torn by a hurricane of
shot, commenced to fire furiously through the smoke and the night at
the nearest lights. They were the lights of her own consort! She, in
turn, fired at the flash of the guns tormenting her. So, under the
black midnight skies, the two great Spanish ships thundered at each
other, flame answering flame. They drifted ever closer. The fire of
the _Real Carlos_ kindled the sails of the sister ship; the flames
leaped and danced to the very mast-heads; and, still engaged in a fiery
wrestle, they blew up in succession, and out of their united crews of
2000 men only a little over 200 were picked up!

The _Superb_, meanwhile, had glided ahead, leaving the three-deckers to
destroy each other, and opened fire at pistol-shot distance on the
French two-decker, and in thirty minutes compelled her to strike. In
less than two hours of a night action, that is, this single English
seventy-four had destroyed two Spanish three-deckers of 112 guns each,
and captured a fine French battle-ship of 74 guns!

The British ships by this time were coming up in the rear, with every
inch of canvas spread. They swept past the amazing spectacle of the
two great Spaniards destroying each other, and pressed on in chase of
the enemy. The wind rose to a gale. In the grey dawn the _Caesar_
found herself, with all her sister ships, far astern, except the
_Venerable_, under Hood, which was hanging on the quarter of the
rearmost French ship, the _Formidable_, a magnificent ship of 80 guns,
with a gallant commander, and carrying quite too heavy metal for Hood.
Hood, however, the most daring of men, exchanged broadsides at
pistol-shot distance with his big antagonist, till his ship was
dismasted, and was drifted by the current on the rocky shoals off San
Pedro. The _Caesar_ came up in time to enable its disgusted crew to
see ship after ship of the flying enemy disappear safely within the
sheltering batteries of Cadiz.

TRAFALGAR

I. THE STRATEGY

"Uprose the soul of him a star
On that brave day of Ocean days;
It rolled the smoke from Trafalgar
To darken Austerlitz ablaze.
Are we the men of old, its light
Will point us under every sky
The path he took; and must we fight,
Our Nelson be our battle-cry!

He leads: we hear our Seaman's call
In the roll of battles won;
For he is Britain's Admiral
Till setting of her sun."
--GEORGE MEREDITH.

That Trafalgar was a