n resembled nothing so much as a walnut in
the jaws of a nut-cracker. They were being "cracked" in succession,
and the rear of the line could only look on with agitated feelings and
watch the operation.

The fire of the British ships for fury and precision was overwhelming.
The head of the _Guerrier_ was simply shot away; the anchors hanging
from her bows were cut in two; her main-deck ports, from the bowsprit
to the gangway, were driven into one; her masts, fallen inboard, lay
with their tangle of rigging on the unhappy crew; while some of her
main-deck beams--all supports being torn away--fell on the guns. Hood,
in the _Zealous_, who was pounding the unfortunate _Guerrier_, says,
"At last, being tired of killing men in that way, I sent a lieutenant
on board, who was allowed, as I had instructed him, to hoist a light,
and haul it down as a sign of submission." But all the damage was not
on the side of the French. The great French flagship, the _Orient_, by
this time had added her mighty voice to the tumult, and the
_Bellerophon_, who was engaged with her, had a bad time of it. It was
the story of Tom Sayers and Heenan over again--a dwarf fighting a
giant. Her mizzen-mast and mainmast were shot away, and after
maintaining the dreadful duel for more than an hour, and having 200 of
her crew struck down, at 8.20 P.M. the _Bellerophon_ cut her cable and
drifted, a disabled wreck, out of the fire.

Meanwhile the four ships Nelson had left in the offing were beating
furiously up to add themselves to the fight. Night had fallen, by the
time Troubridge, in the _Culloden_, came round the island; and then, in
full sight of the great battle, the _Culloden_ ran hopelessly ashore!
She was, perhaps, the finest ship of the British fleet, and the
emotions of its crew and commander as they listened to the tumult, and
watched through the darkness the darting fires of the Titanic combat
they could not share, may be imagined. "Our army," according to
well-known authorities, "swore terribly in Flanders." The expletives
discharged that night along the decks and in the forecastle of the
Culloden would probably have made even a Flanders veteran open his eyes
in astonishment.

The _Swiftsure_ and the _Alexander_, taking warning by the _Culloden's_
fate, swept round her and bore safely up to the fight. The
_Swiftsure_, bearing down through the darkness to the combat, came
across a vessel drifting, dismasted and lightless, a mere wre