from the Palace to the British Ambassador's.
I must confess that in these ten days between the 13th and the 23rd of
December, 1798, when the French were coming as quick as they could
march to Naples, the wearing of my lieutenant's uniform gave me a vast
deal of satisfaction. I only had it the night we sailed to Leghorn,
with General Naselli, about whom the Admiral and Captain Troubridge
expressed themselves so frankly, and his five thousand Neapolitan
braves in the fleet. And at Leghorn we had not been allowed ashore.
The Admiral was sick of the wretched business, for Naselli did not do
anything, and his whole army would have run away from one of our
ship's companies.
So this visit to Naples was my first opportunity for flaunting my
uniform before the female eye. I walked up from the landing-steps to
the Queen's Palace arm-in-arm with Will, as fine as you please. That
is to say, Will took my arm in a slightly patronising way, when it
pleased him. He was not quite so self-reliant since he had been
angling for the graces of a lady. We had the liberty of the Palace--at
any rate its ante-chambers and more public parts--and I had suggested
this jaunt as the most impressive I could devise for the airing of my
uniform. In the old days it would have been sufficient that I had
ventured on a suggestion, for Will to snuff it out. But on this
occasion he was graciously pleased to accede.
We were standing about the great room next the Audience Chamber
entertaining, or rather the centre of interest to, a circle of
officials and young nobles who wished to hear of the glory that was
attending the Neapolitan arms at Leghorn, when Donna Rusidda crossed
the other end of the chamber. Seeing Will she stopped, and with the
defiance of all Sicilian precedent which had now become habitual to
her, beckoned him, and smiled a lovely welcome as he came up. After a
word he went back with her through the side door by which she had
entered.
You may be sure that I had it all from him before we got back to the
ship, for his reticence had given way to a desire to talk of her,
which was only bounded by the limits of my patience.
"W-Will," she said, "what a long time you have been away! The Queen
was here asking for you." Whereupon she tripped away, he following her
as he supposed into the Presence! But when the door had closed behind
them she gave a merry little laugh, and was, I have no doubt, duly
punished for her ruse. But while she was standing with her right wrist
in Will's left hand, and her waist against the hollow of his right,
very submissively, she opened fire on him.
"You wish to serve me, Signor W-Will?"
"Not if you address me like that, Princess."
"Well, W-Will--dear W-Will."
"You know I would risk my life, Rusidda."
"Oh, I don't think it is so bad as that. Ruggiero sends my cartels."
"Tell me what it is, dear--quickly. You know I will do anything
consistent with my duty as a British officer."
"It is of your duty as one of the Admiral's fine officers that I am
speaking: it is for Her Majesty; and I have heard your Admiral confess
unqualified allegiance to her."
"What is it, tease?"
"I'm not teasing, W-Will. It is really rather a serious question."
"What is it?"
"Well, you know I can't tell you."
"Well, what am I to do, Rusidda?"
She disengaged herself gently, submitting with good grace to a caress
in the process, and left the room for about a minute. When she came
back she gave him his answer.
"You are to tell me whose writing this is."
At a glance Will saw whose the upright characters, written
left-handed, were.
"The Admiral's," he answered, with an air of respect to the writing.
"Take it."
"What am I to do with it? may I read it?"
"Oh yes, you may read it, if you can, and give it to the captain of
your ship."
Will read it out in a slow puzzled way: "'Give the rogue a month for
cutting laces.'"
"Why, what jest is this, Rusidda?"
"I asked you, dear, and you told me, whose writing this is; or am I
speaking to a fool, Signor W-Will?"
It occurred to Will's practical mind that this was some jest of the
feather-brained court, and that the captain of our ship was not a good
mark for jests. But he felt the pressure of her hand, and could not
resist the eager, lovely face, and promised to deliver it. "Am I to go
now?" he asked, rather ruefully.
"You need not; but you must be back on shore by nightfall."
"Will anybody tell me anything? You seem determined to keep me in the
dark, Rusidda."
"Oh, I will tell you something when your captain gives you _what_ he
gives you. Wait until nightfall and then come on shore. Do you know
near the Immacolata a little old church with a green and yellow dome?
You will go in there, taking with you what you bring from the ship;
there you will have something fresh given you--and with it you will
come to the Church of S. Ferdinando, opposite one of the Palace gates.
There you will wait until a priest comes out bearing a cross jewelled
with purple stones. You will follow him, and do what he tells you.
Will you do this for me, W-Will?" she asked, with a soft personal
pleading which went straight to his heart; and she liked him none the
less for the steady reservation with which he insisted on making the
promise.
We took our time about making the circuit of the Castel Nuovo, and on
to the steps where our boats lay, though this may not have been wise
in the rather disturbed state of the city consequent on the rumours
about His Sicilian Majesty's army at Castellana and Fermi. But in
truth Will was in no hurry to present the paper which he had sworn to
put in the hands of the captain. Naval discipline was no light matter
in our day. I believe he would sooner have presented it to General
Championnet, and much sooner to the devil. But disagreeable things
come to what they call in _logick_ a climax, just as good things come
to an end; and, finding the captain on deck, and in a good humour over
the futile attempts of our Portuguese allies to warp one of the
jury-rigged Neapolitan ships of the line out of the Mole, he made bold
to salute him and present the paper.
"Your men will be ready, Mr. Hardres. And, before you leave, inspect
them, and see that there are no pistols in the party. A stray
pistol-shot might bring down the Guard," and he added with a
laugh--"though Heaven knows why it should, considering what goes on in
the city every night."
The Captain did not volunteer any explanation, and Will was far too
strict a disciplinarian to ask questions. But he did ask, "May Trinder
go, sir?"
"Mr. Trinder may volunteer."
It was still quite early in the afternoon when Will presented the
momentous document, but we could not go on shore again, for we had had
our leave. Now, the Bay of Naples is admittedly one of the most
beautiful in the world; but lieutenants of less than a year's standing
are not the most devoted admirers of scenery at the best of times, and
I do not think that I have ever felt so weary of anything as I did
that afternoon of the Bay of Naples, Capri, St. Angelo, Vesuvio, St.
Elmo, and the other two castles, the Thuilleries and Pausilippo. I
have heard people descant on their beauties by the hour, but I would
willingly have seen an earthquake swallow them all that afternoon if
it had not interfered with our expedition. As we paced up and down the
deck, they stared at us and stared at us till they almost seemed to be
moving towards us. I can now quite appreciate the feeling of Vesuvio,
if mountains have feelings. We were of course dying to know how many
men we were going to have and what we were going to have them for; and
Will loved the chance of a brush with anything--and I--I felt that we
had had a precious slow time lately. The men who had conquered a whole
French fleet on the 1st of August, had been compelled not four months
afterwards to watch, with arms folded, a lot of wretched Neapolitans
playing skittles with war at Leghorn.
Well, when night did at last fall, thirty picked men stepped up to us
on the middle deck; and going round them with a lantern, Will
questioned each man if he had a pistol. None had. They were as fine
men as any we had in the ship, and looked forward to cutlass work,
which was always popular with our sailors. A boat was ready to take us
ashore. The Captain had satisfied himself as to Will's instructions,
and so far everything was plain sailing. When we opened the church
door, it was a fortunate thing that Will went first. For a terrible
sight rose up before him--two huge ghostly black figures, which
seemed, by the light of a dim little oil lamp in front of a saint in a
side chapel, to have eyes and mouth, but no nose. Fortunately Will
had, from childhood, schooled himself to intrepidity, to prefer death
to fear, and so never learnt what fear meant. His hand did not even
seek his sword; he stood up square and fearless to await the
development.
Now, if one of the men had gone first instead of Will, it might have
gone ill with our enterprise from the beginning; for the odds are that
he would have made a furious assault with his cutlass, if he had not
rushed out with a maniac's shriek.
Will's doubts were set at rest at once, for one of the figures
whispered to him to bring in his men quickly and quietly, and Will
passed the word. Once in there, every man was provided with a long
black robe from the neck to the heels, a short black mantle and a
black hood, with piercings for the eyes and mouth like the two who had
met Will on the threshold. On the backs of the mantles there was
certain colouring, which we could not distinguish in the dim light.
These were, Will was informed, the dresses of one of the burial guilds
common in Naples; and the Church of S. Ferdinando, to which we were
going, was a favourite one for such processions to stop at while
prayers were read over the corpse. The men were ordered to draw their
cutlasses and carry them closely concealed under the short cloaks or
mantles, and to hold themselves at Will's command. He would get the
signal from the taller of the two who met us.
Each man was given a long unlit taper to carry in his right hand, the
cutlass being held in the left ready to grasp. Our two leaders carried
crosses.
Arrived at the portico of S. Ferdinando, we halted. Another figure in
black was standing just inside the door, with the heavy leather
curtain drawn back a chink to watch. He came out bearing a huge silver
cross studded with purple jewels, and, placing himself at our head,
marched us across to the Palace, which we entered.
There a strange scene awaited us, for in front of a side door was a
large coffin with a pall spread over it, surrounded by six bearers
carrying tapers like ourselves, but lighted. But the strange thing was
that the rest of the courtyard was quite full of wine carters with
enormously long two-wheeled carts drawn each by three beasts, in the
selection of which there was the strangest medley. I cannot remember
that any one of them had all its three beasts of burden of the same
sort: there were a great many bulls; and a bull and a horse and an
ass, or a bull, a horse, and a mule, made perhaps the favourite
combination. The horses had scarlet tassels and nets on their heads,
and a great deal of scarlet about their reins, and huge collars
surmounted by a brass erection sometimes two or three feet high, hung
with charms against the evil eye. I do not think the bulls were
decorated. It was a wonderful sight, all these great tumbrils piled
high with wine casks, and the scarlet of their trappings and the brass
of the horse collars glittering in the brilliantly lit courtyard.
They were all ready and awaiting the signal to depart. The King, it
appeared, was sending a large present of wine--an entire vintage,
which he thought well of, or had confiscated--to the Ambassador's
wife, whose hospitalities were famous; and in the midst of it lay the
body of some poor fellow in the King's household, as likely as not
killed in faithful service.
He was to be buried at Pausilippo, and nothing was more in keeping
with the practice of the vitiated Neapolitan of that day than that the
processions should start side by side.
"The French faction are growing very daring," said the priest to the
officer of the household who was going to superintend the
transportation of the wine to the Ambassador's palace; for, though
drink was plentiful in Naples, nothing was too trifling for a
Neapolitan to steal. "We shall be blest by your company, my father,"
replied the officer; and the priest raising his cross and beginning to
intone, the bearers took up the coffin, and Will and I and our thirty,
having lighted our tapers, fell in, two and two, behind. We then
marched out and waited for the carters to start; and a mighty lot of
shouting and beating of bulls, horses and asses with billets of wood
almost as thick as fire-logs took place to put the tumbrils into
motion,--which at last, with a tinkling of brass and a nodding of
scarlet plumes, and much jingling of harness-bells, was effected. We
passed down Santa Lucia with watchful eyes; for the alleys leading off
this had an evil repute, as containing some of the most desperate of
the population, and I must say that there was a very uneasy stir, and
a great many more cloaked gentlemen half concealed than I should have
cared about if I had been alone. But we passed along Santa Lucia
without adventure, and round the foot of the great rock of
Pizzofalcone, and so up past the end of the Thuilleries towards the
British Embassy, intending to part company at the corner of the road
which leads to the Grotta and Pausilippo. But when we came into a line
with the Grotta we could see in the distance a flare hung from a
certain house, and our leader at once became very uneasy.
"That is my preconcerted signal," he said, "of a French marauding
party. If you will let us, we will accompany you to the Ambassador's
house, and my party shall remain there while I go forward and
reconnoitre."
This was agreed, and presently we found ourselves safely in the
courtyard of the Ambassador's great palace, when the household officer
having sent up the letter which announced the King's present, My Lady
presently came down, and with great sweetness thanked him, and then
turned round to the priest to inquire respectfully of the reason of
the funeral pageant having entered.
On learning, she would not hear of the body being left in the
courtyard, but motioned the bearers to take it into a large kind of
hall, and then sent them off to have supper with her servants while
they were waiting. But we two and our thirty made excuse through Will
that we were related to the dead, and were consequently unable to
enter a house until he should be solemnly buried.
"As you will," she said; and there we stood drawn up, solemnly
guarding the door through which our new comrade's body had been
carried, and watching in an interested way the unloading of the
present of wine which the King had sent to My Lady. By-and-by, when it
was all finished, the priest went out, and, finding the flare signal
removed, gave the order for us to proceed on our way to the little
graveyard at Pausilippo, where we buried our comrade with the usual
rites; after which we marched down to our church with the green and
yellow dome, every one of us, I believe, thoroughly disappointed that
some alarm had not arisen to make the priest-fellow with his big
purple-studded cross give us the signal to whip out our cutlasses from
under our cloaks in the Black-eyed Susan style. However, no such
incident happened, and we stepped into the little church, and resigned
our positions in the guild, and stepped out again without attracting
particular notice; and we went on board our boat, which I remarked was
the launch, with a carronade in the bows, and so to the ship.
The next day Will and I received a hint that our presence at the
Palace was not desirable; My Lady, who was a born plotter, very
probably conceiving that something might leak out from our
conversation. At any rate she bade us come up to the Embassy in the
afternoon and dine with her--a mark of graciousness which suggested to
our disappointed minds that she had had two fingers in the pie. I was
glad enough. It outraged my dignity when she kissed me once at the
banquet after our day at Pompeji; and at other times she had made me
look foolish in public; but in her own palace it was indeed a
privilege to be near this woman whose beauty and engagingness I have
never seen equalled. Her whole attitude was so frankly caressing--I do
not mean in the matter of actual embraces, but in the gracious warmth
and unrestrained naturalness of the bearing with which she treated all
around her, as if they had been the members of her actual family. But
Will could barely be civil to her. Donna Rusidda's dislike may have
been reflected in him, though I suspect that it was more his resenting
My Lady's influence over the Admiral. Not, I believe, that at this
time he had the smallest suspicion of any improprieties between them,
or even that her attitude to the Admiral was more familiar than it was
to any of us, whom she might at the moment be patronising in her airy
way. It was more an innocent air of patronage to him, the familiarity
of addressing him as "Nelson," the dragging him in her train to this
or that rout, as if he were an ordinary gentleman about town proud to
have the escorting of a beautiful woman. Will would have liked to have
seen the same distance between the Admiral and her as there was
between the Admiral and his officers--a distance which, even in one so
genial, the discipline of the Service made very marked. Not even
Captain Troubridge, who had been his shipmate for five-and-twenty
years, would now address him as "Nelson," and Will saw no reason why
My Lady should be even as familiar as Captain Troubridge. There was a
streak of hardness in Will's nature, which made him seem, in that one
instance, sensible of, but not to be moved by, auburn hair and
upturned eyes and laughing mouth, no matter how oval the face or how
faultless the arching of the brows.
And he could see that the Admiral had not this immovability. He had,
further, more active grudges. He regarded My Lady as being responsible
for the Admiral's accepting the mass of absurd compliments in the
shape of deputations, processions, masquerades, and what not.
Celebrations, in his opinion, should have been confined to military
parades and the like. But at the bottom of everything I believe his
deepest grudge against My Lady was that, when talking to Englishmen,
she had not the guardedness of an English lady. What she might do with
Italians was different. Extravagance was a national trait, and it is
not surprising that one so prejudiced should have considered that what
was good enough for an Italian was not good enough for an Englishman.
I know now that she truly was more of a lady in Italian than she was
in English; for in England the people among whom she had formed her
ideas and learnt her mode of speech were dissipated, or of humble
birth; while in Naples she had spent her time amongst the highest in
the land and the most erudite. Sir William was best as a _sçavant_.
I should have wondered why My Lady did not attempt to subjugate Will
in place of the Admiral, were it not that I knew it was her pride to
reflect herself in the Admiral's glory. I think she was at this time
intoxicated with that, and had yet no ulterior idea of, through him,
having as great a place in England as she had at Naples. Of one thing
I am quite certain, that she was the most passionate hero-worshipper,
and capable of a passionate affection for a lovable nature; and no man
ever doubted that the Admiral was the most lovable man in the fleet as
well as the most heroic. But the Admiral, though a well-born man, a
great-nephew of the greatest Norfolk man before him--the great Sir
Robert Walpole--was a plain man, small, and with no more high birth
than beauty written on his face; whereas Will's proud beauty was more
than enough for a prince. He had, I should have thought, just the
beauty and breeding which she should have found irresistible. There
was generally between them, therefore, no better than an armed truce,
which My Lady's goodness of heart made her constantly forget and do
him as generous a turn as she would to any of her favourites.
Possession of the Journal has supplied me the clue to what I did not
quite understand at the time. Here, for instance, is an entry I see:--
_Extract from the Admiral's Journal, Naples, Dec. 16th._
"A most extraordinary thing has happened within the last hour, which I
pray may turn out well. I was sitting writing at my table by the light
of a couple of wax-candles, placed one on each side of my writing, and
with my face towards the door--a trick a man, who has been fighting
all his life, cannot get out of when he is going to give such close
attention to a matter as to absorb his sense of hearing. I heard a
faint noise, but took no note of it. On its repetition, and when I
looked up, I saw in front of me a lady with her hood drawn and
enveloped in a large cloak. These she flung off, exclaiming that she
was heated with running, of which there were evident traces, for the
flounces of her dress were torn and full of dust, and her slippers,
which, like her dress, were of satin, were slashed. She had come quite
close up to the table, not wishing to be overheard. It was the
Princess of Favara, a lady of the Queen's household, and often with
her; whom I have noticed besides as being the most beautiful of the
maids of honour, who in this country are selected for their beauty.
"Beside a woman like Emma she is, in the ordinary, somewhat
colourless, though the clear olive of her face is very fine; but on
this occasion it was flushed with a rich crimson which made her rival
even Emma; and her eyes, which I have noticed as being of a quiet dark
grey, shone blue; and her lips were red as blood against the small
white teeth as she stood for a few seconds open-mouthed before me.
"'Princess!' I cried. She put her finger to her mouth as the words
died away on my lips, then beckoned to me. I went to her; and, putting
her hand on my left shoulder, she whispered into my left ear to know
if we were safe from overhearing.
"'If I lock that door,' I said, pointing to the one which she had
entered, 'no one can approach without passing through the room of my
watchdog, Tom Allen. And Tom makes a noise like a bull when he moves,
and can be trusted like the grave.'
"Then she told me, in broken English, which I shall not be able to
write down in her words, news of astounding importance, which she had
risked her life to bring to me. Even a man alone, however well armed,
is not safe in the present disturbed state of the city. But to avoid
the risk of passing the news through even one more person, she hastily
flung her maid's long hooded-cloak over her ball-dress (they are going
through the mockery of dancing at the Palace, and this is how she was
able to slip out unobserved), and ran all the way here, chased twice
or thrice by drunken or impudent fellows, but saved by the special
Providence which guards the ignorant and helpless. She had left the
dancing, and gone in search of the Queen, whom she knew to have been
packing the famous Bourbon diamonds to send here; and not being able
to find Her Majesty, and the dancing being weighed down by the spirit
of depression which it was intended to remove, she had retired to her
room, which has a room off it for her maid. She had taken off her
slippers, and was about to disrobe, for which she needed her maid; but
there was no response to her call, so she went to the woman's room,
where to her surprise she found the cloak in which she came to me,
with a message pinned on it--'Be sure to wear this and no one will
challenge you.' She removed it to her own room, intending to question
the woman as to what breach of duty she was contemplating, when she
heard voices in the adjoining corridor, which had a window hereabouts,
some six or seven feet from the ground, to give light, but no door.
With her stockinged feet she could creep to it noiselessly, and then
she overheard a conversation between her maid and one of the
Mergellina family.
"'Have you found out?' he asked.
"'Yes: the Queen is packing them even now.'
"'How are they to go?'
"'In a chair, as if it were a guest returning from the dancing.'
"'How many are to go with it?'
"'To escape attention, only the two chairmen, and an officer of the
household inside, and another disguised as a link-boy, but all of them
well armed.'
"'What route are they to take?'
"'Along the Strada di Chiaja and by S. Caterina.'
"'Good,' he said. 'You are sure that there are only four of them? I
shall have twenty in case of accident. We can assemble by twos and
threes, and none of them must get away alive.'
"'Can you find as many whom you could trust?'
"'I shall not trust them except to murder. Anybody can be trusted to
murder. Only my brother, Don Pancrazio, and I will know. I should not
trust him, if I could do it alone. You are sure that they will make as
much as that? Perhaps I could do without Pancrazio.'
"'No; it will take two to remove them.'
"'Even with a mule?'
"'Yes, I am sure. The mule must have panniers.'
"'Pancrazio will lead it. I shall lead the men. We will hide by the
steps of the Ponte di Chiaja. There is a guard stationed there whom I
can bribe to let himself be drugged.'
"'But how will you get rid of them?'
"'The mule will be out of sight.'
"'And what then?'
"'When the four men are dead or past fighting, I shall raise the
alarm?'
"'And then?'
"'My men will run away, and I shall cut the throats of the others to
make certain, and there you are.'
"'And where am I to meet you?'
"'At the little harbour of Mergellina. I shall have swift rowers who
will take us to a safe point away from those cursed English. I have
sent you a cloak which will pass you out,' he replied. And then the
Princess stole back to her room, put on the slippers she had just
taken off, muffled herself up in the cloak, and passed out without so
much as one of the sentries challenging her.
"'Could you not have warned the Queen?' I asked the Princess.
"'Yes; but that would have stayed the departure of the diamonds, and
all the arrangements would have been to make afresh, and that in the
face of the secret being out.'
"'You are a better general than I,' I said to that lovely eager face.
'Now tell me what I am to do.'
"'Send sailors, as many as are necessary to drive the cut-throats off,
and see the chair safely to where the gentleman inside wishes to go,
which will be here.'
"There was a knock at the door, but so absorbing was the topic that
neither of us heard; then came a louder knock, and the gravity of a
situation, graver even than the loss of the Queen's diamonds, dawned
upon me.
"'What shall I do?' I asked: 'will you----?'
"'Conceal myself?--no,' she answered proudly; adding quickly. 'No one
but a friend of Her Majesty would come to your room at this hour.'
"'No one but one of my officers,' I said; and I felt myself blushing,
for I remembered those two visits from Emma, and the Princess might
not understand the spirit in which dear Emma comes. Heavens! if it
were Emma, in _deshabille_! to tell me of a relapse of Sir William and
call my aid! All these thoughts flashed through my mind in a few
seconds. There was a still louder knock at the door.
"'What am I to do, Princess?' I asked.
"'Open it,' she said, simply.
"I opened it, with her standing by this table, with one hand resting
on the corner, a picture of pride and innocence. But the blood flew to
her cheeks as Will entered with an expression of utter astonishment on
his face, which I could see would have turned into something stronger,
but for his filial respect and affection. Disciplined as he was, he
could not keep the question out of his eyes. A lesser man than Will
would have beat a retreat--most likely have held his tongue, perhaps
for the honour of the fleet, perhaps in gratitude for future favours.
But Will stood plainly--as she had said plainly--'Open the door.' It
was a picture: these two fine young creatures, so full of pride and
breeding; and, placed in a false position, one whose rank prevented
ordinary explanations, and who, as it seemed, was party to an
injurious situation to which he should have been superior."
* * * * *
That moment came near changing the whole current of Will's life--not
in the direction of ill-will to our beloved Admiral, though he had
wondered how he was to believe in spite of his senses, but in the
direction of winning that which lay nearest his heart in despite of
Katherine--the love of Donna Rusidda. Our Katherine can never hear of
it now without blushing for pleasure. She loves it best of anything in
Will's whole life. For, walking up to Donna Rusidda, he knelt before
her and kissed her hand. As he rose his eyes fell instinctively upon
her feet, which were beautiful even for a Sicilian aristocrat. The
slender slippers were all dusty and cut, and the ruined white satin of
one of them had a tell-tale stain of blood; and then the swift
intuition of love told him that his trust was justified--that she must
have run herself from the Palace to bring the cry for help--and he
knelt once more before her, and covered her hands with tears as well
as kisses. And tears rained down the cheeks of the conqueror of the
Nile, as he called out in a broken voice: "Brave Will! I would rather
have done that than win a battle!"
Such a flush of gratitude swept over Donna Rusidda that she was
tongue-tied, and could only thank him with her eyes, and the glory of
beauty at its highest tension. And Will, dreading the words of
gratitude which were struggling to come, cried: "The news, Rusidda?
The Palace has not fallen?"
"Not that--but the Queen's diamonds----"
"Lost?"
"Not yet, but in two hours' time those who are bringing them hither
will be murdered and robbed." She repeated what she had told the
Admiral.
The Admiral sat down and hastily wrote an order.
"To the Commander of the Boat Division, Naples Bay.
"_Dec. 20th._
"Give the rogue twelve days to cut the laces."
"I see you have your sword, Will? Have you pistols?"
"No, my Lord."
"Take mine. I have had to bring them ashore since I came down from
Leghorn. You are not afraid to make your way to the boats
single-handed? The place is full of cut-throats now, of a night. I
could send some of Sir William's men with you."
"That would attract attention, my Lord; besides----"
"Besides what, Will?" asked the Admiral affectionately, with his hand
on Will's arm.
"You may need them to save the Queen's diamonds. If I am not back
within the hour, you will know."
"I know, my boy!" he answered, choking; "and I'm d--d if I think all
the diamonds in the world worth such a life."
"It is not only for the diamonds, my Lord."
"I know, my boy. Honour! Duty! It is to win the right to ask for a
post of honour. Remember, if you are hard pressed, to fire your
pistols. If one of our boats hears, it will dash in and land a party.
My orders are, 'Follow up a shot.'--And Will?"
"My Lord."
"Stay five minutes, while I send Tom Allen to summon My Lady. Her
honour," he whispered, glancing towards Donna Rusidda, after the good
Tom had gone, "is in our joint keeping; and," he added aloud, "you
love her--that I have seen."
"I love her, and worship her, my Lord."
"And Princess, I may take it that you love him?"
"Alas, no, my Lord; though I owe him the greatest debt of gratitude
which a woman can owe a man."
The Admiral seemed dumbfounded. "You will learn to love him, Princess:
he has excellent prospects."
"I do love him, my Lord; but I do not and cannot ever love him as a
husband or a lover. I love him," she continued, with a sweet light of
gratitude shining from her eyes, "as the finest gentleman I have ever
met."
The conversation was broken into by the apparition of My Lady, lovely
with rosy cheeks and sleepy eyes. It was evident that she had been
roused from her slumber, but she was angelically good-tempered over
it.
"You want me, Nelson? Why, Donna Rusidda!"
"Princess Lion-Heart has brought us grave news from the Palace. She
ran, and by herself; and I am just sending Will here to the boats for
help."
Will left as the Admiral was going over the ground for the third time.
Donna Rusidda crossed over to the door, and the Admiral and My Lady
were looking out to sea, as she poured out her gratitude to Will in
one long kiss, and commended his dear life to the care of Santa
Rosalia, whose kindly little lead image she took off her own neck and
hung round his.
For what happened after Will's departure I must depend once more upon
the Admiral's Journal; and the way in which it fills up the gaps is
nothing short of marvellous, if it were not the work of the Admiral's
own hand.
_Extract from the Admiral's Journal, Dec. 20th, 1798._
"What a delicately adjusted machine is woman, sensitive to every
breath! Having great hopes of the Princess of Favara and Will making a
match of it--for she clearly is very well disposed to him, though she
refused to admit that she loved him--I had withdrawn to the far end of
the apartment when my young lover was about to take his adieux before
departing on his perilous mission. I was about to call dear Emma, but
she anticipated me by running in front of me to the window. As I went
I was curious enough to steal a glance at the Princess, to see what
hope there was for Will. From which I augured well. She was more than
gracious, she was tender and solicitous, as gentle a piece of girlhood
as one could picture. But, when Will went, she came back into the room
with trailing robes and haughtily carried chin, as self-possessed as
Her Majesty herself, who is most royal.
"Dear Emma--though, I am sure, there is something like a feud between
them, and it was in her power, as mistress of the house, to increase
the discomfort of the situation--went to meet her with a winning smile
of hospitality, and frank eyes that asked no question. The Princess,
standing back, looked at her searchingly, then suffered her
haughtiness to be disarmed; but she was ill at ease, and sat
wild-eyed, like a captive who has been assured of good treatment, but
deprived of his weapons, while Emma was outspoken in her generous
admiration of the Princess's heroic deed."
* * * * *
Will drew his sword as soon as the door of the Ambassador's palace
closed on him, and sped down the hill towards the sea. He made sure
that he should have to use it ere he passed the end of the
Thuilleries--the fine garden or park which the King had had planted
between Pizzofalcone and Mergellina. But no one leapt on him out of
the darkness. As he came to the low dwellings at the foot of the rock
near the sea, he felt to see that his pistols were loose. More than
once he was sure he heard whispers, and the shuffling of feet bound
round with rags. Sometimes his left hand clenched the pistol-butt, as
he fancied he saw figures rise up before him--though they always
melted into the gloom. But, though his brave heart was thumping, he
saw no one for sure, till he came to the lamps at the landing, and our
own sentry.
And yet, as we afterwards learned, his presentiments were correct. His
whole path had been swarming with unseen sentries and patrols of the
_lazzaroni_, with whom our Service stood in the highest popularity at
the moment. Their hearing, and indeed most of their senses, are
preternaturally sharpened; and, though it was pitch dark, they knew
that an English officer was passing through them--an Englishman by the
firmness of his footsteps, and an officer, not a sailor, by the
lighter tread. Had any one assailed him, he would have had scores of
helpers.
What a world of anxiety mankind might be spared, if it knew!
You may judge my feelings of disappointment when I learned the next
day of the services upon which Will had been engaged. I had heard that
he was retained by the Admiral, and after the dinner returned to the
ship to report myself. He was going to the Admiral for orders, at the
hour directed, when he came upon him with Donna Rusidda, the
extraordinary nature of whose visit had made the Admiral's appointment
to Will slip his memory. He could not, within a day or two, time the
arrival of General Championnet and the French army at his first
signalling point; and besides the secretary, Mr. Campbell, whom he
used little for this special correspondence, he needed one of his
officers.
It had been settled that the landing party, whom Will was fetching,
should call at the Embassy for orders as to where they should post
themselves. Rough disguises would be waiting for them in a room by the
little wicket on the lower side of the palace, which was guarded by a
confidential servant of Sir William, an Englishman, the grand gates of
a palace like the Embassy not admitting of business of a very private
nature. The Admiral would be at the wicket himself to give orders.
Great was the astonishment of the men, when they were admitted, to see
not only the Admiral but My Lady, and another strange lady hooded from
observation.
The upshot of it all was that the men, hastily disguised, marched by a
detour to a house belonging to Sir William's cook, who kept up too
great an establishment to admit of his living on the premises. This
worthy had a garden gate opening into a back street, whose road was
almost as high as the top of his house, the slope being very steep.
Through this gate the men were admitted, and posted in the house to
watch results.
Time passed very slowly indeed. It seemed as if they had all been
fooled by a serving-woman's tattle, when suddenly the quick clash of
steel, followed by agonised cries for help, sent them flying out,
headed by Will. The dozen sailors made short work of the cowardly
assassins, who were hired to murder without even knowing the why, or
the names of their victims.
The Mergellina Count and his brother had no occasion to raise the cry
of "Wolf" to disperse their followers. Half a dozen or more of them
had already received the long dispatch, and the remainder would be out
of Naples as far as their legs would carry them. Both chairmen were
slain, being struck before they could set down their load to defend
themselves. They were brave fellows, and would not drop their burden
incontinently. The counterfeit link-boy had more than one wound, but
he was a good swordsman, and, being on the watch for assault, he had
been able to save himself. The officer in the chair had escaped the
daggers, and had come off with nothing worse than a concussion as the
chair grounded.
There was no time to be lost, so making the whole man change places
with the wounded, and substituting four of our sailors for the two
slain chairmen, they went at the double to the Embassy, and were soon
safe inside its quadrangle. None of the packages were missing.
How they brought the King's pictures, a vast number by the greatest
masters of Italy, and his sculptures, the most famous of antiquity and
some of them of enormous weight, is a yet more wonderful story; but it
is very long, and I should diminish credence in what I have written
above if I attempted to tell it here. And the account of how on the
Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the 18th and 19th, we moved them all on
board the _Vanguard_ would pass belief. There were above five hundred
barrels of money and plate and such; and of the great cases of
paintings and sculptures I can give no idea of the number or the bulk.
All these we had on board as stores, cleverly collected by Sir William
in the case of the Royal dockyard falling into the hands of traitors.
The _lazzaroni_ had no such dread of our taking stores as they had of
our taking their King. Indeed, since they looked to us as their best
friends, they were glad to see us getting into trim; and all classes
in Naples, even the overt or skulking sympathisers of the French,
expected no less than that we should be taking in all manner of
supplies. The gold, and the diamonds, and the works of art, therefore,
which had been introduced into the Embassy with much laboured secrecy,
were carted down to our boats with such a strong force of sailors and
marines as precluded anything like complete concealment, though it was
managed at night, so that the nature of the packages might pass as
alleged. The presence of the Admiral, too, at such a time, was so
natural, that he shifted from the Embassy on board his flagship
without awaking distrust in the large number of people, who could not
outstay the departure of the British ships. Matters were now fast
approaching the crisis.