“We regretted the more our detention, because when we arrived at home we were met at the door by the news that Sir William was almost in a high fever.
“As I have wrote, Emma was distracted: she ... Postscript written over leaf.
“2 a.m.—As I was throwing the sand upon these words, in order to turn the page, I heard a timid knock at my door; and going to it quickly, for I had not get begun to undress, I beheld Emma, looking more heavenly beautiful than I had ever seen her before, in her white dressing-robe made in the simple antique fashion, fastened only with a girdle under the bosom, and with her glorious hair pouring over her shoulders and almost to her knees, as I perceived when she glided back the minute afterwards, lest her husband should have opened his eyes and missed her healing presence.
“‘Dear friend,’ she said, ‘I came to tell you that my dear husband has taken the turn, and will now sleep. I cannot forgive myself for having left him to-day: I had not anticipated any increase in the fever so long as he stayed at home, or wild horses should not have dragged me. Forgive me, Nelson, for leaving you so abruptly.’ With that she gave me her hands; and, looking at her tender face, I perceived that it was stained with weeping. I folded her to my heart; and presently she gently disengaged herself, and fled back to sit by Sir William’s bedside through the night, to make sure of having Sir William fit on the morrow for the twenty-mile drive to Caserta, where the Queen is to join the King in the morning, in order to bring about a meeting between me and the Austrian General Mack, whom the Emperor has sent down to command the Neapolitan forces in the contemplated movement against the French in the Papal States.”
Chapter XV.—Of the Voyage to Malta, with the Account of what happened at Caserta.
IN writing this history of the Admiral, I had it in my mind to have written each portion as it seemed to me at the time, and not by the light of after experience; but in practice I have not always found this possible. I cannot, for instance, refrain from analysing his behaviour during our short expedition to Malta by my knowledge of how he was likely to behave under the circumstances derived from a personal study of the hero during the last seven years of his life.
Now, this voyage to Malta suggests to me that he had not so completely convinced his conscience as the Journal would lead us to suppose. When the Admiral was sick at heart his indisposition was generally reflected in his bodily health; but during this expedition to Malta, which only lasted from the 15th of October to the 5th of November, including the voyage there and back, which took nine days going and five returning (our outward voyage, it must be remembered, being round the Island of Sicily instead of through the Strait of Messina), his spirits were as high as I ever knew them except on the eve of battle—as witness his treatment of the Marquis of Niza, who commanded the Portuguese squadron. This was in his very finest manner, both as a diplomatist and as a bluff British sailor. The Marquis’ squadron was doing sentry’s work for us outside the harbour of Valetta, which impregnable place the treachery or incapacity of the Grand Master had surrendered to the French without a blow being struck. This was the place which the Admiral said that you could not get into, if it was undefended, because you would want somebody inside to unlock the gates. The situation was that the French had Valetta; but that there were so few of them that the Maltese, who have only the heart of a rabbit, retained the rest of the island, and talked in a large way of the French surrendering. They talked in such a large way, in fact, that every one in Naples believed the French ready to surrender whenever the islanders were supplied with arms and stores and money.
When our Admiral arrived, his instinct for grasping the heart of a situation told him that, even against his audacity and genius for attack, and his powerful ships, there was not the likelihood of an early surrender. He observed that the garrison had not begun to touch their bullocks; and decided, after making arrangements for the proper conduct of the blockade, to return to Naples, where he felt that his presence could be of effect in putting the forces of the kingdom into motion against the French.
Now, I will not say that he was not a vain man; but no one can deny that his vanity took the form of recognising the value of what he had achieved, and of almost boyish pleasure in it, not of considering himself equal to doing what was patently above his powers. If he had a high opinion of what he could do, he bore it out with high actions. Any vanity he had before the event was the outcome of invincible courage, invincible confidence in his officers and men, and a sense of duty to his country which would not be satisfied without the completest results.