Page:Battles of the Nile and Alexandria.pdf/9

 moored, could bring only the one her bow and the other her stern guns to hear upon him, whilst he swept their decks, from stem to stern, with whole broadsides.

The two first ships of the French line had been dismasted within a quarter of an hour after the commencement of the action, and the others suffered so severely that victory was already certain. The third, fourth, and fifth were taken possession of at half past 8. Meantime, Nelson received a wound on the head from a piece of landridge shot. Captain Berry caught him in his arms as he was falling. The great effusion of blood occasioned an apprehension that the wound was mortal. Nelson himself thought so; a large flap of the skin of the forehead, cut from the bone, had fallen over one eye, and, the other being blind, he was in total darkness. When he was carried down, the surgeon- in the midst of a scene scarcely to be conceived by those who have never seen a cockpit in time of action, and the heroism which is displayed amid its horrors-with a natural but pardonable eagerness, quitted the poor fellow then under his hands, that he might instantly attend the admiral." No," said Nelson, I will take my turn with my brave Fellows." Nor would he suffer his wound to be examined till every man who had previously been wounded was properly attended to. Fully believing that the wound was mortal, and that he was about to die as he had ever desired, in battle and in victory, he called the chaplain, and desired him to deliver what he supposed to be his dying remembrance to Lady Nelson. He then sent for Captain Louis, from on board the Minotaur, that he might thank hin personally for the great assiststance which he had rendered to the Vanguard; and ever mindful of those who deserved to be his friends,