He hesitated an
instant, and then went to the door of the inner cabin, an apartment in
which voices had occasionally been heard the whole time, one of the
speakers being a female. Here he stood, leaning against the bulkhead,
as if in doubt; and then he uttered his wishes.
[5] It may aid the reader who is ignorant of Italian, to tell him that
this name is pronounced Ca-rach-cho-li. The same is true of
Gwee-cho-li--or Guiccioli--Byron's mistress.
"I must ask a service of you, which I would not think of doing in any
ordinary case," he said, with a gentleness of voice and manner that
showed he addressed one who had habitual influence over him. "I want an
interpreter between myself and the second handsomest woman in the
kingdom of Naples: I know no one so fit for the office as the first."
"With all my heart, dear Nelson," answered a full, rich female voice
from within. "Sir William is busied in his antiquities, and I was really
getting to be ennuied for want of an occupation. I suppose you have the
wrongs of some injured lady to redress in your capacity of Lord High
Chancellor of the Fleet."
"I am yet ignorant of the nature of the complaint; but it is not
unlikely it will turn out to be something like that which you suspect.
Even in such a case no better intercessor can be required than one who
is so much superior to the frailties and weaknesses of her sex
in general."
The lady who now made her appearance from the inner cabin, though
strikingly handsome, had not that in her appearance which would justify
the implied eulogium of the British admiral's last speech.
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