"_Over here, my lord. By the side, if you please_." His words came stifled as out of the grave. Kit heard them remotely. His voice tried to burst through iron blackness and failed. His soul yelled, "_Murder_!" but no sound came. Feet and tongue stuck fast. The Powers of Darkness had prevailed over him also. The two were walking away across the deck, side by side, the big man and the little. Nightmare-bound, the boy watched their backs, the one huge-shouldered, slouching, the other sprightly and slight as a lad's. In the one there was no light. He was a vast black body, unlit now even by the moon. The other was radiant beside him. The Angel of Darkness was about to swallow the Child of Light. The boy saw what was going to happen and could not stay it. Then he heard a sound. The man was moaning as he walked. Nelson stopped. "Aren't you well, Dark?" he asked, so quietly, so kindly. The giant swayed. Head and eyes were down, arms swinging. He was as a man asleep preparing for a plunge. And his light was out. Nelson laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Can I help you?" he asked, with the shy tenderness of a woman. The groan sighed itself away. Just so must Lazarus have sighed when the life first began to trickle back along disused veins. Slowly the giant pulled himself together, squaring vast shoulders. Then he drew a tremendous breath. In the darkness a tiny star began to glow. "You have helped me, my lord," he said, and his voice was clear again. Then they turned and came back across the deck. CHAPTER LXXVI IN THE CABIN OF THE _MEDUSA_ I Admiral and midshipman were alone in the cabin. Kit was taking in his hero's face. It was the face--the boy saw it with amazement--of a _disappointed_ man! The hero of St. Vincent, the victor of the Nile, the conqueror of Copenhagen, a disappointed man! "Tell your story." Standing by the door Kit told his tale. By the port the great seaman listened in chill silence. His face was turned away. Kit dwelt anxiously on the keen, pale profile, the ruined eye, the lopped arm. Was his listener incredulous? He could not say, and Nelson did not speak. The boy stumbled on his way. Alone in that quiet cabin, his own voice shrill and small the only sound, face to face with the man who had saved Europe once, and must again, a confused and silly story he made of it. Out on the uncritical sea he had almost thought himself a hero: in here, eye to eye with Nelson, he knew himself just a pinch-beck boy. The silence grew upon him. He found himself listening to his own voice, and half wondering whether he was not dreaming. This almighty little man, so careless, so terrible, chilled him to the core. He stumbled, sought his mind like a schoolboy posed for a word, sought in vain, and stopped dead. Nelson drummed upon the table. "Is that all?" "All, sir?" The other strummed impatiently. "I'm _Lord_ Nelson." The boy was dumb, his heart flaring. And this was the man the nation worshipped!