He called to his mates and pointed to the boy. They were too far off to help. They saw Nelson level his musket and saw the wicked head of the bear raised in front of him. They held their breath waiting for the shot. In the still air they caught the click of the hammer, but heard no report. For some reason the gun had not gone off. With a shout they scrambled over the ice to help him, knowing he was now at the wild beast's mercy.
The boy, however, had turned his musket and raised the butt end in defense when a gun on the ship boomed out the signal for all hands to go aboard. The signal woke the echoes and thundered over the field of ice, and the bear, frightened, turned tail and ran off as fast as his short legs could carry him. Nelson, his musket still raised, ran after the animal, but by this time the rescue party had come up with him.
"What do you mean by hunting polar bears all alone, Dreadnaught?" asked the other midshipman. "Didn't you see him coming?"
"Yes," said the boy, "but I wanted his skin to take back home to my father. I might have had him if that gun hadn't sent him away. Now he's lost forever."
"Well, I vow," said the other. "I don't believe there's another chap in the navy with half your pluck."
Such incidents as these showed the young sailor's courage, and he had continual chances to show how rapidly he was learning seamanship.
By the time he was fifteen he was practically possessed of all the knowledge of an able seaman, and was sent on board the ship Sea Horse to the East Indies. His position at first was little better than that of a foremast hand, but it was not long before the captain noticed the lad's smartness and keen attention to his duties, and very soon he called him to the quarterdeck and made him fore-midshipman.
The captain advised the first lieutenant to keep an eye on the boy and occasionally to let him have charge of manœuvering the vessel. This the lieutenant did, and to his great surprise found that Nelson was quite as well able to handle the ship as he was himself.
The sea life was doing him good, too. He was no longer the thin, sickly lad who had wandered through the streets of Chatham, but a fine, well-built, sun-tanned youth, well beloved on deck and popular with all his mates.
Fine as the sea life was for him, life in the East Indies was very trying. The climate brought fever with it, and Horatio had been in the East but a short time before he fell very ill and had to be taken from his ship and sent home on board the Dolphin. The ship doctors gave up hope of saving him, but the captain was so much interested in the boy that he spent hours nursing him, and finally he grew better.