In the one there was no light. He was a vast black body, unlit now even by the moon. The other was radiant beside him. The Angel of Darkness was about to swallow the Child of Light. The boy saw what was going to happen and could not stay it.
Then he heard a sound.
The man was moaning as he walked.
Nelson stopped.
"Aren't you well, Dark?" he asked, so quietly, so kindly.
The giant swayed. Head and eyes were down, arms swinging. He was as a man asleep preparing for a plunge. And his light was out.
Nelson laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Can I help you?" he asked, with the shy tenderness of a woman.
The groan sighed itself away. Just so must Lazarus have sighed when the life first began to trickle back along disused veins. Slowly the giant pulled himself together, squaring vast shoulders. Then he drew a tremendous breath. In the darkness a tiny star began to glow.
"You have helped me, my lord," he said, and his voice was clear again.
Then they turned and came back across the deck.
Admiral and midshipman were alone in the cabin.
Kit was taking in his hero's face.
It was the face—the boy saw it with amazement—of adisappointedman!
The hero of St. Vincent, the victor of the Nile, the conqueror ofCopenhagen, a disappointed man!
"Tell your story."
Standing by the door Kit told his tale.
By the port the great seaman listened in chill silence.
His face was turned away. Kit dwelt anxiously on the keen, pale profile, the ruined eye, the lopped arm. Was his listener incredulous? He could not say, and Nelson did not speak.
The boy stumbled on his way.
Alone in that quiet cabin, his own voice shrill and small the only sound, face to face with the man who had saved Europe once, and must again, a confused and silly story he made of it.
Out on the uncritical sea he had almost thought himself a hero: in here, eye to eye with Nelson, he knew himself just a pinch-beck boy.
The silence grew upon him. He found himself listening to his own voice, and half wondering whether he was not dreaming. This almighty little man, so careless, so terrible, chilled him to the core.
He stumbled, sought his mind like a schoolboy posed for a word, sought in vain, and stopped dead.
Nelson drummed upon the table.
"Is that all?"
"All, sir?"
The other strummed impatiently.
"I'mLordNelson."
The boy was dumb, his heart flaring.
And this was the man the nation worshipped!
Nelson turned his eye upon the boy. There was a sardonic droop about his lips.
"Mr. Carvell," he said slowly, "I have been a midshipman myself. Is this a joke?"
Kit flamed. He had given himself freely for this man, had died a hundred deaths for him—for this!
"If it's a joke, my lord," white-hot and thrilling, "it's a joke for which a good many men have died."
He saw once more the lower deck of theTremendous. He recalled the man in the powder-magazine, and old Ding-dong dying beneath the cliff. He thought of Piper outside that door.
Nelson turned on the boy in a white blast.
"I am Admiral Lord Nelson. You're Mr. Midshipman Carvell. And I'll trouble you not to forget it."
He held out his hand.
"Your papers."
"There are none, sir—my lord. All burnt."
"Pah!" cried Nelson, and turned with a stamp.
On the table was a chart, a pistol at the corner of it acting as paper-weight.
He bent over it.
Kit, with bleeding heart, gazed at his back, blue-coated and white-breeched.
A darn in the seat of the breeches held his gaze. It seemed so odd somehow that Nelson's breeches should be darned. It was the last thing he should have suspected of the hero of Aboukir Bay. He longed to put out his finger and feel it, that darn in Nelson's breeches. Was it real?—or was it a dream-darn? It was real; he could swear it. And it helped him. There was something comfortably human about it. After all, then, a hero was only flesh and blood: he wore darned breeches.
Sometimes the boy wore darned breeches himself, his mother compelling him. There was something in common, then, between him and his hero.
Nelson turned suddenly to find the boy's eyes brimming with laughter.
Across his face swept a great white anger.
"This is scarcely a matter for giggling, Mr. Carvell," he cried terribly. "It seems to me that you by no means realise theastoundingnature of the charge you bring. If it prove true, it means the hanging of a brother-officer before the Fleet. If not—His Majesty will have no further need of your services."
"The powder-magazine will tell its own story," replied Kit, curt as an insulted girl. "Ask it."
Nelson's eye flashed.
"I'm not in the habit of receiving suggestions from my midshipmen, Mr.Carvell."
"You doubt my word!" with a sob.
"I doubt your story, sir. And I've good reason to. My officers are not in the habit of selling me. But we can soon have the truth."
He opened the door.
"Desire Mr. Dark to be good enough to step this way," he called to the sentry outside, and shut the door again.
"Mr. Dark is my Gunner and the officer against whom you bring your charge—a charge of such a nature asnever, never in all the years of my service, have I known one officer to bring against another."
He was pacing rapidly up and down the cabin, his stump flapping.
"I have tried to serve you, sir," said Kit in twilight voice, and said no more.
His face was a thought paler than before; his eyes a shade darker. He was bracing himself for a last fight.
Something about the boy, his twilight voice, his pallor, those dark and hunted eyes, struck Nelson.
He stopped his pacing.
"You've nothing to fear, Mr. Carvell," he said less sternly—"if your story prove true."
"It is true, my lord," replied the boy steadfastly.
"God forbid," shuddered the great seaman, and resumed his walk.
There was a knock.
Dark entered, sombrely magnificent.
He stood by the door, splendid with that strange splendour of moonlight.
His head, massive as a mountain, was splashed with silver; and from under great and gloomy brows those vast eyes gleamed, unfathomable.
Over by the port stood Nelson, high and white.
"Mr. Dark," he began in chill and formal voice, "I've sent for you upon the most unpleasant business it's ever been my lot to be mixed up in. Had I only to consider myself, what I have to say would be left unsaid. But I have to think of other and larger issues. If a mischance England might be lost."
The other listened immovable. He was like a smouldering volcano. Every moment Kit expected to see flames leap from his eyes.
Nelson cleared his throat, and continued.
"This young gentleman, Mr. Carvell, has been telling me a strange and terrible tale that affects you."
He turned his eye full-blaze upon the other.
"It is this, Mr. Dark—that you have been paid to sell me to the French."
The giant was stone. Not a muscle twitched. Then the tip of his tongue journeyed round his lips. The lips moved. Kit read the words on them, though no sound came.
They were,
"Not paid."
Nelson waited, breathing deep. Receiving no answer, he went on,
"The story so far as I can make it out is this."
Calm and twanging, he stood by the port-hole, and outlined to his alleged murderer-to-be the story of his plot. That mighty man could have crumpled him in one hand, and tossed him through the port-hole. And the giant knew it—so much his eyes betrayed. And the boy, watching from his corner, knew it too. Only the little lopped man talking through his nose across the cabin seemed unaware of it.
The shrill voice ceased. There was silence in the cabin.
"That's the story, Mr. Dark. And I may say I don't believeoneword of it."
"Thank you, my lord," came the other's voice, deep and rumbling.
"And if you'll give me your word that it's all moonshine," continued Nelson, "why, I'll ask you to shake my hand and forgive me. And that's an end of the dirtiest bit of business I ever had to handle."
The other's voice stuck in his throat. Out it came at last like muffled drums.
"My lord, you're a gentleman."
Nelson came to him with outstretched hand and a wonderful smile.
"Forgive me," he said.
The darkness drifted from the saint's face, leaving behind it evening calm, the stars beginning to shine.
Folding his arms, he bowed deliberately.
Nelson's hand dropped. He stopped short, and his smile died. In a flash the man of action, brisk and curt, had taken the place of the comrade chivalrously admitting a mistake.
"Then I must trouble you to fetch the key of the powder-magazine, and to follow me." He clapped on his cocked hat.
The great man turned swiftly.
"One moment, my lord," and he was gone.
There was a rush up the companion-ladder, and the noise of running feet on the deck overhead.
"Great God!" groaned Nelson, ghastly, and flung open the port.
A dark mass with straggling legs shot past.
There was the plump of a body striking the sea, and crash of showering waters.
"Man overboard!" roared a voice from the deck. "Back tops'ls. Here, sir!"
A rope coiled out and splashed the water.
Nelson's head was through the port.
The man came up beneath him, and turned to face the ship and his Admiral.
"O, Dark! Dark! Dark!" cried Nelson, and there was agony in his voice.
Dark looked up, the hair plastered about his forehead.
"Nelson," he shouted. "I ask your pardon."
"It's yours, Dark," choked the other. "But O! I thought—I thought you loved me!—every man of you."
"Often and often I could have killed you," gasped the other, bobbing to the seas.
"Rather that than this!" sobbed the great seaman. "Murder's the braver deed."
"I was mad!" groaned the other. "She was in my blood. She was my soul. Sheismy soul—the Christ be kind to her! O, if any man in the world can understand, that man should be Lord Nelson."
"No! no! no!" raved Nelson, tossing with his head, stamping with his feet, thumping the port with his fists. "Myself! my wife! my friend!—butnotmy country!Notthat, Dark!neverthat!"
"Lively there!" roared the voice from the deck. "Lower away."
There was the splash of a boat.
Dark flung aside the rope to which he had been holding.
There was silence in the cabin.
Through it came a despairing voice from the water.
"I can't sink!—My God, my God!—I can't sink!"
Nelson swept the pistol off the table and thrust through the port.
"Catch!" he gasped, and threw.
The man rose to it like a leaping fish, flung a high hand, and caught it.Then he sank back.
"Thank you, my lord," he cried, terrible joy in his voice. "May God forgive me as you have done."
Kit had a vision of a black mouth open, a thrusting barrel ringed with teeth, two screwed eyes, and then—
"Don't look, boy!" screamed Nelson, and plucked him away.
The slamming port drowned another sound.
Nelson rocked on the table. His hands were to his eyes, pressing, pressing, as though he would blind himself.
"And this is what comes of it!" he moaned.
Then he rose, and crossed the cabin, walking uncertainly as a little child.
Kit thought he would have fallen, and stepped forward. The great captain waved him back with his stump. Then he passed out alone.
A minute later the boy heard a door open and shut, and peeped out.
Nelson was coming out of the powder-magazine.
Down the gangway he came pale and uplifted. He was quite calm, and about his face there was the rain-washed look the boy had seen on his mother's as she came out of the room where Uncle Jacko lay dead.
"You were right, Mr. Carvell," he said quietly. "Forgive me."
"Caryll, my lord," ventured the lad—"Kit Caryll."
Nelson's eye leapt.
"Kit Caryll!" he cried. "Kit Caryll! Kit Caryll!" He held the boy's hand, and a beautiful smile broke all about his face. "Have I been blind? You're your father over again."
He dwelt on the boy's face, flooding it with tenderness.
"D'you know," he continued quietly, "d'you know you come to me as a friend risen from the dead?—a friend of my best days, come back to remind me of the years—the happy years—before … I won the Nile."
Kit heard him, amazed.
He was not happy, then, this man who had won all the world has to give!
He lookedbackfor his best days.
They were not now: they were the days before fame had come; fame, the Betrayer, that like a roaring breaker lifts a man heavenwards, and before he can clutch his star, has smashed him on the beach.
The boy recalled his first indelible impression—that the hero was adisappointedman.
Disappointed of what?—he, young still, crowned with glory, queens at his feet, nations worshipping him.
Could it be of happiness?
"I have a message for you from another friend of those days, my lord."
"Who's that?"
"Commander Harding."
A darkness chilled the other's face.
"Well."
The boy gave old Ding-dong's dying message.
"I thank you," said Nelson coldly. "Commander Harding always did what he believed to be his duty."
Then the tenderness returned, and he put his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Come on deck," he said.
The boy's throat was surging as he followed Nelson on deck. Now he would have died for the man whom twenty minutes before he could have knifed with joy.
Up there in the sunlight and wind all was noise and bustle.
A little lap-dog officer trotted up in a fuss.
"Mr. Dark gone mad, my lord, mad, and jumped overboard. We lowered a boat, but he shot himself, shot himself, before we could get to him."
"Call the boat away," said Nelson briefly. "And be so good as to make your course back for Dover."
"For Dover, my lord, Dover?" blankly.
"And don't let me have to repeat my orders."
"Very good indeed, my lord. Very good indeed." He trotted forward, barking fussily.
Nelson climbed on to the poop, Kit at his heels, and leaned over the side listlessly.
"What's that boat under my starn?"
"The boat I came off in, my lord."
"Ah, I forgot…. Is that a dead man in the starn-sheets?"
"No, my lord. That's Mr. Joy, who commanded us in the cottage. He used to know you, my lord. Joy, Captain in the Black Borderers."
A wave of colour swept across the other's white cheek. He flashed his eye on Kit.
"Joy!" he cried. "Old Peg-top Timbers! Hi! below there!" He leaned far over. "Joy! Joy of Battle!"
The Parson came up the side.
The crispness was out of his curls; his cheek was mottled; and the brave blue eyes seemed old, hollow, and faded. Even Polly hung somewhat limply from his wrist.
The two men, standing hand in hand, looked into each other's eyes.
"Old friend," said Nelson.
"Colonel," said the Parson, and with the word his life began to flow again.
Nelson's eye twinkled. He laid his hand on the other's shoulder.
"The same old Joy, I see," he said, and added gravely, "Harry, you've saved my life."
"Then I've saved England," replied the Parson, and dwelt upon his friend with the simple love of one brave man for another.
"Yes, yes," said Nelson, with that naive vanity of his so beautiful in its innocence. "England can trust her Nelson. And but for you, Harry, Nelson would be lost."
"You owe a little to me," answered the Parson, "more to Kit here, and most, if I may say so, to my sweet lady."
"Polly!" cried Nelson—"Pretty Miss Kiss-me-quick!"
"Ah," said the Parson, touched. "You don't forget old friends, Nelson. Nor does she. My love," he murmured, bending, "you remember Captain Nelson of theAgamemnon, who was good enough to second us in some of our little affairs in Corsica? Lord Nelson—Miss Kiss-me-quick. She says," he continued, drawing himself up, "that she'll permit the Victor of the Nile to salute her on the cheek."
He held the blade before him with a bow.
Nelson swept off his cocked hat.
"I am honoured indeed," he said, and, standing on the poop before them all, kissed the point.
Kit looked on with tender eyes. He was touched, and not at all surprised, to find that great men too loved solemn make-believe. The vision of the Eternal Child rose before his eyes once more: that Child who is never far in any of us, and least of all in the world's mighty ones.
Nelson turned to the Parson anxiously.
"But, Harry, are you wounded?"
"Mortally," the other answered—"by your beastly sea. But this is better," stamping the deck. "This is more like land."
"Come below," said the great captain. "Here, take my arm…. Only one now, you know."
"One's good enough for the French," laughed the Parson. "But, Nelson! what in the name of goodness are you doing here?"
"Why," said Nelson, stumping away, the other's arm tucked beneath his, "I heard from a—a private source—"
He brought up suddenly. A moment he stood with snoring nostrils, staring before him.
Hell had opened at his feet, and he was looking into it.
"She—"
It was the sigh of a dying soul.
"She—"
Each word was a gasp.
"She—"
He lifted his face, and a glimmer as of dawn broke over it.
"—can explain."
In the quiet cabin they looked into each other's eyes, these two old friends.
It was ten years since they had met.
The one was now the world's hero, the other a retired Captain of theLine.
Nelson was thinking as his eyes dwelt upon his friend,
"Just the same."
The Parson,
"What a change!"
It was the old Nelson he saw, and yet only the wraith of the old Nelson. There was a grey and ghastly darkness about him that made the Parson afraid. It was the grey of snow at dusk, the darkness of a pool which was haunted.
The Parson knew the tale, as all Europe knew it. Once he had doubted: now he could doubt no longer. Nelson's story was graven on his face—the story of the man who has betrayed himself. It was writ large there—the struggle, the surrender, the quenching of his ideal in the cataract of passion. He had run away from his best self, as many a man has run. He had slammed a door behind him, hoping to shut out his soul. And now the door had burst open. The ghost of himself, his old self, that had haunted him so long, rapping at the door, refusing in God's name to be laid, had rushed in upon him with a shriek.
He was wrestling with it now.
No wonder he was changed.
The Parson, almost in tears, recalled the Nelson with whom he had chewed ships' biscuits and exchanged dreams in the trenches at Calvi—the Nelson of Corsican days with a face like the morning and a school-boy's heart, his eyes forward into the future. Now he had realised his dreams and more. The young post-captain had become Lord Nelson, Duke of Bronté: St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen behind him.
And, and, and….
Suddenly, as though divining the thoughts of his old friend, Nelson fell forward.
"O Joy!" he cried, "I have sinned."
He clutched the Parson's shoulder, hugging it.
"Ten minutes since I saw it all." He lifted a dreadful eye. "It wasBLAZEDupon me in a flash of lightning." His voice had the hollow muffled sound of a man in a nightmare. "I saw myself: not the man the world is looking to, but plain Horatio Nelson—the sinner."
The confession, shuddering forth from the lips of the great seaman, sprang the horror in the other's heart.
"There, there!" he croaked. "There, there, Nelson!"
"Honours, Orders, Westminster Abbey, and the world's cheers are nothing," came the nightmare voice. "Thatremains."
The Parson collected himself and cleared his throat.
"We all make mistakes, Nelson," he said gruffly. "Everybody stumbles, but no man need lie in the mud."
"I must," cried the other hoarsely. "I must—in honour. Honour!" he cried, throwing back his head with terrible laughter. "Nelson's honour!—O, Joy, you knew me as I was: you see me as I am.Youcan judge. Is it nothideousthat it should come to this?—that men shouldsniggerwhen Nelson and honour are coupled together."
The tears rolled down the Parson's face.
"Ah, my dear fellow," he kept on saying, patting the other's back, "my dear, dear fellow."
"I have been hiding from my God all these years—and to-day He found me!" sobbed the voice upon his shoulder. "O, He is just—terribly just. He knows no mercy—none."
"Nonehere" murmured the Parson. "Therethere's plenty for all."
Nelson lifted a blurred face.
"You think that?"
"I'm sure of it," sturdily. "And I know all about that sort of thing now, you know. I'm a parson."
Nelson held the other off.
"Are you a parson?"
"Yes, sir," a thought defiantly. "And why not?"
His heat brought no twinkle to the other's one wet eye.
The nightmare was passing: Nelson was drifting away into dreams.
"My father's a parson," he mused, as one talking to himself. "If I hadn't gone to sea at twelve, I think I should have been. Nelson and religion!—it sounds strange. Yet I always wished to give all to God."
"You have," cried the Parson fiercely. "Who dares say you've not?"
"I do," said Nelson, dreaming.
"And what would have come to God's world but for you?" shouted theParson. "Why, swamped by a pack of rackety French atheists."
Nelson seemed not to hear.
"What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself?" he whispered.
The Parson gathered the other in his arms.
"Nelson," he said with tender sternness, "if you've wronged the Almighty, you must make Him amends."
"How, Harry?" came the voice from his shoulder.
"Why," said the Parson with a grave smile, "you must arise and smite His enemies."
Slowly Nelson composed himself. A great calm swept over him.
"You're right," he said at last, the light breaking about his face. "I am England's David. It is for me to slay Goliath. Sinner as I am, He has chosen me to do this work for Him, and I will do it. Yes, I will do it."
He turned to the port and gazed out.
To the Parson it seemed an hour before he turned again.
The nightmare madness had passed. His face was altogether changed. It was that of a child who wakes from sleep in a panic. There was a startled little smile about it.
"Harry," he said in shy waking voice, "have I been dreaming?—or have I been talking a lot of nonsense?"
The Parson, for all his simplicity, was something of a man of the world.
"Why," he cried heartily, "you've been standing with your back to me, mumbling and grumbling, and being damned rude."
Nelson laughed.
Was the Parson wrong?—or was there in that laugh a note of almost hysterical relief?
"I'll make it up to you, Harry. I'll make it up to you, my boy." He thrust his hand into his bosom, and produced a miniature. "Look here!" in reverent voice—"my Guardian Angel."
Kit was in the gun-room, the centre of a group of rosy-faced lads, eagerly questioning.
He could not eat; he could not answer.
"Caryll, the Admiral wants you."
The boy rose and went, trembling.
In the door of the cabin stood the Parson, his blue eyes very kind.
He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and drew him in.
"Lord Nelson," he said, "I believe this is the most gallant lad in eitherService."
The great captain came towards him. The boy saw him through a mist.
"Kit," said Nelson, with that wonderful smile of his—"I may call you Kit? Your father was always Kit to me—will you shake the hand of a brother-officer, who's proud to call himself such?" He added, gazing into the boy's eyes—"Your father was my friend. I hope his son will be."
Kit's heart surged. His knees began to give. He felt himself fading away.
Then the arm that was wont to encircle another waist was round his. His head sank where another head, beloved of Romney, often cushioned.
He began to whimper.
They supported him to a chair, the white head and the curly dark one mingling over his. And no woman could have been more tender than those two men of war, each in his own way so great.
"That's all right, my boy," said the Parson, "my dear boy. Don't be afraid to cry. All men cry—only we don't let the ladies know it."
"We won't tell the midshipmen," murmured Nelson at the other ear. "I'm safe—I weep myself sometimes in confidence. You must just think of me as of a father."
"Paws off, if you please, my lord," replied the Parson. "I'm his adopted father and mother and all; aren't I, Kit?—old friends first, you know."
"Well," gasped Kit between sobs and laughter, "you see I've got a mother, thank you."
"Have you?" cried Nelson, rising from his knees. "Is she like mine, I wonder? If so, I love her already. But there! I love her for her son's sake. And I'm going to write to her to tell her she has a son she can be proud of."
He sat down at his desk.
"Ah, what would England be without her mothers?" he said, taking up a pen.
* * * * *
The quill pen ceased to squeak.
Nelson thumped the letter with characteristic zeal, rose and gave it to the boy.
Kit pocketed it, his eyes looking thanks through tears.
"Your father'd be proud of you," said Nelson. "He was a true seaman—as his son will be."
"He's thinking of turning soldier, ain't you, Kit?" cut in the Parson."He's like me—got no use for the sea except as an emetic."
"No, no," said Nelson, smiling. "The Navy claims her cubs."
"Well, well," replied the other, "I won't dispute the point. But like another young seaman I used to know perhaps some day he'll rise to be Colonel of Marines, and win great victories at sea as the result of what we've taught him on land."
"Soldier and sailor too, eh?" said Nelson, and added in a stage-whisper to Kit—"He can never quite forgive us being the Senior Service."
A clock struck two.
"Come, Kit," said the Parson. "What d'you say? Shouldn't we be getting back?"
"I'm ready, sir."
"What!" cried Nelson. "You're never going back?"
"The soldier is," said the Parson. "The sailor can speak for himself. InmyService a job half done is a job not done.Welike to see things through…. Besides, there's Knapp, and old Piper."
"Ah, yes," said Nelson gravely. "I was forgetting. Dear old Piper!"
"He sent a message to you, my lord," said Kit, and gave it.
"Thank you," said Nelson quietly. "Old Agamemnons never forget each other…. If by any mercy of God my old friend should be alive," he continued, "give him my love—Nelson's love; and say his old captain's proud to have sailed with such a man."
"We will indeed," said the Parson thickly. "Come, Kit."
"No, no," cried Nelson, staying him. "You'll leave me my midshipman. I want all my best men by me now."
The Parson turned.
"What say you, Kit?"
The boy looked at Nelson.
"Take your choice, my boy."
"I should like to see the thing through, my lord."
Nelson patted him on the shoulder.
"There spoke the seaman," he said. "Never be satisfied with nearly.Always go for quite."
TheMedusahad gone about and was rocking lazily home, the land misty on her larboard.
Forward a knot of tars were gathered, Blob's cherub-face for centre-piece.
The lad was telling his tale in his slow, musical way.
A hoary old sea-dog with unlaughing eyes was putting leading questions. The men crowded round with grins and thrusting heads. They spat; they chewed; they nudged each other. Here and there a ripple rose to a roar. One man turned his back, and hands deep in his pockets, laughed silently in the face of heaven. Another was stuffing his pig-tail into his mouth to stifle his merriment.
Blob held on his ghastly way unheeding.
His eyes, fresh as dew, had the round and staring look of a new-born babe; the tulip face lolled forward on slender stalk; and a tip of pink tongue played about a mouth, beautiful as a bud.
"And what did er say then?"
"Whoy," came the pure voice, "er said—'Dear! dear!' and Oi says—Theer! theer!' and plops it in, and plops it in, and plops it in."
The Parson hailed him from the poop.
The little group broke up. Blob came through them, calm as the moon, and as unconscious.
"Who is the lad?" whispered Nelson, as the boy lolloped up in laceless boots, hands deep in his waistband.
"One of the garrison," replied the Parson. "Simple Sussex—with the face of a cherub and the soul of a stoat."
"Ah," said Nelson, "another of the heroes."
He took a step towards the advancing boy.
"I don't know your name," said the Victor of the Nile with grave courtesy. "But I may shake you by the hand?"
"Ye'," said Blob, mouth and eyes round.
"Thank you," said the hero, taking the other's limp paw. "I am LordNelson."
"Ah," said Blob. "O'im Blob Oad what killed Nabowlin Bownabaardie."
"You've saved me a lot o trouble," replied Nelson, grave but for his twinkling eye.
Blob stared, breathing like a beast.
"Don't you ave two arms on you?" he asked at last curiously.
"I get along very well with one, thank you."
"Mus. Poiper, he've got no legs—only ends loike," pursued Blob.
The Parson hailed him.
"Hi! are you coming ashore with us, or will you stay with this gentleman to fight the French?"
The boy wagged his head cunningly.
"Oi'll goo with Maaster Sir. Oi'm his lad."
"He's coming with me later," said Nelson. "Won't you too?"
"Maybe," said Blob. "When Oi got ma money."
"Plenty o killing, you know, Blob," said the Parson slyly.
Blob rippled off into roguish laughter.
"Oi'll coom," he said. "Mate, pudden and killin—that's what Oi loike."
Nelson stood at the gangway.
"Good-bye, Kit. I shall hope to have the pleasure of your company aboard theVictorywhen I sail."
Kit tried to thank him, failed, and went over the side.
"Good-bye, Harry."
The two old friends stood eye to eye, hand to hand, the great sea wide about them and the lugger bobbing beneath.
"Good-bye, Nelson," said the Parson, and added, "Good luck."
The other smiled.
"Trust Nelson," he said.
They cast off.
The slow and stately frigate began to draw away.
As she slid past, the boys fending her off, and the Parson already composing himself at the bottom of the boat, Nelson leaned over the side.
"Thank you," he said, and swept off his cocked hat.
Then he turned.
The boys could see him no more. But that shrill voice, so familiar now, twanged above them.
_"Now, my lads! I'll ask you to give three cheers for the crew of the Kite. Hip! hip!—"
"Hooray!"_
A roaring cheer leapt from the silence. In a moment the shrouds were black with waving men. The great hurrahing vessel drew away, curtseying as she went.
Even the Parson lifted a languid head and peered.
"He's dipping his ensign to you, Kit. Take the salute."
Kit looked through swimming eyes.
The old sense of experience renewed was strong on him—the battle won, the return home in the evening, the cheers of the saved, and his heart drowned in love and glory.
Could it be true?
Yes. The Victor of the Nile had dipped his flag to a ten days' midshipman.
"Ah," said the Parson, "there's Nelson!—God bless him!"
At the stern of the great ship, an empty sleeve pinned to his breast, stood the greatest seaman of all time, one hand to his cocked hat.
A mile from shore, under the lee of the land, the wind fell away.
The lugger, with lolling mainsail, flowed down a path of gold. The shore was dark and still before them, and the sun poised above the Downs, blue at the back.
As they neared the land, the calm grew. Save for the lap of waters at the bow, all was hushed in the gracious evening.
Kit, steering, peered under the swaying boom at the shore.
The Parson, Polly in hand, stood in the bows, viking-like.
The lugger was about to beach at the very spot where they had started twelve hours since.
The tide was much as then; but otherwise what a change!
Then in the cold sunshine men had been busy with each other's lives; now all was sunset peace and waters kissing the shore.
But for one grim reminder of what had been, they might have been returning from a pleasure trip.
The Grenadier Kit had stabbed lay on the slope of the shingle, ghastly to greet them. Just out of reach of the tide he sprawled as he had fallen. No man had touched him. He lay then as now spread-eagled on his face, with wide gaitered legs, and hands flung before him. His chin dug into the shingle; and his shako had fallen askew over staring eyes. It was almost as though he was making faces at them.
Kit saw it and sickened.
Beside the dead man there was none to greet them.
A wood-pigeon crooned itself to sleep among the sycamores on the knoll; the sea fell with a lazy swish upon the shore; behind the orange-lichened roof of the cottage, the Downs loomed black in the glow of sunset The rest was silence and terror.
The lugger grounded, and crashed to a halt in the white fringe of the tide.
The Parson leaped ashore, Polly twinkling in his hand.
"Stand by the boat, Blob!" he ordered, feeling the land with his feet."Kit, got your dirk? Then follow me."
Light and alert, he ran up the slope.
Kit followed with lagging feet.
Never a greedy fighter, for the time the lad had drunk his fill of battle. He tired of hearing his own heart; and that heart tired of its thumping. After twelve hours of the sea's large peace, here he was back again on the evil earth, where the soul is always sick, amid dangers and darkness, beastly men lurking to murder him.
Is it always so on land? he wondered. Is there no heaven on earth except at sea?—where God is because man is not.
He longed to have the waters wide about him again.
Not so the Parson. The feel of the land, firm beneath his feet, thrilled him to new life. He was on his element once more and in it: earth on earth, the warrior at war. A natural fighter, loving it whole-heartedly for its own sake, he was ready for a thousand, almost hoping for them.
Keen of eye, tight-curled, he took the slope at a brisk trot.
A path of stepping-stones led across the green towards the house; each stepping-stone a dead man sprawling face down in a swirl of green.
Kit saw it all as he had seen it then: the tail of Grenadiers, the pursuing Parson, the hounding Gentleman.
Then it had possessed him; now he only wanted to get away. Home, mother, Gwen, and an apple in the loft; soft cheeks, kind eyes, the voices of women loving him, chaffing him—these he longed for. He was tired of being a man for the time being: he wanted to be a little boy again, to be cuddled, to be loved.
And for him it was no new experience, this battle-sickness on the return to the field at evening. He had been there before. When? Where? He could not recall, yet somehow he remembered.
"One—two—three—four—five!" counted the Parson. "I thought I should never catch the last. How he ran! When I was on him he snarled back like a beaten wolf. Then he got it—whish-h-h!"
Kit trailed blindly at his heels.
That stink of dead men, would he never again get it out of his nostrils?
The cottage lay before them, just as they had left it. It was barricaded still, and curiously dark.
"Ha!" muttered the Parson. "I don't like the look of this. Left incline,Kit. Make for cover."
The old soldier, wary as a fox, sheered off for the sycamore knoll.
There was a touch of death and of autumn in the air. Already the leaves on the sycamores were shrivelled; and a rusting chestnut was hung with nuts prickly as sea-urchins. As they passed among the trees a robin lifted its winter-sweet song.
The Parson peered out.
The cottage faced them, grey and grinning. There was no sign or stir of life about it; but manifold evidence of death. On the greensward, all about dead men lay crumpled, faces downwards, killed clearly in flight.
Kit's heart turned white.
Dead men as dung upon the grass here in the holiness of evening, and a robin singing in the sycamores overhead.
Song and slaughter! God's work and man's! O, would the day never come when men wouldunderstand?
"Pretty work," said the Parson, with the zeal of a professional, as he stepped off the knoll. "Cavalry! See here!—a beautiful stroke. A big man on a big horse, I should say, and puttinglotso beef into it Yes, yes, yes," with the gusto of an expert. "They've used the edge—see! Got em on the run, then cut em in collops—and all over my bowling-green, tool" treading at the offending horse-hooves.
Kit gave a little cough.
He had seen the lower deck of theTremendousawash with blood; he had dirked men, and shot them. But this was different. That was death in battle: this was death in life.
The Parson looked up and saw the lad white as a woman in such circumstance. He remembered himself.
"I forgot," he muttered. "You're not used to it. War ain't beautiful as seen in the after-glow."
"It's the quiet," whispered Kit, ghastly. "Like a churchyard—the dead unburied."
"Shut your eyes," said the Parson in steadying voice. "Take my arm. Don't think. Repeat a hymn to yourself."
He walked delicately among the dead, Kit stumbling on his arm.
At the garden-gate they stayed.
The Parson hailed, and Kit started dreadfully.
A wood-pigeon with loud wings splashed out of the sycamores. The kitchen clock within ticked. Other answer there was none.
"I must try the door," whispered the Parson. "Will you come?—or stop here?"
"Come."
The Parson walked down the tiny path between trampled beds, Kit shivering on his arm, and Polly leading him.
The cottage was blind; the windows shuttered; the glass in them shattered.
It seemed more like a mortuary than a human habitation.
The Parson tried the door—in vain.
He laid his ear to it, and listened.
"There's some one there, I'll swear," he whispered, and knocked.
A chair rolled and rolled.
"Piper!"
"No," muttered Kit, with his truer instincts.
Somebody groaned. Broken feet dragged to the door.
The Parson edged off along the wall, hugging it with his shoulder.
"This'll do," he whispered. "Keep behind me. If it's a trick we shall do very well here—flank covered, play for Polly, and the attack with us."
"I don't want any more fighting," whimpered Kit. "I—I want mother."
Bolts groaned, somebody groaning with them.
"Who's there?" husked a ghostly voice.
"Friend," called the Parson.
The lock creaked; the door opened.
A face of yellow clay, bandaged about, peered forth.
"That you, Mr. Joy?" came the ghostly voice, terrible in its remoteness.
The Parson dropped his point.
"Knapp?"
The little bandaged figure, in grey shirt and bloody drawers, wrapped about with an old horse-blanket, looked at him with stagnant eyes.
"What's left o me."
There was no gladness in his voice, no light of welcome in his eyes.
The merry little fighter of the morning, then cockiest of men, was now no more than a yellow shadow; dead, you would have said, but for that ghost of a voice, dribbling dreadfully out of his corpse.
The Parson went towards him.
"I never thought to see you alive again, Knapp."
"I'm a little alive," said the man wearily. "They done me—all but."
The Cockney snap was out of his voice. His words came like a drunkard's: he was slurring them, running them together, skipping hard consonants.
"I'll never be a man no more, I won't," he added with a dry sob.
The Parson gripped his hand.
A look of beastly rage darted into the other's eyes.
"Blast ye!" he screamed, and struck at the Parson's face with his elbow."I'm one—great wownd, you—." He spewed out a torrent of hideous names."And yet you must go for to wring my and!"
He lifted his foot to stamp it. His wounds twitched at him. He lowered it gingerly and with a groan.
"I ain't a man," he sobbed. "I'm one—great wownd."
"My poor chap," choked the Parson.
The other turned, body, legs, neck, and head moving all of a piece, and shuffled into the cottage on his heels.
The Parson followed.
"Don't touch me!" screamed the other, striking back with his elbows."Don't come anigh me, my God! or I'll—"
He hobbled in, muffled to the feet in bandages.
He led into the parlour.
It was much the same, save that now a great clothes-horse, hung with soldiers' cloaks, made as it were a Sanctuary at one end of the room.
Piper's wheel-chair stood empty in the twilight Knapp let himself down in it with screwed face.
For a time he whimpered tearlessly. He was too weak to weep, and not strong enough to contain himself.
The Parson bent over him.
"Your heroism has not been in vain, my brave fellow," he said. "But for you Lord Nelson would be now in the hands of the French."
"Blast Nelson!" snarled the little rifleman. "What's Nelson to me? Blame fool that I were."
The heroic soul was quenched for the moment. He was flesh distraught—no more.
A flask of brandy was on the window-sill. The Parson poured from it into a glass and gave it him.
Knapp revived.
The Parson took down the shutters, and the evening light streamed in, calm and healing.
"Take your time," said the Parson gently. "Tell us what you can when you can."
Knapp sipped his brandy.
"It was the knives—when they closed. That done me up. Ow, my God!" He shuddered. "If it hadn't been for the Genelman."
"Yes?" said Kit eagerly.
A glow lit the man's eye. The yellow of his cheek flushed ever so faintly.
"I'd die for im," he said, "only he's died for me—what pull his nose and all."
"Is he dead then?" asked Kit.
"Who's tellin this tale?—you or me?"
He put down his glass.
"That there's a genelman."
His eyes were down, and his hands upon his knees. He began to tell the story over in his own mind, but only here and there his tongue took fire and flashed a light upon the tale for the outsider to read by.
"Drew em off o me…. I couldn't tell you…. Cursin em and killin em…. Down on his knees, aside o me…. Give me his arm same as I might ha been a lady….
"So we goes back to the cottage, me no better nor dead meat on his arm…. I can't tell you…. I don't know…. I'll never forget it."
He drew the back of his hand across his eyes.
"They kep doggin on him—unduds on em…. Sich faces on em…. Ow, my God!—I sees em now." He shivered and glanced behind him. "And he talkin back at em, easy as you please, chaffin em like…. Seem they dursn't go for to touch him…. Round to the back door…. Old Piper."
Parson and boy were hanging over him.
"Slipp'd out of his chair … layin on the ground … all anyhow … no legs and all.
"'Ullo, Sailor!' says the Genelman. 'Ow are ye?'
"'I'm done, sir,' says pore old Pipes, smotherified. He were layin on his face.
"'Done, be d'd!' says the Genelman, and whips round sudden with his sword.
"Course they run,—curs!
"Round he come again, quick as light, catches old Piper under the arm-pits, and pops him in his chair.
"'Run him in, Soldier!' says he. 'Sharp's the word. I'll keep em off.'
"So I run him in best I could. I weren't stiff yet, so every twitch tears you."
"'Don't bother about me,' says old Pipes. 'Back to the door, Knapp.They're all on to him.'
"Back I obbles all I knoo…. Ah, I'll never forget it."
He lifted his face to the Parson.
"They used to say in the rigimint you was the best sword in Europe, sir." He laid a finger on the other's arm. "This mornin you was the second-best."
"I'm sure of it," says the Parson quietly.
Knapp stumbled on.
"He stood just outside the door…. I did a bit behind him with the baynit, when they got inside his guard…. He kep on killin em…. It was like the Lord Amighty makin lightnins out of His eyes and blastin em…. I never see the like—blessed if I did!"
The long-lost tears poured down his cheek. He was living again.
"They couldn't make nothing of it, and drew back a bit.
"'What!' cries the Genelman, laughin. 'A round dozen of you, and wopp'd by one! I wonder what Black Diamond'd think o you?'
"At that Fat George truss Dingy Joe by the arms.
"'Ow's this?' he squeals, and runs him on the Genelman's blade, dodgin back himself into Red Beard's arms.
"'Good idee!' kughs old Red Beard, and he throws his arms round the fat chap.
"'This'll smother him!' he roars. 'Now, boys, follow up!'
"And down he charge on the Genelman, Fat George in his arms."
For a moment the ghost of the old Knapp walked.
"Fat George weren't for avin it, Fat George weren't," he sniggered, shaking his head. "And I don't blame Fat George neether. Talk!—talk o talkin!—and the face on him!"
He lifted one hand and tittered.
"Old Red Beard stagger in along—just his beard, and his eyes, and his legs beneath, and them hairy arms of is'n like ropes round the fat chap's belly.
"'Your turn now, ole pal,' says he. 'How d'ye like it yourself?' And somehow I fancies he and Fat George hadn't been best friends.
"Well, I see it was all up then, and the Genelman see it too.
"'Shut the door, Soldier,' says he, very calm, 'and yourself inside of it.'
"'What, sir?' says I, 'and leave—'
"'Do what you're told!' says he, sharp-like."
The little rifleman looked up into the face of his old company commander.
"Well, sir, I'm a soldier. I know my officer. In I goes!"
The Parson was stamping up and down like a man in mortal pain.
"And I wasn't there," he moaned. "I left him to do my dirty work—and ran!"
Opening the back-door, he gazed out on the encircling Downs, the light white now behind their blackness.
Outside the door was a fairy circle—just such a circle as a long-armed man with a sweeping sword would make—and round it not twinkling fairies but dead men. It was as though this was a magic ring, fatal to all who crossed it.
In the centre of the ring he could detect heel-marks, where the Gentleman had stood.
Fitting his own heels to the dents, he stood with crouching knees, making play with Polly among the ghosts of the smugglers.
He saw it all: the swarming satyrs, the closing door, the white-faced rifleman at the crack, and the Gentleman, back to the door, face to the Downs, his blade leaping out to scorch intruders within the pale.
"O Polly!" he cried. "We three—we three could have held the door against ten thousand."
The tears flowed down his face. The thought of this young man spending himself for a legless sailor, and a wounded rifleman, his enemies, who half-an-hour before had stood between him and his life's success, touched him to the quick.
"What a man!" he cried.