of the tropic noon.

"He shall not carry that flag to the devil with him; I will have it
yet, if I die for it!" said Will Cary, and rushed to the side to leap
overboard, but Amyas stopped him.

"Let him die as he has lived, with honor."

A wild figure sprang out of the mass of sailors who struggled and
shrieked amid the foam, and rushed upward at the Spaniard. It was
Michael Heard. The Don, who stood above him, plunged his sword into the
old man's body: but the hatchet gleamed, nevertheless: down went the
blade through headpiece and through head; and as Heard sprang onward,
bleeding, but alive, the steel-clad corpse rattled down the deck into
the surge. Two more strokes, struck with the fury of a dying man, and
the standard-staff was hewn through. Old Michael collected all his
strength, hurled the flag far from the sinking ship, and then stood
erect one moment and shouted, "God save Queen Bess!" and the English
answered with a "Hurrah!" which rent the welkin.

Another moment and the gulf had swallowed his victim, and the poop, and
him; and nothing remained of the Madre Dolorosa but a few floating spars
and struggling wretches, while a great awe fell upon all men, and a
solemn silence, broken only by the cry

"Of some strong swimmer in his agony."

And then, suddenly collecting themselves, as men awakened from a dream,
half-a-dozen desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, leaped
overboard, swam towards the flag, and towed it alongside in triumph.

"Ah!" said Salvation Yeo, as he helped the trophy up over the side; "ah!
it was not for nothing that we found poor Michael! He was always a good
comrade--nigh as good a one as William Penberthy of Marazion, whom the
Lord grant I meet in bliss! And now, then, my masters, shall we inshore
again and burn La Guayra?"

"Art thou never glutted with Spanish blood, thou old wolf?" asked Will
Cary.

"Never, sir," answered Yeo.

"To St. Jago be it," said Amyas, "if we can get there; but--God help
us!"

And he looked round sadly enough; while no one needed that he should
finish his sentence, or explain his "but."

The foremast was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging in
elf-locks, the hull shot through and through in twenty places, the deck
strewn with the bodies of nine good men, beside sixteen wounded down
below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads, poured down a
flood of fire upon a sea of glass.

And it would have been well if fai