egs from the high castles at
either end into the waist of the ship. Worst of all, the seams had been
opened by the crash and the water was gushing in at a dozen places.

But these were men of experience and of discipline, men who had already
fought together by sea and by land, so that each knew his place and his
duty. Those who could staggered to their feet and helped up a score or
more of knights who were rolling and clashing in the scuppers unable to
rise for the weight of their armor. The bowmen formed up as before. The
seamen ran to the gaping seams with oakum and with tar. In ten minutes
order had been restored and the Philippa, though shaken and weakened,
was ready for battle once more. The King was glaring round him like a
wounded boar.

"Grapple my ship with that," he cried, pointing to the crippled
Spaniard, "for I would have possession of her!"

But already the breeze had carried them past it, and a dozen Spanish
ships were bearing down full upon them.

"We cannot win back to her, lest we show our flank to these others,"
said the shipman.

"Let her go her way!" cried the knights. "You shall have better than
her."

"By Saint George! you speak the truth," said the King, "for she is ours
when we have time to take her. These also seem very worthy ships which
are drawing up to us, and I pray you, master-shipman, that you will have
a tilt with the nearest."

A great carack was within a bowshot of them and crossing their bows.
Bunce looked up at his mast, and he saw that already it was shaken and
drooping. Another blow and it would be over the side and his ship a
helpless log upon the water. He jammed his helm round therefore, and ran
his ship alongside the Spaniard, throwing out his hooks and iron chains
as he did so.

They, no less eager, grappled the Philippa both fore and aft, and the
two vessels, linked tightly together, surged slowly over the long blue
rollers. Over their bulwarks hung a cloud of men locked together in
a desperate struggle, sometimes surging forward on to the deck of the
Spaniard, sometimes recoiling back on to the King's ship, reeling this
way and that, with the swords flickering like silver flames above them,
while the long-drawn cry of rage and agony swelled up like a wolf's howl
to the calm blue heaven above them.

But now ship after ship of the English had come up, each throwing its
iron over the nearest Spaniard and striving to board her high red sides.
Twenty ships were drift