Now the Admiral, as is well known, had the kindest heart in the world, and he was touched by the anxiety and race-pride of the beautiful young Princess. He would not tell her My Lady’s real reason for desiring him to return to Palermo, conceiving, no doubt, that there would be no gainsaying this. Indeed, he did not take the trouble either to believe it or to care: he was always reckless of his personal safety, and so no more was said of it. And the long sunny afternoon and the evening with its brilliant fête passed away, the guests leaving early, as they were of Palermo, and the road had an evil repute at night. And with them melted away the great army of servants, to return close after dawn so that their absence should not be discovered by the guest. They were not, as may be divined, servants of the Prince, nor, many of them, servants at all, but from the vineyards and lemon groves. In the houses of Sicilian nobles, liveries are kept sometimes for centuries for occasions like these.
Poor Will had been mightily crest-fallen all the afternoon and evening, for his hostess had been so unremitting in her attentions to the Admiral, who was by no means insensible to her beauty and graciousness, and who was enjoying the Sicilian dignity and repose, after the somewhat foreign and noisy entertainments of the Queen in Naples. And Will’s mortification was increased when, at the time of the departure of the other guests (when at last he had expected to have a few words with Rusidda), the Admiral bade us take word to My Lady about his spending the night at the Favara. He intimated at the same time that we had no need to return till the morning.
Now the chambers prepared for us, by the Admiral’s, were of the plainest description: there was little save a truckle-bed standing on a tiled floor; but never in all his life had any chamber seemed so beautiful to Will. He could only remember that he was to sleep under the roof of his beloved.
“Tubby,” he said to me as soon as we were clear of the house, “do you mind coming back here with me when we have delivered our message? I would give a year of my life to sleep under this roof.”
Of course I agreed; and off we went to the city, to My Lady’s palace by the Flora, as hard as we could post, not meeting any adventures by the way. Nor indeed were we like to, except by reason of a horse bolting or a coach losing its wheel; for there was a stream of guests returning to Palermo.
But when we arrived at My Lady’s, she put a very different look upon the matter. Indeed, her lovely face was streaming with tears in the agony of apprehension for the man to whom she had given the whole of her passionate heart. “He will be killed!” she cried—“Nelson will be killed! Oh! why did you leave him?”
Then she broke forth into a fresh passionate utterance: “What am I doing here, doing nothing, while he, with his one arm, is fighting his last gasp for life? To the ship, Will—off to the ship with you, and tell them that the Admiral is being murdered out in the lonely house of the Favara. No!” she cried, suddenly rushing to the window and screaming out something at the top of her rich voice: “spring into that coach which I have just stopped, and drive to the Albergo La Fortuna. It is always full of your officers later than this, and there will be coaches there. Get them all into coaches, and stop here for a moment on your way back, and I will have the pistols in the Embassy ready for you, for your officers will only have their swords.”
Her behaviour carried even Will away. He could not force from his lips the question if she thought there was any foundation for the report: her earnestness was so terrible. We flew to the inn, and there we found a room full of rollicking British officers, smoking and tossing off the generous Sicilian wine, and most of them describing some adventure or other, for the indulgence of which Sicily offered great opportunities.
When Will burst in with the news every man leapt to his feet and gripped his sword. As they dashed out of the house one of them sang out to the landlord to put down the reckoning to him—they used the house as a kind of club, and were therefore well known by sight. Coaches were hailed, and within a few minutes we were at the Ambassador’s house, and had pistols served to us. There was, moreover, another coach waiting to join us, with the English servants of the Embassy.
Out we raced to the Favara, escaping by some special providence the perils of the road, which like most Sicilian roads was of the very worst description, with its huge ruts filled with loose stones, and the road itself barely wide enough for a coach, and bordered by deep ditches. But desperate men travel safely, and we were soon there.