the greatest Storm The Admiral ever knew.
"_Most Secret._
"Three barges and the small cutter of the _Alcmena_, armed with
cutlasses only, to be at the _Victoria_ at half-past seven
o'clock precisely. Only one barge to be at the wharf, the others
to lay on their oars at the outside of the rocks--the small
barge of the _Vanguard_ to be at the wharf. The above boats to
be on board the _Alcmena_ before seven o'clock, under the
direction of Captain Hope. _Grapnells to be in the boats._
"All the other boats of the _Vanguard_ and _Alcmena_ to be armed
with cutlasses, and the launches with carronades to assemble on
board the _Vanguard_, under the direction of Captain Hardy, and
to put off from her at half-past eight o'clock precisely, to
_row half-way_ towards the _Mola Figlio_. These boats to have
four or _six soldiers in them_.
"_In case assistance is wanted by me, false fires will be
burnt._
"Nelson.
"_The Alcmena to be ready to slip in the night, if necessary._"
At half-past eight three barges, with the Admiral and Captain Hope of
the _Alcmena_, landed at a corner of the Arsenal at the point where
the opening of the secret passage debouched. The Admiral himself went
into the Palace, brought out the whole Royal Family, put them into
the boats, and at half-past nine they were all safely on board the
_Vanguard_. Immediate notice was then given to all British merchants
that their persons would be received on board every and any ship of
the squadron. Their effects of value had before been embarked in the
three English transports which were partly unloaded, all the condemned
provisions having been thrown overboard to make room for their
effects. Sir William Hamilton had also hired two vessels for the
accommodation of the French emigrants, which had been provisioned by
our victuallers.
They came out of the underground passage from the Palace to the little
port of the Arsenal almost unnoticed--which, as it turned out, was
most fortunate, for very large assemblies of people were in commotion,
and several persons were killed, and the body of one, an Austrian of
General Mack's, dragged by the legs to the Palace. The mob by the 20th
even, were very unruly, and plainly had suspicions; for they gathered
in front of the Palace insisting that the Royal Family should not
leave Naples. However, they were pacified by the King and Queen
appearing from time to time on the balcony and speaking to them. Mack
had sent word on the 18th that he saw no prospect of stopping the
progress of the French, and entreating "their Majesties to think of
retiring from Naples with their august families as expeditiously as
possible." It was the leaking out of this which had so enraged the mob
and lost the poor fellow his life.
I saw Donna Rusidda steal an approving glance at Will, who stood under
the lamps, commanding a guard of more than honour, drawn up on the
quay, and as fine as you please in his cocked hat and silk stockings
and white breeches, that fitted like skin, lace ruffles, and smart
blue frock coat turned back with white, and gold buttons. Will did not
see her: he never saw any one when he was on duty except the force
under his command and the enemy. He stood there the very picture of
English firmness. He was assisting at a flight, and in his heart he
despised the Neapolitan Court, and everything that appertained to it,
except a certain dark-eyed damsel who was perfectly ready to coquet
with him in the midst of this very trying scene. And a very trying
scene it was; and I was hoping that he had on the dress he had worn
with her at Caserta, for there was quite enough sea on to give the
boats a good shaking and splashing, though nothing for ships such as
the _Vanguard_.
The Royal party were for the most part most woe-begone. Like true
Southerners, the ladies of them at any rate were mighty poor sailors,
and counted on being ill before they reached the ship's side. And
probably nothing would have persuaded them to trust themselves on
boats on such a day, though the wind was no more than fresh, except
that they looked every instant for the French or a rebel army to loom
out of the darkness--a consummation which I dare swear the most of our
men devoutly hoped, for retreats were not to their taste, but if a
better appearance could be put on it by its being effected in the
teeth of a hostile force, it would be a victory of a sort.
But there was no such luck, and the utmost they had to dread was a
wetting.
Donna Rusidda, being a Sicilian, and accustomed to sail from Palermo
on visits to her uncle or the Court, was, as it proved, a first-rate
sailor. I think Will had an inkling of this, for he took mighty good
care that she should not go in the barge with him; and, had she been
as the other ladies, she would have been at once prostrate and a
proper object for his attentions.
The Admiral was dressed with extreme care in full Court rig, in order
to bring off the Royal Family with even more punctilio than had been
observed at their State visit after our victory at the Nile. Although
it was dark, the Royal standard was up at the main, as the
illustrious exiles to the other part of their own kingdom mounted the
broad gangway which had been let down for them. I should have said
that My Lady was in attendance on Her Majesty, and Sir William talking
to the King upon the only two subjects which at that moment for
Ferdinand the First of the Two Sicilies and Fourth of something else
possessed the smallest interest--some treasure which he had suddenly
recollected, without which he positively refused to quit the Bay of
Naples, and the prospects of sport at a hunting box in the interior, a
little south of Palermo. As the lamps at the top of the gangway shone
on them, Sir William's tall spare figure and snow-white hair
contrasted strongly with the King's big powerful frame, heavy jaws and
grizzled whiskers. It tickled my boyish fancy that this worthy and
complacent pair of husbands should both have such very large
noses--though Ferdinand's was more of the Roman, and Sir William's of
the door-knocker type.
Their beautiful wives were talking busily as they came on board. Her
Majesty proved not a very good sailor, if it is fair to say that
anything could be proved in the weather which we were about to
encounter. The Admiral was violently sick during its continuance. But
I thought Her Majesty not above the ordinary as a sailor, though her
courage and dignity made her hold out long after other women would
have given in. I judge that My Lady was pressing the conversation, it
being well known how potent an antidote for the sea-sickness it is to
divert the attention.
They came on board the evening of the 21st. For two days afterwards we
had a fresh north-easterly wind, which disturbed the sea very little,
and would have carried us straight into Palermo. But the King would
not be budged, because of the treasure which had been left behind, and
the Admiral had reasons of his own for humouring him. Once on board
the _Vanguard_, the Royal persons and treasure were perfectly safe,
the few French of the line in the Mediterranean all being blockaded in
this or the other port. But there were others who were not safe, whose
peril was the outcome of the secrecy with which the Royal Family and
the Court and the English in Naples had been shipped. They were as
marked for destruction, when the French should enter Naples, as those
now on the _Vanguard_; and the transports and ourselves, lying in the
roads for two days more, gave them all the opportunity of coming on
board us, or the Portuguese vessels, which were always willing enough
if there was no fighting in the wind.
Finally the missing treasure came on board, and the rest of the
fugitives, who had been aided by the boats of the fleet and the
landing of bodies of our sailors. The King displayed no concern about
these unhappy persons who had to fly because they or their Governments
were his sympathisers. He divided his time between play, and
invocation to the Saints for weather which should at once be dead calm
and have a very fine sailing breeze. To give him exactly what he
desired would have needed much prayer to the saints.
I must own that sometimes in the year which followed, as for instance
in these two days, I was a little oppressed by the Admiral's
unforgetting kindness. Having it in his head that I was such a friend
of Will, he had impressed on the Captain a feeling that he desired us
to be employed together as much as the ship's needs permitted. The
consequence was that while other Vanguards, during these two days,
were ashore, having plenty of rough-and-tumble excitement over
rescuing would-be fugitives from a populace which desired that they
should stay and face the music, I was kept on the ship.
For Will it was well. With the ship crowded with Italians of rank, the
Italian-speaking officer was a person of importance, and constantly in
attendance on the Admiral, whose state-room had been given up for the
Royal party, with whom were My Lady and Sir William. And there was
really nothing left to be done. Proper parties were ashore guarding
the embarkation of fugitives and securing that treasure. The duty of
warping out the Neapolitan men-of-war laid up in the Mole, and
jury-rigging them, and taking them to Messina, had been entrusted to
the Portuguese, many of whom could hold sufficient conversation with
Italians. It was impossible to trust the Neapolitans themselves to
remove the ships. It was by no means certain that they would not
prevent it, their Marine especially being disaffected and honeycombed
with treason. From two of their line-of-battle ships--they were three
of the line and three frigates--every man deserted and went on shore.
But we sent a party of our seamen with officers from the _Vanguard_,
who assisted in navigating them to a place of safety, which was found,
almost against our expectation, at Messina.
The Admiral having made all possible dispositions--such as taking the
ships to new berths out of cannon-shot of the forts, giving orders for
the reception of the fugitives on to any of the fleet, getting the
Neapolitan men-of-war out of the Mole, or burning them rather than let
them fall into the hands of the French, leaving one or two ships to
cruise between Capri and Ischia, in order to prevent the entrance of
any English ship into the Bay of Naples--remained with the ladies,
feeling that they were in a sense his guests. At the same time he was
visibly desirous of making the delay, which was mightily irksome to
one of his temperament, speed in the society of My Lady.
Will was, as I have said, in attendance on him, in which capacity he
saw much of the lively Donna Rusidda, who was the Queen's favourite
lady-in-waiting, for her beauty and her graciousness, as well as for
her high rank. Insensibly at intervals the Admiral and My Lady would
draw a little apart. Whenever they did so, Donna Rusidda would assail
Will.
"W-Will," she began in rapid Italian, interspersed here and there with
a word of English: "you want an explanation from me"--he hoped that
she was going to say something about his suit to her, but she went
on--"of that little _billet doux_ I gave you for your captain. I will
give it to you. That was a cipher agreed upon between the Admiral and
him to give the number of men and how they should be armed."
"Well, dear lady, I have guessed that already."
"And the very fine fluid in those wine casks, so generously presented
by the King to the Ambassador's wife, was drawn from the river
Pactolus," and she added, seeing Will a little mystified by the
allusion, "whose sands were of gold."
"And I had guessed that."
"And the carters were not ordinary carters."
"I had guessed that."
"But, though they were the King's most trusted servants, we did not
know if we could trust them."
"I can understand that."
"And you were there, not only to protect them from attack, but to
protect them from thinking. When a Neapolitan thinks, he thinks
treason. If they had stopped, or not taken the right road, you would
have helped them to guide their unruly animals."
"Of course," he said; "but I did not know what we were doing, or where
we were going, or----"
"You were under the orders of the priest. He was a real priest."
"Oh, I had guessed that. No one else could have remembered all there
was to do with the candles, chanting and halting for this or that.
But, I say, Rusidda?"
"What?"
"How did it come that the priest was trusted more than any one else?"
"Hush--that is he. He is the Queen's confessor, an Austrian."
"Oh, a foreigner," said Will. "I understand."
"And the coffin you took from the Palace did not contain a body at
all, but the silver-gilt candlesticks of the Queen's chapel, and other
objects too long to be packed in barrels."
"I had guessed that."
"But you did bury a body, and it was for him that they chanted all the
way from the Palace."
"Something was changed at the Embassy. I had guessed that; but I
thought that they were burying iron or stones."
"No,--you were burying a spy."
Will, who had been in a great battle, and seen a hundred men knocked
over by round shot in a few minutes, got up and staggered out into the
fresh air: the crisp winter night had just closed round them. To Donna
Rusidda, gentle as she was, the execution was not shocking,--the man
was of low birth, and swift retribution was no novelty at the courts
of Italian princes. But with a woman's quick wit she noted its effect
on Will, and followed him out into the darkness.
"I am cruel, W-Will, is it not?" she said, laying a hand on him and
whispering in broken English. Then relapsing into Italian she added:
"These things are not the same to us as they are to you English--it is
fighting we dread, not death. A Neapolitan does not expect to fight,
he expects to kill. The other man will be taken at a disadvantage, and
sometimes defend himself desperately; but he will have a disabling
blow, and when the Neapolitan's own turn comes, he would rather be
killed with one blow than have the agony of defending himself, though
he is very desperate."
"How thankful I am that you are a Sicilian, Rusidda!"
"The Sicilians are worse; they are more bitter, more revengeful. There
is always the vendetta in Sicily. If you had been a Sicilian, and
treated me as you did, even my brother would have sent a man to kill
you. He would not have fought you: a Sicilian when he is injured does
not wish to risk himself or give his enemy a chance--he wishes to be
revenged."
"And what should you have done?"
"Perhaps have killed myself; for I loved you--then!"
"Then why cannot you love me now?"
"I cannot say; but it is not possible. But I do love you much, W-Will,
in another way. Come here, W-Will," she resumed suddenly; "it is dark,
and we are engaged, you know."
"Oh, Rus----"
"In the eyes of the Sicilian custom, I mean; and you are trying, and I
am trying for the other also."
"But if you are trying, Rusidda----"
"And I pray to my Saint also, who is very powerful--Santa Rosalia
herself, whose blessed image I gave you. And W-Will, dear," she
continued, divining his disappointment by contact--it was too dark to
see even the outline of his face--"if you had asked me on Monday night
I should have promised you, and been miserable for ever afterwards,
for I could not have been unfaithful to an English husband: the
English are not like us."
Will said nothing, but again she divined, and continued:
"You hate to hear a woman talk like that; but women think like that
here, and I could not have done it with you."
"Oh, why didn't I ask you?" he said desperately.
She answered, "Because you were too noble a gentleman. You thought
that I should construe your offer into pity, and pity into a belief in
my guilt. But when you knelt before me and just believed in my
innocence, I would have given my soul to be tortured in hell for you;
and I would die now for you any minute of my life. If my living makes
you unhappy for your promised spouse, and my death will help you to
forget me, I will walk through that porthole there, and the dark water
will tell no tales, and it will only be cold for a little minute!"
"I would leap after you; I should not care to live without you, and I
am not allowed to go back to the city and be one of those who have to
die fighting the French. Whether the city resists or not, those black
villains' thirst for slaughter will not very easily be appeased."
"Oh, W-Will," the girl said, nestling close to him (I remember his
description of all this time so well), "the Sicilians hate the French
for ever--we have a vendetta with them until the end of the world,
which was begun at the Vespers of Santo Spirito, hundreds of years
ago."
She was very grateful, very sympathetic, and made no effort to
disengage herself from the man she would have been so glad to love if
she only could have forced herself.
It was pitch dark, and, except for the watch, they had the
quarter-deck to themselves. Large parties of the Vanguards were on
boat-duty, helping the fugitives; and the Neapolitans, on board a ship
in which they had to make a voyage, hated even to hear the sea, and
remained below crowded together. They might have waited longer had not
they heard the cheery voice of the Admiral, who was in excellent
spirits, as My Lady was exerting her charm and power of entertaining
to the utmost in order to divert people from the situation, which was
miserable enough. It seemed as if the whole Court had crowded
themselves into the Admiral's state-room.
Will saw no more of Rusidda in private that night, though she was in
pretty constant conversation with him. And her whole nature seemed to
have suffered some subtle change, but so deep that even he in time
found himself transferring his attention to My Lady, and almost
fascinated with the wonderful mastery over hearts, woman's as well as
man's, which she possessed when she chose to exert her powers of
fascination. She must in truth have been the most engaging woman who
ever lived. Her sympathy was so flexible, and at the same time I might
almost say audacious, and she added to it such a royal generosity of
feeling, such a perfect command over her charm of personality. There
is a serpent in the East, which the Admiral had seen in his Indian
days, and described to us. This creature has a kind of hood of skin,
which it can erect at pleasure. My Lady had a power of enhancing the
effect of her beauty which was as extraordinary. I think the power of
her sympathy was due to the vividness of her imagination. She could
put herself in any man's place, and build his castles in the air.
Added to all this, she had a great passion for being admired and being
loved. When I say loved, I mean deep liking and affection, not grosser
love. That she wished to inspire a passion of affection I am sure;
that she cared for the love, in the sense we often use the word, of
any man except Mr. Greville and the Admiral, I do not believe, for I
know how indignantly she resisted the advances of the Prince Regent,
to whom a few years later Sir William, with unutterable baseness, did
his best to bring her. It struck me often that this kind of love did
not exist between the Hamiltons, but that she was deeply affectionate
to Sir William.
Well, to cut a long story short, we lay kicking about the Bay, kicking
about on the ripple of the north-east breeze, for three days and two
nights, waiting for the word to weigh. I could not, except in the
light of future events, say that we were wasting time, for I believe
that in it we received into the fleet every person who had both the
will and the power to fly. And the Portuguese, under our Admiral's
eye, bestirred themselves in making ready the unfitted Neapolitan
ships. But in the two days that followed we often bitterly regretted
the delay, for hardly were we outside the jaws which the Island of
Capri makes with the horns of the Bay, when there arose the great
storm of which the Admiral wrote, "It blew harder than I ever
experienced since I have been at sea," and the wind had chopped round
to the sou'-west.
It was about half-past one of the morning when a sudden hurricane
split the _Vanguard's_ topsails, and then an indescribable scene
ensued. An extraordinary tribute was paid to the greatness of the
Admiral. The shivering Neapolitans expected even the elements to bow
down to the man who, never quite proof against sea-sickness, was at
this moment assailed by it in its most violent form. They all crowded
into his state-room--I cannot think how many--and the air was filled
with shrieks of terror; but none, I am proud to say, from the Royal
Family, or Sir William and My Lady, or Donna Rusidda. Indeed, these
two ladies were as valiant, and had their sea-legs as firmly, as any
in the ship on that awful night.
The Admiral had done all in his power for the comfort of the Royal
exiles. Not only had the whole ship been smartened up with paint, and
every one of the officers given up his berth, but cots had been
specially built for them. However, at the last, there had been such
haste that no bed-linen had been provided. For the Queen herself,
there was help in the shape of My Lady's own bed. With her usual
energy and foresight My Lady had disposed her arrangements very well,
and had shipped everything of consequence, except such things as were
necessarily left for maintaining the usual appearances, at the moment
of flight, the value of which I have heard variously estimated from
£3000 to £30,000--including, for instance, the splendid State
carriage, in which she and Sir William went to the reception of the
Turkish Minister, where they stayed until the moment of embarkation,
leaving their coach and men peacefully waiting until all the guests
had gone; they themselves having walked out at a side door and so down
to the landing-place in the Arsenal and the barge of the _Alcmena_.
My Lady gave up her bed to the Queen, and betook herself to nursing
the Queen's children, poor little creatures, whose olive-complexioned
faces turned a frightful colour, and whose little hearts were
frightened worse than death. It was on the next day after that, that
one little fellow--Prince Albert--having bravely followed the urging
that, if he would but eat a hearty meal, he should be cured, was taken
violently ill immediately thereon, and after lingering on all day in
agony, died in My Lady's arms, with his little arms round her neck,
and her trying to keep him in life with the fondest and gentlest and
most motherly kisses that ever man saw; thinking, I doubt not, of her
own babe somewhere in England, which she had never been allowed to see
since they took it away from her younger much than this. Of all that
knew, there was not a dry eye in the ship. Even the Queen's proud
courage broke, which danger at embarking, sickness, and the prospect
of death more imminent from the sea than it had been from the knives
of the rebels or the guillotine of the French, had been unable to
shake.
As the tall, slender form of the daughter of Maria Theresa walked in
proud uprightness on to the barge, and up the gangway of the
_Vanguard_, she looked the great Queen that she was. Her Majesty had
her faults and plenty, but it was not in the face of peril that you
saw them.
The only one of all the Queen's household that had both the will and
the power to help was Donna Rusidda, and she helped My Lady in mercy
to the children. Indeed, she had the whole care of them whenever My
Lady was waiting on the Queen, which was often, she doing the work of
half a dozen servants, lest the Queen should ever lose the appearance
of being a queen, at the moment when her dynasty seemed to be in the
balance.
There was much difference in the way they handled their charges. My
Lady gathered them in a large motherly way, showing how strong in her
lay the mother's instinct, which was never to have its full
expression. They swarmed over her, little sick things, but bravely
obeying their mother's behest not to cry or speak their fear. She
fondled them, and crooned to them, and her great sympathetic nature
was like a fire to warm their marrowless bones.
Donna Rusidda, on the other hand, knew little of children, had no
instinct for them; but even at such a moment they could not be
indifferent to the prettiness of her slender person, undisordered in
the least by the storm. She was beautiful, and undismayed, and full of
tender smiles, and making jest of everything that flew from side to
side, as the ship lurched over and stayed so long down that it looked
as if it would never rise again. And then it did rise, and slowly
climbing over the hill of its own centre, went down even deeper on the
other side, with a crash of everything that could move. She knew of no
more to amuse them than to bid them watch for the biggest lurch; and
yet the picture of her unruffled courage and beauty, and the ring of
her laugh, and her outstretched arms, won their childish hearts, more
especially when, with two clinging to her, she called to Will, whom
the Admiral had kept among the fugitives so close-packed in his
state-room, to make the ladies of a better heart. And better, indeed,
he could not have chosen for the purpose. As far as sickness went, I
was as good a sailor as Will; and, as my fellows in the gun-room had
often cheerfully pointed out, it was our profession to die an early
and violent death. Which I was perfectly ready to do--much readier,
indeed, when life was full of life, and I had a long life before me,
than now when I am shelved. But Will, with his tall bolt-upright
figure, his proud fair face, and his stern blue eyes, had as much
effect as any of the saints they were beseeching could have had by
appearing in the midst of them. Here was one beyond the reach, as it
were, of human weaknesses. Indians have worshipped lesser white men as
gods. The children, too, were glad of Will: he had often been about
the Palace talking to them--indeed, he was the only officer in the
fleet who could talk to them--and the poor little pallid wretches
expected this grand sailor, whom they thought a much finer man than
the Admiral, to do something. All he did was to hover back to Donna
Rusidda, whenever none of the other ladies were shrieking for him, and
help to hold the children from being flung about. He showed them all
the respectful kindness that was in his nature. For the Queen (except
her courage) and the Court (except Donna Rusidda) he had, as has been
shown, a feeling something like loathing and contempt; but he had been
brought up with High Tory ideas, and for Royalty in the abstract he
had a courtly respect, and to these poor bits of Royalty, half dead
with sea-sickness and fear, his heart opened beyond its wont.
There was another difference between the Sicilian Princess and My
Lady. My Lady let all the children cling to her together, even when
they were sick, thinking it cruel to them to flinch and that she could
change her dress if need were. The Sicilian Princess, on the other
hand, would have no more than two of them at once; and holding them
tenderly, but adroitly, helped them through their troubles, always
contriving to shrink her pretty person out of the danger. Even Will
performed the office quite creditably; and, being in his oilskins, had
no fear. Two minutes on deck in such a sea would put that right.
His eyes were much on Donna Rusidda. It gratified his fastidious soul
to see a woman keep her daintiness in such a stye, and her courage,
and her laughter, when the high-sounding officers of the Sicilian army
and navy were a wallowing mass of Saints and sickness. But I, looking
in to see where I could be of any use, was not blinded by my love for
Will from seeing that neither he standing so godlike, nor the Princess
playfully caring for the children, and thereby showing her stout
heart, were comparable to My Lady, whose loveliness must have been
dimmed, if such loveliness could have been dimmed, while she wandered
with her hair and her clothing pulled awry by the children--aye, and
by the grown-up men and women of the Court too--performing the offices
of an angel and many servants.
I do not know if at the moment she was enhancing her beauty in the
manner I have described,--she had the gift at will of intensifying
it,--but certainly it seemed as if no human countenance could have
before held so much serene loveliness, yearning sympathy, tender pity,
and blithe courage. She was the angel of all and the servant of all.
She was never in her bed through all the three days of the storm. The
moment at which she was lovelier than ever I saw her in her life, was
when poor little Prince Albert, who had eaten the good breakfast that
she bade him and been in violent pain and sickness ever since, at
seven o'clock of the evening threw his little arms convulsively round
her neck and vomited out his life, his mother the while being
prostrated with the sea-sickness, as she was after to be with his
death.
The approach of the child's death roused the Admiral from his own
sickness. The approach of battle or death was always like a
trumpet-blast to that commanding spirit, and he was present when the
little child died, calmly but convulsively, in the arms of the good
woman. For in moments like this My Lady was a woman as good as ever
breathed. The Admiral was completely overcome. When we were taking up
our station at the Nile, the broadside of the _Aquilon_ crashing into
our bows laid a hundred of our men on the deck wounded and dying, but
his cheek never turned, as it turned at the passing of this
seven-year-old slip of exiled Royalty. All through the 24th from the
hour after midnight, and all through the 25th, and all through the
long dark hours of the early morning of the 26th, till we were under
the lee of the port of Palermo, this tempest raged. It seemed, as Sir
William, who palmed himself on his _mots_, observed, as if the fiends
of the lightning and tempest were stretching out their hands for those
snatched from battle, murder, and sudden death. And the cruelty of it
was that for a full four hours before the child died we were in sight
of Palermo, lying between Zaffarano and Monte Pellegrino on our
larboard hand. But the storm was such that there was no hope of our
making the port, which lies as it were in the arm of Pellegrino. There
were we, with the King's own child dying of sea-sickness in sight of
his island-capital, and the greatest Admiral in all the world
powerless to take the ship into the harbour. But in the night the wind
changed again, and at 2 a.m. we were safe at anchor within a stone's
throw of the Villa of the Marquess de Gregorio, where it was the
custom of the old Viceroys to repair on landing.
What a contrast to My Lady's heroic energy, mingled with the utmost
womanly tenderness, was the behaviour of Sir William in these awful
days and nights!--though, indeed, he showed in a high degree the
philosophical temperament which had won for him the title of Pliny,
much used by My Lady before their marriage.
Whilst she was animating with her exertions and sympathy the miserable
flock of refugees huddled in the Admiral's state-room, Sir William sat
in his wife's cabin, with a loaded pistol in each hand. When she
first came upon him in this extraordinary attitude, she gave such a
wild shriek of alarm as the fiercest of the storm could not draw from
her. But Sir William, in a cold voice and with an impassioned face,
bade her not be alarmed. He had no designs upon any other life than
his own, and not even on that until it should be certain that they
were going down without hope of rescue. He was merely resolved not to
die with the guggle-guggle-guggle of such an unpleasant fluid as
sea-water in his throat, and was therefore prepared to shoot himself
as soon as he felt the ship to be sinking. It is not certain whether
he sat on like a statue, in the same position for the whole two days;
but in the laughing time after the retaking of Naples, when all the
dreadful memories of the storm were lost in one long _festa_, My Lady
used to vow that, often as she went into the cabin, she never found
him to have moved a muscle from the original position.
I should mention that, from the moment we were in sight of Palermo, His
Sicilian Majesty's royal standard was hoisted at the maintop-gallant
masthead of the _Vanguard_, and was kept flying from that until His
Majesty got into the _Vanguard's_ barge, when it was struck in the ship
and hoisted in the barge, and every proper honour paid to it by the
ship. As soon as His Majesty set foot on the shore it was struck from
the barge. The King did not leave the ship till 9 a.m., thinking a
proper reception of importance.
It is not often that men whose trade is war are impressed with the
beauties of peace, as I was on that December morning, the 26th, of
1798. The day before had been a tempest so awful, that not only had
the little Prince died of sea-sickness, but among all those hundreds
of people, for the most part without ceasing praying or shrieking out
their religion, not one that I heard recalled that it was the day on
which the little Christ was born to be the Saviour of the world.
Agonised appeals to His Virgin Mother I heard in plenty; but so
frightened were all these shriekers, that they did not remember to
invoke her aid for the sake of the man-child, which it was the hope of
every Jewish woman to bring into the world, in case he should be the
prophesied Messiah, whose advent was the comfort of the long captivity
by the waters of Babylon.
When daylight dawned on the 26th all traces of the storm had passed
within the harbour; and indeed there was very little sign outside, for
as the storm had been from the south-west, the sea had dropped when
the wind veered. With the iron discipline which prevails on a
man-of-war, all traces of disorder on the deck had been removed in the
two or three hours which intervened between the dropping of the anchor
and dawn, and Palermo itself was just rising from the mists of sleep.
Of the main part of the city we could see but little from the port,
which is on the outskirts. We could only see the tops of palaces, each
with its moresco-looking loggia in some part or other of it, for
taking the air in the heat of summer. The Palermitans do not leave
their city in summer, deeming it proof against the _mal' aria_, but
rather in spring and autumn.
Right and left, too, we saw the two fortress-like mountains which
terminate the horns of the Bay--Pellegrino to the north-west, and
Zaffarano to the east.
In front of the de Gregorio Villa there is a broad paved quay, and the
silence of the city was accentuated by the faint prolonged bleat of
flocks of white goats, led by one with a bell, which stalked along
this quay, and turned up at the street which leads into the upper
city. There were often no herds or dogs with them. These goats will go
of their own instinct to where they are milked. The impressions I
gathered as I stood on the deck, in charge of the men who were making
the preparations for the Queen to leave, was one of white palaces and
green lattices and decaying moresco ornament. As the mists rose I
could see that the city was in an amphitheatre of mountains. In
Palermo, I noticed afterwards, there is a mountain at the end of every
street.
At five o'clock the Queen, in the profoundest grief--heightened by the
fact that she had no black to wear, as she accompanied the body of her
child--and with the pride and grace at last shrunk from her tall
figure, was rowed ashore in the plainest manner in the Admiral's
barge, the Admiral himself escorting her, and none but Sir William and
My Lady and body servants being permitted to accompany. Plain coaches
lumbered round the corner, summoned in some mysterious way at the
moment they were wanted, as the chariot of Pluto rose from the plains
of Enna. So, I am told, Sir William observed, in his cold classical
manner.
Well, the upshot of it all was that the poor Queen was taken ashore in
the quietest possible fashion, the moment that daylight permitted; Sir
William and My Lady accompanying her for the nonce to the Palace,
which is above the Cathedral by the Monreale Gate.
The Admiral was to have a villa here of his own, that belonging to the
Marquess de Gregorio, at the Pellegrino end; whilst Sir William and My
Lady were to have theirs by the Flora, at the other end of the sea
front. This was the word, though every one surmised that if the
Hamiltons were not found with Her Majesty, the Admiral would be with
them.
At 9 a.m. the King, who was not so affected by the death of the Prince
Albert that he could not bear to go on shore in a public
manner,--after a hearty breakfast, amid the thunder of artillery,
which broke most of the windows of such of his faithful subjects as
lived in the neighbourhood of the port,--stepped on board the
Admiral's barge, which instantly flew the Sicilian standard, and was
rowed to the steps, where he was received with the loudest acclamation
and apparent joy. And in the life that they led during those months at
Palermo, I often thought that the King's manner of landing was more
seemly than the Queen's.