ready to save all they could, but, for various reasons, unable to get near the ship. One of the reasons has been specially recorded--the sharks. Again the sharks were on the spot, 'not yet glutted,' said Dr. Blane, 'with the carnage of the preceding day.' What the men on the boats saw and told the doctor, was, in Blane's words, 'too horrid to describe.' A solid belt of sharks surrounded the burning _Cesar_, a closely packed mass of struggling, huge-girthed brutes, rolling and tumbling about all round, jostling one another and scraping their rough backs together as they plunged and wallowed about all over the surface. Attracted by the glare they had come crowding to the spot, 'every shark in those waters seemed to be there,' and swarmed thronging close round the vessel, surging up and snapping and tearing at the poor frenzied wretches who were clinging on alongside on fragments of spars and wreckage that had dropped overboard. One by one the sharks picked the poor fellows off. The boats meanwhile could not, dared not, force their way through. They could only look helplessly on and wait for the end:-- Watch the wild wreck; but not to save. The end came between ten and eleven. The _Cesar_, half burned to the water's edge, blew up with a dull heavy roar--'not a loud explosion,' notes an onlooker. Indeed there was not much powder left to blow up in the bravely defended ship's magazines. It was merely a belching up of flame and sparks, like the blowing out of the pinch of powder at the bottom of a squib or Roman candle; just enough to rend the remains of the hull apart and scatter its contents. Then all was black darkness. A few twinkling sparks high overhead caught the eye, as the burning fragments poised in mid-air and turned for the downward drop, followed by splashes in the sea all round, and here and there, out of sight, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony, as some shark claimed its last victim, and then all was over. Silence and darkness fell once more on the heaving waters, and the boats pulled sadly and wearily back to their ships. Such was the tragedy of the _Cesar_. A handful of survivors were picked up, though how they escaped is not stated. All were Frenchmen. Not one of the British prize-crew escaped. Now at last Rodney's day was over: the 'Glorious Twelfth' reached its last hour in silence and passed away. * * * * *