eck!" said Amyas, unmoved. "Small arm
men, be ready. He will be aboard of us in five minutes!"

It was true. The _Rose_, unmanageable from the loss of her head-sail,
lay at the mercy of the Spaniard; and the archers and musqueteers had
hardly time to range themselves to leeward, when the _Madre Dolorosa's_
chains were grinding against the _Rose's_, and grapples tossed on board
from stem to stern.

"Don't cut them loose!" roared Amyas. "Let them stay and see the fun!
Now, dogs of Devon, show your teeth, and hurrah for God and the Queen!"

And then began a fight most fierce and fell: the Spaniards, according
to their fashion, attempted to board: the English, amid fierce shouts
of "God and the Queen!" "God and St. George for England!" sweeping
them back by showers of arrows and musquet balls, thrusting them down
with pikes, hurling grenades and stink-pots from the tops; while the
swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, and chain, and the
great main-deck guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, made both ships
quiver and recoil, as they smashed the round shot through and through
each other.

So they roared and flashed, fast clenched to each other in that devil's
wedlock, under a cloud of smoke beneath the cloudless tropic sky; while
all around, the dolphins gamboled, and the flying-fish shot on from
swell to swell, and the rainbow-hued jellies opened and shut their cups
of living crystal to the sun.

So it raged for an hour or more, till all arms were weary, and all
tongues clove to the mouth. And sick men, rotting with scurvy,
scrambled up on deck, and fought with the strength of madness: and tiny
powder-boys, handing up cartridges from the hold, laughed and cheered
as the shots ran past their ears; and old Salvation Yeo, a text upon
his lips, and a fury in his heart as of Joshua or Elijah in old time,
worked on, calm and grim, but with the energy of a boy at play. And
now and then an opening in the smoke showed the Spanish captain, in his
suit of black steel armor, standing cool and proud, guiding and
pointing, careless of the iron hail, but too lofty a gentleman to soil
his glove with aught but a knightly sword-hilt: while Amyas and Will,
after the fashion of the English gentlemen, had stripped themselves
nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering, thrusting,
hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common
mariner, and filling them with a spirit of self-respect,
fellow-feel