"Not a bit," said Amyas."Hold on, helmsman, and leave her to patch her tackle while we settle the galleys."On they shot merrily, and long ere the armada could get herself to rights again, were two good miles to windward, with the galleys sweeping down fast upon them.
And two venomous-looking craft they were, as they shot through the short chopping sea upon some forty oars apiece, stretching their long sword-fish snouts over the water, as if snuffing for their prey.Behind this long snout, a strong square forecastle was crammed with soldiers, and the muzzles of cannon grinned out through portholes, not only in the sides of the forecastle, but forward in the line of the galley's course, thus enabling her to keep up a continual fire on a ship right ahead.
The long low waist was packed full of the slaves, some five or six to each oar, and down the centre, between the two banks, the English could see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long gangway, whip in hand.A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the sunlight flashing merrily upon their armor and their gun-barrels; as they neared, the English could hear plainly the cracks of the whips, and the yells as of wild beasts which answered them; the roll and rattle of the oars, and the loud "Ha!"of the slaves which accompanied every stroke, and the oaths and curses of the drivers; while a sickening musky smell, as of a pack of kennelled hounds, came down the wind from off those dens of misery.No wonder if many a young heart shuddered as it faced, for the first time, the horrible reality of those floating hells, the cruelties whereof had rung so often in English ears, from the stories of their own countrymen, who had passed them, fought them, and now and then passed years of misery on board of them.Who knew but what there might be English among those sun-browned half-naked masses of panting wretches?
"Must we fire upon the slaves?" asked more than one, as the thought crossed him.
Amyas sighed.
"Spare them all you can, in God's name; but if they try to run us down, rake them we must, and God forgive us."The two galleys came on abreast of each other, some forty yards apart.To outmanoeuvre their oars as he had done the ship's sails, Amyas knew was impossible.To run from them was to be caught between them and the ship.
He made up his mind, as usual, to the desperate game.
"Lay her head up in the wind, helmsman, and we will wait for them."They were now within musket-shot, and opened fire from their bow-guns; but, owing to the chopping sea, their aim was wild.Amyas, as usual, withheld his fire.
The men stood at quarters with compressed lips, not knowing what was to come next.Amyas, towering motionless on the quarter-deck, gave his orders calmly and decisively.The men saw that he trusted himself, and trusted him accordingly.
The Spaniards, seeing him wait for them, gave a shout of joy--was the Englishman mad? And the two galleys converged rapidly, intending to strike him full, one on each bow.
They were within forty yards--another minute, and the shock would come.The Englishman's helm went up, his yards creaked round, and gathering way, he plunged upon the larboard galley.
"A dozen gold nobles to him who brings down the steersman!" shouted Cary, who had his cue.
And a flight of arrows from the forecastle rattled upon the galley's quarter-deck.
Hit or not hit, the steersman lost his nerve, and shrank from the coming shock.The galley's helm went up to port, and her beak slid all but harmless along Amyas's bow; a long dull grind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves in heaps upon each other; and ere her mate on the other side could swing round, to strike him in his new position, Amyas's whole broadside, great and small, had been poured into her at pistol-shot, answered by a yell which rent their ears and hearts.
"Spare the slaves! Fire at the soldiers!" cried Amyas; but the work was too hot for much discrimination; for the larboard galley, crippled but not undaunted, swung round across his stern, and hooked herself venomously on to him.
It was a move more brave than wise; for it prevented the other galley from returning to the attack without exposing herself a second time to the English broadside; and a desperate attempt of the Spaniards to board at once through the stern-ports and up the quarter was met with such a demurrer of shot and steel, that they found themselves in three minutes again upon the galley's poop, accompanied, to their intense disgust, by Amyas Leigh and twenty English swords.
Five minutes' hard cutting, hand to hand, and the poop was clear.
The soldiers in the forecastle had been able to give them no assistance, open as they lay to the arrows and musketry from the Rose's lofty stern.Amyas rushed along the central gangway, shouting in Spanish, "Freedom to the slaves! death to the masters!"clambered into the forecastle, followed close by his swarm of wasps, and set them so good an example how to use their stings, that in three minutes more there was not a Spaniard on board who was not dead or dying.
"Let the slaves free!" shouted he."Throw us a hammer down, men.
Hark! there's an English voice!"
There is indeed.From amid the wreck of broken oars and writhing limbs, a voice is shrieking in broadest Devon to the master, who is looking over the side.
"Oh, Robert Drew! Robert Drew! Come down, and take me out of hell!""Who be you, in the name of the Lord!"
"Don't you mind William Prust, that Captain Hawkins left behind in the Honduras, years and years agone? There's nine of us aboard, if your shot hasn't put 'em out of their misery.Come down, if you've a Christian heart, come down!"Utterly forgetful of all discipline, Drew leaps down hammer in hand, and the two old comrades rush into each other's arms.
