The Admiral: A Romance of Nelson in the Year of the Nile

by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

The barge was still at the gangway, the Lieutenant had hailed them to await orders, and the Admiral prepared to descend.

“Have you supped, sir?” asked the Lieutenant; and the Admiral without pausing replied, “I shall have a better appetite if I wait till this matter is finished.”

When he landed a few minutes afterwards, he hired a coach—there are always two or three hackneys at the landing-place with such a large fleet in port—and bade the man drive to the Prince of Favara’s. The Prince was well known in Syracuse, though he had no palace of his own there, but was visiting with his uncle; and the man drove the Admiral without delay to the Palazzo Mont’ alti.

The Admiral, who had taken the chaplain with him as interpreter, in the enforced absence of Will, asked if the Prince were in; and the porter replied in the affirmative, not knowing that the Prince, who had entered the palace with his seconds immediately after the duel, had left by the garden door and gone to sup in a favourite tavern near the Marina. Three or four servants passed the English officers from the great gate across the courtyard, up the staircase which wound round it, terminating in an arcade, and through a succession of fine chambers into the principal salon, which had a large mirror at each end with a kind of sofa arranged under it, facing about a dozen chairs arranged in a horseshoe. Along the sides of the room were more couches interrupted by mirrors with wide marble shelves in front of them, supported by gilded lions’ legs. Lustres hung on each side of the mirrors, and they supported tall Chinese vases on French stands of gilded bronze. The floor was tiled and covered with patterns, a good many tiles going to form each pattern, and there was a small carpet at each end of the room where the chairs were arranged. The Admiral commented on all these to his chaplain, for there was a goodish delay. In fact, they were so busy taking in the details in order to pass the time, that it was only when they heard the light tapping of a woman’s heels on the tiles close beside them, that they perceived that some one had entered the room.

The Admiral, as his wont was even over trifles, had been full of animation when he was speaking, which changed to an air of grave respectfulness when he perceived that it was Donna Rusidda herself who had entered. She was alone, out of compliment to the Admiral, or because she did not wish the ancient lady, whom she maintained as a kind of duenna, to hear what passed between them. The Admiral had brought me with him, saying, “You keep the conscience of our young scapegrace, Trinder: you had best come along and answer for him.”

Donna Rusidda naturally did not know the whole of the affair, though she had had it from her maid already that a duel had been fought on her account, which had been terminated by the disarmament of her brother, who had announced his intention of finding fresh seconds to renew it on the following day, as his late seconds would not consent to its being proceeded with. It was, indeed, for this purpose that he had gone to the albergo by the Marina, where, that being a resort of the young bloods, he was likely to meet with friends to accommodate him.

I thought I had never seen any one look more lovely than this girl, whose clear dusky cheeks were flushed till the blood showed rosily through them with the treble excitement. For she had come alone into the presence of strangers, and the strangers were so famous, and come upon a mission which concerned her so closely. And though the Admiral had not then won the victory with which he was shortly to astonish the world, the connection between the noble families of the Two Sicilies and Spain was very strong, their kings being of the same family; and his achievements of taking the two Spanish three-deckers one after the other, with a handful of boarders from his seventy-four, was fresh in their memories. It was this little one-armed man, with the sensitive mouth, who had led the boarders in that heroic fight at St. Vincent.

She was glad she had come in without his noticing her and seen his animation as he was discussing the unfamiliar aspects of the Mont’ alti salon with his chaplain. She had seen his natural energy instead of the quiet air of dignity and respect which he put on for her. She had come, she explained, to tell them that her brother was out; she had despatched a messenger for him, and begged that they would remain and give her the honour of receiving them until her brother arrived. “Meanwhile, might she offer them some slight refreshment?” Servants were entering with fruit and wine and cakes. The Admiral begged her to excuse them. He had come like the Roman Senator of old, who went to Carthage with peace and war in his robe, and he would not break bread in the house of the Mont’ alti until he knew whether he should leave them as a friend or an enemy. In fact, now that one of the squadron that he was engaging, to use his metaphor, was in range, he was nothing but a commander. The Admiral, as is well known, was never held to be indifferent to the charm of women; and the slender girl, with her dark beauty thrown up by the white and pearls of her evening attire, was remarkable even among Italian women in their heyday for her exquisite grace. She had, too, the kind of face which might be called, with equal truth, haunting and haunted,—it haunts my memory still,—and she had in her eyes, or perhaps it was in her expression, the look of one born to be the victim of a great misfortune.

The Admiral received her with dignity as well as profound respect, and as the interview proceeded without either side caring to commit itself until the Prince of Favara arrived, this dignity settled into an air of dignified resolution. He looked as I have seen him look when he was going into action, before he had quite settled some detail in the attack. When all was plain fighting, he smiled. As the small, slender figure, braced with the air of a commander’s expectancy, stood before her, she had some opportunity of knowing what manner of man this Nelson was, when he was about to hurl a fleet of England on a fleet of France.

I can see it all before me, as distinctly as on the night of that 21st of July, ’98: the world’s great Admiral, that was to be, in his attitude of “prepare for action,” and the enemy represented by that gentle, half-terrified, half-mystified Southern beauty, with the background of the high, vaulted, half-furnished chamber in the mediæval Sicilian palace. It was now quite dusk, and the candles in the sconces on each side of the mirrors gave only a half light. There were no candles in the vast crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling.