CHAPTER LXXVII

THE _MEDUSA_ GOES ABOUT

I

Nelson rocked on the table. His hands were to his eyes, pressing, pressing, as though he would blind himself.

"And this is what comes of it!" he moaned.

Then he rose, and crossed the cabin, walking uncertainly as a little child.

Kit thought he would have fallen, and stepped forward. The great captain waved him back with his stump. Then he passed out alone.

A minute later the boy heard a door open and shut, and peeped out.

Nelson was coming out of the powder-magazine.

Down the gangway he came pale and uplifted. He was quite calm, and about his face there was the rain-washed look the boy had seen on his mother's as she came out of the room where Uncle Jacko lay dead.

"You were right, Mr. Carvell," he said quietly. "Forgive me."

"Caryll, my lord," ventured the lad--"Kit Caryll."

Nelson's eye leapt.

"Kit Caryll!" he cried. "Kit Caryll! Kit Caryll!" He held the boy's hand, and a beautiful smile broke all about his face. "Have I been blind? You're your father over again."

He dwelt on the boy's face, flooding it with tenderness.

"D'you know," he continued quietly, "d'you know you come to me as a friend risen from the dead?--a friend of my best days, come back to remind me of the years--the happy years--before ... I won the Nile."

Kit heard him, amazed.

He was not happy, then, this man who had won all the world has to give!

He looked _back_ for his best days.

They were not now: they were the days before fame had come; fame, the Betrayer, that like a roaring breaker lifts a man heavenwards, and before he can clutch his star, has smashed him on the beach.

The boy recalled his first indelible impression--that the hero was a _disappointed_ man.

Disappointed of what?--he, young still, crowned with glory, queens at his feet, nations worshipping him.

Could it be of happiness?

"I have a message for you from another friend of those days, my lord."

"Who's that?"

"Commander Harding."

A darkness chilled the other's face.

"Well."

The boy gave old Ding-dong's dying message.

"I thank you," said Nelson coldly. "Commander Harding always did what he believed to be his duty."

Then the tenderness returned, and he put his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Come on deck," he said.

II

The boy's throat was surging as he followed Nelson on deck. Now he would have died for the man whom twenty minutes before he could have knifed with joy.

Up there in the sunlight and wind all was noise and bustle.

A little lap-dog officer trotted up in a fuss.

"Mr. Dark gone mad, my lord, mad, and jumped overboard. We lowered a boat, but he shot himself, shot himself, before we could get to him."

"Call the boat away," said Nelson briefly. "And be so good as to make your course back for Dover."

"For Dover, my lord, Dover?" blankly.

"And don't let me have to repeat my orders."

"Very good indeed, my lord. Very good indeed." He trotted forward, barking fussily.

Nelson climbed on to the poop, Kit at his heels, and leaned over the side listlessly.

"What's that boat under my starn?"

"The boat I came off in, my lord."

"Ah, I forgot.... Is that a dead man in the starn-sheets?"

"No, my lord. That's Mr. Joy, who commanded us in the cottage. He used to know you, my lord. Joy, Captain in the Black Borderers."

A wave of colour swept across the other's white cheek. He flashed his eye on Kit.

"Joy!" he cried. "Old Peg-top Timbers! Hi! below there!" He leaned far over. "Joy! Joy of Battle!"

III

The Parson came up the side.

The crispness was out of his curls; his cheek was mottled; and the brave blue eyes seemed old, hollow, and faded. Even Polly hung somewhat limply from his wrist.

The two men, standing hand in hand, looked into each other's eyes.

"Old friend," said Nelson.

"Colonel," said the Parson, and with the word his life began to flow again.

Nelson's eye twinkled. He laid his hand on the other's shoulder.

"The same old Joy, I see," he said, and added gravely, "Harry, you've saved my life."

"Then I've saved England," replied the Parson, and dwelt upon his friend with the simple love of one brave man for another.

"Yes, yes," said Nelson, with that naive vanity of his so beautiful in its innocence. "England can trust her Nelson. And but for you, Harry, Nelson would be lost."

"You owe a little to me," answered the Parson, "more to Kit here, and most, if I may say so, to my sweet lady."

"Polly!" cried Nelson--"Pretty Miss Kiss-me-quick!"

"Ah," said the Parson, touched. "You don't forget old friends, Nelson. Nor does she. My love," he murmured, bending, "you remember Captain Nelson of the _Agamemnon_, who was good enough to second us in some of our little affairs in Corsica? Lord Nelson--Miss Kiss-me-quick. She says," he continued, drawing himself up, "that she'll permit the Victor of the Nile to salute her on the cheek."

He held the blade before him with a bow.

Nelson swept off his cocked hat.

"I am honoured indeed," he said, and, standing on the poop before them all, kissed the point.

Kit looked on with tender eyes. He was touched, and not at all surprised, to find that great men too loved solemn make-believe. The vision of the Eternal Child rose before his eyes once more: that Child who is never far in any of us, and least of all in the world's mighty ones.

Nelson turned to the Parson anxiously.

"But, Harry, are you wounded?"

"Mortally," the other answered--"by your beastly sea. But this is better," stamping the deck. "This is more like land."

"Come below," said the great captain. "Here, take my arm.... Only one now, you know."

"One's good enough for the French," laughed the Parson. "But, Nelson! what in the name of goodness are you doing here?"

"Why," said Nelson, stumping away, the other's arm tucked beneath his, "I heard from a--a private source--"

He brought up suddenly. A moment he stood with snoring nostrils, staring before him.

Hell had opened at his feet, and he was looking into it.

"She--"

It was the sigh of a dying soul.

"She--"

Each word was a gasp.

"She--"

He lifted his face, and a glimmer as of dawn broke over it.

"--can explain."

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