Further speech on the Admiral's part was prevented by the entrance of a midshipman. The youngster saluted Nelson and then laid before him on the table a pencilled note:
"The enemy's fleet is sighted.
"Collingwood."
The words were read out, and then followed a burst of cheering.
The Admiral reached his hat and moved from his seat. To the midshipman who had just entered he said, "Remove this gentleman to Midshipman P's cabin" (that to which Nelson was afterwards carried when he had received his death wound, and in which he died). Then he addressed St. Just, "If I win to-morrow's battle, Sir, I pledge my word of honor to land you in England, in return for this day's service. If I fail and find that I have been led into a trap by your despatches—Well—" And he threw him a warning look.
Stupefied and with a sinking heart and without a word, St. Just bowed to the Admiral and retired. Then the midshipman took charge of him and conducted him to the cabin indicated, a gloomy hole lighted only by a small window giving on to the alley way. Here he sat for hours in solitude.
Later, towards night, the occupant of the cabin came in, and the prisoner ventured to ask him whether he knew what in the despatches was the information that had been considered so important.
"You don't know?" was the reply. "Well, the report is that an English correspondent of the French Government gave information to Boney of the strength and destination of our fleet; and that the French Admiral undertook to send us to the bottom and then come to the assistance of the invasion army at Boulogne. The despatch you handed to our Government, it is said, acknowledges the receipt of the agent's intelligence and asks for later news, at the same time disclosing the intended movements of the French fleet."
"Phew!" breathed the Frenchman, and began to perspire profusely.
He had little dreamed of the momentous issues involved in the miscarriage of the despatch, and he trembled at the magnitude of the disaster he foresaw.