t as the slight vessel
went crashing and bumping and scraping against the side of the flagship,
whilst rigging became tangled with rigging, to the straining of yards
and snapping of spars overhead. His six men stood at their posts on the
larboard side, stark naked, each armed with a grapnel, four of them on
the gunwale, two of them aloft. At the moment of impact these grapnels
were slung to bind the Spaniard to them, those aloft being intended to
complete and preserve the entanglement of the rigging.

Aboard the rudely awakened galleon all was confused hurrying, scurrying,
trumpeting, and shouting. At first there had been a desperately hurried
attempt to get up the anchor; but this was abandoned as being already
too late; and conceiving themselves on the point of being boarded,
the Spaniards stood to arms to ward off the onslaught. Its slowness in
coming intrigued them, being so different from the usual tactics of the
buccaneers. Further intrigued were they by the sight of the gigantic
Wolverstone speeding naked along his deck with a great flaming torch
held high. Not until he had completed his work did they begin to suspect
the truth--that he was lighting slow-matches--and then one of their
officers rendered reckless by panic ordered a boarding-party on to the
shop.

The order came too late. Wolverstone had seen his six fellows drop
overboard after the grapnels were fixed, and then had sped, himself,
to the starboard gunwale. Thence he flung his flaming torch down the
nearest gaping scuttle into the hold, and thereupon dived overboard in
his turn, to be picked up presently by the longboat from the Arabella.
But before that happened the sloop was a thing of fire, from which
explosions were hurling blazing combustibles aboard the Encarnacion, and
long tongues of flame were licking out to consume the galleon, beating
back those daring Spaniards who, too late, strove desperately to cut her
adrift.

And whilst the most formidable vessel of the Spanish fleet was thus
being put out of action at the outset, Blood had sailed in to open fire
upon the Salvador. First athwart her hawse he had loosed a broadside
that had swept her decks with terrific effect, then going on and about,
he had put a second broadside into her hull at short range. Leaving her
thus half-crippled, temporarily, at least, and keeping to his course,
he had bewildered the crew of the Infanta by a couple of shots from the
chasers on his beak-head, then crash