look out for himself and his men. In many ships water must be had
somewhere, or they would die. The _San Martin_, with sixty consorts,
went north to the sixtieth parallel. From that height the pilots
promised to take them down clear of the coast. The wind still clung to
the west, each day blowing harder than the last. When they braced round
to it their wounded spars gave way. Their rigging parted. With the
greatest difficulty they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down
somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in the enormous seas.
Of the rest, one or two went down among the Western Isles and became
wrecks there, their crews, or part of them, making their way through
Scotland to Flanders. Others went north to Shetland or the Faroe
Islands. Between thirty and forty were tempted in upon the Irish coasts.
There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must have told them that they
would find the water there for which they were perishing, safe harbours,
and a friendly Catholic people; and they found either harbours which
they could not reach or sea-washed sands and reefs. They were all
wrecked at various places between Donegal and the Blaskets. Something
like eight thousand half-drowned wretches struggled on shore alive. Many
were gentlemen, richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold chains, and
rings. The common sailors and soldiers had been paid their wages before
they started, and each had a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when he
landed through the surf. The wild Irish of the coast, tempted by the
booty, knocked unknown numbers of them on the head with their
battle-axes, or stripped them naked and left them to die of the cold. On
one long sand strip in Sligo an English officer counted eleven hundred
bodies, and he heard that there were as many more a few miles distant.

The better-educated of the Ulster chiefs, the O'Rourke and O'Donnell,
hurried down to stop the butchery and spare Ireland the shame of
murdering helpless Catholic friends. Many--how many cannot be
said--found protection in their castles. But even so it seemed as if
some inexorable fate pursued all who had sailed in that doomed
expedition. Alonzo de Leyva, with half a hundred young Spanish nobles of
high rank who were under his special charge, made his way in a galleass
into Killibeg. He was himself disabled in landing. O'Donnell received
and took care of him and his companions. After remaining in O'Donnell's
castle for a month he recovered. The wea