasgow to a yacht race
around the British Islands.
The great Jubilee celebration, however, was reserved for the 21st of
June, the chief streets of London being given over to a host of
decorators, who transformed them into a glowing bower of beauty. The
route set aside for the imposing procession was one long array of
brilliant color and shifting brightness almost impossible to describe
and surpassing all former festive demonstrations.
The line of the royal procession extended from Buckingham Palace to
Westminster Abbey, along which route windows and seats had been secured
at fabulous prices, while the throng of sightseers that densely crowded
the streets was in the best of good humor.
As the procession moved slowly along from Buckingham Palace a strange
silence fell upon the gossipping crowd as they awaited the coming of the
aged queen, on her way to the old Abbey to celebrate in state the
fiftieth year of her reign. When the head of the procession moved onward
and the royal carriages came within sight, the awed feeling that had
prevailed was followed by one of tumultuous enthusiasm, volley after
volley of cheers rending the air as the carriage bearing the royal lady
passed between the two dense lines of loyal spectators.
With a face tremulous with emotion the queen bowed from side to side in
grateful courtesy to her acclaiming subjects, as did her companions, the
Princess of Wales and the German Crown Princess, who had returned to her
native land to take part in its holiday of patriotism.