e Nelson himself. Strangely
enough, Nelson on the previous night seems to have sailed right through
the Spanish fleet.

St. Valentine's Day 1797 will ever be memorable in the naval annals of
this country, for, in a driving mist and fog, our fleet that morning
forgathered with the might of Spain off Cape St. Vincent. The majestic
appearance of the ships of the Don could not but have impressed our
officers and men, but it did not awe them. The bigger the ship the
larger the target, our Nelson used to say.

Our fleet advanced in two beautiful lines. The Spaniards somehow had got
divided into two groups--one of nineteen ships, the other group some
distance to leeward--and these two made haste to unite. But Jervis
spoiled that move by getting between them and attacking the main body.
After the battle had fairly commenced, and each ship of ours had her
orders, Nelson noted an attempt on the part of Don Josef de Cordova to
pass round Jervis's rear and join the other portion of the fleet; and
despite the fact that he was disobeying orders--"They can but hang me,"
he said to Captain Miller--he slipped back and threw his ship, the
_Captain_, right athwart the mighty _Santissima-Trinidad_, thus driving
the Don's fleet back. It was, as the reader knows, this daring action on
the part of Nelson that decided the battle. But how terribly the fight
raged after that; how pluckily Nelson, with his vessel a wreck, boarded
and captured ship after ship; how the hell of battle raged for three
long hours, let history tell, as well as speak of cases of individual
heroism. Suffice it for me to say that the battle was won and the Don
was thrashed, among the captured ships being the mighty _Trinidad_
herself, the Spanish admiral's castle.

The _Tonneraire_ suffered severely. Sixty poor fellows would never again
see their native land, and many more were wounded.

Young Murray was among the severely wounded, but Jack himself, and Tom
as well, escaped without a scratch.

"Oh dear me, dear me!" said M'Hearty, running up for a few moments from
the heat and smoke of the stifling cockpit, "I am thirsty."

Poor M'Hearty! he wasn't a pretty sight to look at, begrimed with smoke
and blood. But he just had a drink, and a big one, and went back once
more to his terrible work.

But the good doctor was washed and dressed and smiling again when he
came to the captain's cabin that evening while the stars were shining,
to report, "Everything tidy, and all