Englishman
leaped upon his horse and made for the hill, at the very instant that a
yell of rage from a thousand voices and the clang of a score of bugles
announced the Spanish onset.

But the islanders were ready and eager for the encounter. With feet
firmly planted, their sleeves rolled back to give free play to their
muscles, their long yellow bow-staves in their left hands, and their
quivers slung to the front, they had waited in the four-deep harrow
formation which gave strength to their array, and yet permitted every
man to draw his arrow freely without harm to those in front. Aylward and
Johnston had been engaged in throwing light tufts of grass into the air
to gauge the wind force, and a hoarse whisper passed down the ranks from
the file-leaders to the men, with scraps of advice and admonition.

"Do not shoot outside the fifteen-score paces," cried Johnston. "We may
need all our shafts ere we have done with them."

"Better to overshoot than to undershoot," added Aylward. "Better to
strike the rear guard than to feather a shaft in the earth."

"Loose quick and sharp when they come," added another. "Let it be the
eye to the string, the string to the shaft, and the shaft to the mark.
By Our Lady! their banners advance, and we must hold our ground now if
ever we are to see Southampton Water again."

Alleyne, standing with his sword drawn amidst the archers, saw a long
toss and heave of the glittering squadrons. Then the front ranks began
to surge slowly forward, to trot, to canter, to gallop, and in an
instant the whole vast array was hurtling onward, line after line, the
air full of the thunder of their cries, the ground shaking with the beat
of their hoots, the valley choked with the rushing torrent of steel,
topped by the waving plumes, the slanting spears and the fluttering
banderoles. On they swept over the level and up to the slope, ere they
met the blinding storm of the English arrows. Down went the whole ranks
in a whirl of mad confusion, horses plunging and kicking, bewildered men
falling, rising, staggering on or back, while ever new lines of horsemen
came spurring through the gaps and urged their chargers up the fatal
slope. All around him Alleyne could hear the stern, short orders of the
master-bowmen, while the air was filled with the keen twanging of the
strings and the swish and patter of the shafts. Right across the foot
of the hill there had sprung up a long wall of struggling horses and
stricke