Great Sea Stories | Page 8

with much ado some
were dragged back, some leaped back--all but old Michael Heard.
With hair and beard floating in the wind, the bronzed naked figure, like some weird old
Indian fakir, still climbed on steadfastly up the mizzen-chains of the Spaniard, hatchet in
hand.
"Come back, Michael! Leap while you may!" shouted a dozen voices. Michael turned--
"And what should I come back for, then, to go home where no one knoweth me? I'll die
like an Englishman this day, or I'll know the reason why!" and turning, he sprang in over
the bulwarks, as the huge ship rolled up more and more, like a dying whale, exposing all
her long black hulk almost down to the keel, and one of her lower-deck guns as if in
defiance exploded upright into the air, hurling the ball to the very heavens.
In an instant it was answered from the Rose by a column of smoke, and the

eighteen-pound ball crashed through the bottom of the defenseless Spaniard.
"Who fired! Shame to fire on a sinking ship!"
"Gunner Yeo, sir," shouted a voice from the maindeck. "He's like a madman down here."
"Tell him if he fires again, I'll put him in irons, if he were my own brother. Cut away the
grapples aloft, men. Don't you see how she drags us over? Cut away, or we shall sink
with her."
They cut away, and the Rose, released from the strain, shook her feathers on the
wave-crest like a freed sea-gull, while all men held their breaths.
Suddenly the glorious creature righted herself, and rose again, as if in noble shame, for
one last struggle with her doom. Her bows were deep in the water, but her after-deck still
dry. Righted: but only for a moment, long enough to let her crew come pouring wildly up
on deck, with cries and prayers, and rush aft to the poop, where, under the flag of Spain,
stood the tall captain, his left hand on the standard-staff, his sword pointed in his right.
"Back men!" they heard him cry, "and die like valiant mariners."
Some of them ran to the bulwarks, and shouted "Mercy! We surrender!" and the English
broke into a cheer and called to them to run her alongside.
"Silence!" shouted Amyas. "I take no surrender from mutineers. Señor," cried he to the
captain, springing into the rigging and taking off his hat, "for the love of God and these
men, strike! and surrender á buena guerra."
The Spaniard lifted his hat and bowed courteously, and answered. "Impossible, Señor. No
guerra is good which stains my honor."
"God have mercy on you, then!"
"Amen!" said the Spaniard, crossing himself.
She gave one awful lunge forward, and dived under the coming swell, hurling her crew
into the eddies. Nothing but the point of her poop remained, and there stood the stern and
steadfast Don, cap-à-pié in his glistening black armor, immovable as a man of iron, while
over him the flag, which claimed the empire of both worlds, flaunted its gold aloft and
upwards in the glare of the tropic noon.
"He shall not carry that flag to the devil with him; I will have it yet, if I die for it!" said
Will Cary, and rushed to the side to leap overboard, but Amyas stopped him.
"Let him die as he lived, with honor."
A wild figure sprang out of the mass of sailors who struggled and shrieked amid the foam,
and rushed upward at the Spaniard. It was Michael Heard. The Don, who stood above

him, plunged his sword into the old man's body: but the hatchet gleamed, nevertheless:
down went the blade through the headpiece and through head; and as Heard sprang
onward, bleeding, but alive, the steel-clad corpse rattled down the deck into the surge.
Two more strokes, struck with the fury of a dying man, and the standard-staff was hewn
through. Old Michael collected all his strength, hurled the flag far from the sinking ship,
and then stood erect one moment and shouted, "God save Queen Bess!" and the English
answered with a "Hurrah!" which rent the welkin.
Another moment and the gulf had swallowed his victim, and the poop, and him; and
nothing remained of the Madre Dolorosa but a few floating spars and struggling wretches,
while a great awe fell upon all men, and a solemn silence, broken only by the cry
"Of some strong swimmer in his agony."
And then, suddenly collecting themselves, as men awakened from a dream, half-a-dozen
desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, leaped overboard, swam towards the
flag, and towed it alongside in triumph.
"Ah!" said Salvation Yeo, as he helped the trophy up over the side; "ah! it was not for
nothing that we found poor Michael! He was always a