from the shore. With terrible calmness of
energy Napoleon opened upon the drowning host the tornado of his
batteries, and the water was swept with grape-shot as by a hail-storm. The
Turks were on the point of a peninsula. Escape by land was impossible.
They would not ask for quarter. The silent and proud spirit of Napoleon
was inflamed with the resolve to achieve a victory which should reclaim
the name of Aboukir to the arms of France. Murat redeemed his pledge.
Plunging with his cavalry into the densest throng of the enemy, he spurred
his fiery steed, reckless of peril, to the very centre of the Turkish
camp, where stood Mustapha Pacha, surrounded by his staff. The proud Turk
had barely time to discharge a pistol at his audacious foe, which slightly
wounded Murat, ere the dripping sabre of the French general severed half
of his hand from the wrist. Thus wounded, the leader of the Turkish army
was immediately captured, and sent in triumph to Napoleon. As Napoleon
received his illustrious prisoner, magnanimously desiring to soothe the
bitterness of his utter discomfiture, he courteously said, "I will take
care to inform the Sultan of the courage you have displayed in this
battle, though it has been your misfortune to lose it." "Thou mayst save
thyself that trouble," the proud Turk haughtily replied. "My master knows
me better than thou canst."

Before 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the whole Turkish army was destroyed.
Hardly an individual escaped. About two thousand prisoners were taken in
the fort. All the rest perished, either drowned in the sea, or slain upon
the land. Sir Sydney Smith, who had chosen the position occupied by the
Turkish army, with the utmost difficulty avoided capture. In the midst of
the terrible scene of tumult and death, the Commodore succeeded in getting
on board a boat, and was rowed to his ships. More than twelve thousand
corpses of the turbaned Turks were floating in the bay of Aboukir, beneath
whose crimsoned waves, but a few months before, almost an equal number of
the French had sunk in death. Such utter destruction of an army is perhaps
unexampled in the annals of war. If God frowned upon France in the naval
battle of Aboukir, He as signally frowned upon her foes in this terrific
conflict on the land.

The cloudless sun descended peacefully, in the evening, beneath the blue
waves of the Mediterranean. Napoleon stood at the door of his tent, calmly
contemplating the scene, from whence all hi