[6] Will has a perfect memory of the incident, and every detail is given as he remembers it. He describes the situation as being almost the most extraordinary in which he ever saw the Admiral. They had a few torches, such as the fishermen use when they are harpooning the great cuttle-fish which form such a favourite article of diet at Naples, and the Admiral was in their centre, it seemed to him at first, as a prisoner.
“Turning for a minute to speak to the officer in command of the boat, to my astonishment, on facing about again, I found every man of my lazzaroni melted into thick darkness. They were conscious, I suppose, of being the worst rogues in Naples, and fancied that their relations to me, which had taken such a sudden and favourable change, might be misinterpreted. And volleys are quicker than explanations. The officer wished to know if he should take me off to the flagship, which, on learning the nature of his duty, I would not allow, for it was easy for some poor seaman, half seas over, to be in the same fix as I had been, and not to get off so handsomely. There was a boat, too, coming off for Will, so he said, and I fancied that I could hear the rowlocks even then.
“I had been at sea pretty well all my life, and at Naples but two or three weeks, and yet I own I hardly expected to find the machine working so perfectly when I stepped back into it. For those three weeks had been three weeks of such topsy-turvy—more like the Italian opera than life. Yet here was the well-appointed boat, with no one taking any notice of me beyond saluting, even Will, who sat by me, not speaking until I addressed him. When I reached the ship’s side and ascended the gangway, the few men who were about at that hour, with the sentries and officers of the watch, were all at the salute, and seemed to have been waiting for my return every minute, since I had landed. My state-room and cabin were lighted, the sentry stood at the door, and everything was arranged to my hand as it would be if I had never left the ship, though my man Tom is ashore, and, by the time, I should judge, still with Virgil.
“I have been on the poop for I know not how long, pacing up and down and feeling a better man. The sea breeze has blown away all doubts. I must put to sea in two days and get rid of all this. It is not often that I am glad to go to sea, when there is no more to be done than I have hopes of at Malta. I would I could go to Alexandria, and finish those French transports, so that not a man of the Grand Army should ever come back to Europe. I have asked the Grand Signor for a few bombs and fireships, which he should, by this time, have sent. With that not one of them will escape. This is much more to my mind than lying at anchor off Naples; and about this Malta business, too, I fear that His Majesty is misinformed. It is represented that the French are on the point of surrender to the Islanders, and that the grant of so much arms, ammunition, and money, which the Governor of Syracuse is considered to have sent, will make Valetta ready to fall as soon as they sight our topsails. This I do not expect. The Maltese are liars and braggarts, though they can fight pretty well when it comes to a choice between fighting and being butchered like sheep. Unless Valetta has reached the starvation point—and I think it has not—even my fleet could not reduce it by bombardment or assault; and the Maltese might be allowed to attack it from now till the crack of doom, without the defenders needing to fire a single gun.
“Still the French have more than once lost heart when their communications have been cut off; and if I go to Malta and summon them from my ships,—‘who knows?’ as the Spaniards say.
“I am not able to go to Egypt to serve my country, because of this affair of Naples and the French in the Papal States, of which, since I have seen Mack, I have no great hopes, unless I can see to it myself, and for the fact that it will set the Emperor in motion again. His sending, and the Queen’s acceptance of Mack, should be a pledge of this. The Queen’s army cannot move till November, which will give me time and plenty to summon Valetta.
“Between it all I may get some action to clear my atmosphere. If I stayed long in Naples, I feel as if I should not be able to leave it. I have never lived till now, but I must struggle against it, though goodness knows why. Surely the Power which sent us into the world meant us to make the best of our lives. Not the best in a shore-parson’s sense, but the best in the sense of extracting the utmost cause for thankfulness out of life—the utmost gratitude for it.
“I think I am a religious man, as men go. I do not believe that there are many men who have a more active sense of their duty to their country. I have never feared to die for her in any of my hundred fights, and I always lean upon my Maker before I go into them, and have ever given Him the praise when I came safe out of them. But I do not know how much I believe that what we do in this life is to influence our happiness in a future life in a different place, over going to which we have no control. I hope to do my duty for the sake of what is my duty in this life, and not as a bribe to secure happiness in the next. My present position is that I tear myself away from that which will give me the greatest happiness of which a man is capable, and I do this out of submission to a code of whose validity I am not sure. The code is of the West—Western; but the traditions upon which it is founded are of the East—Eastern. Those who made and keep the code regard those who made and keep the traditions as barbarians. The peoples upon whose traditions the convention is founded have no such convention! Why, then, am I so concerned, not about breaking the convention, of which I should never dream, but about the misinterpretations of the Pharisees, who have arrogated to themselves the maintenance of the convention? I cannot tell. There is but one remedy for it—the sea—which I have always proposed to myself as my bride. I wonder if it was because I did not know what the possibilities of life were?”