spurts of flame leapt from the brass
cannon on the Arabella's beak-head, and scarcely had the watchers on the
poop seen the shower of spray, where one of the shots struck the
water near them, then with a rending crash and a shiver that shook the
Milagrosa from stem to stern, the other came to lodge in her forecastle.
To avenge that blow, the Hidalga blazed at the Englishman with both
her forward guns. But even at that short range--between two and three
hundred yards--neither shot took effect.

At a hundred yards the Arabella's forward guns, which had meanwhile
been reloaded, fired again at the Milagrosa, and this time smashed her
bowsprit into splinters; so that for a moment she yawed wildly to port.
Don Miguel swore profanely, and then, as the helm was put over to swing
her back to her course, his own prow replied. But the aim was too high,
and whilst one of the shots tore through the Arabella's shrouds and
scarred her mainmast, the other again went wide. And when the smoke of
that discharge had lifted, the English ship was found almost between the
Spaniards, her bows in line with theirs and coming steadily on into what
his lordship deemed a death-trap.

Lord Julian held his breath, and Miss Bishop gasped, clutching the
rail before her. She had a glimpse of the wickedly grinning face of Don
Miguel, and the grinning faces of the men at the guns in the waist.

At last the Arabella was right between the Spanish ships prow to poop
and poop to prow. Don Miguel spoke to the trumpeter, who had mounted the
quarter-deck and stood now at the Admiral's elbow. The man raised the
silver bugle that was to give the signal for the broadsides of both
ships. But even as he placed it to his lips, the Admiral seized his arm,
to arrest him. Only then had he perceived what was so obvious--or should
have been to an experienced sea-fighter: he had delayed too long and
Captain Blood had outmanoeuvred him. In attempting to fire now upon the
Englishman, the Milagrosa and her consort would also be firing into each
other. Too late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over and
swing the ship to larboard, as a preliminary to manoeuvring for a less
impossible position of attack. At that very moment the Arabella seemed
to explode as she swept by. Eighteen guns from each of her flanks
emptied themselves at that point-blank range into the hulls of the two
Spanish vessels.

Half stunned by that reverberating thunder, and thrown off her bala