wants to keep the wind of
us."

"Let him try, then," quoth Amyas. "Keep her closer still. Let no one
fire till we are about. Man the starboard guns; to starboard, and wait,
all small arm men. Pass the order down to the gunner, and bid all fire
high, and take the rigging."

Bang went one of the Spaniard's bow guns, and the shot went wide.
Then another and another, while the men fidgeted about, looking at the
priming of their muskets, and loosened their arrows in the sheaf.

"Lie down, men, and sing a psalm. When I want you, I'll call you. Closer
still, if you can, helmsman, and we will try a short ship against a long
one. We can sail two points nearer the wind than he."

As Amyas had calculated, the Spaniard would gladly enough have stood
across the Rose's bows, but knowing the English readiness, dare not for
fear of being raked; so her only plan, if she did not intend to shoot
past her foe down to leeward, was to put her head close to the wind, and
wait for her on the same tack.

Amyas laughed to himself. "Hold on yet awhile. More ways of killing a
cat than choking her with cream. Drew, there, are your men ready?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" and on they went, closing fast with the Spaniard, till
within a pistol-shot.

"Ready about!" and about she went like an eel, and ran upon the opposite
tack right under the Spaniard's stern. The Spaniard, astounded at the
quickness of the manoeuvre, hesitated a moment, and then tried to get
about also, as his only chance; but it was too late, and while his
lumbering length was still hanging in the wind's eye, Amyas's bowsprit
had all but scraped his quarter, and the Rose passed slowly across his
stern at ten yards' distance.

"Now, then!" roared Amyas. "Fire, and with a will! Have at her,
archers: have at her, muskets all!" and in an instant a storm of bar and
chain-shot, round and canister, swept the proud Don from stem to stern,
while through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls, and the still
deadlier cloth-yard arrows, whistled and rushed upon their venomous
errand. Down went the steersman, and every soul who manned the
poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern-windows and
quarter-galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting
of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in
a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered in splinters;
while, most glorious of all, the golden flag of Spain, which the last
moment flaunt