CHAPTER XVI.--What the Admiral wrote in his Journal about Love.

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?"