a, and rises on a glassy sea again.
But what day is this? The twenty-fifth, St. James's-day, sacred to the
patron saint of Spain. Shall nothing be attempted in his honor by
those whose forefathers have so often seen him with their bodily eyes,
charging in their van upon his snow-white steed, and scattering Paynims
with celestial lance? He might have sent them, certainly, a favoring
breeze; perhaps, he only means to try their faith; at least the galleys
shall attack; and in their van three of the great galliasses (the fourth
lies half-crippled among the fleet) thrash the sea to foam with three
hundred oars apiece; and see, not St. James leading them to victory, but
Lord Howard's Triumph, his brother's Lion, Southwell's Elizabeth Jonas,
Lord Sheffield's Bear, Barker's Victory, and George Fenner's Leicester,
towed stoutly out, to meet them with such salvoes of chain-shot,
smashing oars, and cutting rigging, that had not the wind sprung up
again toward noon, and the Spanish fleet come up to rescue them, they
had shared the fate of Valdez and the Biscayan. And now the fight
becomes general. Frobisher beats down the Spanish admiral's mainmast;
and, attacked himself by Mexia and Recalde, is rescued by Lord Howard;
who, himself endangered in his turn, is rescued in his turn; "while
after that day" (so sickened were they of the English gunnery) "no
galliasse would adventure to fight."

And so, with variable fortune, the fight thunders on the livelong
afternoon, beneath the virgin cliffs of Freshwater; while myriad
sea-fowl rise screaming up from every ledge, and spot with their black
wings the snow-white wall of chalk; and the lone shepherd hurries down
the slopes above to peer over the dizzy edge, and forgets the wheatear
fluttering in his snare, while he gazes trembling upon glimpses of tall
masts and gorgeous flags, piercing at times the league-broad veil of
sulphur-smoke which welters far below.

So fares St. James's-day, as Baal's did on Carmel in old time, "Either
he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey; or peradventure
he sleepeth, and must be awaked." At least, the only fire by which he
has answered his votaries, has been that of English cannon: and the
Armada, "gathering itself into a roundel," will fight no more, but make
the best of its way to Calais, where perhaps the Guises' faction may
have a French force ready to assist them, and then to Dunkirk, to join
with Parma and the great flotilla of the Ne