True, we have still but some three-and-twenty ships which can cope at all with some ninety of the Spaniards: but we have dash, and daring, and the inspiration of utter need.Now, or never, must the mighty struggle be ended.We worried them off Portland; we must rend them in pieces now; and in rushes ship after ship, to smash her broadsides through and through the wooden castles, "sometimes not a pike's length asunder," and then out again to re-load, and give place meanwhile to another.The smaller are fighting with all sails set; the few larger, who, once in, are careless about coming out again, fight with top-sails loose, and their main and foreyards close down on deck, to prevent being boarded.The duke, Oquenda, and Recalde, having with much ado got clear of the shallows, bear the brunt of the fight to seaward; but in vain.The day goes against them more and more, as it runs on.Seymour and Winter have battered the great San Philip into a wreck; her masts are gone by the board; Pimentelli in the San Matthew comes up to take the mastiffs off the fainting bull, and finds them fasten on him instead; but the Evangelist, though smaller, is stouter than the Deacon, and of all the shot poured into him, not twenty "lackt him thorough." His masts are tottering; but sink or strike he will not.
"Go ahead, and pound his tough hide, Leigh," roars Drake off the poop of his ship, while he hammers away at one of the great galliasses."What right has he to keep us all waiting?"Amyas slips in as best he can between Drake and Winter; as he passes he shouts to his ancient enemy,--"We are with you, sir; all friends to-day!" and slipping round Winter's bows, he pours his broadside into those of the San Matthew, and then glides on to re-load; but not to return.For not a pistol shot to leeward, worried by three or four small craft, lies an immense galleon; and on her poop--can he believe his eyes for joy?--the maiden and the wheel which he has sought so long!
"There he is!" shouts Amyas, springing to the starboard side of the ship.The men, too, have already caught sight of that hated sign;a cheer of fury bursts from every throat.
"Steady, men!" says Amyas, in a suppressed voice."Not a shot!
Re-load, and be ready; I must speak with him first;" and silent as the grave, amid the infernal din, the Vengeance glides up to the Spaniard's quarter.
"Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto!" shouts Amyas from the mizzen rigging, loud and clear amid the roar.
He has not called in vain.Fearless and graceful as ever, the tall, mail-clad figure of his foe leaps up upon the poop-railing, twenty feet above Amyas's head, and shouts through his vizor,--"At your service, sir whosoever you may be."A dozen muskets and arrows are levelled at him; but Amyas frowns them down."No man strikes him but I.Spare him, if you kill every other soul on board.Don Guzman! I am Captain Sir Amyas Leigh; I proclaim you a traitor and a ravisher, and challenge you once more to single combat, when and where you will.""You are welcome to come on board me, sir," answers the Spaniard, in a clear, quiet tone; "bringing with you this answer, that you lie in your throat;" and lingering a moment out of bravado, to arrange his scarf, he steps slowly down again behind the bulwarks.
"Coward!" shouts Amyas at the top of his voice.
The Spaniard re-appears instantly."Why that name, senor, of all others?" asks he in a cool, stern voice.
"Because we call men cowards in England, who leave their wives to be burnt alive by priests."The moment the words had passed Amyas's lips, he felt that they were cruel and unjust.But it was too late to recall them.The Spaniard started, clutched his sword-hilt, and then hissed back through his closed vizor,--"For that word, sirrah, you hang at my yardarm, if Saint Mary gives me grace.""See that your halter be a silken one, then," laughed Amyas, "for Iam just dubbed knight." And he stepped down as a storm of bullets rang through the rigging round his head; the Spaniards are not as punctilious as he.
"Fire!" His ordnance crash through the stern-works of the Spaniard; and then he sails onward, while her balls go humming harmlessly through his rigging.
Half-an-hour has passed of wild noise and fury; three times has the Vengeance, as a dolphin might, sailed clean round and round the Sta.Catharina, pouring in broadside after broadside, till the guns are leaping to the deck-beams with their own heat, and the Spaniard's sides are slit and spotted in a hundred places.And yet, so high has been his fire in return, and so strong the deck defences of the Vengeance, that a few spars broken, and two or three men wounded by musketry, are all her loss.But still the Spaniard endures, magnificent as ever; it is the battle of the thresher and the whale; the end is certain, but the work is long.
"Can I help you, Captain Leigh?" asked Lord Henry Seymour, as he passes within oar's length of him, to attack a ship ahead."The San Matthew has had his dinner, and is gone on to Medina to ask for a digestive to it.""I thank your lordship: but this is my private quarrel, of which Ispoke.But if your lordship could lend me powder--""Would that I could! But so, I fear, says every other gentleman in the fleet."A puff of wind clears away the sulphurous veil for a moment; the sea is clear of ships towards the land; the Spanish fleet are moving again up Channel, Medina bringing up the rear; only some two miles to their right hand, the vast hull of the San Philip is drifting up the shore with the tide, and somewhat nearer the San Matthew is hard at work at her pumps.They can see the white stream of water pouring down her side.
"Go in, my lord, and have the pair," shouts Amyas.