Great Sea Stories | Page 7

them loose!" roared Amyas. "Let them stay and see the fun! Now, dogs of
Devon, show your teeth, and hurrah for God and the Queen!"
And then began a fight most fierce and fell: the Spaniards, according to their fashion,
attempted to board: the English, amid fierce shouts of "God and the Queen!" "God and St.
George for England!" sweeping them back by showers of arrows and musquet balls,
thrusting them down with pikes, hurling grenades and stink-pots from the tops; while the
swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, and chain, and the great main-deck
guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, made both ships quiver and recoil, as they smashed
the round shot through and through each other.
So they roared and flashed, fast clenched to each other in that devil's wedlock, under a
cloud of smoke beneath the cloudless tropic sky; while all around, the dolphins gamboled,
and the flying-fish shot on from swell to swell, and the rainbow-hued jellies opened and
shut their cups of living crystal to the sun.
So it raged for an hour or more, till all arms were weary, and all tongues clove to the
mouth. And sick men, rotting with scurvy, scrambled up on deck, and fought with the
strength of madness: and tiny powder-boys, handing up cartridges from the hold, laughed
and cheered as the shots ran past their ears; and old Salvation Yeo, a text upon his lips,
and a fury in his heart as of Joshua or Elijah in old time, worked on, calm and grim, but
with the energy of a boy at play. And now and then an opening in the smoke showed the
Spanish captain, in his suit of black steel armor, standing cool and proud, guiding and
pointing, careless of the iron hail, but too lofty a gentleman to soil his glove with aught
but a knightly sword-hilt: while Amyas and Will, after the fashion of the English
gentlemen, had stripped themselves nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering,
thrusting, hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common mariner,
and filling them with a spirit of self-respect, fellow-feeling, and personal daring, which
the discipline of the Spaniards, more perfect mechanically, but cold and tyrannous, and
crushing spiritually, never could bestow. The black-plumed Señor was obeyed; but the
golden-locked Amyas was followed, and would have been followed through the jaws of
hell.

The Spaniards, ere five minutes had passed, poured en masse into the Rose's waist: but
only to their destruction. Between the poop and forecastle (as was then the fashion) the
upper-deck beams were left open and unplanked, with the exception of a narrow gangway
on either side; and off that fatal ledge the boarders, thrust on by those behind, fell
headlong between the beams to the main-deck below, to be slaughtered helpless in that
pit of destruction, by the double fire from the bulkheads fore and aft; while the few who
kept their footing on the gangway, after vain attempts to force the stockades on poop and
forecastle, leaped overboard again amid a shower of shot and arrows. The fire of the
English was as steady as it was quick.
Thrice the Spaniards clambered on board, and thrice surged back before that deadly hail.
The decks on both sides were very shambles; and Jack Brimblecombe, who had fought as
long as his conscience would allow him, found, when he turned to a more clerical
occupation, enough to do in carrying poor wretches to the surgeon, without giving that
spiritual consolation which he longed to give, and they to receive. At last there was a lull
in that wild storm. No shot was heard from the Spaniard's upper-deck.
Amyas leaped into the mizzen rigging and looked through the smoke. Dead men he could
descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying; but no
man upon his feet. The last volley had swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped
below to escape that fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with rage, his
mustachios curling up to his very eyes, stood the Spanish captain.
Now was the moment for a counter stroke. Amyas shouted for the boarders, and in two
minutes more he was over the side, and clutching at the Spaniard's mizzen rigging.
What was this? The distance between him and the enemy's side was widening. Was she
sheering off? Yes--and rising, too, growing bodily higher every moment, as if by magic.
Amyas looked up in astonishment and saw what it was. The Spaniard was heeling fast
over to leeward away from him. Her masts were all sloping forward, swifter and
swifter--the end was come, then!
"Back! in God's name back, men! She is sinking by the head!" And