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“Aye, to be sure. . . . Read, Tylney. Don’t sit there clearing your throat, but read, man alive!” And yet it appeared that while the Secretary was willing enough to read, the First Lord had no capacity, as yet, to listen. Into the very first sentence he broke with–

“No, wait a minute. ‘Dead,’ d’ye say? . . . My God! . . . Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us first how it happened.”

Lieutenant Lapenotiere could not tell very clearly. He had twice been summoned to board the Royal Sovereign–he first time to receive the command to hold himself ready. It was then that, coming alongside the great ship, he had read in all the officers’ faces an anxiety hard to reconcile with the evident tokens of victory around them. At once it had occurred to him that the Admiral had fallen, and he put the question to one of the lieutenants–to be told that Lord Nelson had indeed been mortally wounded and could not live long; but that he must be alive yet, and conscious, since the Victory was still signalling orders to the Fleet.

“I think, my lord,” said he, “that Admiral Collingwood must have been doubtful, just then, what responsibility had fallen upon him, or how soon it might fall. He had sent for me to ‘stand by’ so to speak. He was good enough to tell me the news as it had reached him–“

Here Lieutenant Lapenotiere, obeying the order to fill his glass, let spill some of the wine on the table. The sight of the dark trickle on the mahogany touched some nerve of the brain: he saw it widen into a pool of blood, from which, as they picked up a shattered seaman and bore him below, a lazy stream crept across the deck of the flag-ship towards the scuppers. He moved his feet, as he had moved them then, to be out of the way of it: but recovered himself in another moment and went on–

“He told me, my lord, that the Victory after passing under the Bucentaure’s stern, and so raking her that she was put out of action, or almost, fell alongside the Redoutable. There was a long swell running, with next to no wind, and the two ships could hardly have cleared had they tried. At any rate, they hooked, and it was then a question which could hammer the harder. The Frenchman had filled his tops with sharp-shooters, and from one of these– the mizen-top, I believe–a musket-ball struck down the Admiral. He was walking at the time to and fro on a sort of gangway he had caused to be planked over his cabin sky-light, between the wheel and the ladder-way. . . . Admiral Collingwood believed it had happened about half-past one . . .”

“Sit down, man, and drink your wine,” commanded the First Lord as the dispatch-bearer swayed with a sudden faintness.

“It is nothing, my lord–“

But it must have been a real swoon, or something very like it: for he recovered to find himself lying in an arm-chair. He heard the Secretary’s voice reading steadily on and on. . . . Also they must have given him wine, for he awoke to feel the warmth of it in his veins and coursing about his heart. But he was weak yet, and for the moment well content to lie still and listen.

Resting there and listening, he was aware of two sensations that alternated within him, chasing each other in and out of his consciousness. He felt all the while that he, John Richards Lapenotiere, a junior officer in His Majesty’s service, was assisting in one of the most momentous events in his country’s history; and alone in the room with these two men, he felt it as he had never begun to feel it amid the smoke and roar of the actual battle. He had seen the dead hero but half a dozen times in his life: he had never been honoured by a word from him: but like every other naval officer, he had come to look up to Nelson as to the splendid particular star among commanders. There was greatness: there was that which lifted men to such deeds as write man’s name across the firmament! And, strange to say, Lieutenant Lapenotiere recognised something of it in this queer old man, in dressing-gown and ill-fitting wig, who took snuff and interrupted now with a curse and anon with a “bravo!” as the Secretary read. He was absurd: but he was no common man, this Lord Barham. He had something of the ineffable aura of greatness.