till thundered in his ears; and in his half-delirium
his tongue gave orders and anxiously asked after the welfare of the
fleet. He was put to bed and Lady Hamilton cared for him as she might
have cared for a sick child. She allowed no hired servant to enter his
room, and for several weeks she and Sir William were his only
attendants. Gradually health returned, and Nelson had an opportunity to
repay in part his friends, by helping them quell a riot that threatened
the safety of the city.

The months passed, and the only peace and calm that had been Nelson's in
his entire life was now his. Nelson was forty years of age; Lady
Hamilton was thirty-seven; Sir William was seventy-one. The inevitable
happened--the most natural and the most beautiful thing in the world.
Love came into the life of Nelson--the first, last and only love of his
life. And he loved with all the abandon and oneness of his nature. Sir
William was aware of the bond that had grown up between his beautiful
wife and Lord Nelson, and he respected it, and gave it his blessing,
realizing that he himself belonged to another generation and had but a
few years to live at best, and in this he fastened to himself with hoops
of steel their affection for him.

In the year Eighteen Hundred, when the Hamiltons started for England,
Nelson accompanied them in their tour across the Continent, and great
honors were everywhere paid him.

Arriving in London he made his home with them. There was no time for
idleness, for the Home Office demanded his services daily for
consultation and advice, for the Corsican was still at large: very much
at large.

In two years Sir William died--passed peacefully away, attended and
ministered to by Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton.

Two years more were to pass, and the services of a sea-fighter of the
Nelson caliber were required. Napoleon had gotten together another navy,
and having combined with Spain they had a fleet that outclassed that of
England.

Only one man in England could, with any assurance of success, fight this
superior foe on the water. Nelson fought ships as an expert plays
chess. He had reduced the game to a science; if the enemy made this
move, he made that. He knew how to lure a hostile fleet and have it
pursue him to the ground he had selected, and then he knew how to cut it
in half and whip it piecemeal. His fighting was consummate strategy,
combined with a seeming recklessness that gave a courage to the troops
whic