"You know I am gone," he said. "I know it. I feel something rising in my breast which tells me so."
"Is your pain great?" asked Beatty.
"So great, that I wish I were dead. Yet," he continued, in lower tones, "one would like to live a little longer, too."
A few moments of silence passed; then he said in the same low tone,—
"What would become of my poor Lady Hamilton if she knew my situation?"
Fifteen minutes elapsed before Captain Hardy returned. On doing so, he warmly grasped Nelson's hand, and in tones of joy congratulated him on the victory which he had come to announce.
"How many of the enemy are taken, I cannot say," he remarked; "the smoke hides them; but we have not less than fourteen or fifteen."
"That's well," cried Nelson, "but I bargained for twenty. Anchor, Hardy, anchor!" he commanded, in a stronger voice.
"Will not Admiral Collingwood take charge of the fleet?" hinted Hardy.
"Not while I live, Hardy," answered Nelson, with an effort to lift himself in his bed. "Do you anchor."