The first gray of the morning was just appearing in the East, when the Turkish army was aroused by the tramp of the French columns, and by a shower of bomb-shells falling in the midst of their intrenchments. One of the most terrible battles recorded in history then ensued. The awful genius of Napoleon never shone forth more fearfully than on that bloody day. He stood upon a gentle eminence, calm, silent, unperturbed, pitiless, and guided, with resistless skill, the carnage. The onslaught of the French was like that of wolves. The Turks were driven like deer before them. Every man remembered that in that bay the proud fleet of France had perished. Every man felt that the kings of Europe had banded for the destruction of the French Republic. Every man exulted in the thought that there were but six thousand French Republicans to hurl themselves upon England, Russia, and Turkey combined, nearly twenty thousand strong. The Turks, perplexed and confounded by the skill and fury of the assault, were driven in upon each other in horrible confusion. The French, trained to load and fire with a rapidity which seemed miraculous, poured in upon them a perfect hurricane of bullets, balls, and shells. They were torn to pieces, mown down, bayoneted, and trampled under iron hoofs. In utter consternation, thousands of them plunged into the sea, horsemen and footmen, and struggled in the waves, in the insane attempt to swim to the ships, three miles distant from the shore. With terrible calmness of energy Napoleon opened upon the drowning host the tornado of his batteries, and the water was swept with grape-shot as by a hail-storm. The Turks were on the point of a peninsula. Escape by land was impossible. They would not ask for quarter. The silent and proud spirit of Napoleon was inflamed with the resolve to achieve a victory which should reclaim the name of Aboukir to the arms of France. Murat redeemed his pledge. Plunging with his cavalry into the densest throng of the enemy, he spurred his fiery steed, reckless of peril, to the very centre of the Turkish camp, where stood Mustapha Pacha, surrounded by his staff. The proud Turk had barely time to discharge a pistol at his audacious foe, which slightly wounded Murat, ere the dripping sabre of the French general severed half of his hand from the wrist. Thus wounded, the leader of the Turkish army was immediately captured, and sent in triumph to Napoleon. As Napoleon received his illustrious prisoner, magnanimously desiring to soothe the bitterness of his utter discomfiture, he courteously said, “I will take care to inform the Sultan of the courage you have displayed in this battle, though it has been your misfortune to lose it.” “Thou mayst save thyself that trouble,” the proud Turk haughtily replied. “My master knows me better than thou canst.”