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 a-head. "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 I spoke. 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.
"No, sir! Forward is a Seymour's cry. We will leave them to pay the Flushingers' expenses." And on went Lord Henry, and, on shore went the San Philip at Ostend, to be plundered by the Flushingers; while the San Matthew, whose captain, "on a hault courage," had refused to save himself and his gentlemen on board Medina's ship, went blundering miserably into the hungry mouths of Captain Peter Vanderduess and four other valiant Dutchmen, who, like prudent men of Holland, contrived to keep the galleon afloat till they had emptied her, and then "hung up her banner in the great church of Leyden, being of such a length, that being fastened to the roof, it reached unto the very ground."
But in the meanwhile, long ere the sun had set, comes down the darkness of the thunder-storm, attracted, as to a volcano's mouth, to that vast mass of sulphur-smoke which cloaks the sea for many a mile; and heaven's artillery above makes answer to man's below. But still, through smoke and rain, Amyas clings to his prey. She too has seen the northward movement of the Spanish fleet, and sets her topsails; Amyas calls to the men to fire high, and cripple her rigging: but in vain: for three or four belated galleys, having forced their way at last over the shallows, come flashing and sputtering up to the combatants, and take his fire off the galleon. Amyas grinds his teeth, and would fain hustle into the thick of the press once more, in spite of the galley's beaks.
"Most heroical captain," says Cary, pulling a long face; "if we do, we are stove and sunk in five minutes; not to mention that Yeo says he has not twenty rounds of great cartridge left."
So, surely and silent, the Vengeance sheers off, but keeps as near
