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She was rammed, however, by the "Arapiles," and so badly injured as to compel her to make her escape into shoal water to prevent sinking. There she grounded, and the Spaniards leisurely made a target of her, although they considerately permitted her crew to go ashore in their boats without firing a shot at them.

The French had been already driven out of Arapiles, and were engaged in action with the 4th division; but the battle was to some extent retrieved, for Clausel's division had arrived from the forest and reinforced Maucune; and spread across the basin, joining hands with the divisions massed near the French Hermanito. Marmont had been carried off the field.

Many men and horses of the 5th Dragoon Guards were killed by the lightning; while hundreds of the picketed horses broke their ropes, and galloped wildly about. The position of the British army in the morning was very similar to that occupied by a portion of it, when besieging the forts of Salamanca; extending from the ford of Santa Marta to the heights near the village of Arapiles.

The position of France in the first months of 1813 was extremely critical, for in the south our armies in Spain had suffered some very serious reverses due to the weakening of their strength by the continual withdrawal of regiments, while the English ceaselessly sent reinforcements to Wellington, who had fought a brilliant campaign during 1812, and had captured Cuidad-Rodrigo, Badajoz and the fort of Salamanca, had won the battle of Arapiles, occupied Madrid and now threatened the Pyrenees.

"Oh," said he, "a marketer with a raw-boned Galician horse and two panniers of eggs for Arapiles " "That will do; but you must enter the village at the farther end and come down the road to the ford. Get your horse" we crept back to the granary together "but wait a moment, and I will show you the way round."

During the night she parted both cables, and the morning found her firmly imbedded in the beach off the Hook. Of the other vessels, the "Numancia" only was in sight. The signal men, however, could see black smoke on the horizon; and this they anxiously watched, expecting momentarily to make out the "Arapiles" and "Zaragoza."

At the same time, the other Chilian vessels ceased firing. The Spanish ensign on the "Arapiles" had been lowered. In a few minutes after it rose again, but this time surmounted by the Chilian flag. Then the four vessels stood in toward the Hook. The watchers on the signal station now waited in breathless suspense.

The new-comers were the "Huascar," the "Almirante Cochrane" and the "Blanco Encelada," the three armored vessels of the South American Republic. It was the "Huascar" which was now bearing down upon the "Arapiles." Suddenly, the Chilian monitor was seen to slacken her speed and change her course. She no longer meant to ram; the necessity had ceased.

In the midst of this furore, the bulletins announced that the Spanish ironclads "Zaragoza" and "Numancia" had sailed from Havana, with no destination announced; that their consorts, the "Arapiles" and "Vittoria," together with three transports, "San Quentin," "Patino," and "Ferrol," the latter well laden with coal and provisions, were preparing to follow; also, that the huge "El Cid" had been fitted for sea, and was about to sail from Vigo, Spain.

Suddenly, the whole ship seemed to burst into a sheet of flame, there was a deep explosion, the air was filled with flying fragments, and a blackened hull was all that was left of the proud man-of-war. The "Arapiles," about two miles further out to sea, was making a gallant defense against three strange vessels.