"I can answer for it that your brother will hear no more from him, madam," replied the Admiral, stooping very low to kiss her hand--for he, too, used the same interpretation as I. "And then, your Excellency," he said, bowing to the Marchese, "and your Highness," bowing to the Prince, "as I have full power to represent Lieutenant Hardres, we may regard this incident as at an end. And now, madam," he added, looking at Donna Rusidda straight in the face with his most gracious smile, "I shall, if you invite me again, partake of this excellent entertainment, for I have not yet supped." The invitation was, of course, graciously repeated; and I was glad to see that the Prince had some of his sister's graciousness, for he took one of the trays--the servants had been sent from the room--and brought it, saying, "Hungry work, your Excellency!" And the smile with which he said this, and the smile with which the Admiral received it, laid the foundation of the friendship which, until its tragical termination, played so conspicuous a part in the Admiral's life. CHAPTER VIII.--Of the Battle of the Nile, on the First of August, 1798. A few days later, when a breeze, blowing right out of the Great Port, sprang up, as was its wont, in the afternoon, the fleet made all haste to stand out and away after the French, not before the Admiral had read Master Will a sharp lecture for his folly in getting into such a scrape, and suspended him from personal attendance for two weeks--a sentence which was never finished, for in the meantime events happened of such a magnitude that all everyday matters, except such as had regard to the ships being in their best fighting and sailing trim, were forgotten as completely as if they had been swallowed in the Deluge. I don't believe that Will was half sorry at the prospect of having to spend the two weeks with his fellow-officers in the ward-room. In the case of friendship between a man of forty and a boy of eighteen, it is almost inevitable that the man must like the boy far more strongly than the boy likes him, and that the man should crave for the boy's society while the boy accepts or tolerates the man's. In the long chase after the French, from the time he left Syracuse on July 25th to the time that he sighted their tops in the afternoon of that memorable August 1st, there were tedious hours, when he felt an intense craving for the boy whom he had adopted more completely than his own stepson, Josiah Nisbet, who was also a lieutenant on the ship.