III
There was a rush up the companion-ladder, and the noise of running feet on the deck overhead.
"Great God!" groaned Nelson, ghastly, and flung open the port.
A dark mass with straggling legs shot past.
There was the plump of a body striking the sea, and crash of showering waters.
"Man overboard!" roared a voice from the deck. "Back tops'ls. Here, sir!"
A rope coiled out and splashed the water.
Nelson's head was through the port.
The man came up beneath him, and turned to face the ship and his Admiral.
"O, Dark! Dark! Dark!" cried Nelson, and there was agony in his voice.
Dark looked up, the hair plastered about his forehead.
"Nelson," he shouted. "I ask your pardon."
"It's yours, Dark," choked the other. "But O! I thought—I thought you loved me!—every man of you."
"Often and often I could have killed you," gasped the other, bobbing to the seas.
"Rather that than this!" sobbed the great seaman. "Murder's the braver deed."
"I was mad!" groaned the other. "She was in my blood. She was my soul. She is my soul—the Christ be kind to her! O, if any man in the world can understand, that man should be Lord Nelson."
"No! no! no!" raved Nelson, tossing with his head, stamping with his feet, thumping the port with his fists. "Myself! my wife! my friend!—but not my country! Not that, Dark! never that!"
"Lively there!" roared the voice from the deck. "Lower away."
There was the splash of a boat.
Dark flung aside the rope to which he had been holding.
There was silence in the cabin.
Through it came a despairing voice from the water.
"I can't sink!—My God, my God!—I can't sink!"
Nelson swept the pistol off the table and thrust through the port.
"Catch!" he gasped, and threw.
The man rose to it like a leaping fish, flung a high hand, and caught it.
Then he sank back.
"Thank you, my lord," he cried, terrible joy in his voice. "May God forgive me as you have done."
Kit had a vision of a black mouth open, a thrusting barrel ringed with teeth, two screwed eyes, and then—
"Don't look, boy!" screamed Nelson, and plucked him away.
The slamming port drowned another sound.