“As you are doing nothing, sir, will you assist in carrying Captain Rowley below?”

I did not like the manner in which this was said, nor the expression of the first-lieutenant’s eye while saying it.  They seemed to me to add, “I shall now command this ship, and we shall see if new lords don’t produce new laws,” I complied, however, of course, and, aided by two of his own servants, I got the poor old man into the gun-room.  The instant the surgeon cast his eyes on the injuries, I saw by his countenance, there was no hope.  His words soon confirmed the bad news.

“The captain cannot live half an hour,” this gentleman said to me aside, “and all we can do will be to give him what he asks for.  At present he is stupified by the shock of the blow, but, in a few minutes, he will probably ask for water, or wine and water; I wish, sir, you would indulge him in his wishes, for you can have no duty to call you on deck.  This will be a lucky hit for Clements, who will run off with more than half the credit of the battle, though I fancy the Frenchman has as much as he wants already.”

And so it turned out, literally, in the end.  About twenty minutes after I went below, during which time the Briton did most of the fighting, we heard the cheer of victory on deck.  These sounds appeared to cause the wounded man to revive.

“What means that, Wallingford?” he asked in a stronger voice than I could have thought it possible for him to use, “What do these cheers mean, my young friend?”

“They mean, Captain Rowley, that you have conquered—­that you are master of the French frigate.”

“Master!—­am I master of my own life?  Of what use is victory to me, now?  I shall die—­die soon, Wallingford, and there will be an end of it, all!  My poor wife will call this a melancholy victory.”

Alas! what I could say?  These words were only too true as respects himself, and, I dare say, as respected his wife, also.  Die he did, and in my presence, and that calmly, with all his senses about him; but, I could see, he had his doubts whether a little lustre like that which attended his end, was fulfilling all the objects of his being.  The near view of death places a man on a moral eminence, whence he commands prospects before and behind, on each side and on every side, enabling him to overlook the whole scene of life from its commencement to its close, and to form an opinion of his own place in a drama that is about to close.  Like many of those who exhibit themselves for our amusement, and to purchase our applause, he is only too apt to quit the stage less satisfied with his own performances, than the thoughtless multitude, who, regarding merely the surfaces of things, are too often loudest in their approbation when there is the least to praise.