ing in furious single combat after the manner
of the Philippa, until the whole surface of the sea was covered with
a succession of these desperate duels. The dismasted carack, which
the King's ship had left behind it, had been carried by the Earl of
Suffolk's Christopher, and the water was dotted with the heads of her
crew. An English ship had been sunk by a huge stone discharged from
an engine, and her men also were struggling in the waves, none having
leisure to lend them a hand. A second English ship was caught between
two of the Spanish vessels and overwhelmed by a rush of boarders so that
not a man of her was left alive. On the other hand, Mowbray and Audley
had each taken the caracks which were opposed to them, and the battle in
the center, after swaying this way and that, was turning now in favor of
the Islanders.

The Black Prince, with the Lion, the Grace Marie and four other ships
had swept round to turn the Spanish flank; but the movement was seen,
and the Spaniards had ten ships with which to meet it, one of them their
great carack the St. Iago di Compostella. To this ship the Prince had
attached his little cog and strove desperately to board her, but her
side was so high and the defense so desperate that his men could never
get beyond her bulwarks but were hurled down again and again with a
clang and clash to the deck beneath. Her side bristled with crossbowmen,
who shot straight down on to the packed waist of the Lion, so that the
dead lay there in heaps. But the most dangerous of all was a swarthy
black-bearded giant in the tops, who crouched so that none could see
him, but rising every now and then with a huge lump of iron between his
hands, hurled it down with such force that nothing would stop it. Again
and again these ponderous bolts crashed through the deck and hurtled
down into the bottom of the ship, starting the planks and shattering all
that came in their way.

The Prince, clad in that dark armor which gave him his name, was
directing the attack from the poop when the shipman rushed wildly up to
him with fear on his face.

"Sire!" he cried. "The ship may not stand against these blows. A few
more will sink her! Already the water floods inboard."

The Prince looked up, and as he did so the shaggy beard showed once more
and two brawny arms swept downward. A great slug, whizzing down, beat
a gaping hole in the deck, and fell rending and riving into the hold
below. The master-mariner tore his griz