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Griffin explained this; but it met with no favor from the two Italians.

"Not so, Signor Tenente--not so," returned the vice-governatore; "the
lugger that passed this morning, we _know_ to be le Feu-Follet, inasmuch
as she took one of our own feluccas, in the course of the night, coming
from Livorno and Raoul Yvard permitted her to come in, as he said to her
padrone, on account of the civil treatment he had received while lying
in our port. Nay, he even carried his presumption so far as to send me,
by means of the same man, the compliments of 'Sir Smees,' and his hopes
of being able some day to make his acknowledgments in person."

The English Captain received this intelligence as might be expected; and
unpleasant as it was, after putting various questions to the
vice-governatore and receiving the answers, he was obliged, unwillingly
enough, to believe it all. He had brought his official report in his
pocket; and as the conversation proceeded, he covertly tore it into
fragments so small that even a Mahommedan would reject them as not large
enough to write the word "Allah" on.

"It's d--d lucky, Griffin, that letter didn't get to Leghorn this
morning," he said, after a long pause. "Nelson would have Bronted me
famously had he got it! Yet I never believed half as devoutly in the
twenty-nine articles as--"

"I believe there are _thirty_-nine of them, Captain Cuffe," modestly put
in Griffin.

"Well, _thirty_-nine, if you will--what signifies ten, more or less, in
such matters? A man is ordered to believe them _all_, if there were a
hundred. But I never believed in _them_ as devoutly as I believed in the
destruction of that infernal picaroon. My faith is unsettled for life!"

Griffin offered a few words of condolence, but he was also too much
mortified to be very able to administer consolation. Andrea Barrofaldi,
understanding the state of the case, now interposed with his courtesies,
and the two officers were invited to share his bachelor's breakfast.
What followed, in consequence of this visit, and the communications to
which it gave rise, will appear in the course of the narrative.



CHAPTER XIII.


"If ever you have looked on better days,
If ever been where bells have knolled to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast!
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be."

SHAKESPEARE.

It is now necessary to advance the time, and to transfer the scene of
our tale to another, but not a distant, part of the same sea. Let the
reader fancy himself standing at the mouth of a large bay of some
sixteen or eighteen miles in diameter, in nearly every direction; though
the shores must be indented with advancing promontories and receding
curvatures, while the depth of the whole might possibly a little exceed
the greatest width. He will then occupy the spot of which we wish to
present to him one of the fairest panoramas of earth. On his right
stands a high, rocky island of dark tufa, rendered gay, amid all its
magnificent formations, by smiling vineyards and teeming villages, and
interesting by ruins that commemorate events as remote as the Caesars. A
narrow passage of the blue Mediterranean separates this island from a
bold cape on the main, whence follows a succession of picturesque,
village-clad heights and valleys, relieved by scenery equally bold and
soft, and adorned by the monkish habitations called in the language of
the country Camaldolis, until we reach a small city which stands on a
plain that rises above the water between one and two hundred feet, on a
base of tufa, and the houses of which extend to the very verge of the
dizzy cliffs that limit its extent on the north. The plain itself is
like a hive, with its dwellings and scenes of life, while the heights
behind it teem with cottages and the signs of human labor. Quitting this
smiling part of the coast, we reach a point, always following the
circuit of the bay, where the hills or heights tower into ragged
mountains, which stretch their pointed peaks upward to some six or seven
thousand feet toward the clouds, having sides now wild with precipices
and ravines, now picturesque with shooting-towers, hamlets, monasteries,
and bridle-paths; and bases dotted, or rather lined, with towns and
villages. Here the mountain formation quits the margin of the bay,
following the coast southward or running into the interior of the
country; and the shore, sweeping round to the north and west, offers a
glimpse into a background of broad plain ere it meets a high, insulated,
conical mountain, which properly forms the head of the coast
indentation. The human eye never beheld a more affluent scene of
houses, cities, villages, vineyards, and country residences than was
presented by the broad breast of this isolated mountain, passing which a
wider view is obtained of the rich plain that seems to lie behind it,
bounded as it is by a wall of a distant and mysterious-looking, yet bold
range of the Apennines. Returning to the shore, which now begins to
incline more westwardly, we come to another swell of tufa, which has all
the characteristic fertility and abruptness of that peculiar formation,
a vast and populous town of near half a million of souls being seated,
in nearly equal parts, on the limits of the plain and along the margin
of the water, or on the hill-sides, climbing to their summits. From this
point the northern side of the bay is a confused mass of villages,
villas, ruins, palaces, and vines, until we reach its extremity, a low
promontory, like its opposite neighbor. A small island comes next, a
sort of natural sentinel; then the coast sweeps northward into another
and a smaller bay, rich to satiety with relics of the past, terminating
at a point some miles further seaward, with a high, reddish, sandy
bluff, which almost claims to be a mountain. After this we see two more
islands lying westward, one of which is flat, fertile, and more
populous, as is said, than any other part of Europe of the same extent;
while the other is a glorious combination of pointed mountains, thronged
towns, fertile valleys, castles, country houses, and the wrecks of
long-dormant volcanoes, thrown together in a grand yet winning
confusion. If the reader will to this description add a shore that has
scarce a foot that is not interesting with some lore of the past,
extending from yesterday into the darkest recesses of history, give life
to the water-view with a fleet of little latine-rigged craft, rendered
more picturesque by an occasional ship, dot the bay with countless boats
of fishermen, and send up a wreath of smoke from the summit of the
cone-like mountain that forms the head of the bay, he will get an
outline of all that strikes the eye as the stranger approaches Naples
from the sea.

The zephyr was again blowing, and the daily fleet of sparanaras, or
undecked feluccas, that passes every morning at this season, from the
south shore to the capital, and returns at this hour, was stretching out
from under Vesuvius; some looking up as high as Massa; others heading
toward Sorrento or Vico or Persano, and many keeping more before the
wind, toward Castel-a-Mare, or the landings in that neighborhood. The
breeze was getting to be so fresh that the fishermen were beginning to
pull in toward the land, breaking up their lines, which in some places
had extended nearly a league, and this, too, with the boats lying within
speaking distance of each other. The head of the bay, indeed, was alive
with craft moving in different directions, while a large fleet of
English, Russians, Neapolitans, and Turks, composed of two-deckers,
frigates, and sloops, lay at their anchors in front of the town. On
board of one of the largest of the former was flying the flag of a
rear-admiral at the mizzen, the symbol of the commander's rank. A
corvette alone was under-way. She had left the anchorage an hour before,
and, with studding-sails on her starboard side, was stretching
diagonally across the glorious bay, apparently heading toward the
passage between Capri and the Point of Campanella, bound to Sicily. This
ship might easily have weathered the island; but her commander, an easy
sort of person, chose to make a fair wind of it from the start, and he
thought, by hugging the coast, he might possibly benefit by the
land-breeze during the night, trusting to the zephyr that was then
blowing to carry him across the Gulf of Salerno. A frigate, too, shot
out of the fleet, under her staysails, as soon as the westerly wind
made; but she had dropped an anchor under-foot, and seemed to wait some
preparation, or orders, before taking her departure; her captain being
at that moment on board the flag-ship, on duty with the rear-admiral.
This was the Proserpine thirty-six, Captain Cuffe, a vessel and an
officer that are already both acquaintances of the reader. About an hour
before the present scene opens, Captain Cuffe, in fact, had been called
on board the Foudroyant by signal, where he had found a small,
sallow-looking, slightly-built man, with his right arm wanting, pacing
the deck of the fore-cabin, impatient for his appearance.

"Well, Cuffe," said this uninviting-looking personage, twitching the
stump of the maimed arm, "I see you are out of the flock; are you all
ready for sailing?"

"We have one boat ashore after letters, my lord; as soon as she comes
off we shall lift our anchor, which is only under-foot."

"Very well--I have sent the Ringdove to the southward on the same
errand, and I see she is half a league from the anchorage on her way
already. This Mr. Griffin appears to be a fine young man--I like his
account of the way he handled his fire-ship; though the French scoundrel
did contrive to escape! After all, this Rowl E--E--how do you pronounce
the fellow's name, Cuffe? I never can make anything out of their
gibberish--"

"Why, to own the truth, Sir Horatio--I beg pardon--my lord--there is
something in the English grain of my feelings that would prevent my ever
learning French, had I been born and brought up in Paris. There is too
much Saxon in me to swallow words that half the time have no meaning."

"I like you all the better for that, Cuffe," answered the admiral,
smiling, a change that converted a countenance that was almost ugly when
in a state of rest into one that was almost handsome--a peculiarity that
is by no means of rare occurrence, when a strong will gives expression
to the features, and the heart, at bottom, is really sound. "An
Englishman has no business with any Gallic tendencies. This young Mr.
Griffin seems to have spirit; and I look upon it always as a good sign
when a young man _volunteers_ for a desperate thing of this sort--but he
tells me he is only second; where was your first all the while?"

"Why, my lord, he got a little hurt in the brush of the morning; and I
would not let him go, as a matter of course. His name is Winchester; I
think you must remember him as junior of the Captain, at the affair off
St. Vincent. Miller[4] had a good opinion of him; and when I went from
the Arrow to the Proserpine he got him sent as my second. The death of
poor Drury made him first in the natural way."

[4] Ralph Willet Miller, the officer who commanded the ship to which
Nelson shifted his pennant, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This
gentleman was an American, and a native Manhattanese; his near relatives
of the same name still residing in New York. It is believed that he got
the name of _Willet_ from the first English Mayor, a gentleman from whom
are descended many of the old families of the lower part of the state,
more particularly those on Long Island.

"I have some recollection of him, Cuffe. That was a brilliant day, and
all its events should be impressed on my mind. You tell me Mr. Griffin
fairly grappled the lugger's cable?"

"Of that there can be no manner of doubt. I saw the two vessels foul of
each other with my night-glass--and seemingly both were on fire--as
plainly as I ever saw Vesuvius in a dark night."

"And yet this Few-Folly has escaped! Poor Griffin has run a desperate
risk for little purpose."

"He has, indeed, my lord."

Here, Nelson, who had been pacing the cabin with quick steps, while
Cuffe stood, respectfully declining the gesture to be seated at the
table in its centre, suddenly stopped and looked the Captain steadily in
the face. The expression of his countenance was now mild and earnest,
and the pause which preceded his words gave the latter solemnity
and weight.

"The day will come, Cuffe," he said, "when this young man will rejoice
that his design on these picaroons, Frenchmen as they are, failed. Yes,
from the bottom of his heart will he be glad."

"My lord!"

"I know you think this strange, Captain Cuffe; but no man sleeps the
sounder for having burnt or blown up a hundred of his fellow-creatures
like so many widows at a suttee. But we are not the less to commend
those who did what was certainly their duty."

"Am I to understand, Lord Nelson, that the Proserpine is _not_ to
destroy the Few-Folly at every hazard, should we again have the luck to
fall in with her?"

"By no means, sir. Our orders are to burn, sink, and destroy. Such is
England's policy in this desperate war; and it must be carried out. You
know what we are contending for as well as I do; and it is a struggle
that is not to be carried on with courtesies; still, one would not wish
to see a glorious and sacred cause tarnished by inhumanity. Men that
fall in fair, manly combat are to be envied rather than pitied, since it
is only paying the great debt of nature a little sooner than might
otherwise have happened; but there is something revolting to humanity in
burning up our fellow-creatures as one would burn rags after the plague.
Nevertheless, this lugger must be had at any price; for English commerce
and English power are not to be cut up and braved in this audacious
manner with impunity. The career of these French tigers must be stopped
at every sacrifice, Captain Cuffe."

"I know that, my lord, and I like a republican as little as you can do,
or His Majesty himself, for that matter; and, I take it, _he_ has as
little relish for the animal as flesh and blood can give."

"I know you do, Cuffe--I'm _sure_ you do; and I esteem you all the more
for it. It is a part of an Englishman's religion, in times like these,
to hate a Frenchman. I went across the Channel after the peace of '83 to
learn their language, but had so little sympathy with them, even in
peaceable times, as never to be able to make out to write a letter in
it, or even to ask intelligibly for the necessaries of life."

"If you can ask for anything, it far surpasses my efforts; I never can
tell head from stern in their dialect."

"It is an infernal jargon, Cuffe, and has got to be so confused by their
academies, and false philosophy and infidelity, that they will shortly
be at a loss to understand it themselves. What sort of names they give
their ships, for instance, now they have beheaded their king and
denounced their God! Who ever heard of christening a craft, as you tell
me this lugger is named, the 'Few-Folly'? I believe I've got the
picaroon's title right?"

"Quite right--Griffin _pronounces_ it so, though he has got to be a
little queerish in his own English, by using so much French and Italian.
The young man's father was a consul; and he has half a dozen foreign
lingoes stowed away in his brain. He pronounces Folly something
broadish--like Fol-_lay_, I believe; but it means all the same thing.
Folly is folly, pronounce it as you will."

Nelson continued to pace his cabin, working the stump of his arm, and
smiling half-bitterly; half in a sort of irony that inclined him to be
in a good-humor with himself.

"Do you remember the ship, Cuffe, we had that sharp brush with off
Toulon, in old Agamemnon?" he said, after making a turn or two in
silence. "I mean the dismasted eighty-four that was in tow of the
frigate, and which we peppered until their Gallic soup had some taste to
it! Now, do you happen to know _her_ real name in good honest English?"

"I do not, my lord. I remember, they said she was called the Ca Ira; and
_I_ always supposed that it was the name of some old Greek or Roman--or,
perhaps, of one of their new-fangled republican saints."

"They!--D--n 'em, they've _got_ no saints to name, my good fellow, since
they cashiered all the old ones! There _is_ something respectable in the
names of a _Spanish_ fleet; and one feels that he is flogging gentlemen,
at least, while he is at work on them. No, sir, Ca Ira means neither
more nor less than 'That'll Do'; and I fancy, Cuffe, they thought of
their own name more than once while the old Greek was hanging on their
quarter, smashing their cabin windows for them! A pretty sound it would
have been had we got her and put her into our own service--His Majesty's
ship 'That'll Do,' 84, Captain Cuffe!"

"I certainly should have petitioned my Lords Commissioners to change her
name."

"You would have done quite right. A man might as well sail in a
man-of-war called the 'Enough.' Then, there was the three-decker that
helped her out of the scrape, the Sans-Culottes, as the French call her;
I suppose you know what _that_ means?"

"Not I, my lord; to own the truth, I'm no scholar, and am entirely
without ambition in that way. 'Sans,' I suppose, is the French for
'saint'; but who 'Culottes' was, I've not the least notion."

Nelson smiled, and the turn the conversation had taken appeared to give
him secret satisfaction. If the truth were known, something lay heavily
on his mind; and, with one of his strong impulses, his feelings disposed
him to rush from one extreme to the other, as is often the case with men
who are controlled by such masters; more especially if their general
disposition is to the right.

"You're wrong this time, my dear Cuffe," he said; "for 'sans' means
'without' in French, and 'culottes' means 'breeches.' Think of naming a
three-decker the 'Without Breeches'! I do not see how any respectable
flag-officer can mention such names in his despatches without a feeling
of awkwardness that must come near to capsizing all his philosophy. The
line was formed by the Republic's ship, the 'That'll Do,' leading,
supported by the 'Without Breeches,' as her second astern!--Ha!
Cuffe--D--e, sir, if I'd serve in a marine that had such names to the
ships! It's a thousand times worse than all those saints the Spaniards
tack on to their vessels--like a line of boats towing a ship up to her
moorings!"

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a midshipman,
who came down to say that a man and a woman from the shore wished to
see the rear-admiral on pressing business.

"Let them come down, sir," answered Nelson; "I've a hard life of it,
Cuffe; there is not a washerwoman or a shopkeeper in Naples who does not
treat me exactly as if I were a podesta, and it were my duty to hear all
the contentions about lost clothes and mislaid goods. His Majesty must
appoint a Lord Chief Justice of the Steerage, to administer the law for
the benefit of the young gentlemen, or he'll soon get no officer to
serve with a flag at his mast-head."

"Surely, my lord, the captains can take this weight off your shoulders!"

"Aye, there are men in the fleet that _can_, and there are men who _do_;
but there are men who do _not_. But here comes the plaintiff, I
suppose--you shall hear the case, and act as a puisne judge in
the matter."

This was said as the cabin-door opened, and the expected guests entered.
They were a man turned of fifty and a girl of nineteen. The former was a
person of plain exterior, abstracted air, and downcast look; but the
latter had all the expression, beauty, nature, and grace of mien that so
singularly marked the deportment and countenance of Ghita Caraccioli[5].
In a word, the two visitors were Carlo Giuntotardi and his gentle niece.
Nelson was struck with the modesty of mien and loveliness of the latter,
and he courteously invited her to be seated, though he and Cuffe both
continued standing. A few efforts at making himself understood, however,
soon satisfied this renowned admiral that he had need of an interpreter,
his guests speaking no English, and his own Italian being too imperfect
to carry on anything like a connected conversation. He hesitated an
instant, and then went to the door of the inner cabin, an apartment in
which voices had occasionally been heard the whole time, one of the
speakers being a female. Here he stood, leaning against the bulkhead,
as if in doubt; and then he uttered his wishes.

[5] It may aid the reader who is ignorant of Italian, to tell him that
this name is pronounced Ca-rach-cho-li. The same is true of
Gwee-cho-li--or Guiccioli--Byron's mistress.

"I must ask a service of you, which I would not think of doing in any
ordinary case," he said, with a gentleness of voice and manner that
showed he addressed one who had habitual influence over him. "I want an
interpreter between myself and the second handsomest woman in the
kingdom of Naples: I know no one so fit for the office as the first."

"With all my heart, dear Nelson," answered a full, rich female voice
from within. "Sir William is busied in his antiquities, and I was really
getting to be ennuied for want of an occupation. I suppose you have the
wrongs of some injured lady to redress in your capacity of Lord High
Chancellor of the Fleet."

"I am yet ignorant of the nature of the complaint; but it is not
unlikely it will turn out to be something like that which you suspect.
Even in such a case no better intercessor can be required than one who
is so much superior to the frailties and weaknesses of her sex
in general."

The lady who now made her appearance from the inner cabin, though
strikingly handsome, had not that in her appearance which would justify
the implied eulogium of the British admiral's last speech. There was an
appearance of art and worldliness in the expression of her countenance
that was only so much the more striking when placed in obvious contrast
to the ingenuous nature and calm purity that shone in every lineament of
the face of Ghita. One might very well have passed for an image of the
goddess Circe; while the other would have made no bad model for a
vestal, could the latter have borne the moral impression of the sublime
and heart-searching truths that are inculcated by the real oracles of
God. Then the lady was a woman in the meridian of her charms, aided by
all the cunning of the toilet and a taste that was piquant and peculiar,
if not pure; while the other stood in her simple, dark Neapolitan bodice
and a head that had no other ornament than its own silken tresses; a
style of dress, however, that set off her faultless form and winning
countenance more than could have been done by any of the devices of the
mantua-maker or the milliner. The lady betrayed a little surprise, and
perhaps a shade of uneasiness, as her glance first fell on Ghita; but,
much too good an actress to be disconcerted easily, she smiled and
immediately recovered her ease.

"Is _this_ the being, Nelson, who comes with _such_ a petition?" she
demanded, with a touch of natural womanly sensibility in her voice; "and
that poor old man, I dare say, is the heart-stricken father."

"As to the errand, you will remember, I know nothing as yet, and pledge
myself to nothing."

"Captain Cuffe, I hope I have the pleasure to see you well. Sir William
joins the admiral in hoping you will make one of our little family party
to-day at dinner, and--"

"And what says the mistress--not of the house, but of the _ship_?" put
in Nelson, whose eyes had scarce turned an instant from the face of the
siren since she entered the fore-cabin.

"That she--always disclaiming the title, honorable though it be--that
she unites with all the rest in inviting Captain Cuffe to honor us with
his company. Nelson tells me you were one of his old Agamemnons, as he
calls you all, aged and young, men and boys, little and big; and I love
even the sound of the name. What a glorious title for a ship--
Agamemnon!--A Greek, led on by a true English heart!"

"Aye, it _is_ somewhat better than 'That'll Do,' and the other affair,
ha! Cuffe!" returned the admiral, smiling and glancing at his
subordinate; "but all this time we are ignorant of the errand of this
honest-looking Italian and his exceedingly innocent-looking companion."

"Well, then, in this matter, gentlemen, I am only to be regarded as a
mere mouthpiece," put in the lady--"an echo, to repeat what reaches mine
ear, though it be an Irish echo, which repeats in a different tongue
from that in which the sounds first reach it. Put your questions, my
lord; they shall be faithfully rendered, with all the answers that may
be given. I only hope Captain Cuffe will come out of this affair as
innocent as he now looks."

The two gentlemen smiled; but the trifling could not disturb its
subject, as he was profoundly ignorant of the existence of the two
strangers five minutes before; while the boldness of the allusion rather
suited the freedom of a ship and the habits of the part of the world in
which they happened to be.