be carried forward in absolute silence, no one calling out unless the
necessity for so doing was urgent. Consequently, from the moment when
we first dropped in over the bulwarks, not a sound save the soft patter
of muffled feet was heard aboard the galleon until first the topsails
and then the courses were let fall, when, of course, there arose a sound
of canvas fluttering in the wind, which, to my excited imagination,
seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Then came the sharp cheep, cheep
of sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and the
yards mast-headed, followed by a still louder flapping of canvas as the
jib was hoisted. Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter's
axe as he smote at the cables. I suppose it was these sounds that
awakened the galleon's crew, for while the carpenter was still hacking
away there arose from the interior of the fore-scuttle a loud knocking,
and the muffled sounds of voices angrily demanding that the hatch should
be lifted. Hoard, however, had been standing by, in expectation of
something of this sort, and the moment that there came a pause in the
knocking and shouting I heard him informing the prisoners that the ship
was in the hands of the English, and that unless they--the Spaniards--
immediately ceased their row the whole lot of them would be quickly
subjected to certain dreadful pains and penalties which I but
imperfectly understood. The threat, however, had the desired effect of
quieting our prisoners, who promptly subsided into silence.

It was a somewhat difficult matter to get so big a ship under way in the
rather thickly crowded anchorage, and we were obliged at the outset to
make a rather long and complicated stern-board, which entailed two or
three very narrow shaves of fouling one or another of the craft that
were in our way. The sky, however, was clearing fast, the stars were
shining brightly through great and rapidly increasing rifts in the
clouds and affording us enough light to see what we were about;
moreover, the land breeze was piping up strong, and whistling shrilly
through our rigging, so that as soon as we were able to swing the yards
and get headway upon the lumbering old wagon of a craft, we managed well
enough, and contrived to scrape clear of everything; and that, too,
without attracting any very serious amount of attention, only one hail--
and that, apparently, from somebody more than half drunk--saluting us as
we glided with a s