Instantly the order was given to prepare for sea. With extraordinary celerity the casks were got back into their tiers, and the powder was hurried into the magazines. The foremast was set up and the bowsprit replaced, the running rigging rove, and the sails were bent to the yards. Every man of the seven hundred on board the _Donegal_ was working his hardest in one way or another. It proved, though, a twenty-two hours’ job; it would have been a four days’ business in ordinary times. Before one o’clock on the morning of the 22nd they were hauling out from the Mole into the bay. Then sea-stores and provisions were taken on board. Before noon the _Donegal_ was ready for battle; a performance on which all concerned might justly pride themselves. Not one of the other five ships was nearly so well advanced, although they also had been striving their hardest. Gibraltar is distant from the scene of the battle off Cape Trafalgar, as the crow flies, just fifty miles; but no sound of the firing reached there as it would appear, although at places further off, both in Spain and on the African coast, they heard the cannonading plainly. All on board the ships at Gibraltar still hoped to be in time for the expected battle, as it was to them. A new spar had been ordered from the dockyard for the foreyard. It had not arrived by noon on the 23rd. It was forthcoming only at the last moment, just indeed as the _Donegal_ was in the act of weighing anchor. Sail was made at once, and they went out of Gibraltar Bay with the foreyard towing in the water alongside the ship, not yet hoisted on board. They had to beat out in the teeth of the wild storm, blowing a hard gale from the south-west, that, up the coast beyond Tarifa, was wrecking our Trafalgar prizes. Clawing out against the head wind, the _Donegal_ won her way foot by foot, and by nightfall had gained the mouth of the Straits. Then they had to let go anchor, so as not to be swept back in spite of themselves. Next morning they weighed anchor, and once more went forward, forcing their way ahead against wind and storm and swamping seas. Damaged British ships began, one by one, to come in sight during the forenoon. The _Belleisle_ was made out, totally dismasted, in tow of a frigate. Then the _Victory_ was seen, partially dismasted and also in tow. The _Donegal_ made her number to the flagship as she passed. A little time afterwards a third British man-of-war, with her three topmasts gone, came into view. It was the _Téméraire_. The _Donegal_ passed quite near, and hailed across: “What news?” The answer was shouted back from the _Téméraire_ through a speaking trumpet: “Nineteen sail of the line taken and Lord Nelson killed!”