look
back, I almost fancied that the great bowsprit of the _Temeraire_ was
over me, and that the figure who leaned over the taffrail was steadily
gazing on me. How little way had I made, and what a vast reach of water
lay between me and the shore! I tried to animate my courage by thinking
of the cause, how my comrades would greet me, the honour in which they
would hold me for the exploit, and such like; but the terror of failure
damped this ardour, and hope sank every moment lower and lower.

For some time I resolved within myself not to look back--the
discouragement was too great; but the impulse to do so became all the
greater, and the only means of resisting was by counting the strokes,
and determining not to turn my head before I had made a thousand. The
monotony of this last, and the ceaseless effort to advance, threw me
into a kind of dreamy state, wherein mere mechanical effort remained.
A few vague impressions are all that remain to me of what followed. I
remember the sound of the morning guns from the fleet; I remember, too,
the hoisting of the French standard at daybreak on the fort of the Mole;
I have some recollection of a bastion crowded with people, and hearing
shouts and cheers like voices of welcome and encouragement; and then
a whole fleet of small boats issuing from the harbour, as if by one
impulse; and then there comes a bright blaze of light over one incident,
for I saw myself, dripping and almost dead, lifted on the shoulders of
strong men, and carried along a wide street filled with people. I was in
Genoa!

CHAPTER XXXIV. GENOA IN THE SIEGE

Up a straight street, so steep and so narrow that it seemed a stair,
with hundreds of men crowding around me, I was borne along. Now, they
were sailors who carried me; now, white-bearded grenadiers, with their
bronzed, bold faces; now, they were the wild-looking Faquini of the
Mole, with long-tasselled red caps, and gaudy sashes around their
waists. Windows were opened on either side as we went, and eager faces
protruded to stare at me; and then there were shouts and cries of
triumphant joy bursting forth at every moment, amidst which I could hear
the ever-recurring words--'Escaped from the English fleet.'

By what means, or when, I had exchanged my dripping trousers of coarse
sailcloth for the striped gear of our republican mode--how one had given
me his jacket, another a cap, and a third a shirt--I knew not; but there
I was, carried along in trium