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."