While these two were acting in this strange love scene, the three
personages upon whom they were nominally in attendance were planning
measures which were to overturn, in a few days, all that the halting
diplomacy of the Emperor had built up in many months. The Queen, who
had contrived to make of our Admiral her faithful Minister, urged the
matter forward to force the head of her house, the Emperor, to make a
decided movement and march his armies down into the Peninsula against
the French. By his sending her a general she took it for granted that
he meant to support her with his soldiers as soon as she began
fighting, which seems to have been very far from his thoughts--a fact,
of course, known to General Mack. But the latter had neither the
honesty nor the capacity to give such a message to the beautiful and
eager Queen, and allowed her to deceive herself. He trusted (now that
Buonaparte was away in Egypt and without a fleet) to a French scuttle
before the numbers of the Neapolitans, and the English ships, which
threatened their land communications by the Riviera Road.
Sir William might have taken a severer view, if indeed he was capable
of taking any view at this time. Sir William was not a strong man.
Having the good fortune to be the foster-brother of King George III.,
he was appointed to the Court of Naples, probably as a kind of
sinecure, when the prospect of Naples becoming the key to the European
situation seemed as remote as any earthly contingency. Possibly he had
qualifications then; but, at all events, as he grew older, they
disappeared, and he became, by the agency of his able and ambitious
wife, a mere appendage to the Court of Naples. And now he was having
one of his periodical visitations of the bilious fever, which had kept
him from the Pompeian expedition (where his antiquarian knowledge
would have been highly interesting to the Admiral) and the Queen's
banquet. Being somewhat recovered, and the air of Caserta having so
often proved beneficial during similar attacks, he had driven up in
the morning, and, indeed, was so far recovered by night that he
determined with the Queen and the Admiral to return to Naples on the
following day.
His improvement was maintained there. But as he grew older his attacks
became longer and more difficult to shake off, and he was both averse
to work and incapable of energy at the moment when opposition would
have counted.
By eight o'clock on the morning of the 12th the Court and all the
guests had flitted, and they were in Naples in time for a very early
midday meal, ordered by a courier sent overnight. For what follows I
am indebted to the Admiral's own Journal, which is again borne out by
facts within the personal knowledge and perfect memory of Will.
* * * * *
"_Oct. 12th._--Sir William has borne the journey pretty well, but
knowing how anxious Emma must be about him, I determined to accept the
Queen's very pressing invitation to luncheon at the Palace, and
immediately afterwards to excuse myself and go down to the dockyard.
It has been my invariable custom, when ships under my command have
been refitting, to go down and inspect them personally, although I
have never found the ships' officers less careful than myself, or less
capable of judging efficiency.
"Indeed, I attribute the successes, with which the Lord has been
pleased to grace my battles, to the efficiency of of my officers and
men, coupled with my unalterable principle to seek my enemy as fast
and as near as ever I can get to him.
"I did not lunch at the Queen's table after all, for I found that the
very early lunch resolved itself into light refreshment directly we
arrived, and the usual interminable meal an hour or two afterwards,
which is Her Majesty's foundation for the siesta. So I determined to
go off to the dockyard on a biscuit and a glass of _lachrime Christi_,
which was served to us as a fillip.
"But one of the Queen's ladies, a certain Princess of Favara, to whom
I once had the honour of doing a small service in a delicate matter,
insisting that it was the height of imprudence for a man but lately
recovered from the fever to spend a long day in the sun on no better
preparation, with her own hands brought me the breast of a fowl and
some champagne, which she obtained from one of the servants. She is a
lady of marked beauty, and has, if I mistake not, a feeling for my
scapegrace Will. Her deference to me, as an elderly man and the
commander of the good Allies of her Sovereign, is very graceful, and
does her good taste great credit; for it is not necessary for a maid
of honour, especially of her high birth, to take any notice of one
whom only the accident of politics has introduced at the Court.
"_Oct. 12th. At night._--Matters at the dockyard on the whole
satisfactory, though for war-ships to take three weeks to re-fit--oh
Lord! But then their appliances are miserable, and there are hardly
any stores to speak of, and in this country nothing is ever ready or
well done, except a _bal masqué_.
"I hardly saw dear Emma all day. Sir William, though he has borne the
journey pretty well, has these bilious fevers so very seriously now,
that he needs the closest watching. I saw her, for a minute, when I
came back from the dockyard for dinner with the Queen, but I had cut
the time so fine that it was the barest minute. I found the dinner
very long. I had matters of the first moment to discuss with nearly
every one around me, but had to be mum. This cursed place is so full
of spies. One never knows that the fellow who takes away your broken
victuals may not be a French diplomatist, equal in rank to a Secretary
of Legation, playing the spy! So we had to fall back on the usual
table talk,--scandal, almost the only topic in which it is safe to
indulge, and one which includes every one in Naples, except those who
are present, who will have their turn on their first absence.
"Dinner over--and the gentlemen did not stay at their wine--after a
short conversation with the Princess, who is the only one of Her
Majesty's ladies who takes much pains to speak English, at which she
is becoming quite intelligible, we went off to a consultation, which
was to be followed by what Her Majesty has christened a Session, not a
Council, in order that she may not have to summon the whole of her
Ministers. This, of course, is aimed at the Marquis de Gallo, the War
Minister, who is tottering and to be replaced. I am glad of this, for
I detest him. He is as ignorant a fellow of common civility as he is
of his duties. Sir William, whose health is better to-day, drove up
for the consultation, at which De Gallo was also present; and I was
led to believe that promises of protection, with supplies of arms,
ammunition, and provisions (as I understood from the Governors of
Syracuse and Messina), had been given to the inhabitants of Malta.
"I returned with Sir William in his coach to the Embassy, when he at
once retired for the night, under care of Emma, who was waiting
anxiously to receive him. I also retired. I was, indeed, glad, for
more than one reason, to be in the quiet of my chamber. Here in Naples
one lives in one's bedchamber when one is alone; for it is furnished
for receptions, and its own reception-rooms, attached to it, are mere
ante-chambers, where one receives tradesmen, or those who would weary
one of their business, instead of admitting them into one's privacy.
The operations in the dockyard had kept me a good deal on my legs and
much in the sun; and I remembered the moonlight scene of which I had
been deprived on the night of the Queen's banquet, so, after dinner,
when My Lady retired to Sir William, who was dining in his own
apartment--not caring to be present when there were dishes that he
favoured, but of which he dare not partake, for he is a great
connoisseur--I went up to my chamber and bade my man, Tom Allen, fling
open windows and shutters in the corner which commanded the Bay. When
he had done this, 'Begging your pardon, sir,' he said, saluting me,
'shall you be needing me any more to-night?' It is my habit, when I am
alone, to give him leave off when I do not require his services. He is
a good fellow, Tom, though the queerest-looking fish, and, indeed, the
queerest fish who was ever allowed to appear as the servant of a
public man. He is a good fellow, but he irritates me with his
over-care for my health, so I am glad to be rid of him till midnight.
"There is, it seems, to be some kind of a gala for the men of the
fleet at Virgil's tomb, on the face of the Hill of Pausilippo, which
is to be decorated with many lamps and 'N.V.' in roses, the V.
representing Victory and not Virgil--who is, however, esteemed a great
witch among the _lazzaroni_. I was glad to be rid of the good Tom, for
in a minute he would have been busying in to close the windows. Naples
and the _mal' aria_ spell the same thing to him; and it was so
heavenly to see the large open squares of dark-blue starlit sky as I
was sitting at my table intending to confess to you, Pen. But no
confessions would come, so I rose and walked to the windows, from the
right hand of which I could distinctly see the glare of the lamps,
with which they were decorating Virgil in my honour, in his vineyard
on the hill of Pausilippo, and the crescent of flickering lights from
the Cape to the end of the Thuilleries. But the other interested me
more, for from it I could see the calm, gently-heaving sea, with the
lanterns of the fisher-boats bobbing round the rocks, and the flashing
port-holes of my squadron, and a broad shaft of moonlight on the
water, which made Capri just visible at the far end, and seemed to
bring out every stone in the lofty walls of the strong Castle of Uovo
and the long narrow drawbridge from the Castle to the gate-tower, and
the gate-tower to the shore. And, much as in my heart I despise Naples
for the lightness with which she gives herself over to fiddling and
illuminations the moment the darkness, which the Neapolitans love as
other people love the light, supervenes, I must confess that it added
greatly to the gaiety of the scene upon which I looked.
"As I stood by the window, half angry, half adoring the Naples which
has made me so happy with the first perfect companionship my life has
known, I felt a hand upon my shoulder, a woman's face against my neck.
"'My Nelson,' she said, 'the room where I had crooned Sir William
asleep was dark, and the moonbeams came in, and I remember how I
deprived you two nights ago, and I came to this room, which is the
only one that sweeps the Bay, to share the moonlight with you. Say
that you would not have cared for it so much without me.'
"I did not speak--my heart was too full for words; but one can say
without words the deepest things in one's nature, and as I stood with
my hand round her side, she continued:
"'My mother has taken my place for two hours, to let me get some rest
now that my dear husband is recovering.' And then, suddenly turning
round, she looked at me with all her soul in her eyes, that were wont
to be so full of laughter, though with her mouth she ever smiled more
than laughed, and even now those exquisite lips were parting in a
tender smile. I do not know to what I can compare them, except crimson
rose-leaves laid lightly on the whitest and most perfect teeth in the
world. And the little straight nose, which gives the face its merry,
mischievous air when she is laughing, gave it now, with its delicate
nostrils, a touching air of femininity. I could see every little
womanly perfection in the dazzling white moonlight which poured into
the window. She stood a little like this, and then she inclined her
gracious head to whisper: 'And what rest is there for me like a quiet
hour with you--the saviour of our countries, the hero of my heart!
Everything here breathes to me of you. If I look out on to the Bay,
the serried lines of lights show me ships which fought in your
victory, the greatest the sea has ever seen. If I look on the land,
wherever I see a flare of light, or hear a band of music, I know that
they are celebrating you. The Queen, in her palace, has your heroic
name hardly ever off her lips; and here, in my palace, every soul is
thinking and talking of you; and _I_ worship you.'
"We stood for a short time almost in silence, taking in, with dreaming
eyes, the gentle lights, the soft Southern moonlight, the crowning
stars; and then I led her to the door, and kissing her reverently on
the threshold, bade her go and take her much-needed rest. She
hesitated for a few moments; then, flinging her arms round me, she
kissed me with oh, such tenderness, and looked into my eyes. Then she
released me, and saying--'My Lord's first command!' glid swiftly away,
without so much as looking round.
"_Oct. 13th. Later._--I have played at being a coward, and run away,
the first time in my life except from the storm at Teneriffe,--I
protest that it was the storm and not the Spaniards.
"When Emma went, I began to recognise the full extent of my peril.
Suppose I had not been strong, and had tried to rob her of her rest by
detaining her instead of prescribing as her physician. Incidental
caresses are beautiful, tender, endearing things. But to abandon
yourself to a banquet of them on a Neapolitan autumn night, in the
darkness and silence of a great house, hushed for a fever patient--a
banquet of caresses with the loveliest woman in the world--and not a
human soul to save you from falling in love! No, already I love Emma
as much as an English gentleman may love a friend's wife. She is to me
the most beautiful, affectionate, loyal, respectable woman alive; and
she has such a perfect freedom from _mauvaise honte_, as we used to
say when I was studying that vile language at St. Omer, that she
permits herself to grant me all the innocent caresses she would grant
a brother. And she trusts herself with me too much. Pray God I may not
mean these words 'too much.' I hope I am a gentleman. But I mean that
she is too trustful, if I were a villain.
* * * * *
"Why did I let her go? There was no hurry; we were doing no
harm,--nothing. It was restful for both of us, that standing side by
side and pressure of friendly hands. I do not believe I ever felt so
perfectly at peace with the world.
"No; the point remains, _quo vadis?_ One cannot be perfectly certain,
as certain as I should like to be, of anything stopping at a given
point. And this soft air, this soft scene take away the powers of
resistance. To yield to the temptation to love or kill seems natural
here--to kill, not in the fierce rough-and-tumble of the North, but
with the stab in the back, the poisoned bowl, or the measured duello
of the South.
"I must leave this. Nay, I will leave it this very night. I cannot
sail for Malta, let me see, for one--two days; but I can take up my
quarters on my ship, and the same healthy breath of the ocean blows on
every sea. Even in this beautiful Circean Bay I shall be myself
there--and fling away soft imaginations and soft longings, and think
of the French!
* * * * *
"_'Vanguard,' 12 p.m._--Since I wrote the above, I have had a cocked
hat full of strange adventures. I made up my mind to leave the Embassy
there and then, lest dear Emma should come back after her sleep to bid
me good-night before she returned to Sir William, and I should be weak
and try to detain her. Buckling on my sword, I went down to the
_portiere_, and asked him if a coach were procurable to take me to the
Santa Lucia landing. I had not my pistols with me at the Embassy,
because there could be no chance of my needing them, so I thought I
would take a coach; for Naples has none too savoury a reputation at
night. Unfortunately there was no coach to be had--Emma and Sir
William having many horses and every variety of vehicle, and the
Embassy standing a little outside the city gate. Besides, all the
coaches in the near part of the city were gone to my fête at Virgil's.
The _portiere_ was for knocking the men up and giving me one of Sir
William's coaches, which he said would take but a very few minutes,
the men sleeping in their clothes, except their livery coats, which I
consider an unhealthy habit. But of this I would not hear, fearing
lest Emma should get the wind. I doubted my strength to go in the face
of her hospitable entreaties.
"'Nay,' I said, 'try for a _vettura_.' As he prophesied, no _vettura_
was forthcoming, so I determined to walk down to the landing--a very
little way. I stepped out at a brisk pace; but when I was under the
shadow of the hill which Sir William tells me is Palæpolis, the
original citadel of the Greek city, now called Pizzofalcone, under
which are clustered some cabins of the lowest class, I was set upon by
three or four fellows. Luckily, contrary to my usual custom, I had
buckled my sword upon my right-hand side, where I could draw it; and
so I whipped it out to defend myself; and spitting the first of them
in the stomach, which I knew to be more effective at a pinch than a
slash from a man of my small stature, set my back against a wall of
the kind which they use for poor buildings in these parts, and which I
knew to be there. As they came on, in my excitement, I forgot about
the spitting, and splashed for my life. And it saved my life: for a
fellow to whom I gave a pretty cut, knew by the shoulder that he was
fighting a left-handed man, and called out in the Neapolitan lingo
words among which were 'The Admiral! the Liberator of our country!'
Instantly the onslaught ceased, and all of them, including he whom I
had spitted and the man whose shoulder I had slashed, knelt before me;
and though I cannot understand the Neapolitan lingo, I felt sure that
they were craving my forgiveness, which I was well ready to grant
them, for the rascals had such a respect for their skins that, though
there were four of them against a one-armed man, they had not come to
quarters close enough to use their dangerous knives.
"Certain strange noises in the nature of signals then followed; and in
a very few minutes I was surrounded by above a hundred of the
_lazzaroni_, one of whom, speaking a few words of English, as is not
uncommon in this port, explained that they were going to form a kind
of bodyguard for me, to prevent any similar mishap from French
sympathisers. This I was glad to accept, both in acknowledgment of the
spirit that offered it, and because I knew that evil-disposed
persons, favouring the French, had given some trouble by lurking near
the landing to pay off national scores on my seamen straggling home in
liquor. I gave each of the men I had bled a guinea, and I dare swear
that, as soon as they are healed, they will be ready for more
blood-letting on the same terms.
"We came near more letting of blood at the landing steps, for who
should be there but Will! and there was a magnificent illumination of
three oil lamps, by which he recognised me, surrounded by my
evil-looking guard. Without pausing to reckon that they were more than
a hundred to his one, he drew his sword, and was for cutting his way
to me, but at the same time called to the sleepy drab of a Neapolitan
watchman to fire his piece and give the alarm, which he promptly did,
it being astonishing how soon these fellows are waked when they scent
danger. Fortunately I stopped Will[6] before he cut down any of my
protectors, and almost immediately a well-armed boat from the
_Vanguard_ came racing in to the steps. Warned by a few mischances,
the Captain had ordered a patrol to lie off nightly, from darkness to
daylight.
[6] Will has a perfect memory of the incident, and every detail
is given as he remembers it. He describes the situation as being
almost the most extraordinary in which he ever saw the Admiral.
They had a few torches, such as the fishermen use when they are
harpooning the great cuttle-fish which form such a favourite
article of diet at Naples, and the Admiral was in their centre,
it seemed to him at first, as a prisoner.
"Turning for a minute to speak to the officer in command of the boat,
to my astonishment, on facing about again, I found every man of my
_lazzaroni_ melted into thick darkness. They were conscious, I
suppose, of being the worst rogues in Naples, and fancied that their
relations to me, which had taken such a sudden and favourable change,
might be misinterpreted. And volleys are quicker than explanations.
The officer wished to know if he should take me off to the flagship,
which, on learning the nature of his duty, I would not allow, for it
was easy for some poor seaman, half seas over, to be in the same fix
as I had been, and not to get off so handsomely. There was a boat,
too, coming off for Will, so he said, and I fancied that I could hear
the rowlocks even then.
"I had been at sea pretty well all my life, and at Naples but two or
three weeks, and yet I own I hardly expected to find the machine
working so perfectly when I stepped back into it. For those three
weeks had been three weeks of such topsy-turvy--more like the Italian
opera than life. Yet here was the well-appointed boat, with no one
taking any notice of me beyond saluting, even Will, who sat by me, not
speaking until I addressed him. When I reached the ship's side and
ascended the gangway, the few men who were about at that hour, with
the sentries and officers of the watch, were all at the salute, and
seemed to have been waiting for my return every minute, since I had
landed. My state-room and cabin were lighted, the sentry stood at the
door, and everything was arranged to my hand as it would be if I had
never left the ship, though my man Tom is ashore, and, by the time, I
should judge, still with Virgil.
* * * * *
"I have been on the poop for I know not how long, pacing up and down
and feeling a better man. The sea breeze has blown away all doubts. I
must put to sea in two days and get rid of all this. It is not often
that I am glad to go to sea, when there is no more to be done than I
have hopes of at Malta. I would I could go to Alexandria, and finish
those French transports, so that not a man of the Grand Army should
ever come back to Europe. I have asked the Grand Signor for a few
bombs and fireships, which he should, by this time, have sent. With
that not one of them will escape. This is much more to my mind than
lying at anchor off Naples; and about this Malta business, too, I
fear that His Majesty is misinformed. It is represented that the
French are on the point of surrender to the Islanders, and that the
grant of so much arms, ammunition, and money, which the Governor of
Syracuse is considered to have sent, will make Valetta ready to fall
as soon as they sight our topsails. This I do not expect. The Maltese
are liars and braggarts, though they can fight pretty well when it
comes to a choice between fighting and being butchered like sheep.
Unless Valetta has reached the starvation point--and I think it has
not--even my fleet could not reduce it by bombardment or assault; and
the Maltese might be allowed to attack it from now till the crack of
doom, without the defenders needing to fire a single gun.
"Still the French have more than once lost heart when their
communications have been cut off; and if I go to Malta and summon them
from my ships,--'who knows?' as the Spaniards say.
"I am not able to go to Egypt to serve my country, because of this
affair of Naples and the French in the Papal States, of which, since I
have seen Mack, I have no great hopes, unless I can see to it myself,
and for the fact that it will set the Emperor in motion again. His
sending, and the Queen's acceptance of Mack, should be a pledge of
this. The Queen's army cannot move till November, which will give me
time and plenty to summon Valetta.
"Between it all I may get some action to clear my atmosphere. If I
stayed long in Naples, I feel as if I should not be able to leave it.
I have never lived till now, but I must struggle against it, though
goodness knows why. Surely the Power which sent us into the world
meant us to make the best of our lives. Not the best in a
shore-parson's sense, but the best in the sense of extracting the
utmost cause for thankfulness out of life--the utmost gratitude for
it.
"I think I am a religious man, as men go. I do not believe that there
are many men who have a more active sense of their duty to their
country. I have never feared to die for her in any of my hundred
fights, and I always lean upon my Maker before I go into them, and
have ever given Him the praise when I came safe out of them. But I do
not know how much I believe that what we do in this life is to
influence our happiness in a future life in a different place, over
going to which we have no control. I hope to do my duty for the sake
of what is my duty in this life, and not as a bribe to secure
happiness in the next. My present position is that I tear myself away
from that which will give me the greatest happiness of which a man is
capable, and I do this out of submission to a code of whose validity I
am not sure. The code is of the West--Western; but the traditions upon
which it is founded are of the East--Eastern. Those who made and keep
the code regard those who made and keep the traditions as barbarians.
The peoples upon whose traditions the convention is founded have no
such convention! Why, then, am I so concerned, not about breaking the
convention, of which I should never dream, but about the
misinterpretations of the Pharisees, who have arrogated to themselves
the maintenance of the convention? I cannot tell. There is but one
remedy for it--the sea--which I have always proposed to myself as my
bride. I wonder if it was because I did not know what the
possibilities of life were?"