om the roads in some way. Done it must be, and done
immediately.

Then, on that same Sunday afternoon a memorable council of war was held
in the _Ark's_ main cabin. Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin
Frobisher, and two or three others met to consult, knowing that on them
at that moment the liberties of England were depending. Their resolution
was taken promptly. There was no time for talk. After nightfall a strong
flood tide would be setting up along shore to the Spanish anchorage.
They would try what could be done with fire-ships, and the excursion of
the pinnace, which was taken for bravado, was probably for a survey of
the Armada's exact position. Meantime eight useless vessels were coated
with pitch--hulls, spars, and rigging. Pitch was poured on the decks and
over the sides, and parties were told off to steer them to their
destination and then fire and leave them.

The hours stole on, and twilight passed into dark. The night was
without a moon. The Duke paced his deck late with uneasy sense of
danger. He observed lights moving up and down the English lines, and
imagining that the _endemoniada gente_--the infernal devils--might be up
to mischief ordered a sharp look-out. A faint westerly air was curling
the water, and towards midnight the watchers on board the galleons made
out dimly several ships which seemed to be drifting down upon them.
Their experience since the action off Plymouth had been so strange and
unlooked for that anything unintelligible which the English did was
alarming.

The phantom forms drew nearer, and were almost among them when they
broke into a blaze from water-line to truck, and the two fleets were
seen by the lurid light of the conflagration; the anchorage, the walls
and windows of Calais, and the sea shining red far as eye could reach,
as if the ocean itself was burning. Among the dangers which they might
have to encounter, English fireworks had been especially dreaded by the
Spaniards. Fire-ships--a fit device of heretics--had worked havoc among
the Spanish troops, when the bridge was blown up, at Antwerp. They
imagined that similar infernal machines were approaching the Armada. A
capable commander would have sent a few launches to grapple the burning
hulks, which of course were now deserted, and tow them out of harm's
way. Spanish sailors were not cowards, and would not have flinched from
duty because it might be dangerous; but the Duke and Diego Florez lost
their heads again. A s