he side of the great ship.

What I next remember was standing bewildered on the deck, amidst a crowd
of soldiers, many of whom wore bright steel armour, and who exercised on
the heaving planks well-nigh as steadily as on dry ground. The deck was
ablaze with pennons and scutcheons. Somewhere near, the noise of
trumpets rose above the roar of the waves. The sun, as it struggled
through the mist, flashed on the brass of guns, and the jewels of sword-
hilts. The poop behind rose like a stately house, illumined with its
swinging lanthorns. Now and again there flitted past me a long-robed
priest, to whom all bowed, and after him boys with swaying censers.
There was a neighing of horses amidships, and a tolling of bells in the
forecastle. The great bellying sails glittered with painted dragons and
eagles and sun-bursts. And the men who lined the crosstrees and crowded
the tops shouted and answered in a tongue that was new to me. Above
all, higher than the helmsman's house or the standard on the poop, shone
out a gilded cross, which looked over all the ship.

Little wonder if, as I slowly looked round me and rubbed my eyes, I knew
not where I was.

But Ludar, standing near me, steadying himself with the cordage, called
me to myself.

"This must be a Spaniard," said he, faintly.

"A Spaniard!" gasped I, "an enemy to our Queen and--"

"Look yonder," said he, stopping me and pointing seaward, where the mist
was lifting apace.

There I could discern, as far as my eyes could reach, a great curved
line of vessels, many of them like that on which I stood; some larger
and grander, some smaller and propelled by oars; all with flags flying
and signals waving, and their course pointed all one way.

Not even I, landsman as I was, could mistake what I saw. This could be
naught else but the great fleet of the Spanish King, of whose coming we
had heard rumours for a year past, but in which I for one had not really
believed till thus suddenly I found myself standing on the deck of one
of its greatest galleons.

In the horror of the discovery, my first impulse was to fling myself
back into the waves from which I had been saved; my second was to seize
my sword and fly at the first man I saw, and so die for my country then
and there.

But, alas! I was too weak to do either. When I took a step it was to
fall in a heap on the deck, faint with hunger, wrath, and shame.

When I came to, I lay in a dark cabin, and Ludar, scarce