The scene in the cockpit during a fight like this is one that genius alone could graphically depict. The centre-ground of the picture is the big table, around which the surgeons are at work, stripped to their shirts, their faces stained, their hands and garments dripping gore. The whole place is filled with stifling smoke, through which the glimmering lights are but faintly seen; but all around are ranged the wounded, the gashed, the bleeding, awaiting their turn on the terrible table. You can hear them if you cannot see them—hear them groaning, sometimes even shrieking, in their agony; and the mournful call for “Water! water!” is heard in every lull of the fight or momentary cessation of cannon’s roar. And bending low as they move among them are the stewards and idlers of the ship, serving out the coveted draught. But down the blood-slippery companion-ladder come the bearers incessantly, carrying as gently as a Jack can their sorely-stricken messmates. Verily a sad scene! On deck war is witnessed in all its pomp and its panoply, on deck is honour and glory; the dark side is seen in the cockpit—the sorrow, the despair, the hopelessness, the agony, the death.
CHAPTER XX.
NELSON AND THE NILE.
“With one of his precious limbs shot away,
Bold Nelson knowed well how to trick ’em;
So, as for the French, ’tis as much as to say,
We can tie up one hand, and then lick ’em.”
Dibdin.
HINGS in England began to look up. Those who preached revolution were forced to hide their heads with shame after the great battle of Camperdown. For this fight had completely restored confidence in our country’s powers, and for the time being the fears of invasion had fled far away.
In many a lordly hall over all the land the feast was laid, on many a lofty hill the bonfires blazed; it was indeed a season of great rejoicing.
In one of the window recesses of Mr. Keane’s somewhat lonesome and dreary suburban mansion, as the shadows of evening fell on the almost leafless elms around the house, sat Gerty. She was looking out into the gathering night, looking out at the slowly-falling leaves; for though a book lay in her lap, it was almost too dark to read. By her side sat a beautiful deer-hound, with his muzzle leaning on her knee, and gazing up into her face with his brown earnest eyes, as if he knew there was sorrow at her heart.