k. The archers, flushed and merry, were unstringing
their bows once more, for in spite of the water glue the damp air took
the strength from the cords. Some were hunting about for arrows which
might have stuck inboard, and some tying up small injuries received in
the scuffle. But an anxious shadow still lingered upon the face of Sir
Robert, and he peered fixedly about him through the fog.

"Go among the archers, Hawthorne," said he to his Squire. "Charge them
on their lives to make no sound! You also, Loring. Go to the afterguard
and say the same to them. We are lost if one of these great ships should
spy us."

For an hour with bated breath they stole through the fleet, still
hearing the cymbals clashing all round them, for in this way the
Spaniards held themselves together. Once the wild music came from above
their very prow, and so warned them to change their course. Once also
a huge vessel loomed for an instant upon their quarter, but they turned
two points away from her, and she blurred and vanished. Soon the cymbals
were but a distant tinkling, and at last they died gradually away.

"It is none too soon," said the old shipman, pointing to a yellowish
tint in the haze above them. "See yonder! It is the sun which wins
through. It will be here anon. Ah! said I not so?"

A sickly sun, no larger and far dimmer than the moon, had indeed shown
its face, with cloud-wreaths smoking across it. As they looked up it
waxed larger and brighter before their eyes--a yellow halo spread round
it, one ray broke through, and then a funnel of golden light poured
down upon them, widening swiftly at the base. A minute later they were
sailing on a clear blue sea with an azure cloud-flecked sky above their
heads, and such a scene beneath it as each of them would carry in his
memory while memory remained.

They were in mid-channel. The white and green coasts of Picardy and of
Kent lay clear upon either side of them. The wide channel stretched in
front, deepening from the light blue beneath their prow to purple on the
far sky-line. Behind them was that thick bank of cloud from which they
had just burst. It lay like a gray wall from east to west, and through
it were breaking the high shadowy forms of the ships of Spain. Four of
them had already emerged, their red bodies, gilded sides and painted
sails shining gloriously in the evening sun. Every instant a fresh
golden spot grew out of the fog, which blazed like a star for an
instant, and