“And you are a humane man, monsieur, and a susceptible. Well, it is
not for me to teach the inquisitor his trade.”
“Understand,” I said, facing round once more, “that I cannot rest, or
live, or love, while this remains unaccomplished.”
He did not answer; but, standing irresolute a moment, shrugged his
shoulders and left me.
But I knew at last that the moment was near.
On the 22nd of that same month the penalties of rivalry were ended for
Lady Hamilton by the arrival, in the _Foudroyant_, of the Lord
Admiral, who came to transport his mistress to Naples, as Her
Majesty’s deputy in the latest Reign of Terror inaugurated in that
capital.
A fortnight later the king himself, taking me with him as his simpler
and nerve-doctor, and leaving the amiable English Ambassador behind to
play dry-nurse to his queen in Palermo--followed in the _Sea Horse_,
which, after a short fair passage, anchored in the bay. Thence, rather
to my annoyance, we were transhipped no farther than to the
_Foudroyant_--his mightiness being timid for the moment of venturing
into his distracted city--and, there, were scarcely on board before my
services were called into requisition in an odd enough connection.
The king--Nelson and his _cara sposa_ being gone ashore--was looking
idly out seawards over the taffrail of the quarter-deck, and
chattering desultorily with members of his suite behind him, when he
broke off abruptly to stare under his palm at some object in the
water, which, first seen at a distance, grew rapidly nearer, drifting
with the tide upon the ship. Then, in an instant, he gave a hoarse
scream; and, seeing him pointing and articulating confusedly, we all
ran to the side, and followed with our eyes the direction of his hand.
“_Vátene!_” he shrieked: “_è Caracciolo!_” and he shuddered down, so
that nothing but his nose and goggle eyes were peeping over the
railing.
I held my breath, staring fascinated, while the others echoed his cry:
“_Caracciolo! è Caracciolo! O me miserábile, Caracciolo!_” in a
dozen accents of terror.
I had heard of the poor scapegoat admiral,[2] whom Nelson--always
bearing a grudge against him for his better seamanship--had caused ten
days before to be hanged with every refinement of savagery, and
afterwards flung into the water. Now risen, it seemed, from its first
sleep on the floor of the bay, the sopt and dreary spectre was come
riding to sear the eyeballs of the master, whom it had failed to serve
only through being deeper pledged to humanity. Fouling our hawser, the
body swung upright, bobbing and reeling as if it were treading water.
Its hair and long beard swayed on its cheeks; its dead stiff eyes
stared unwinking in the spray; its arms were flung wide, as if
inviting its destroyer to a mocking embrace. Turning a moment, it
drifted loose, and went dancing towards the shore, where the poor
fishermen of Santa Lucia, who had loved the man, were to find and give
it Christian burial.
The king staggered back.
“Mother of saints!” he sobbed, “what does the creature want?”
“Sire,” whispered a voice, “he asks for a consecrated grave.”
“Give it him, give it him!” gasped His Majesty, and signed to me to
follow him below, where, however, I was not long in laying his
“horrors.”
“_Enfin, mon père_,” I said, “the man, by his appearance, was only
asking your forgiveness.”
“Magnificent,” he answered, with a shaky laugh. “He was certainly in
need of it”--and he turned to me gratefully, but with a rather scared
look.
“Little agent of Providence, if thou hast ever a poor friend thou
wouldst save in the dark time coming, ask of my Majesty’s mercy, and
it will listen. There may be some who err through the mind’s nobility.
Of that I know nothing; only--only, I would have something to balance
my possible mistakes.”
It was true enough, though the blood-lust was not long in mastering
him, when once, without risk to himself, he could taste the spice of
vengeance. Even while he spoke the depleting of the gaols and
prison-ships was begun, and the hurried trials, and the false
testimony, and the hangings. And the wail of the thousand doomed was
already mingling itself in the streets with the roar of a grand State
lottery, when at last we could venture ashore and to safe quarters in
the reconsecrated palace.
We were all triumphant then, or about to be. I remember the last night
we spent on the _Foudroyant_. It was a full moon; and, seated under an
awning on the upper deck, Lady Hamilton sang “Rule Britannia,” with a
cockney fervour which must have pierced reassuringly to the ears of
the poor wretches imprisoned behind the floating walls that surrounded
us. She was always so much more than equal to the occasion, was Emma.
XXX.
I AM JUSTIFIED IN MY POLICY
It was a dark and gusty night when I issued forth with de’ Medici
from a side door of the palace.
“She is condemned,” he had whispered to me a minute earlier.
A needle of ice had seemed to enter my heart. The question my lips
could not ask had flown to my eyes. Comprehending it, he had caught at
his throat and lolled out his tongue grotesquely. To the same dumb
inquisitors he had answered, as confidently as if I had spoken,
“To-morrow.”