; who will live to tell the story is a very
different question."

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE NILE. Doubling on the French Line.
From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."]

Brueys had calculated that the English fleet must come down
perpendicularly to his centre, and each ship in the process be raked by
a line of fire a mile and a half long; but the moment the English ships
rounded the island they tacked, hugged the shore, and swept through the
gap between the leading vessel and the land. The British ships were so
close to each other that Nelson, speaking from his own quarter-deck,
was able to ask Hood in the _Zealous_, if he thought they had water
enough to round the French line. Hood replied that he had no chart,
but would lead and take soundings as he went.

So the British line came on, the men on the yards taking in canvas, the
leadsmen in the chains coolly calling the soundings. The battery
roared from the island, the leading French ships broke into smoke and
flame, but the steady British line glided on. The _Goliath_ by this
time led; and at half-past five the shadow of its tall masts cast by
the westering sun fell over the decks of the _Guerrier_, and as Foley,
its captain, swept past the Frenchman's bows, he poured in a furious
broadside, bore swiftly up, and dropped--as Nelson, with that minute
attention to detail which marks a great commander, had ordered all his
captains--an anchor from the stern, so that, without having to "swing,"
he was instantly in a fighting position on his enemy's quarter. Foley,
however, dropped his anchor a moment too late, and drifted on to the
second ship in the line; but Hood, in the _Zealous_, coming swiftly
after, also raked the _Guerrier_, and, anchoring from the stern at the
exact moment, took the place on its quarter Foley should have taken.

The _Orion_ came into battle next, blasted the unfortunate _Guerrier_,
whose foremast had already gone, with a third broadside, and swept
outside the _Zealous_ and _Goliath_ down to the third ship on the
French line. A French frigate, the _Serieuse_, of thirty-six guns,
anchored inside the French line, ventured to fire on the _Orion_ as it
swept past, whereupon Saumarez, its commander, discharged his starboard
broadside into that frigate. The _Serieuse_ reeled under the shock of
the British guns, its masts disappeared like chips, and the unfortunate
Frenchman went down like a stone; while Saumarez, laying himself on the