The Gentleman. Alfred Ollivant
as a wall; its foot set in foam, its summit on a level with his face. Against it a silver ladder leaned. He had but to mount that ladder to pluck the island-jewel, the desire of his heart these many years.
He reached a hand into the night as though to realise his wish; and even as he did so, the sloop barked.
A mortar hard by boomed; the sea splashed; the sloop scudded seaward, laughing; and the dreamer awoke.
Behind him, hutted on the cliffs, lay the Army of England: [Footnote:
The Army of England was Napoleon's name for the Army of Invasion.]
such a sword, now two years a-tempering, as even he, the Great
Swordsman, had never wielded.
Beneath him in the dimming basin huddled 3000 gun-vessels, waiting their call.
Before him, across the moon-white waste, under the North star, lay that stubborn little land of Bibles and evening bells, of smoky cities, and hedge-rows fragrant with dog-rose and honeysuckle, of apple-cheeked children, greedy fighting-men, and still-eyed women who became the mothers of indomitable seamen—that storm-beaten land which for so long now, turn he where he would, had risen before him, Angel of the Flaming Sword, and waved him back.
Between him and it ran a narrow lane of sea, the moon-road white across it: so narrow he could almost leap it; so broad that now after years of trying he was baffled still.
Could his Admirals only stop the Westward end of that narrow lane for six hours, that he and his two-hundred-thousand might take the moon-road unmolested, he was Master of the World.
But—they could not.
In his hand, fiercely crumpled, lay the despatch that told him
Villeneuve was back in Vigo, shepherded home again.
And by whom?
That little one-eyed one-armed seaman, who for ten years now had stood between him and his destiny.
One man, the man of Aboukir Bay. [Footnote: On August 1, 1798, Nelson destroyed the French fleet in Aboukir Bay at the Battle of the Nile.]
BOOK I
THE LITTLE TREMENDOUS
I
THE DEATH OF BLACK DIAMOND
CHAPTER I
THE MAN ON THE GREY
The man on the grey was in a hurry.
The stab of his backward heels; the shake and swirl of his bridle-hand; the flog of his arm in time with the horse's stride, told their own tale.
A huge fellow, his face was red and round as a November sun. Hat and wig were gone; and his once white neck-cloth was soaked with blood.
He came over the crest of the Downs at a lurching gallop; down the ragged rut-worn lane, the dusty convolvuluses glimmering up at him in the dusk; past the squat-spired Church in the high Churchyard among the sycamores; down the rough and twisted Highstreet of Newhaven in the chill of that August evening, as no man had ever come before.
A bevy of smoke-dimmed men in the bar of the Bridge, discussing in awed whispers last night's affair of the Revenue cutter off Darby's Hole, hushed suddenly at the clatter and rushed out as he stormed past. He paid no heed. Those staring eyes saw nothing but the brown street sliding under him, a pair of sweating ears, a flapping mane, and before him a tumble of old roofs; while beyond in the harbour, the spars of a sloop of war pricked the evening.
Clear of the little town huddling on the hillside, he drove along the bank of the slow green river, flogging still.
One thing was clear: the grey was dead-beat.
He was roaring like a furnace, and straight as a rail from tail to muzzle. Black and white with sweat, he jerked along at a terrible toppling stagger. Only those vice-like legs and hands plucking, plucking, kept body and soul together.
Where the river widened, and the sea gleamed misty across the harbour-mouth, as though he knew his mission was fulfilled, up went his head, and he fell in thundering ruin.
Where he fell he lay, lank-necked.
The tail twitched once; the body trembled; the great heart broke.
CHAPTER II
THE GALLOPING GENT
I
A boat had just put off from the bank, a tall lad steering. The great red horseman, strangely active for so huge a man, flung himself clear of his horse, snatched a pistol from a holster, and came floundering down the cobbled river-bank, his coat-tails floating.
"Put back, sir!" he bellowed in husky fury. "Put back, my God! or I'll fire."
He was standing, the water to his tops, with heaving shoulders.
"Don't shout; don't shoot; and don't swear," replied a voice, pure as a lady's. "And perhaps I'll oblige."
The boy edged the boat into the bank. The huge fellow, in too great a hurry to wait, floundered out, clutched her by the stern, and scrambled in.
"My God, sir!" he panted, thrusting a dripping face into the boy's. "D'you know who you're a-talking to?—I'm a ridin-officer on Government business."
"And d'you know who you're a-talkin to?" replied the boy, cold as the other was hot. "I'm a King's officer on King's business. Remove your face, please. Sit down. And don't shake so, or you'll spill us.—I'm a midshipman going aboard my ship."
"Then you're just in time for warm work, Mr. Milkshipman," panted the other.
He bumped down on the thwart opposite the waterman, and thrust at the oars.
"Row, man, row!" he urged. "The Gallopin Gent's got through."
II
The colour of apple-blossom, coming and going in the lad's cheek, died away, and left him pale.
He was a splendid stripling, sun in his hair, sun in his eyes; with something of the lank grace of the fawn about him.
The face was fine almost to haggardness; with long chin, delicate nose, and eager eyes, very shy.
The boy had broken through the chrysalis of childhood, and not yet emerged into the fighting male. There was no down on his chin; the radiance of his cheek was yet undimmed. The soul, rosy behind its clouds, still tinged them with dawn-lights.
He was a Boy, sparkling Boy; Boy at the age when he is Woman, and Woman at her best, the playfellow, the tease, the inspiration; free of limb, as yet untrammelled of mind; with passionate hatreds and heroic adorations.
He was steering now, his eyes on the battered topsails in the mists before him; and in those eyes a glitter of swords. Had his mother or Gwen been there, they could have told from that frosty calm, those jealous-drooping lids, that Master Boy meant mischief.
And so it was.
This fat fellow with the heaving