CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
HOW THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA CAME INTO BRITISH WATERS.
We had scarce got our head round the South Foreland, when there met us agale of wind, such as boded ill enough for our quick voyage to Rochelle.June as it was, it was as cold as March, and along with the rain camesleet and hail, which tempted us to wonder if winter were not suddenlycome instead of summer.
I feared good man Petrie, the captain, would run for shelter into Doveror some English port where (who knows?) Ludar might be seen and taken.But instead of that he stood out stoutly for the French coast, and aftera week's battle with the waves put in, battered and leaking, at Dieppe.There we waited some two weeks, mending our cracks, and hoping for achange of weather. But the gale roared on, defying us to get our noseout of port, and sending in on us wrecks and castaways which promised usa hot welcome from the open channel.
But after about two weeks the wind slackened and shifted a point fromthe seaward. So, although the waves still ran high, we put out, andwith short sail laboured towards Cherbourg.
This storm suited Ludar's humour, and while all of us whistled for fairweather, his spirits rose as he turned his face to windward, and watchedthe good ship stagger through the waves. Of his own accord hevolunteered to help among the seamen, and ordered me to do the same.And the captain was very glad of the aid; for it was all the crew coulddo to keep the _Misericorde_ taut and straight in her course.
When we came off Cherbourg we resolved to lose no more time by puttingin; and finding our timbers sound and our canvas well in the wind, westood out for Ushant.
But Master Petrie repented, a day out, that he had been so hardy. Forthe nearer we struggled to the open ocean, the greater grew the seas,which presently broke across our bows with a force that made everytimber creak, and laid us over almost on our beam-ends. It was soonmore than we could do to carry any but a reefed foresail; and all daylong some of us were hard at work at the pumps.
How long we laboured thus I can hardly say. It must have been threeweeks or more before we breasted Ushant; and by that time the water wasgaining on us in the hold, and our victuals had fallen short. Whetherwe liked it or not, we must try to make Brest, and Heaven would need towork a miracle on our behalf if we were to do that.
Our captain, brave man as he was, lost courage when he found the watercoming higher in the hold, and saw the _Misericorde_ labour harder withevery new wave and ship more water each time than the last. As for themen, they gave up the labour at the pumps in despair, and took to whatliquor they could find to drown their terrors.
But Ludar alone never lost heart or head. He took charge of thedeserted helm, and bade the seamen cut away spars and throw over cargo.And they obeyed him, as they would their captain, and plucked up alittle spirit at sight of his courage.
"Humphrey," said he, on a night when, although the gale was slackeningfast, it was plain, even to him, the end of this voyage was near, "yourmaster will need to wait for his type. Come and stand by me here, forthere is nothing else to be done for the brave ship now. I would haveliked to save her for the sake of one who once stood at this very helm.But it seems to me we are near our last plunge."
"Perhaps," said I, "God has not done with us yet, and those who pray forus pray not in vain."
Here the _Misericorde_ reeled upwards on a huge wave. For a moment shehung quivering on the top, and then plunged into the trough.
I felt Ludar's hand on my arm, and caught sight of his face, steady andstern, with a flash in his eyes as he looked ahead. He was right. Itwas the _Misericorde's_ last plunge; for, instead of righting herself,she seemed entangled in the water, and, like one who writhes to getfree, heeled half over on her side. Then, before she could recover, upcame the next wave, towering high over our heads, and fell like amountain upon us.
The next thing I was aware of was that I was clinging to a spar in thewater, with a strong arm around me, and a voice in my ear:
"Hold on, hold on!"
Then, when I opened my eyes, I saw Ludar and some floating timbers, andnothing more.
But towards one of these timbers he was striking out desperately, whichproved to be a small boat, bottom uppermost, which had lain on the deck,and which having been wrenched from its cords, had floated free of thewreck. Between us we reached it, and, with much labour, turned it over.It had neither oars nor sail. Yet, as we clung to it, we could see itwas sound of bottom, and would at least hold the two of us.
How we got in, I know not; yet, I think, between two waves, Ludarsteadied it while I got in, and then between the next two, I hauled himin. At first, it seemed, in this cockleshell, we were little better offthan clinging to the spar, for every wave threatened to swamp it. Yetby God's mercy it carried us somehow.
Not a sign could we see of any of our late shipmates. Only once, abody, clutching at a board, even in death, crossed us. And when wereached out and hauled it to, it was one of the sailors, not drowned,but with his skull broken.
Presently, as I said, the waves grew less, and drifted us we knew notwhither, save that it was far from where we had gone down, with no landor sun in view, nothing but a howling waste of waves, and we two at itsmercy.
Ludar and I looked at one another grimly. It was no time for talking orwondering what next. For nearly two days we had not tasted food ormoistened our lips; and here we were, perhaps a week or a month fromland, in a bare boat on a hungry sea. Might we not as well have gonedown with the _Misericorde_?
The daylight went, and presently it was too dark even to see my comradeacross the little boat. The last I saw of him he had closed his eyes,and seemed to be composing himself for sleep. But I guessed it was thesleep, not of weariness, but of hunger. The night went on; andpresently I could hear him mutter in his sleep. He fancied himselfstill in the Tower with his warder, whom he charged with messages to meand the maiden. And sometimes he was in the presence of the ScotchQueen, and sometimes in Dunluce with his father. It was all a feveredjumble of talk, which made the night seem weird and horrible to me, andfull of dread for the day that was to come.
When it dawned, which it did early, the sea was tumbling wearily,shrouded in a thick mist, which chilled me where I sat, and blotted outeverything beyond a little space around the boat. Ludar by this timewas awake, but still wandering in his mind with hunger and fever; whileI, after my sleepless night, felt my eyelids grow heavy.
How long I slept I know not; but I know I dreamt I was at the foot ofthe great rock of Dunluce, and looking up could just spy a light on thebattlements, and hear a gun and the shout of battle on the top; whensuddenly I woke and found it was more than a dream.
High above my head in the mist there loomed a light, and from beyond itthere sounded the tolling of a bell, and, as I thought, a clash of arms.I looked across at Ludar, and saw him, too, looking up, but too weak tospeak or move. Then the light seemed to plunge downwards, towards us,showing us a huge black outline of a ship, within a few yards of wherewe drifted.
Instantly I sprang to my feet and shouted, and called to Ludar to do thesame. For a moment it seemed we were unheeded. The light swung oncemore upwards, and after it the great ship, carrying a swirl of waterwith it, and throwing off a whirlpool of little eddies, in which ourboat spun and shook like a leaf in a torrent. Again we shouted,frantically. And then it seemed the bell ceased tolling, and insteadthere came a call; after that something sharp struck me on the cheek,and flinging up my hand I caught a cord, and felt the boat's keel grindsharply against the side of the great ship.
What I next remember was standing bewildered on the deck, amidst a crowdof soldiers, many of whom wore bright steel armour, and who exercised onthe heaving planks well-nigh as steadily as on dry ground. The deck wasablaze with pennons and scutcheons. Somewhere near, the noise oftrumpets rose above the roar of the waves. The sun, as it struggledthrough the mist, flashed on the brass of guns, and the jewels of sword-hilts. The poop behind rose like a stately house, illumined with itsswinging lan
thorns. Now and again there flitted past me a long-robedpriest, to whom all bowed, and after him boys with swaying censers.There was a neighing of horses amidships, and a tolling of bells in theforecastle. The great bellying sails glittered with painted dragons andeagles and sun-bursts. And the men who lined the crosstrees and crowdedthe tops shouted and answered in a tongue that was new to me. Aboveall, higher than the helmsman's house or the standard on the poop, shoneout a gilded cross, which looked over all the ship.
Little wonder if, as I slowly looked round me and rubbed my eyes, I knewnot where I was.
But Ludar, standing near me, steadying himself with the cordage, calledme to myself.
"This must be a Spaniard," said he, faintly.
"A Spaniard!" gasped I, "an enemy to our Queen and--"
"Look yonder," said he, stopping me and pointing seaward, where the mistwas lifting apace.
There I could discern, as far as my eyes could reach, a great curvedline of vessels, many of them like that on which I stood; some largerand grander, some smaller and propelled by oars; all with flags flyingand signals waving, and their course pointed all one way.
Not even I, landsman as I was, could mistake what I saw. This could benaught else but the great fleet of the Spanish King, of whose coming wehad heard rumours for a year past, but in which I for one had not reallybelieved till thus suddenly I found myself standing on the deck of oneof its greatest galleons.
In the horror of the discovery, my first impulse was to fling myselfback into the waves from which I had been saved; my second was to seizemy sword and fly at the first man I saw, and so die for my country thenand there.
But, alas! I was too weak to do either. When I took a step it was tofall in a heap on the deck, faint with hunger, wrath, and shame.
When I came to, I lay in a dark cabin, and Ludar, scarcely less pallidthan I, sat beside me.
"Come on deck," said he, "this place is stifling. If the Dons mean tomake an end of us, they may as well do it at once."
So, bracing himself up to lend me an arm, he made for the deck.
A sentinel stood at the gangway, whom Ludar, brushing past, bade, inround English, give us food, and lead us to the captain.
The man stared in surprise, and muttered something in Spanish, which, asluck would have it, Ludar, mindful of his smattering of Spanish, learnedat Oxford, understood to mean we were to remain below.
Whereupon he pulled me forward, and defied the fellow to put us back.
We might possibly have been run through then and there, had not asoldier, who had overheard our parley, come up.
"Are you English?" said he, in our own tongue.
"My comrade is English, I am Irish," said Ludar, "and unless we havefood forthwith, we are not even that."
"I am an Irishman myself," said the soldier, who, by his trappings, wasan officer, "therefore come and have some food."
I know I felt then hard put to it, whether, despite my famine, I couldeat food in such a place and from such hands. But I persuaded myself,if I was to die so soon, I might as well meet death with a full stomachas an empty.
While we ate, the Irishman questioned. Ludar as to his name and thepart of Ireland he lived in. He himself was the son of a southernchief--one Desmond; and, after living some years in Spain, was nowattached to the enemy's forces. He was close enough as to the movementsof the fleet, and so soon as he had seen us fed, he bade us come withhim to the Don.
The deck was as crowded as Fleet Street, and, as we passed to the poop,very few of these gay Spaniards took the trouble to look after us, orwonder how we came there. Only, when Ludar, as we reached thecommander's door, suddenly took his sword and flung it out to sea, did afew of them stare. I followed my comrade's example. The sea had asmuch right to my weapon as a Spaniard, and I was thankful to see thatLudar, in this respect, was of the same mind with me.
In the cabin was a tall, elderly, slightly built man, clad in a fineblack steel breastplate, with a crested helmet on the table before him.He stood bending over a chart, which several of his officers were alsoexamining; and as he looked quickly up at our entry, I was surprised atthe fairness of his complexion and the grave mildness of his demeanour.
Our Irish guide briefly explained who we were and how we came on board.Don Alonzo--for that was his name--eyed us keenly; and addressing Ludar,said in a broken English:
"You are Irish. Your name?"
"Ludar McSorley McDonnell of Dunluce and the Glynns," said Ludar.
The commander said something to one of his officers, who presently laida map of Ireland on the table, and placed his finger on the spot whereDunluce was situated.
"Senor has no sword. Your calling?"
"My sword is in the sea. It belonged to my father, my mistress, andmyself," said Ludar, shortly.
The Spaniard inclined his head, with a faint smile.
"His Majesty is unfortunate not to be a fourth in so honourable acompany," said he.
Ludar looked confused, and his brow clouded. He was no match for anyman when it came to compliments.
"Sir," said he, "I am indebted to your watch for my life, and to hisMajesty, your King, for my dinner. I am sorry it is so, but I cannothelp it. If you command it, I am bound to make payment; and, since Ihave no money, you have a right to the service of my hands till we bequits."
Don Alonzo looked him from head to foot and smiled again.
"Sir Ludar is his Majesty's guest on this ship," said he, with a finemotion of the head. "Any service he may render I shall be honoured toaccept. I refer him to Captain Desmond, here, for furtherintelligence."
"And you, Senor," said he, addressing me with somewhat less ceremony,"you are English?"
"I thank Heaven, yea," said I, "a humble servant to her Majesty QueenElizabeth, and a foe to her enemies."
"And your estate?" demanded he, coldly ignoring my tone.
"I have no estate. I am a plain London 'prentice."
"We shall have the honour of restoring you to London shortly," said he."Meanwhile Sir Ludar shall not be deprived of the service of hissquire."
Then turning to his officers, he occupied himself again with the chart,and left Captain Desmond to conduct us from the cabin.
Neither Ludar nor I was much elated by this interview, but it relievedus, at least, of any immediate prospect of execution, and, unless theDon were jesting, consigned us to no very intolerable service on boardhis ship. From Captain Desmond, who was not a little impressed by thecommander's reception of Ludar, we learned rather more of the expeditionand its prospects than before.
"If all go well," said he, "we shall be in English waters to-morrow, anda week later should have dealt with the enemy's fleet and be landed atDover. This Don Alonzo, it is said, will be appointed governor ofLondon, till the King arrive. He is a prime favourite at the SpanishCourt, in proof whereof the _Rata_ carries a crew of the noblest youthof Spain, committed to his care for this great venture. They are hungryfor battle, but, alack! I fear we shall none of us get more than willwhet our appetite. As for you and me, McDonnell, this business is liketo settle scores between our houses and the vixen--"
"Stay, Captain Desmond," said Ludar, interposing suddenly betwixt me andthis blasphemer. "My comrade here is a servant of Elizabeth, and has nosword. As for me, my queen is dead--dead on the scaffold. I hate theEnglish Queen as you do; but, if I fight against her, it shall be in myown quarrel, and no man else's. Therefore appoint us a duty whereby wemay repay the Spanish King his hospitality, without fighting hisbattles."
The Irishman shrugged his shoulders.
"I understand not these subtleties," said he: "whom I hate I slay.However, as you will. This voyage will soon be over; but if you choose,while it lasts, to keep the forecastle deck clean, none shall interferewith you; and perchance, when we get into action, you may find it anhonourable and even a perilous post."
So we were installed in our ignoble office on board the _Rata_, andsince Captain Desmond's duties never brought him bef
ore the foremast,and since Don Alonzo, whenever he went his rounds, never looked at us,and since not a man on the forecastle comprehended a word of English, orcould speak a Spanish which Ludar was able to follow, we were leftpretty much to ourselves, except that the sentry kept a close eye on ourmovements.
All day long the soldiers paraded, the trumpets played, the pennonswaved, and the blazoned sails swelled with the favouring breeze, so thattowards afternoon Ushant was far behind, and every eye was strainedforward for the first glimpse of the English, shore. The other vesselsof the fleet, which had spread out somewhat in the mist, now graduallyclosed in at nearer distance, and passed signals which I could notunderstand. Some were so near we could hear their trumpets and bells,and see the glitter of the sun on the muzzles of their guns. Then aboutsundown, with great ceremony, a priest came forward, and recited what Itook to be a mass; and after him, at the sound of three bells, the wholecompany trooped to the middle deck, where at the main-mast the purserread aloud a long proclamation in Spanish, at the end of which huzzahswere given for the King, and the lanthorns lit for the night.
I confess I turned in to my berth that night uneasy in my mind. For Inever saw ships such as these; no, not even in the Medway. What couldour small craft do against these floating towers? and what sort of holecould our guns make in these four-foot walls? And when it came tograppling, what could our slender crews do against this army of pickedmen, who, even if half of them fell, would yet be a match for any forceour English ships could hold?
So I turned in with many forebodings, and all night long I could hearthe laugh and song of coming victory, mingled now and again with thefanfare of the trumpets, and the distant boom of the admiral's signal-gun.
Next morning, when we looked out, there was land in sight ahead.