Evening set in soon after Nelson had anchored. All through the night the battle raged fiercely and unintermittently, "illuminated by the incessant discharge of over two thousand cannon," and the flames which burst from the disabled ships of the French squadron. The sun had set upon as proud a fleet as ever set sail from the shores of France, and morning rose upon a strangely altered scene. Shattered and blackened hulks now only marked the position they had occupied but a few hours before. On one ship alone, the _Tonnant_, the tricolor was flying. When the _Theseus_ drew near to take her as prize, she hoisted a flag of truce, but kept her colors flying. "Your battle flag or none!" was the stern reply, as her enemy rounded to and prepared to board. Slowly and reluctantly, like an expiring hope, that pale flag fluttered down her lofty spars, and the next that floated there was the standard of Old England. "And now the battle was over--India was saved upon the shores of Egypt--the career of Napoleon was checked, and his navy was annihilated. Seven years later that navy was revived, to perish utterly at Trafalgar--a fitting hecatomb for the obsequies of Nelson, whose life seemed to terminate as his mission was then and thus accomplished." The glories of Trafalgar, immortalized by the death of Nelson, have no doubt obscured to some extent those of the Nile. The latter engagement has not, indeed, been enshrined in the memory of Englishmen by popular ballads--those instantaneous photographs, as they might be called, of the highest thoughts and strongest emotions inspired by patriotism--but hardly any great sea-fight of modern times has been more prolific in brilliant achievements of heroism and deeds of splendid devotion than the Battle of the Nile. The traditions of this terrible combat have not yet died out among the Egyptians and Arabs, whose forefathers had lined the shores of the bay on that memorable night, and watched with mingled terror and astonishment the destruction of that great armament. It was with some idea of the moral effect the landing of English troops on the shores of this historic bay would have on Arabi's soldiery, that Lord Wolseley contemplated disembarking there the English expeditionary force in August, 1882.