Will generously invited me to remain with him, to which of course I
assented. But as I did it with a clear understanding that I should
have to betake myself to the guard-room if he was successful, and not
caring to keep a watch in the Palace when I had so many to keep on
board ship, I retired into the guard-room at once. And as the officer
and I had no common language, I accepted the offer, which he made me
by signs, of his cloak, and lying upon the couch pretended to go to
sleep, which I very soon did, but not before I had seen Will peep in
and ascertain if I was signalling patience.
What follows is of course from the Admiral's Journal, and it is
curious how well the entry fits in, in every respect, with our
remembrance of that remarkable night, which carries us exactly to the
point where it begins.
After leaving us, it seems from his Journal that he and My Lady drove
down to the palace Sir William had taken outside the southern end of
the city, near the Flora. Here, as at Naples, My Lady had given the
Admiral the room which commanded the best view of the sea, knowing
how anxiously he scanned it with his glass.
_Extract from the Admiral's Journal, March the --th, 1799._
"I was never more struck with the difference between this place and
Naples than to-night. While I was there I had such a feeling of
elation; I could not open my windows at night without hearing merry
music, or looking out on some illumination, and the twinkling lights
of the moving throng. It was one long hailing of my victory, until
those last few days when we were making preparations to save Their
Majesties. Everything was gay and bright, and there was no taking of
thought but for a happy morrow. And when the moon shone down, as it is
shining to-night, it brought out such a varied scene, so full of life;
while here we have the same moon, only shining even more intensely,
bringing out not a point of life. There is no one driving so far up
the Marina; there is hardly a house near us; there are no fishers in
the Bay; my very ships, as well as the town, are out of sight; and all
the moon shows are the low black arms of the Bay, and the melancholy
mass of Monte Pellegrino looming up like the coffin Ben Hallowell
brought me a few days since, made of the mainmast of the _Orient_.
They even grudge me dear Emma! Bluff Ben gave me the coffin, as if it
were to remind me that I was mortal, and that all happiness was
sinful, and suggest that I sometimes dared to be happy for an hour;
and Troubridge is always urging me to be away from this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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