hat
the time was at hand for which he longed.

To the west there loomed up swiftly the topmasts of the French
flagships; soon the figurehead of Le Soleil Royal was visible--a
figurehead representing Louis standing upon his favourite emblem, a
great sun, and with the inhabitants of other nations lying prostrate
at his feet and bound in chains.

"Behold," said Rooke, as St. Georges passed close to him, "your late
king! Ah, well! that sun shall set ere long, or----"

His words were drowned in more cheers. From all those English seamen
on board the various ships--nearly thirty thousand men exclusive of
the Dutch allies--there rose hurrah after hurrah, as swiftly the
opposing forces advanced to meet one another. Then the Britannia
saluted the Soleil Royal--a sinister politeness--and from the French
flagships there came an answer in the shape of a discharge of small
shot. The battle had begun.

From the English vessels that discharge was answered by broadsides from
their great guns: from the Britannia, the Royal Sovereign--Delaval's
flagship--those broadsides were poured in with merciless precision.
Moreover, the wind favoured the English foe more than it did the French;
their great ships being enabled to form a circle round their foes and to
pour in their fire on either side of them. Already one Frenchman had blown
up, hurling her contents into the air; already, too, the Soleil Royal had
had her maintopsail shot away by the Britannia; in another moment she had
let down her mainsail and was tacking away from her untiring foe. And
following her went L'Admirable and Le Triumphant.

"Heavens!" exclaimed St. Georges, as, black and grimed with powder, he
worked with the men under his direction at the lower-deck tier of guns
in the Windsor Castle, "they run already! Is that the king the world
has feared so long--the king I served?"

The French flagship was not beaten yet, however--it was too soon; and
though she could not force her way through those enemies which
surrounded her, she could still keep them off, prevent them from
boarding her. Twice the Britannia and another had endeavoured to lay
themselves alongside her for that purpose, but the fire she vomited
from her gunports was too hot; like a gaunt dying lioness she made it
death to come too near. Yet her struggles were the struggles of
despair; already twenty of her squadron had deserted her and, pursued
by English vessels, were tearing through the Race of Alderney as