from the Frenchman's poop, passed
through his body, literally driving the heart before it, leaving him
dead at his commander's feet.

"I shall depend on you, Sir Wycherly, for the discharge of poor
Bunting's duty, the remainder of the cruise," observed Sir Gervaise,
with a smile in which courtesy and regret struggled singularly for the
mastery. "Quarter-masters, lay Mr. Bunting's body a little out of the
way, and cover it with those signals. They are a suitable pall for so
brave a man!"

Just as this occurred, the Warspite came clear of the Plantagenet, on
her outside, according to orders, and she opened with her forward guns,
taking the second ship in the French line for her target. In two minutes
more these vessels also were furiously engaged in the hot strife. In
this manner, ship after ship passed on the outside of the Plantagenet,
and sheered into her berth ahead of her who had just been her own
leader, until the Achilles, Lord Morganic, the last of the five, lay
fairly side by side with le Conquereur, the vessel now at the head of
the French line. That the reader may understand the incidents more
readily, we will give the opposing lines in the precise form in which
they lay, viz.

Plantagenet le Foudroyant

Warspite le Temeraire

Blenheim le Dugay Trouin

Thunderer l'Ajax

Achilles le Conquereur.

The constantly recurring discharges of four hundred pieces of heavy
ordnance, within a space so small, had the effect to repel the regular
currents of air, and, almost immediately, to lessen a breeze of six or
seven knots, to one that would not propel a ship more than two or three.
This was the first observable phenomenon connected with the action, but,
as it had been expected, Sir Gervaise had used the precaution to lay his
ships as near as possible in the positions in which he intended them to
fight the battle. The next great physical consequence, one equally
expected and natural, but which wrought a great change in the aspect of
the battle, was the cloud of smoke in which the ten ships were suddenly
enveloped. At the first broadsides between the two admirals, volumes of
light, fleecy vapour rolled over the sea, meeting midway, and rising
thence in curling wreaths, left nothing but the masts and sails of the
adversary visible in the hostile ship. This, of itself, would have soon
hidden the combatants in the bosom of a nearly impenetrable cloud; but
as the vessels