kept their footing on
the gangway, after vain attempts to force the stockades on poop and
forecastle, leaped overboard again amid a shower of shot and arrows.
The fire of the English was as steady as it was quick; and though
three-fourths of the crew had never smelt powder before, they proved
well the truth of the old chronicler's saying (since proved again more
gloriously than ever, at Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman), that "the
English never fight better than in their first battle."

Thrice the Spaniards clambered on board, and thrice surged back before
that deadly hail. The decks on both sides were very shambles; and Jack
Brimblecombe, who had fought as long as his conscience would allow him,
found, when he turned to a more clerical occupation, enough to do in
carrying poor wretches to the surgeon, without giving that spiritual
consolation which he longed to give, and they to receive. At last there
was a lull in that wild storm. No shot was heard from the Spaniard's
upper-deck.

Amyas leaped into the mizzen rigging, and looked through the smoke. Dead
men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid
flat; dead men and dying: but no man upon his feet. The last volley had
swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped below to escape that
fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with rage, his
mustachios curling up to his very eyes, stood the Spanish captain.

Now was the moment for a counter-stroke. Amyas shouted for the boarders,
and in two minutes more he was over the side, and clutching at the
Spaniard's mizzen rigging.

What was this? The distance between him and the enemy's side was
widening. Was she sheering off? Yes--and rising too, growing bodily
higher every moment, as if by magic. Amyas looked up in astonishment and
saw what it was. The Spaniard was heeling fast over to leeward away from
him. Her masts were all sloping forward, swifter and swifter--the end
was come, then!

"Back! in God's name back, men! She is sinking by the head!" And with
much ado some were dragged back, some leaped back--all but old Michael
Heard.

With hair and beard floating in the wind, the bronzed naked figure,
like some weird old Indian fakir, still climbed on steadfastly up the
mizzen-chains of the Spaniard, hatchet in hand.

"Come back, Michael! Leap while you may!" shouted a dozen voices.
Michael turned--

"And what should I come back for, then, to go home where no one knoweth
me? I'll di