was at first supposed to be one of the
enemy, because she did not show the signal ordered by Nelson to be
hoisted by his ships at the mizzen peak. This arose, of course, from
the masts having been shot away. Captain Hallowell wisely refrained
from firing on her, saying that, if she was an enemy, she was too much
disabled to escape. He passed on, therefore, and, as we have said, took
the station and the duty from which the other had been driven.

The huge _L'Orient_ was now surrounded. Captain Ball, in the
_Alexander_, anchored on her larboard quarter, and, besides raking her
with his guns, kept up a steady fire of musketry on her decks. Captain
Thomson also, in the _Leander_, took up such a position that he could
fire into her and the _Franklin_ at the same time.

Standing in the midst of death and destruction, the hero of the Nile did
not escape scathless. He remained unhurt, however, until he knew that
victory was certain. The first and second ships of the enemy's line
were disabled, as we have said, at the commencement of the action, and
the third, fourth, and fifth were taken between eight and nine; so that
Nelson could not have much, if any, doubt as to the issue of the battle.

Suddenly he received a wound on the head from a piece of langridge shot,
and fell into the arms of Captain Berry. A large flap of skin was cut
from the bone and fell over his sound eye,--the other having been lost
in a previous engagement. The flow of blood was very great, and, being
thus totally blinded, he thought that he had received a mortal wound.
He was immediately carried down to the cockpit.

The cockpit of a man-of-war lies in that part of the ship which is below
water, and is never visited by the light of day. Being safe also from
the visitation of shot or shell, it has been selected as the place to
which the wounded are conveyed during an action to have their wounds
dressed and limbs amputated by the surgeons--whose hands at such seasons
are, as may easily be supposed, much too full. No pen can describe
adequately the horrors of that dimly-lighted place, with its flickering
lights, glittering knives, bloody tables and decks, and mangled men,
whose groans of agony burst forth in spite of their utmost efforts to
repress them. Here, in the midst of dead, dying, and suffering men, the
great Admiral sat down to wait his turn.

The surgeon was engaged in dressing the wounds of a sailor when he was
brought down. On lear