, as the two boats-rowing
steadily toward a galeasse, which carried forty brass pieces of
artillery, and was manned with three hundred soldiers and four hundred
and fifty slaves--seemed rushing upon their own destruction. Of these
daring Englishmen, patricians and plebeians together, in two open
pinnaces, there were not more than one hundred in number, all told. They
soon laid themselves close to the Capitana, far below her lofty sides,
and called on Don Hugo to surrender. The answer was, a smile of derision
from the haughty Spaniard, as he looked down upon them from what seemed
an inaccessible height. Then one Wilton, coxswain of the Delight; of
Winter's squadron, clambered up to the enemy's deck and fell dead the
same instant. Then the English volunteers opened a volley upon the
Spaniards; "They seemed safely ensconced in their ships," said bold Dick
Tomson, of the Margaret and Joan, "while we in our open pinnaces, and far
under them, had nothing to shroud and cover us." Moreover the numbers
were, seven hundred and fifty to one hundred. But, the Spaniards, still
quite disconcerted by the events of the preceding night, seemed under a
spell. Otherwise it would have been an easy matter for the great galeasse
to annihilate such puny antagonists in a very short space of time.

The English pelted the Spaniards quite cheerfully, however, with arquebus
shot, whenever they showed themselves above the bulwarks, picked off a
considerable number, and sustained a rather severe loss themselves,
Lieutenant Preston of the Ark-Royal, among others, being dangerously
wounded. "We had a pretty skirmish for half-an-hour," said Tomson. At
last Don Hugo de Moncada, furious at the inefficiency of his men, and
leading them forward in person, fell back on his deck with a bullet
through both eyes. The panic was instantaneous, for, meantime, several
other English boats--some with eight, ten; or twelve men on board--were
seen pulling--towards the galeasse; while the dismayed soldiers at once
leaped overboard on the land side, and attempted to escape by swimming
and wading to the shore. Some of them succeeded, but the greater number
were drowned. The few who remained--not more, than twenty in all--hoisted
two handkerchiefs upon two rapiers as a signal of truce. The English,
accepting it as a signal of defeat; scrambled with great difficulty up
the lofty sides of the Capitana, and, for an hour and a half, occupied
themselves most agreeably in plund