trying than this, sir: but Heaven's will be done!"

And as they spoke, the sun plunged into the sea, and all was dark.

At last it was agreed to anchor, and wait till midnight. If the ships
of war came out, they were to try to run in past them, and, desperate
as the attempt might be, attempt their original plan of landing to the
westward of the town, taking it in flank, plundering the government
storehouses, which they saw close to the landing-place, and then
fighting their way back to their boats, and out of the roadstead. Two
hours would suffice if the armada and the galleys were but once out of
the way.

Amyas went forward, called the men together, and told them the plan. It
was not very cheerfully received: but what else was there to be done!

They ran down about a mile and a half to the westward, and anchored.

The night wore on, and there was no sign of stir among the shipping;
for though they could not see the vessels themselves, yet their lights
(easily distinguished by their relative height from those in the town
above) remained motionless; and the men fretted and fumed for weary
hours at thus seeing a rich prize (for of course the town was paved with
gold) within arm's reach, and yet impossible.

Let Amyas and his men have patience. Some short five years more, and the
great Armada will have come and gone; and then that avenging storm,
of which they, like Oxenham, Hawkins, and Drake, are but the
avant-couriers, will burst upon every Spanish port from Corunna to
Cadiz, from the Canaries to Havana, and La Guayra and St. Yago de Leon
will not escape their share. Captain Amyas Preston and Captain Sommers,
the colonist of the Bermudas, or Sommers' Islands, will land, with a
force tiny enough, though larger far than Leigh's, where Leigh dare not
land; and taking the fort of Guayra, will find, as Leigh found, that
their coming has been expected, and that the Pass of the Venta, three
thousand feet above, has been fortified with huge barricadoes, abattis,
and cannon, making the capital, amid its ring of mountain-walls,
impregnable--to all but Englishmen or Zouaves. For up that seven
thousand feet of precipice, which rises stair on stair behind the town,
those fierce adventurers will climb hand over hand, through rain and
fog, while men lie down, and beg their officers to kill them, for no
farther can they go. Yet farther they will go, hewing a path with their
swords through woods of wild plantain, and rhododendron