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.
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