ousands, and the plunder from palaces and
warehouses was counted by millions, before the sun had set on the
"great fury." Those Spaniards, and Italians, and Walloons were now
thirsting for more gold, for more blood; and as the capital of England
was even more wealthy and far more defenseless than the commercial
metropolis of the Netherlands had been, so it was resolved that the
London "fury" should be more thorough and more productive than the
"fury of Antwerp," at the memory of which the world still shuddered.
And these professional soldiers had been taught to consider the
English as a pacific, delicate, effeminate race; dependent on good
living, without experience of war, quickly fatigued and discouraged,
and even more easily to be plundered and butchered than were the
excellent burghers of Antwerp.

And so these southern conquerors looked down from their great galleons
and galeasses upon the English vessels. More than three-quarters of
them were merchantmen. There was no comparison whatever between the
relative strength of the fleets. In number they were about equal,
being each from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty
strong; but the Spaniards had twice the tonnage of the English, four
times the artillery, and nearly three times the number of men....

As the twilight deepened, the moon became totally obscured, dark cloud
masses spread over the heavens, the sea grew black, distant thunder
rolled, and the sob of an approaching tempest became distinctly
audible. Such indications of a westerly gale were not encouraging to
those cumbrous vessels, with the treacherous quicksands of Flanders
under their lee.

At an hour past midnight it was so dark that it was difficult for the
most practised eye to pierce far into the gloom. But a faint drip of
oars now struck the ears of the Spaniards as they watched from the
decks. A few moments afterward the sea became suddenly luminous; and
six flaming vessels appeared at a slight distance, bearing steadily
down upon them before the wind and tide.

There were men in the Armada who had been at the siege of Antwerp
only three years before. They remembered with horror the devil-ships
of Gianibelli--those floating volcanoes which had seemed to rend earth
and ocean, whose explosion had laid so many thousands of soldiers dead
at a blow, and which had shattered the bridge and floating forts of
Farnese as tho they had been toys of glass. They knew too that the
famous engineer