“Nelson and the lady conversed in whispers; but it was plain to be seen his spirit was agonized, and his fair but frail companion was employing every art to soothe him. She affected to weep, but there was a glistening pleasure in her eyes as she looked at the corpse, which had well nigh made the boat’s crew set all duty at defiance. Nelson,—and no man was better acquainted with the characteristics of a sailor,—saw this, and ordered to be pulled on board. She upbraided him for what she called his weakness, but his soul was stirred beyond the power of her influence to control his actions.
“The body of the prince was taken out to a considerable distance in the bay, where it was thrown overboard with three heavy double-headed shot lashed between the legs; and, as the lieutenant said, ‘he met his death in the air, and had his grave in the ocean.’
“About a fortnight after this, a pleasure party was made up by the royal family and nobility for an excursion on the water, and the barge, with Nelson and the lady, took the lead. It was a beautiful sight to see the gilded galleys with their silken canopies and bright pennons flashing in the sun, and reflecting their glittering beauties on the smooth surface of the clear blue waters, whilst the measured sweep of the oars kept time with the sweet sounds of music. Not a cloud veiled the sky, scarcely a breath curled the transparent crest of the gentle billow; all was gayety, and mirth, and laughter.
“After pulling for several miles about the bay, we were returning towards the shore, when a curious-looking dark object,—something like a ship’s buoy, appeared floating a-head of the barge. The bowmen were ordered to lay-in their oars, and see what it was; so the oars were laid in, and they stood ready with their boat-hooks, the coxswain steering direct on to it. As soon as the barge was near enough, the bowmen grappled it with their boat-hooks, but in an instant their hold was loosened again, and ‘A dead body! a dead body!’ was uttered in a suppressed tone by both. The boat held on her way, and as the corpse passed astern, the face turned towards the lady and showed the well-remembered countenance of poor Caraccioli. Yes, as the officer had said, ‘the ocean had been his grave;’ but that grave had given up its dead, and the lady seldom smiled afterwards.
“Nelson hailed one of the cutters that were in attendance, and directed that the body should be taken on board and receive the funeral ceremonies suitable to the rank which the unfortunate prince had held whilst living. The music ceased its joyous sounds for notes of melancholy wailing, and the voice of mirth was changed to lamentation and sadness.
“Years passed away, and Nelson fell in the hour of victory; but the lady, ah! her end was terrible. The murdered prince was ever present to her mind; and as she lay upon her death-bed, like a stranded wreck that would never more spread canvass to the breeze, her groans, her shrieks were still on Caraccioli. ‘I see him!’ she would cry, ‘there, there!—look at his white locks and his straining eye-balls! England,—England is ungrateful, or this would have been prevented! But I follow—I follow!’—and then she would shriek with dismay and hide herself from sight. But she is gone, your honour, to give in her dead-reckoning to the Judge of all. She died in a foreign land, without one real friend to close her eyes; and she was buried in a stranger’s grave, without one mourner to weep upon the turf which covered her remains.”
Here the veteran ceased, and folding his arms, he held down his head as if communing with his own heart and struggling to dispel the visions which his narration had conjured up. I cautiously refrained from disturbing him, till by a sudden gulp or sea-sigh, like the expiring gale when at its last gasp, he gave indications of having becalmed his feelings, and we moved onwards up the steps into the body of the Hall, till we stood before the fine painting of the Battle of the Nile, by G. Arnald.
“There, your honour,” exclaimed the veteran, whilst his eye sparkled with glowing recollections, “look there, your honour; isn’t that a sight to awaken old remembrances! It’s worth a hundred of that yonder, which is neither ship-shape nor Bristol fashion, as I take it, for an officer in boarding to be rigged out as if he was going to a ball. Mayhap, howsomever, it may be all well enough for landsmen and marines to look at, because it’s pretty; but the eye of a seaman only glances at it with contempt.” The subject of his last observations, was a painting of Nelson boarding the San Josef of 112 guns in the battle off St. Vincent. “I told you before I was with him in both doos; but, Lord love your heart, it was another sort of a concarn than that ’ere; for there warn’t no fighting on the quarter-deck of the three-decker,—all the fighting were in the San Nickylas as we boarded first. But here’s a pretty picture, your honour,” pointing to a small but beautiful painting of the re-capture of the Hermione frigate by Sir Edward Hamilton, “and it tells a tale too! Well, thank God, I never sailed with a tyrannical captain! and there was one,—a lord,—who used to boast he had flogged every man in his ship.”
“I never knew that Sir Edward Hamilton was severe,” said I, “for I had always been given to understand that he was a smart but humane officer.”
“I didn’t mean him, sir,” replied the veteran, “it was another sort of person; but he was murdered, and in cold blood too. I have heard the tale often, for old Hughes, who died boatswain of the Laurel frigate, was an old shipmate of mine, and he was in the Hermione at the time of the mutiny. ’Twas a shocking affair,” added the old man, shaking his head, “and who could think that whilst the beautiful moon was shedding her pale light,—not but I’m thinking the moon has no business in that ’ere picture, any more than it had to be up such a night as that at all; but the painters can stick a moon just where they like, though it destroys the tale they have to tell. Besides, captain Hamilton wouldn’t be likely to want even so much as the blink of a purser’s lantern to show the Spaniards he was coming.”