"That not one ship or soldier in that expedition should ever be allowed to return to France. We have them boxed up in Egypt, and we must keep them there. Well, this jackanapes writes to me that he thinks it would be a good thing to secure the evacuation of Egypt by granting them passports back to France, if they promise to go at once--which takes away the whole work of my victory of the Nile. I have wrote him that I will not accept one of his passports, and strictly forbidden him to enter into any convention with the French. I have wrote to Lord St. Vincent and Lord Spencer about him too. I shall go home if I am not to be trusted." "I am sure," says My Lady, "that it is not because you are not trusted, but because Sir Sidney knows the language, and may therefore be expected to hear more of what is going on than if he had to depend on others for his hearsay." "Languages are all right, but in a service like ours discipline is first, and we are surrounded by treachery and undermining on every side." "The Court knows whom it can trust." "Oh, all the traitors in Europe, Asia, and Africa, are not in Naples; though one might well be excused for thinking so, seeing the numbers of these gentry." "What do you mean, then?" "The most double-dyed villain of them all is the Bey of Tunis. For all these months I have kept the large fleet of our only faithful ally, the Portuguese, from prosecuting the war which is between Her Most Faithful Majesty and the Bey; and he has repaid me by seizing ships carrying my passports, and by sending ships with supplies to our enemies, the French, shut up in Malta. He has, I hear too, been entering into negotiations with the homicide, Buonaparte, for helping him back to France." "What shall you do with him?" "I have wrote to Magra that I _will_ have my passports respected, and that, as I will do no wrong, I will suffer none, and that I will sink every ship I find conveying supplies to the enemy. But he is a double-dyed villain; for when I sent the _Vanguard_ there, he seized every Frenchman and French vessel in the place, saying that it was his part to do that. The which he released so soon as the _Vanguard_ departed." "I should make short work with the Bey. One can only trust these Orientals when one does not need them." "Indeed, that would not do. It is my duty to protect the Mussulmen from the infidel French. Besides, there are traitors much nearer home than that." "What do you mean?" "I mean either the Minister, or the Governors of Syracuse and Messina. Malta might be further on by this, if the corn, so often ordered to keep the Maltese from starvation, had ever been sent. It has taken months to get a cargo of corn from Sicily to Malta, which is almost within sight, and----" "Have you any more 'ands'? You are as gloomy as a raven in a mist." This with her sweetest smile.