For the moment all Naples might have gone ablaze with the British Admiral and the British Ambassador set by the ears over an alleged intrigue of this kind, and the work of the Battle of the Nile might almost have been undone so far as the Two Sicilies were concerned. I looked to see what Will would do. It was one of the few occasions in his life upon which I have ever seen him waver. The position was certainly difficult. The Admiral's stepson was his senior in rank, and the outrage being offered to the Admiral was, in a way, a family affair, in which a stranger might be considered to have no right to interfere. On the other hand, the Admiral being but one-armed and lately recovered of a fever, could not turn Josiah out of the room, and Will had for some months been treated by the Admiral as if he were his own son. Indeed, the Admiral's relations with Will were of a more unbroken and cordial nature than his relations with Josiah; but as Josiah went on raising his voice and crying out more and more outrageous things, Will quitted his hesitation and was advancing with set face to do--I tremble to think what--when he found himself pushed aside by a big, burly form in a post-captain's uniform; and, to our intense relief, we saw Captain Troubridge and Captain Ball rush into the room. Troubridge, the Admiral's brother-in-arms for a quarter of a century, took in the situation at a glance, and, affecting to consider the whole matter a drunkard's folly, caught Josiah up in his herculean embrace, and carried him off kicking like a naughty child. To his own ship, I think, for the Captain did not appear again, although his not appearing may have been due to the idea that he could thus escape the discussion of so difficult a matter, which would have been almost inevitable if he had been near the Admiral again that night. The most affecting part, for us of the fleet, was the feeling that it was our duty to stand by until the matter with Josiah was settled. The Admiral hated shirking an ordeal above everything in the world. It was to him a form of cowardice, which he called the root of all evil. He himself was absolutely undeterred by risk or responsibility. "Madam," said the Admiral, "I fear that I must leave this hospitable home to-night." This we heard with our own ears before we left to follow the two Captains and the struggling Josiah to the grand stairway, where a look from Captain Troubridge's eye told us that we should go no further.