The _Victory_ had not yet returned a single gun; fifty of her men had been by this time killed or wounded, and her main-topmast, with all her studding sails and their booms, shot away. Nelson declared that, in all his battles, he had seen nothing which surpassed the cool courage of his crew on this occasion. At four minutes after twelve she opened her fire from both sides of her deck. It was not possible to break the enemy’s line without running on board one of their ships; Hardy informed him of this, and asked which he would prefer. Nelson replied: “Take your choice, Hardy, it does not signify much.” The master was then ordered to put the helm to port, and the _Victory_ ran on board the _Redoubtable_, just as her tiller ropes were shot away. The French ship received her with a broadside; then instantly let down her lower-deck ports, for fear of being boarded through them, and never afterwards fired a great gun during the action. Captain Harvey, in the _Téméraire_, fell on board the _Redoubtable_ on the other side. Another enemy was in like manner on board the _Téméraire_: so that these four ships formed as compact a tier as if they had been moored together, their heads lying all the same way. The lieutenants of the _Victory_, seeing this, depressed their guns of the middle and lower decks, and fired with a diminished charge, lest the shot should pass through, and injure the _Téméraire_. And because there was danger that the _Redoubtable_ might take fire from the lower-deck guns, the muzzles of which touched her side when they were run out, the fireman of each gun stood ready with a bucket of water, which, as soon as the gun was discharged, he dashed into the hole made by the shot. An incessant fire was kept up from the _Victory_ from both sides; her larboard guns playing upon the _Bucentaure_ and the huge _Santissima Trinidad_. It had been part of Nelson’s prayer that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing upon the _Redoubtable_, supposing that she had struck, because her great guns were silent; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder,--about a quarter after one, just in the heat of the action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his poor secretary’s blood. “They have done for me at last, Hardy!” said he.