with groans of the wounded, so
that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were
blaspheming God or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I
helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold,
where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither;
others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies
could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able
to assist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the
holes torn by shot in the ship's hull. . . . Blood ran in streams
about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship
carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the
planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range,
caused horrible mutilations. . . . The ship creaked and groaned as she
rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull
the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The _Trinidad's_
people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the
_Achille_ blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt
that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be
received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been
brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the _Santissima
Trinidad_ struck her flag."

The dreadful scenes on the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ might
almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the
_Belleisle_, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of
two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was
dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her
mainmast fell upon the break of the poop; her larboard broadside was
thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle
ship, the _Achille_, took her position on the _Belleisle's_ larboard
quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship
could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a
half, but at half-past three the _Swiftsure_ came majestically up,
passed under the _Belleisle's_ stern--the two crews cheering each
other, the _Belleisle's_ men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike
to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the
stump of the mainmast--and the fury with which the _Swiftsure_ fell
upon the _Achille_ may be imagined. The _Defiance_ about the same time
took off the