r, "gave a deep roll, with a
swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast
went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her
immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but
lowered, and the falling of this majestic mass of spars, sails, and
rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of
the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a
Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the _Santissima
Trinidad_ in token of surrender; whereupon the _Conqueror_, scorning to
waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no
longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the
_Neptune's_ crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship
for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port.

The _Africa_, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard,
presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish
ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the
mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the
quarterdeck, all black with smoke and bloody with slaughter, and asked
the solitary officer he found there whether or not the _Santissima
Trinidad_ had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting
into the centre of a cluster of French and Spanish ships; so the
Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly
ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only
half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the
_Santissima Trinidad_ drifted like a log upon the water till half-past
five P.M., when the _Prince_ put a prize crew on board.

Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture--quoted in the _Cornhill
Magazine_--of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great
Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted
her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters.
It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them.
Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as
corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of
iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the
enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible
to move about. From moment to moment men fell--some into the sea; and
the curses of the combatants mingled