At last, when the Victory passed through, the Téméraire succeeded. Meanwhile the Victory had got foul of the Redoutable, and the two ships payed off to the eastward. The Téméraire had scarcely begun to haul up, to avoid being raked by the French Neptune, which was in a position to do so with impunity, when the Téméraire discovered, through the smoke, the Redoutable driving down on board her. The wind was too light to work clear of her--and the French Neptune opened on the English ship, in a raking position, and soon shot away most of her spars. Rendered unmanageable, the Téméraire could only continue her cannonade of the Redoutable from her port battery. This she did until the French ship shut in her lower-deck ports, as we have seen she had already done on the opposite side; and then she fell on board the Téméraire--the French ship’s bowsprit passing over the British ship’s gangway, just before the mizzen-rigging, where, in order to have the benefit of a raking fire, the Téméraire’s men lashed it. Then they poured in round after round, with most destructive effect. This fire of the Téméraire is said to have cost the French ship two hundred in killed and wounded. This happened just after the Victory and the Téméraire had got clear of each other--and just after Nelson had received his death wound. The three ships now lying nearly parallel, the two larger English ships had the French two-decker lying between them and riddled by their shot. The English had to use a diminished charge of powder to prevent their shot from passing through, to injure their friends, and their guns contained three shot each, and were much depressed. Fire was now the common enemy of the three ships, grappled together in this dogged fight. The seamen of the English ships were actually obliged to throw buckets of water into the holes made by their shot in the Redoutable’s sides. All this time the Victory’s guns, on the other side, had continued to play upon the Spanish four-decker, until the English Neptune came up and took charge of her. “The Redoutable, although she did not make use of her great guns, kept up a heavy fire of musketry, both from her decks and from her tops. In each of the latter were one or two brass cohorn mortars, which she repeatedly discharged, with great effect, upon the decks of her antagonists. From the diagonal position of the Redoutable, at the time the Téméraire lashed her to her gangway, the quarter-deck and the poop of the Victory became greatly exposed to the top fire of the French ship, whose mizzen-top was just abaft and rather below the Victory’s main-yard.” About half-past one a musket ball from this top struck Lord Nelson in the left shoulder, as, having walked along the middle of the quarter-deck, from abaft, he was in the act of turning round to the right, near the main hatchway, to walk back, on the left hand of Captain Hardy, then a step or two in advance, giving some necessary orders. Dr. Beatty says, “Lord Nelson