"Because," said Will, wisely, "we have no shot left to do it."

"What!" I asked, "are we in such a plight as that?"

"'Tis true," said Will; "I heard it from the gun officer an hour ago.
And not only are we at an end, but so is all her Majesty's fleet."

"Then we are lost!" I said.

"No doubt," replied he. "Yet we had merry sport with the Don while it
lasted; and methinks he will run a bit without our help, before he find
out that we fight him with one arm bound."

So it turned out. The fight dragged on through the afternoon, and ship
after ship of the King of Spain went to her doom, or drifted helplessly
on the mud banks of Gravelines. But the English fire dropped shorter
and shorter; and as evening closed (had the enemy but known it!) we had
scarce a broadside left among us.

Yet Heaven remembered us in our extremity. For no sooner had our guns
become mute than the south wind came down on us with a burst, catching
us in the small of our backs, and sending the Don away in front of us,
staggering and reeling seaward, for his very life.

'Twas a sad spectacle for me. I had long since lost sight of the
_Rata_. In vain I scanned the smoke-laden horizon for a sight of her.
I never saw her more. I could fancy Ludar stalking the deck, or scaling
the masts wildly, in search of me; and then, when he found me not, with
the cloud deep on his noble brow, crawling to his berth in the dark to
tell himself that I was dead.

I wished that night he could have thought it truly!

Will Peake, when the work of the day was done, was in vast great humour
to find me of the ship's company. He had scarce known me at first, so
changed was I by the perils of the last weeks. A score or more of
swashbuckling 'prentices were on board the ship, he said; and,
presently, when I saw them all, and heard their jests, and knocked some
of their heads together, I could have believed myself in Cheapside.
Having been some two weeks on board, they were mightily proud of their
seamanship, and delighted to call me (who had sailed as many seas as
they had ponds), landlubber.

However, it mattered not, and we spent a merry night--at least they
did--scudding before the wind, and watching the Spanish lanthorns
rocking uneasily in the darkness a mile ahead of us.

When daylight came, there they were in a long disorderly line, never
looking back, with canvas set, and still running. Some of our ships
hung close on their heels, like dogs at a fly