ks if firing did not stop, ordered
hostilities to cease without consulting the Admiral of the fleet,
and the battle was over. Denmark's honor was saved. "Nothing," wrote
our own Captain Mahan, "could place a nation's warlike fame higher
than did her great deeds that day." All else was lost; for "there
had come upon Denmark one of those days of judgment to which nations
are liable who neglect in time of peace to prepare for war." It had
been long coming, but it had overtaken her at last and found all the
bars down.

Alongside the _Dannebrog_ throughout her fight with Nelson's
flag-ship, and edging ever closer in under the _Elephant's_ side
until at last the marines were sent to man her rail and keep it away
with their muskets, lay a floating battery mounting twenty guns
under command of a beardless second lieutenant. The name of Peter
Willemoes will live as long as the Danish tongue is spoken. Barely
graduated from the Naval Academy, he was but eighteen when the need
of officers thrust the command of "Floating Battery No. 1" upon him.
So gallantly did he acquit himself that Nelson took notice of the
young man who, every time a broadside crashed into his ship or
overhead, swung his cocked hat and led his men in a lusty cheer.
When after the battle he met the Crown Prince on shore, the English
commander asked to be introduced to his youthful adversary. "You
ought to make an admiral of him," he said, and Prince Frederik
smiled: "If I were to make admirals of all my brave officers, I
should have no captains or lieutenants left." When the _Dannebrog_
drifted on the shoals, abandoned and burning, Willemoes cut his
cables and got away under cover of the heavy smoke. Having neither
sails nor oars, he was at the mercy of the tide, but luckily it
carried him to the north of the Tre Kroner battery, and he reached
port with forty-nine of his crew of one hundred and twenty-nine dead
or wounded. The people received him as a conqueror returning with
victory. His youth and splendid valor aroused the enthusiasm of the
whole country. Wherever he went crowds flocked to see him as the
hero of "Holy Thursday's Battle." Especially was he the young
people's idol. Sailor that he was, he was "the friend of all pretty
girls," sang the poet of that day. He danced and made merry with
them, but the one of them all on whom his heart was set, so runs the
story, would have none of him, and sent him away to foreign parts, a
saddened lover.

Meanwhil