lay between the city and the Bocca
Grande. So finely, however, did this narrow down before the city could
be reached, that between the inner harbor and the sea it was but fifty
paces wide, and here the Spaniards had had time to prepare defences that
looked impregnable. From shore to shore a formidable entrenchment
completely barred the way; and not only was its front so staked and
encumbered as to render a night attack impossible, but its approaches
were swept by the guns and small-arms of a great galeas and two galleys
which lay in the inner harbor.

To a man so tender as Drake ever was for the lives of his men and the
safety of his ships, to attack such a place might well have appeared
hopeless; but the originality of the amphibious corsair at once descried
a hole which had escaped all the science of the Spanish martialists.
Instead of entering by the Bocca Grande, with consummate skill and
daring he piloted the whole fleet through the dangerous channel at the
extreme end of the lagoon. The only impression which so hazardous a
movement could create in the minds of the Spaniards was that he was
about to repeat his Santo Domingo operations, and land his troops there
to attack from the mainland. Such an impression must have been confirmed
as, moving up the lagoon, he anchored opposite the Bocca Grande and
threatened the harbor fort with his boats; but Drake's project was far
different. Instead of being landed on the mainland, Carleill with eight
companies was quietly slipped ashore in the Bocca Grande, with
instructions to make his way diagonally through the woods that covered
the spit till he reached the seashore, and then, instead of advancing on
the front of the intrenchments, to wade along through the wash of the
surf till he was within striking distance of the Spanish position.

Meanwhile Frobisher advanced with the flotilla against the harbor fort,
and as soon as Carleill was heard in contact with the enemy's pickets he
opened fire. The boat-attack was repulsed--indeed, it may only have been
intended as what soldiers then called "a hot alarm"--but Carleill was
completely successful. By the march through the surf he had not only
evaded the obstacles which the enemy had so carefully prepared, but he
had been covered from the fire of the galleys in the harbor, and had
never so much as entered the fire-area of the heavily armed
intrenchments. After a desperate struggle at push of pike, the position
was carried by ass