is swarm of wasps, and set them so good
an example how to use their stings that in three minutes more there was
not a Spaniard on board who was not dead or dying.

"Let the slaves free!" shouted he. "Throw us a hammer down, men.
Hark! there's an English voice!"

There is indeed. From amid the wreck of broken oars and writhing
limbs, a voice is shrieking in broadest Devon to the master, who is
looking over the side.

"Oh, Robert Drew! Robert Drew! Come down, and take me out of hell!"

"Who be you, in the name of the Lord?"

"Don't you mind William Prust, that Captain Hawkins left behind in the
Honduras, years and years agone? There's nine of us aboard, if your
shot hasn't put 'em out of their misery. Come down, if you've a
Christian heart, come down!"

Utterly forgetful of all discipline, Drew leaps down hammer in hand,
and the two old comrades rush into each other's arms.

Why make a long story of what took but five minutes to do? The nine
men (luckily none of them wounded) are freed, and helped on board, to
be hugged and kissed by old comrades and young kinsmen; while the
remaining slaves, furnished with a couple of hammers, are told to free
themselves and help the English. The wretches answer by a shout; and
Amyas, once more safe on board again, dashes after the other galley,
which has been hovering out of reach of his guns: but there is no need
to trouble himself about her; sickened with what she has got, she is
struggling right up wind, leaning over to one side, and seemingly ready
to sink.

"Are there any English on board of her?" asks Amyas, loth to lose the
chance of freeing a countryman.

"Never a one, sir, thank God."

So they set to work to repair damages; while the liberated slaves,
having shifted some of the galley's oars, pull away after their
comrade; and that with such a will that in ten minutes they have caught
her up, and careless of the Spaniard's fire, boarded her en masse, with
yells as of a thousand wolves. There will be fearful vengeance taken
on those tyrants, unless they play the man this day.

And in the meanwhile half the crew are clothing, feeding, questioning,
caressing those nine poor fellows thus snatched from living death; and
Yeo, hearing the news, has rushed up on deck to welcome his old
comrades, and--

"Is Michael Heard, my cousin, here among you?"

Yes, Michael Heard is there, white-headed rather from misery than age;
and the embracings and questionings begin