THE ROVER & SUSPENSE (Napoleonic Novels). Джозеф КонрадЧитать онлайн книгу.
when you see her?”
“Not in the dark, Keats. How are you? I am in a hurry to speak the Admiral.”
“The fleet is lying by,” came the voice now with painstaking distinctness across the murmurs, whispers and splashes of the black lane of water dividing the two ships. “The Admiral bears S.S.E. If you stretch on till daylight as you are, you will fetch him on the other tack in time for breakfast on board the Victory. Is anything up?”
At every slight roll the sails of the Amelia, becalmed by the bulk of the seventy-four, flapped gently against the masts.
“Not much,” hailed Captain Vincent. “I made a prize.”
“Have you been in action?” came the swift inquiry.
“No, no. Piece of luck.”
“Where's your prize?” roared the speaking trumpet with interest.
“In my desk,” roared Captain Vincent in reply. . . . “Enemy dispatches. . . . I say, Keats, fill on your ship. Fill on her, I say, or you will be falling on board of me.” He stamped his foot impatiently. “Clap some hands at once on the tow-line and run that tartane close under our stern,” he called to the officer of the watch, “or else the old Superb will walk over her without ever knowing anything about it.”
When Captain Vincent presented himself on board the Victory it was too late for him to be invited to share the Admiral's breakfast. He was told that Lord Nelson had not been seen on deck yet, that morning; and presently word came that he wished to see Captain Vincent at once in his cabin. Being introduced, the captain of the Amelia, in undress uniform, with a sword by his side and his hat under his arm, was received kindly, made his bow and with a few words of explanation laid the packet on the big round table at which sat a silent secretary in black clothes, who had been obviously writing a letter from his lordship's dictation. The Admiral had been walking up and down, and after he had greeted Captain Vincent he resumed his pacing of a nervous man. His empty sleeve had not yet been pinned on his breast and swung slightly every time he turned in his walk. His thin locks fell lank against the pale cheeks, and the whole face in repose had an expression of suffering with which the fire of his one eye presented a startling contrast. He stopped short and exclaimed while Captain Vincent towered over him in a respectful attitude:
“A tartane! Captured on board a tartane! How on earth did you pitch upon that one out of the hundreds you must see every month?”
“I must confess that I got hold accidentally of some curious information,” said Captain Vincent. “It was all a piece of luck.”
While the secretary was ripping open with a pen-knife the cover of the dispatches Lord Nelson took Captain Vincent out into the stern gallery. The quiet and sunshiny morning had the added charm of a cool, light breeze; and the Victory, under her three topsails and lower staysails, was moving slowly to the southward in the midst of the scattered fleet carrying for the most part the same sail as the Admiral. Only far away two or three ships could be seen covered with canvas trying to close with the flag. Captain Vincent noted with satisfaction that the first lieutenant of the Amelia had been obliged to brace by his afteryards in order not to overrun the Admiral's quarter.
“Why!” exclaimed Lord Nelson suddenly, after looking at the sloop for a moment, “you have that tartane in tow!”
“I thought that your lordship would perhaps like to see a 40-ton lateen craft which has led such a chase to, I daresay, the fastest sloop in his Majesty's service.”
“How did it all begin?” asked the Admiral, continuing to look at the Amelia.
“As I have already hinted to your lordship, certain information came in my way,” began Captain Vincent, who did not think it necessary to enlarge upon that part of the story. “This tartane, which is not very different to look at from the other tartanes along the coast between Cette and Genoa, had started from a cove on the Giens Peninsula. An old man with a white head of hair was entrusted with the service and really they could have found nobody better. He came round Cape Esterel intending to pass through the Hyères roadstead. Apparently he did not expect to find the Amelia in his way. And it was there that he made his only mistake. If he had kept on his course I would probably have taken no more notice of him than of two other craft that were in sight then. But he acted suspiciously by hauling up for the battery on Porquerolles. This manoeuvre in connection with the information of which I spoke decided me to overhaul him and see what he had on board.” Captain Vincent then related concisely the episodes of the chase. “I assure your lordship that I never gave an order with greater reluctance than to open musketry fire on that craft; but the old man had given such proofs of his seamanship and determination that there was nothing else for it. Why! at the very moment he had the Amelia alongside of him he still made a most clever attempt to prolong the chase. There were only a few minutes of daylight left, and in the darkness we might very well have lost him. Considering that they all could have saved their lives simply by striking their sails on deck, I can not refuse them my admiration and especially to the white-haired man.”
The Admiral, who had been all the time looking absently at the Amelia keeping her station with the tartane in tow, said:
“You have a very smart little ship, Vincent. Very fit for the work I have given you to do. French built, isn't she?”
“Yes, my lord. They are great shipbuilders.”
“You don't seem to hate the French, Vincent,” said the Admiral, smiling faintly.
“Not that kind, my lord,” said Captain Vincent with a bow. “I detest their political principles and the characters of their public men, but your lordship will admit that for courage and determination we could not have found worthier adversaries anywhere on this globe.”
“I never said that they were to be despised,” said Lord Nelson. “Resource, courage, yes. . . . If that Toulon fleet gives me the slip, all our squadrons from Gibraltar to Brest will be in jeopardy. Why don't they come out and be done with it? Don't I keep far enough out of their way?” he cried.
Vincent remarked the nervous agitation of the frail figure with a concern augmented by a fit of coughing which came on the Admiral. He was quite alarmed by its violence. He watched the Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean choking and gasping so helplessly that he felt compelled to turn his eyes away from the painful spectacle; but he noticed also how quickly Lord Nelson recovered from the subsequent exhaustion.
“This is anxious work, Vincent,” he said. “It is killing me. I aspire to repose somewhere in the country, in the midst of fields, out of reach of the sea and the Admiralty and dispatches and orders, and responsibility too. I have been just finishing a letter to tell them at home I have hardly enough breath in my body to carry me on from day to day. . . . But I am like that white-headed man you admire so much, Vincent,” he pursued, with a weary smile, “I will stick to my task till perhaps some shot from the enemy puts an end to everything. . . . Let us see what there may be in those papers you have brought on board.”
The secretary in the cabin had arranged them in separate piles.
“What is it all about?” asked the Admiral, beginning again to pace restlessly up and down the cabin.
“At the first glance the most important, my lord, are the orders for marine authorities in Corsica and Naples to make certain dispositions in view of an expedition to Egypt.”
“I always thought so,” said the Admiral, his eye gleaming at the attentive countenance of Captain Vincent. “This is a smart piece of work on your part, Vincent. I can do no better than send you back to your station. Yes . . . Egypt . . . the Easts. . . . Everything points that way,” he soliloquized under Vincent's eyes while the secretary, picking up the papers with care, rose quietly and went out to have them translated and to make an abstract for the Admiral.
“And, yet who knows!” exclaimed Lord Nelson, standing still for a moment. “But the blame or the glory must be mine alone. I will seek counsel from no man.” Captain Vincent felt himself forgotten, invisible, less than a shadow in the