"I am not able to go to Egypt to serve my country, because of this affair of Naples and the French in the Papal States, of which, since I have seen Mack, I have no great hopes, unless I can see to it myself, and for the fact that it will set the Emperor in motion again. His sending, and the Queen's acceptance of Mack, should be a pledge of this. The Queen's army cannot move till November, which will give me time and plenty to summon Valetta. "Between it all I may get some action to clear my atmosphere. If I stayed long in Naples, I feel as if I should not be able to leave it. I have never lived till now, but I must struggle against it, though goodness knows why. Surely the Power which sent us into the world meant us to make the best of our lives. Not the best in a shore-parson's sense, but the best in the sense of extracting the utmost cause for thankfulness out of life--the utmost gratitude for it. "I think I am a religious man, as men go. I do not believe that there are many men who have a more active sense of their duty to their country. I have never feared to die for her in any of my hundred fights, and I always lean upon my Maker before I go into them, and have ever given Him the praise when I came safe out of them. But I do not know how much I believe that what we do in this life is to influence our happiness in a future life in a different place, over going to which we have no control. I hope to do my duty for the sake of what is my duty in this life, and not as a bribe to secure happiness in the next. My present position is that I tear myself away from that which will give me the greatest happiness of which a man is capable, and I do this out of submission to a code of whose validity I am not sure. The code is of the West--Western; but the traditions upon which it is founded are of the East--Eastern. Those who made and keep the code regard those who made and keep the traditions as barbarians. The peoples upon whose traditions the convention is founded have no such convention! Why, then, am I so concerned, not about breaking the convention, of which I should never dream, but about the misinterpretations of the Pharisees, who have arrogated to themselves the maintenance of the convention? I cannot tell. There is but one remedy for it--the sea--which I have always proposed to myself as my bride. I wonder if it was because I did not know what the possibilities of life were?" CHAPTER XVII.--Which the Idle Reader may skip, as Politics. It sets forth the Cowardice and unravels the Intrigues which led to the Fall of Naples. The situation of affairs can best be inferred from certain brief entries in the Admiral's Journal:--