Here, in a small, confined apartment, which Bob's father said looked "like the condemned cell at Newgate," and whose sole apparent advantage, as the Captain explained, was in its being below the water-line, and therefore the only safe place in a ship before the days of torpedoes and submarine warfare, he went on to tell the children, the hero breathed his last; his dying moments eased by the knowledge that he had done his duty to his country and cheered by the news that the foe was vanquished, Hardy making him smile by saying how many ships of the line had struck their colours already or been destroyed. Nell shivered. "Let us go upstairs," she said, in a very depressed tone, in keeping with the melancholy associations of the place. "Let us go upstairs!" The Captain laughed out at this. "You'd make a sailor faint, if he heard you ever use that expression!" he cried. "The idea of speaking about `upstairs' on board a ship, and your uncle a sailor, too, missy!" "What should I say?" she asked, looking into his face as well as the dim light would permit. "What should I say instead?" "Why, `on deck,' of course," he replied. "We've got no stairs on board ship. They're either `companion-ways' or `ladders,' up one of which we'll go now, if you like!" So saying, he led the way on deck as he had down below, taking them all into the ward-room under the poop, where they now saw various relics of the hero, besides letters and orders in his writing, which were framed and hung round the cabin like pictures. Bob, whose calligraphy was none of the clearest or most legible, had the benefit of a little moral lesson here from his father, who seemed to take a mean advantage of the fact of Nelson writing so well with his left hand after he lost his right; but Master Bob evaded the issue very well by saying that "when he was similarly circumstanced," he would try and write as well, too! "Bravo!" cried the Captain, as they left the ship, going down the "accommodation-ladder," which, as he was careful to tell Nellie, was not a staircase either, although outside the ship. Then, turning to her father he added, chuckling-- "That boy of yours, Strong, is a regular chip of the old block, and a credit to your country!" They had a laugh at this, of course; and, then, on Mrs Gilmour suggesting their taking advantage of the high tide to visit Porchester Castle, as the harbour looked its best, the watermen in charge of their wherry were directed to row up stream towards the creek on the northern side, where the old fortress, embowered in trees, nestled under the shelter of the Portsdown hills, a monolith of past grandeur and present decay! CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. A STEAM TRIAL, AND A GUN-BURST. On their way up the harbour, the Captain pointed out the long line of old hulks moored on either side of the stream that had once, when in their prime, been esteemed the pride of the Navy.