Standing by the door Kit told his tale.
By the port the great seaman listened in chill silence.
His face was turned away. Kit dwelt anxiously on the keen, pale profile, the ruined eye, the lopped arm. Was his listener incredulous? He could not say, and Nelson did not speak.
The boy stumbled on his way.
Alone in that quiet cabin, his own voice shrill and small the only sound, face to face with the man who had saved Europe once, and must again, a confused and silly story he made of it.
Out on the uncritical sea he had almost thought himself a hero: in here, eye to eye with Nelson, he knew himself just a pinch-beck boy.
The silence grew upon him. He found himself listening to his own voice, and half wondering whether he was not dreaming. This almighty little man, so careless, so terrible, chilled him to the core.
He stumbled, sought his mind like a schoolboy posed for a word, sought in vain, and stopped dead.
Nelson drummed upon the table.
"Is that all?"