ed above their heads, hung trailing in the water. The ship,
her tiller shot away, and her helmsman killed, staggered helplessly a
moment, and then fell up into the wind.

"Well done, men of Devon!" shouted Amyas, as cheers rent the welkin.

"She has struck," cried some, as the deafening hurrahs died away.

"Not a bit," said Amyas. "Hold on, helmsman, and leave her to patch her
tackle while we settle the galleys."

On they shot merrily, and long ere the armada could get herself to
rights again, were two good miles to windward, with the galleys sweeping
down fast upon them.

And two venomous-looking craft they were, as they shot through the
short chopping sea upon some forty oars apiece, stretching their long
sword-fish snouts over the water, as if snuffing for their prey. Behind
this long snout, a strong square forecastle was crammed with soldiers,
and the muzzles of cannon grinned out through portholes, not only in the
sides of the forecastle, but forward in the line of the galley's course,
thus enabling her to keep up a continual fire on a ship right ahead.

The long low waist was packed full of the slaves, some five or six to
each oar, and down the centre, between the two banks, the English could
see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long gangway, whip in hand.
A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the sunlight
flashing merrily upon their armor and their gun-barrels; as they neared,
the English could hear plainly the cracks of the whips, and the yells as
of wild beasts which answered them; the roll and rattle of the oars,
and the loud "Ha!" of the slaves which accompanied every stroke, and the
oaths and curses of the drivers; while a sickening musky smell, as of
a pack of kennelled hounds, came down the wind from off those dens of
misery. No wonder if many a young heart shuddered as it faced, for the
first time, the horrible reality of those floating hells, the cruelties
whereof had rung so often in English ears, from the stories of their own
countrymen, who had passed them, fought them, and now and then passed
years of misery on board of them. Who knew but what there might be
English among those sun-browned half-naked masses of panting wretches?

"Must we fire upon the slaves?" asked more than one, as the thought
crossed him.

Amyas sighed.

"Spare them all you can, in God's name; but if they try to run us down,
rake them we must, and God forgive us."

The two galleys came on abreast