CHAPTER XX.--How the _Vanguard_ took the Royal Family to Palermo in

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.