CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
HOW THE DONS SAILED UP CHANNEL.
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 usfreshened, there appeared a grey line through the mist, and above that agleam of green.
The sight was hailed by the gay young Spaniards who crowded the deckwith a mighty shout and a defiant blare of the trumpets. And, ere thenoise died away, we caught a faint answering echo from the vesselsnearest us. Then, acting on some arranged signal, the whole fleetseemed to gather itself together, and closing into a great crescent, atabout cable distance, advanced with sails full of wind--a majesticsight, and, to me, who gazed with dismay from end to end of themagnificent line, fraught with doom to my poor country.
The _Rata_ held a post near to the left of the line, and was thus aleague, or thereabouts, nearer to the coast than the ships of the otherflank. Already out of the mist the black headlands were rising grim andfrowning to front us; and already, betwixt us and them, a keen eye mightdetect the gleam of the afternoon sun on a little white sail here andthere. But except for a fishing-boat or two which cruised along ourline, taking a good eyeful of us, and then darting ahead before thegalliasses could give chase, we saw no sign of the Queen's shipsanywhere.
Towards dusk we opened a great break in the coast, which we knewpresently to be Plymouth Sound. The Dons, as they stood fully armed onthe decks and gangways, laughed at the sight, and all eyes turned to theDuke-Admiral's vessel ahead, to see if he would sail straight in on theunprotected Sound, and so take possession of the coveted land beforesupper that night. It looked at first as if this were his purpose, whensuddenly 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 ofthe Don, too."
My heart leapt up at the words. For till now I had supposed our poorfellows cooped up by the wind in Plymouth Water, unable to get out andwaiting like sheep for the slaughter. I was tempted to cheer in theSpaniard's face, when I saw them thus clear, on the right side of thewind, and ready to show fight for their Queen and country.
The sails were seen by other eyes than ours; and presently up flung alight from the Duke's ship; and with that we hove to, and dropped anchorwhere we lay for the night.
Great was the discontent of the grandees on the _Rata_ to be thus putabout by the sight of a parcel of herring-boats--as they chose to callthem. But it came as a little comfort to them when a message went roundfor the men to be under arms and ready for battle at daybreak. And witha proud laugh they went off to their quarters for the night. As forLudar 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 theseDons."
"I thank God to hear that," said I.
"And if it come to a fight," said he, "I had as soon see your piratesyonder sweep the sea as these milords. They did little enough for myQueen 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 tohurry 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 afteranother and spread the news of our coming far and wide. Presently, too,the moon came up, and by its light looking westward we could discernsails to windward, which fluttered nearer and nearer, till it seemed ashot from one of our pieces could reach them. The news brought many ofthe _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-bornsalts.
But at daybreak, when we looked out, there hovered some threescore ormore English craft, drawn up in an irregular line from south to north,looking at us. Foremost sailed their great flagship called the _ArkRaleigh_, so near that I could plainly discern the royal cross of SaintGeorge at the poop. Compared with the mighty _Rata_ she was a smallcraft, yet, beside the light, low ships that followed her, she toweredaloft like a castle, and looked the only ship of all that fleet couldstand a quarter of an hour of our ordnance.
While we looked, there came a dull boom from the Spaniard who laynearest her. We could see the shot, pitched high, plough up the watersome twenty yards short. And then--as I thought, rather foolishly--wesat glaring across at one another in the still air, waiting for abreeze.
It came at last, freshly from westward.
We could see the English catch it, and come along with it before ever itfilled out our great sails. Nay, when it did reach us, there was notenough 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 ofour line (which lay as near as possible west and east, looking intoPlymouth), 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 everyonelooked to see her sheer off out of reach, she gaily wore round and cameback the way she had gone, giving each Spaniard her other broadside onthe road, her consorts behind following suit.
I think I never saw any men so taken aback as were the Spaniards by thisperformance. For the _Rata_ and the rest of them lay almost helpless inthe light wind, while these light-timbered Englishmen darted hither andthither 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 theline before any attempt was made to close with her and stop her. Butshe waited on no man, and even when one great galleon, with a mightyeffort, swung round to face her, she swerved not a fathom out of hercourse, but let off two broadsides instead of one to help the presumingDon back again into his post.
Loud and bitter was the wrath among the noble youths on the _Rata_, asthey saw the Invincible Armada of Spain thus flouted by a handful ofEnglishmen. Bitterer still was the rage of the sailors, when, by nomanner of luffing and trimming of sail, could they stand out to chastisethese impudent cruisers. But when, after (as I have said), careeringdown the line, the English admiral put about and came back, the windfreshened and lent some little life to our great hulls, one or two gotround far enough to let fly with their culverins and great pieces. Buttheir shot, if it reached the Englishman at all, whizzed over his headand never stopped his course.
Don Alonzo, however, having rather better wind than his unluckycomrades, decided on a bolder stroke to punish the enemy. Ludar and I,as we stood and watched, could see the troops paraded on deck, andgrappling irons and chains laid in readiness. The small arms wereloaded, 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 formany a day the care had vanished from his face, and left there a glow ofsheer 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 atevery galleon she passed, Don Alonzo, dropping clear of the line, puthis 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 putout 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 boardthe _Rata_. The noble youths shook their lovelocks and gripped theirswords. The gunners lay with their eyes on the captain, waiting hissignal to fire; and the men on the tops and in the rigging got readytheir grappling tackle, and held their cutlasses betwixt their teeth,ready for a spring.
Ludar and I on the fo
recastle 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 theSpaniard, she seemed bent on close quarters, and was saving up for ahand-to-hand fight.
So, at least, we and all who watched them thought: when suddenly, scarcea cable's length away, she put about full in the wind, and letting flyat us with every shot in her broadside, slipped gaily under our helm, onher way to regain the course she had left, and finish her career downthe line of the Dons. Don Alonzo was so taken by surprise, and unreadyfor 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 verymoment when the English shot rang about his stern, riddling his sails,and knocking the gilded cross in shivers by the board. Nor did theygive us shot only, for a cloud of cloth-yard arrows whistled through therigging, picking off a dozen or so of the men perched there, and grazingthe polished breastplates of not a few of the bewildered grandees on thequarter-deck.
Never shall I forget the howl of Spanish curses which greeted thismisadventure. The grandees swore at the sailors, and bade them putabout and give chase; the sailors swore at the grandees, and bade themcome and try to turn the ship quicker than they, if they knew how. Thegunners blamed the captain for holding them back, and the captain blamedmen and crew alike for behaving like spoiled children, and forgettingtheir honour and dignity. As for Ludar, he was so tickled by the wholebusiness that he laughed outright, and I had much ado to sober him inthe presence of the angry foreigners.
But presently a message came for hands to go aft and look to the damagedone to the stern; and we, partly from curiosity, partly from duty, wentwith them.
'Twas sad to see how the stately poop was battered about. Windows wereknocked in, flags tumbled, guns unmounted, and, as I said, the greatcross shot in pieces; while all around lay bodies of men dead orwounded. I think what troubled the Dons almost as much as the bettersailing of the English was to find that these thick wooden walls oftheirs were no proof against the enemy's shot, which crashed through thestout timbers, sometimes letting daylight in, and here and there leavingus plenty of work to do to make them good against the inroad of thewater.
By the time the _Rata_ had put back into line, the _Ark_ and herconsorts had ended their merry jaunt by tumbling over the mizzen-mast ofthe Vice-Admiral's ship. And the other English ships having by thistime come up, showing their teeth, the Duke sent up a signal to givePlymouth the go-by and sail up Channel. Which was done in a verychapfallen manner; and the great Armada, huddled together, and standingnot on the order of its going, turned its heads into the wind, andstruggled eastward, the _Rata_ being near the rear of the procession.
The Englishmen hung doggedly on our heels; now and then coming up withinshot, and then, having let off their broadsides, dropping away before wecould put round to engage them. Never once did they come to closequarters, much as the Spaniard longed for it; and never once did theygive him time to try conclusions on equal terms.
The rest of that day Ludar and I were so busy at our carpenters' workabaft that we had no clear view of what passed. We heard dropping shotnow and then, and now and again a bolt thundered on to our own hull andburied 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 Spaniardsthemselves. What it all meant we could only guess. For the night cameon us roughly, and, as darkness closed, it was all our helmsman coulddo, 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 wereordered over the stern in baskets to patch up the holes made by theEnglish shot, and repair the insulted gilding of his Majesty of Spain.No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping withlanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging with the waves, and everynow and then hearing the boom of a gun behind, which made us wince andwonder whose head was wanted next. Once I thought it was mine; for agreat crashing shot came past me out of the darkness, spinning my basketround like a top, and lodging fair in the hole I was mending. Scarcehad I time to thank God for my escape, when the man next me uttered acry and flung up his arms; and there he hung a moment, pinned to thestern by a cloth-yard arrow which pierced his back, before he tumbledover, a dead man, into the sea. One after another of our comradesdropped, 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 bealmost quits with the King of Spain by now."
"Ay indeed," said I, "and I think further that they who dream of us faraway need not despair. For assuredly Heaven wants something more of usbefore we go under; else we had not been standing here."
But whatever Heaven wanted of us, the ship's master angrily ordered usoff to the forecastle, to look to the tackle of the bowsprit. This, butfor the plunging of the vessel, was safe work compared with our labouron the poop; for here we were clear of the enemy's shot. But Ludar andI were clumsy with the tackle, not being seamen born; and on thataccount a trouble arose. For the fellow who overlooked our work chosenot only to swear at us by all the saints in the Spaniards' calendar (towhich he was welcome), but he pulled out a whip from under his coat andgave 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 theother, gave him such a lashing, as the wretch, may be, wished he couldgive to any man himself; and when he had done that, he threw the whipoverboard. 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 wallowingon the ground and pointing at Ludar and me, asked no questions, but seton us, with oaths and Spanish cries of "English curs!"
So we too had a pretty time of it, and, but that we got our backsagainst a bulk-head and had our splicing tackle in our hands, we mighthave seen no more of that great sea-battle. We fought for our lives forfive minutes or so, and then, so great became the uproar, that up camesome of the soldiers and an officer, who, seeing two men set upon bytwenty, ordered every man to stand.
The officer, as fortune would have it, was our old acquaintance CaptainDesmond, 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 onthe _Rata_ for treasonable purposes, and vowing, even, he had heard usplot 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 hisExcellency.
I could not help observing, as we marched abaft, the gloom which seemedto have fallen on the ship. Not that the gay young lordlings did notstill swagger and laugh; but it seemed to me their mirth was more hollowthan it had been, and, when now and again a sullen shot out of thedarkness behind whizzed through the rigging or rattled on the hull, theyground their teeth angrily and swore in their grand Spanish style at thefate that kept them beyond arms' length of the foe.
Don Alonzo stood on the quarter-deck, gazing earnestly in the directionof his admiral's lanthorns, and between whiles discussing some gravematter with the lieutenants.
We stood a long time before he had leisure to attend to us. Then hebeckoned 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 theforecastle.
Whereupon Ludar, his face still streaming with blood, saluted and said:
"Master Don, yonder is one of your lads," (pointing to the smartingSpaniard), "who has mistaken a guest of his Majesty your King for one ofhis own galley-slaves, and struck me. I have chastised him, as hedeserves, and thrown his whip overboard. If that be a crime in y
ourcountry, I pray you hang me at once; for I shall not promise not to dothe same thing again to-morrow if he touches me. As for my comradehere, he has done naught but help me defend myself from a score of yourbrave fellows who thought it not unworthy of their honour to set on ustwo."
"That I so offended," broke in I, rather foolishly, "is the fault of mybeing an Englishman, not a Spaniard, Sir Don."
Then the fellow whom Ludar had flogged suddenly found words and brokeout 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 pictureus as very fiends.
'Twas a fine sight, by the glare of the swinging lanthorns, to see DonAlonzo stand there, calm and grave, with the admirable curl of his lipsdeepening as the fellow raved himself out.
When the story was done, he turned shortly on him and said something inSpanish, which sent the wretch slinking off with his tail between hislegs--a pitiful object to behold, but for the scowl of hate he bestowedon Ludar and me in passing.
"As for you, Senor printer," said Don Alonzo, turning contemptuously tome, "you shall not make me believe all Englishmen are boors. I commendthe top of the main-mast to Senor as a spot of Spanish territory wherehe may learn better manners. Sir Ludar,"--and he turned to Ludar beforeI could say a word, his bearing changing to that of a gentleman whospeaks 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 deliverit?"
This sudden compliment--for it was nothing short--staggered Ludar for amoment, and he looked quickly up to see if the Don were not triflingwith 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 inthe main-tops, and I felt a little hurt that Ludar had put in never aword on my behalf. I remember reflecting, as I slowly scrambled to mypenance, how strange it was that for so small a difference of demeanourI 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 aboutgentlemen.
At the foot of the mast Ludar came up.
"I am sorry for you, Humphrey," said he. "Yet you are like to get abetter view of the fight than most. I shall see you soon again if thewaves 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 Iwere with you!"
"Humphrey, you were ever a fool," said he, gravely. "Expect me backsoon, 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 therunning of a cord and the splash of oars, and saw, on the pale waterbelow me, a black shadow glide out from the ship's side, and lose itselfin the darkness.