The _Victory_ next turned upon the _Neptune_ and the _Redoubtable_, of the enemy's fleet. The _Neptune_, not liking her looks, kept off, but she collided and locked spars with the _Redoubtable_, and a terrific fight began. On the opposite side of the _Redoubtable_ came the British ship _Temeraire_, and opposite it again a second ship of the enemy, the four vessels lying bow to bow, and rending one another's sides with an incessant hail of balls. On the _Victory_ the gunners were ordered to depress their pieces, that the balls should not go through and wound the _Temeraire_ beyond. The muzzles of their cannon fairly touched the enemy's side, and after each shot a bucket of water was dashed into the rent, that they may not set fire to the vessel which they confidently expected to take as a prize. In the midst of the hot contest came the disaster already spoken of. Brass swivels were mounted in the French ship's tops to sweep with their fire the deck of their foe, and as Nelson and Captain Hardy paced together their poop deck, regardless of danger, the admiral suddenly fell. A ball from one of these guns had reached the noblest mark on the fleet. [=The Great Battle and its Sad Disaster=] "They have done for me at last, Hardy," the fallen man said. "Don't say you are hit!" cried Hardy in dismay. "Yes, my backbone is shot through." His words were not far from the truth. He never arose from that fatal shot. Yet, dying as he was, his spirit survived. "I hope none of our ships have struck, Hardy," he feebly asked, in a later interval of the fight. "No, my lord. There is small fear of that." "I'm a dead man, Hardy, but I'm glad of what you say. Whip them now you've got them. Whip them as they've never been whipped before." Another hour passed. Hardy came below again to say that fourteen or fifteen of the enemy's ships had struck. "That's better, though I bargained for twenty," said the dying man. "And now, anchor, Hardy--anchor." "I suppose, my lord, that Admiral Collingwood will now take the direction of affairs." "Not while I live," exclaimed Nelson, with a momentary return of energy. "Do _you_ anchor, Hardy." "Then shall _we_ make the signal, my lord." "Yes, for if I live, I'll anchor." [=Victory for England and Death for Her Famous Admiral=] That was the end. Five minutes later Horatio Nelson, England's greatest sea champion, was dead. He had won both prizes he sought for in the battle of the Nile--victory and Westminster Abbey. Collingwood did not anchor, but stood out to sea with the eighteen prizes of the hard fought fray. In the gale that followed many of the results of victory were lost, four of the ships being retaken, some wrecked on shore, some foundering at sea, only four reaching British waters in Gibraltar Bay. But whatever was lost, Nelson's fame was secure, and the victory at Trafalgar is treasured as one of the most famous triumphs of British arms.