front, a company of
fifty to turn the right flank, and a company of fifty to turn the left
flank, with regulations, orders, passwords, countersigns, and what not;
so that if every man had had his rights (as seldom happens), Don Guzman
Maria Magdalena de Soto, who commanded the sortie, ought to have taken
the work out of hand, and annihilated all therein. But alas! here stern
fate interfered. They had chosen a dark night, as was politic; they had
waited till the moon was up, lest it should be too dark, as was politic
likewise: but, just as they had started, on came a heavy squall of rain,
through which seven moons would have given no light, and which washed
out the plans of Hercules of Pisa as if they had been written on a
schoolboy's slate. The company who were to turn the left flank walked
manfully down into the sea, and never found out where they were going
till they were knee-deep in water. The company who were to turn the
right flank, bewildered by the utter darkness, turned their own flank
so often, that tired of falling into rabbit-burrows and filling their
mouths with sand, they halted and prayed to all the saints for a compass
and lantern; while the centre body, who held straight on by a trackway
to within fifty yards of the battery, so miscalculated that short
distance, that while they thought the ditch two pikes' length off, they
fell into it one over the other, and of six scaling ladders, the only
one which could be found was the very one which Amyas threw down again.
After which the clouds broke, the wind shifted, and the moon shone out
merrily. And so was the deep policy of Hercules of Pisa, on which hung
the fate of Ireland and the Papacy, decided by a ten minutes' squall.

But where is Amyas?

In the ditch, aware that the enemy is tumbling into it, but unable to
find them; while the company above, finding it much too dark to attempt
a counter sortie, have opened a smart fire of musketry and arrows on
things in general, whereat the Spaniards are swearing like Spaniards (I
need say no more), and the Italians spitting like venomous cats; while
Amyas, not wishing to be riddled by friendly balls, has got his back
against the foot of the rampart, and waits on Providence.

Suddenly the moon clears; and with one more fierce volley, the English
sailors, seeing the confusion, leap down from the embrasures, and to it
pell-mell. Whether this also was "according to Cocker," I know not: but
the sailor, then as now, i