.

Twelve o'clock came and passed. The Victory was now well in. Firing from
both sides as she advanced, she ran in side by side with the
Redoubtable, of the French fleet, both ships pouring broadsides into
each other. On the opposite side of the Redoubtable came up the English
ship Temeraire, while another ship of the enemy lay on the opposite side
of the latter.

The four ships lay head to head and side to side, as close as if they
had been moored together, the muzzles of their guns almost touching. So
close were they that the middle-and lower-deck guns of the Victory had
to be depressed and fired with light charges, lest their balls should
pierce through the foe and injure the Temeraire. And lest the
Redoubtable should take fire from the lower-deck guns, whose muzzles
touched her side when they were run out, the fireman of each gun stood
ready with a bucket of water to dash into the hole made by the shot.
While the starboard guns of the Victory were thus employed, her larboard
guns were in full play upon the Bucentaure and the huge Santissima
Trinidad. This warm work was repeated through the entire fleet. Never
had been closer and hotter action.

The fight had reached its hottest when there came a tragical event that
rendered the victory at Trafalgar, glorious as it was, a loss to
England. The Redoubtable, after her first broadside, had closed her
lower-deck ports, lest the English should board her through them. She
did not fire another great gun during the action. But her tops, like
those of her consorts, were filled with riflemen, whose balls swept the
decks of the assailing ships. One of these, fired from the mizzen-top of
the Redoubtable, not fifteen yards from where Nelson stood, struck him
on the left shoulder, piercing the epaulette. It was about quarter after
one, in the heat of the action. He fell upon his face.

"They have done for me, at last, Hardy," he said, as his captain ran to
his assistance.

"I hope not!" cried Hardy.

"Yes," he replied, "my backbone is shot through."

A thorough sailor to the last, he saw, as they were carrying him below,
that the tiller ropes which had been shot away were not replaced, and
ordered that this should be immediately attended to. Then, that he might
not be seen by the crew, he spread his handkerchief over his face and
his stars. But for his needless risk in revealing them before, he might
have lived.

The cockpit was crowded with the wounded and dying men. Ove