For a long while we could discern only a blue haze on the horizon.
Then, towards noon, when the sun stood higher, and the wind behind us
freshened, there appeared a grey line through the mist, and above that a
gleam of green.
The sight was hailed by the gay young Spaniards who crowded the deck
with a mighty shout and a defiant blare of the trumpets. And, ere the
noise died away, we caught a faint answering echo from the vessels
nearest us. Then, acting on some arranged signal, the whole fleet
seemed to gather itself together, and closing into a great crescent, at
about cable distance, advanced with sails full of wind--a majestic
sight, and, to me, who gazed with dismay from end to end of the
magnificent line, fraught with doom to my poor country.
The _Rata_ held a post near to the left of the line, and was thus a
league, or thereabouts, nearer to the coast than the ships of the other
flank. Already out of the mist the black headlands were rising grim and
frowning to front us; and already, betwixt us and them, a keen eye might
detect the gleam of the afternoon sun on a little white sail here and
there. But except for a fishing-boat or two which cruised along our
line, taking a good eyeful of us, and then darting ahead before the
galliasses could give chase, we saw no sign of the Queen's ships
anywhere.
Towards dusk we opened a great break in the coast, which we knew
presently to be Plymouth Sound. The Dons, as they stood fully armed on
the decks and gangways, laughed at the sight, and all eyes turned to the
Duke-Admiral's vessel ahead, to see if he would sail straight in on the
unprotected Sound, and so take possession of the coveted land before
supper that night. It looked at first as if this were his purpose, when
suddenly there was a stir among the onlookers, and Ludar, taking my arm,
pointed down the coast to our rear, where, from behind a high headland,
peeped out a small cluster of sails.
"There are your ships," said he, "lying in wait, and with the wind of
the Don, too."
My heart leapt up at the words. For till now I had supposed our poor
fellows cooped up by the wind in Plymouth Water, unable to get out and
waiting like sheep for the slaughter. I was tempted to cheer in the
Spaniard's face, when I saw them thus clear, on the right side of the
wind, and ready to show fight for their Queen and country.
The sails were seen by other eyes than ours; and presently up flung a
light from the Duke's ship; and with that we hove to, and dropped anchor
where we lay for the night.
Great was the discontent of the grandees on the _Rata_ to be thus put
about by the sight of a parcel of herring-boats--as they chose to call
them. But it came as a little comfort to them when a message went round
for the men to be under arms and ready for battle at daybreak. And with
a proud laugh they went off to their quarters for the night. As for
Ludar and me, we sat on the forecastle with our eyes straining westward,
and full of a strange excitement.
"Humphrey," said Ludar, "if it be any comfort to you, I like not these
Dons."
"I thank God to hear that," said I.
"And if it come to a fight," said he, "I had as soon see your pirates
yonder sweep the sea as these milords. They did little enough for my
Queen while she lived, and they cannot bring her back now she is dead."
"Think you we shall come to blows in the morning?" asked I, anxious to
hurry off the sore subject.
"'Tis said so," replied he. "It would not surprise me if yonder sea-
dogs did not wait till then."
After that we sat and watched the beacon-fires ashore blaze up one after
another and spread the news of our coming far and wide. Presently, too,
the moon came up, and by its light looking westward we could discern
sails to windward, which fluttered nearer and nearer, till it seemed a
shot from one of our pieces could reach them. The news brought many of
the _Rata's_ men on deck, some of whom doubted what to make of it all,
and others cursed the impudence of this English Drake and his low-born
salts.
But at daybreak, when we looked out, there hovered some threescore or
more English craft, drawn up in an irregular line from south to north,
looking at us. Foremost sailed their great flagship called the _Ark
Raleigh_, so near that I could plainly discern the royal cross of Saint
George at the poop. Compared with the mighty _Rata_ she was a small
craft, yet, beside the light, low ships that followed her, she towered
aloft like a castle, and looked the only ship of all that fleet could
stand a quarter of an hour of our ordnance.
While we looked, there came a dull boom from the Spaniard who lay
nearest her. We could see the shot, pitched high, plough up the water
some twenty yards short. And then--as I thought, rather foolishly--we
sat glaring across at one another in the still air, waiting for a
breeze.
It came at last, freshly from westward.
We could see the English catch it, and come along with it before ever it
filled out our great sails. Nay, when it did reach us, there was not
enough to give us way. I marvelled to see how like a log the _Rata_
lay, while the lively Englishmen slipped through the water.
Then followed the strangest beginning to this great sea-fight.
For the _Ark_ and one or two others, having run in towards the end of
our line (which lay as near as possible west and east, looking into
Plymouth), suddenly put into the wind and ran jauntily down our rear,
putting a broadside into each of the Dons as she went by, us included.
Nor was that all. When she reached the end of the line, and everyone
looked to see her sheer off out of reach, she gaily wore round and came
back the way she had gone, giving each Spaniard her other broadside on
the road, her consorts behind following suit.
I think I never saw any men so taken aback as were the Spaniards by this
performance. For the _Rata_ and the rest of them lay almost helpless in
the light wind, while these light-timbered Englishmen darted hither and
thither at pleasure, almost as fast in the eye of the wind as down it.
The surprise at first was so great that the _Ark_ was half-way down the
line before any attempt was made to close with her and stop her. But
she waited on no man, and even when one great galleon, with a mighty
effort, swung round to face her, she swerved not a fathom out of her
course, but let off two broadsides instead of one to help the presuming
Don back again into his post.
Loud and bitter was the wrath among the noble youths on the _Rata_, as
they saw the Invincible Armada of Spain thus flouted by a handful of
Englishmen. Bitterer still was the rage of the sailors, when, by no
manner of luffing and trimming of sail, could they stand out to chastise
these impudent cruisers. But when, after (as I have said), careering
down the line, the English admiral put about and came back, the wind
freshened and lent some little life to our great hulls, one or two got
round far enough to let fly with their culverins and great pieces. But
their shot, if it reached the Englishman at all, whizzed over his head
and never stopped his course.
Don Alonzo, however, having rather better wind than his unlucky
comrades, decided on a bolder stroke to punish the enemy. Ludar and I,
as we stood and watched, could see the troops paraded on deck, and
grappling irons and chains laid in readiness. The small arms were
loaded, and every man stood with his naked knife in his belt.
"He means to come to close quarters and board her," said I.
Ludar laughed. His sportsman's blood was up; and for the first time for
many a day the care had vanished from his face, and left there a glow of
sheer enjoyment.
"A cow might as well try to board a cat," said he.
And he was right. For as the _Ark_ bore down our way, blazing out at
every galleon she passed, Don Alonzo, dropping clear of the line, put
his nose in her course, and, so to say, bade her stand and answer him.
Then, for the first time that day, the _Ark_ swerved on her tack and put
out her nose too, so that presently we two lay well astern of the line,
closing in on one another's course. Then there was great joy on board
the _Rata_. The noble youths shook their lovelocks and gripped their
swords. The gunners lay with their eyes on the captain, waiting his
signal to fire; and the men on the tops and in the rigging got ready
their grappling tackle, and held their cutlasses betwixt their teeth,
ready for a spring.
Ludar and I on the forecastle watched the _Ark_, as, half in the wind,
she bore down our way. Her decks, like ours, were cleared for action,
and above the gunwales we could spy many a bare head peeping over at us.
I marvelled that she had not long since given us a shot; but, like the
Spaniard, she seemed bent on close quarters, and was saving up for a
hand-to-hand fight.
So, at least, we and all who watched them thought: when suddenly, scarce
a cable's length away, she put about full in the wind, and letting fly
at us with every shot in her broadside, slipped gaily under our helm, on
her way to regain the course she had left, and finish her career down
the line of the Dons. Don Alonzo was so taken by surprise, and unready
for this sudden move, that he had not a word to say. His broadside,
when it went off, fell wide of the mark in the open sea, at the very
moment when the English shot rang about his stern, riddling his sails,
and knocking the gilded cross in shivers by the board. Nor did they
give us shot only, for a cloud of cloth-yard arrows whistled through the
rigging, picking off a dozen or so of the men perched there, and grazing
the polished breastplates of not a few of the bewildered grandees on the
quarter-deck.
Never shall I forget the howl of Spanish curses which greeted this
misadventure. The grandees swore at the sailors, and bade them put
about and give chase; the sailors swore at the grandees, and bade them
come and try to turn the ship quicker than they, if they knew how. The
gunners blamed the captain for holding them back, and the captain blamed
men and crew alike for behaving like spoiled children, and forgetting
their honour and dignity. As for Ludar, he was so tickled by the whole
business that he laughed outright, and I had much ado to sober him in
the presence of the angry foreigners.
But presently a message came for hands to go aft and look to the damage
done to the stern; and we, partly from curiosity, partly from duty, went
with them.
'Twas sad to see how the stately poop was battered about. Windows were
knocked in, flags tumbled, guns unmounted, and, as I said, the great
cross shot in pieces; while all around lay bodies of men dead or
wounded. I think what troubled the Dons almost as much as the better
sailing of the English was to find that these thick wooden walls of
theirs were no proof against the enemy's shot, which crashed through the
stout timbers, sometimes letting daylight in, and here and there leaving
us plenty of work to do to make them good against the inroad of the
water.
By the time the _Rata_ had put back into line, the _Ark_ and her
consorts had ended their merry jaunt by tumbling over the mizzen-mast of
the Vice-Admiral's ship. And the other English ships having by this
time come up, showing their teeth, the Duke sent up a signal to give
Plymouth the go-by and sail up Channel. Which was done in a very
chapfallen manner; and the great Armada, huddled together, and standing
not on the order of its going, turned its heads into the wind, and
struggled eastward, the _Rata_ being near the rear of the procession.
The Englishmen hung doggedly on our heels; now and then coming up within
shot, and then, having let off their broadsides, dropping away before we
could put round to engage them. Never once did they come to close
quarters, much as the Spaniard longed for it; and never once did they
give him time to try conclusions on equal terms.
The rest of that day Ludar and I were so busy at our carpenters' work
abaft that we had no clear view of what passed. We heard dropping shot
now and then, and now and again a bolt thundered on to our own hull and
buried itself deep in our timbers; while, once, a terrible blaze ahead,
followed by a rumbling which set the _Rata_ shivering in all her planks,
told us of disaster and explosion somewhere near among the Spaniards
themselves. What it all meant we could only guess. For the night came
on us roughly, and, as darkness closed, it was all our helmsman could
do, with a sharp look-out, to give his fellow ships a wide berth,
without going out of his course to look after them.
As soon as ever it was dark, Ludar and I and some dozen others were
ordered over the stern in baskets to patch up the holes made by the
English shot, and repair the insulted gilding of his Majesty of Spain.
No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping with
lanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging with the waves, and every
now and then hearing the boom of a gun behind, which made us wince and
wonder whose head was wanted next. Once I thought it was mine; for a
great crashing shot came past me out of the darkness, spinning my basket
round like a top, and lodging fair in the hole I was mending. Scarce
had I time to thank God for my escape, when the man next me uttered a
cry and flung up his arms; and there he hung a moment, pinned to the
stern by a cloth-yard arrow which pierced his back, before he tumbled
over, a dead man, into the sea. One after another of our comrades
dropped, till at last it seemed to me Ludar and I alone were left.
"Humphrey," he said, when at last we stood on deck, "I reckon we be
almost quits with the King of Spain by now."
"Ay indeed," said I, "and I think further that they who dream of us far
away need not despair. For assuredly Heaven wants something more of us
before we go under; else we had not been standing here."
But whatever Heaven wanted of us, the ship's master angrily ordered us
off to the forecastle, to look to the tackle of the bowsprit. This, but
for the plunging of the vessel, was safe work compared with our labour
on the poop; for here we were clear of the enemy's shot. But Ludar and
I were clumsy with the tackle, not being seamen born; and on that
account a trouble arose. For the fellow who overlooked our work chose
not only to swear at us by all the saints in the Spaniards' calendar (to
which he was welcome), but he pulled out a whip from under his coat and
gave Ludar a crack with it, which laid open his cheek-bone, and well-
nigh sent him backwards by the board.
Whereupon Ludar, seizing the whip with one hand and the fellow with the
other, gave him such a lashing, as the wretch, may be, wished he could
give to any man himself; and when he had done that, he threw the whip
overboard. But the fellow's howls and yells (for he had a great voice),
soon brought a parcel of his mates around him, who, seeing him wallowing
on the ground and pointing at Ludar and me, asked no questions, but set
on us, with oaths and Spanish cries of "English curs!"
So we too had a pretty time of it, and, but that we got our backs
against a bulk-head and had our splicing tackle in our hands, we might
have seen no more of that great sea-battle. We fought for our lives for
five minutes or so, and then, so great became the uproar, that up came
some of the soldiers and an officer, who, seeing two men set upon by
twenty, ordered every man to stand.
The officer, as fortune would have it, was our old acquaintance Captain
Desmond, who demanded what the noise was all about.
Whereupon the fellow whom Ludar had flogged hobbled up in a white heat,
and proclaimed his wrongs to heaven and earth, accusing us of being on
the _Rata_ for treasonable purposes, and vowing, even, he had heard us
plot to get at the powder and blow up the ship.
Before we could say a word up came a messenger from the Don himself,
who, on hearing the story, ordered us to accompany him forthwith to his
Excellency.
I could not help observing, as we marched abaft, the gloom which seemed
to have fallen on the ship. Not that the gay young lordlings did not
still swagger and laugh; but it seemed to me their mirth was more hollow
than it had been, and, when now and again a sullen shot out of the
darkness behind whizzed through the rigging or rattled on the hull, they
ground their teeth angrily and swore in their grand Spanish style at the
fate that kept them beyond arms' length of the foe.
Don Alonzo stood on the quarter-deck, gazing earnestly in the direction
of his admiral's lanthorns, and between whiles discussing some grave
matter with the lieutenants.
We stood a long time before he had leisure to attend to us. Then he
beckoned to the officer to bring us forward. When he saw who we were,
he knitted his brows and demanded to know the cause of the uproar in the
forecastle.
Whereupon Ludar, his face still streaming with blood, saluted and said:
"Master Don, yonder is one of your lads," (pointing to the smarting
Spaniard), "who has mistaken a guest of his Majesty your King for one of
his own galley-slaves, and struck me. I have chastised him, as he
deserves, and thrown his whip overboard. If that be a crime in your
country, I pray you hang me at once; for I shall not promise not to do
the same thing again to-morrow if he touches me. As for my comrade
here, he has done naught but help me defend myself from a score of your
brave fellows who thought it not unworthy of their honour to set on us
two."
"That I so offended," broke in I, rather foolishly, "is the fault of my
being an Englishman, not a Spaniard, Sir Don."
Then the fellow whom Ludar had flogged suddenly found words and broke
out in a torrent of rage with his accusations, which grew as he went on,
and bade fair--had he but had breath to make an end of them--to picture
us as very fiends.
'Twas a fine sight, by the glare of the swinging lanthorns, to see Don
Alonzo stand there, calm and grave, with the admirable curl of his lips
deepening as the fellow raved himself out.
When the story was done, he turned shortly on him and said something in
Spanish, which sent the wretch slinking off with his tail between his
legs--a pitiful object to behold, but for the scowl of hate he bestowed
on Ludar and me in passing.
"As for you, Senor printer," said Don Alonzo, turning contemptuously to
me, "you shall not make me believe all Englishmen are boors. I commend
the top of the main-mast to Senor as a spot of Spanish territory where
he may learn better manners. Sir Ludar,"--and he turned to Ludar before
I could say a word, his bearing changing to that of a gentleman who
speaks to a gentleman--"I desire a letter of import to reach the Duke-
Admiral by an honourable hand. Will you take the cock-boat and deliver
it?"
This sudden compliment--for it was nothing short--staggered Ludar for a
moment, and he looked quickly up to see if the Don were not trifling
with him. But Don Alonzo was grave and serious.
So Ludar said, shortly:
"I will;" and the interview ended.
It went sorely against my stomach then to have to mount to my perch in
the main-tops, and I felt a little hurt that Ludar had put in never a
word on my behalf. I remember reflecting, as I slowly scrambled to my
penance, how strange it was that for so small a difference of demeanour
I should be sent aloft, while Ludar was appointed to a task of honour.
But I understood not Spaniards--thank Heaven!--nor did I know much about
gentlemen.
At the foot of the mast Ludar came up.
"I am sorry for you, Humphrey," said he. "Yet you are like to get a
better view of the fight than most. I shall see you soon again if the
waves are kind to me, and the Englishman's shot falls wide."
"Think you not, he means you to escape and get clear?" said I. "Would I
were with you!"
"Humphrey, you were ever a fool," said he, gravely. "Expect me back
soon, and if I come not, 'twill not be my fault or yours. Get aloft,
comrade, and keep a good look-out."
So I went up very sadly. And presently from my high perch I heard the
running of a cord and the splash of oars, and saw, on the pale water
below me, a black shadow glide out from the ship's side, and lose itself
in the darkness.