pocras or Alicant, Sack or John Barleycorn, and a pledge to thy repentance and amendment of life.”

“Admiral Hawkins, Admiral Hawkins, this is no time for drinking."

Why not, then, my Lord? Good news should be welcomed with good wine. Frank, send down to the sexton, and set the bells a-ringing to cheer up all honest hearts. Why, my Lord, if it were not for the gravity of my office, I could dance a galliard for joy!"

"Well, you may dance, Port Admiral: but I must go and plan, but God give to all captains such a heart as yours this day!"

"And God give all generals such a head as yours! Come, Frank Drake, we'll play the game out before we move. It will be two good days before we shall be fit to tackle them, so an odd half-hour don't matter."

"I must command the help of your counsel, Vice-Admiral,” said Lord Charles, turning to Drake.

"And it's this, my good Lord," said Drake, looking up, as he aimed his bowl. "They'll come soon enough for us to show them sport, and yet slow enough for us to be ready; so let no man hurry himself. And as example is better than precept,

here goes."

Lord Howard shrugged his shoulders, and departed, knowing two things; first, that to move Drake was to move mountains; and next, that when the self-taught hero did bestir himself, he would do more work in an hour than any one else in a day. So he departed, followed hastily by most of the captains; and Drake said in a low voice to Hawkins

"Does he think we are going to knock about on a lee-shore all the afternoon and run our noses at night—and dead up-wind, too-into the Dons' mouths? No, Jack, my friend. Let Orlando-Furioso-punctilio-fire-eaters go and get their knuckles rapped. The following game is the game, and not the meeting The dog goes after the sheep, and not afore them, lad. Let them go by, and go by, and stick to them well to windward, and pick up stragglers, and pickings, too, Jack-the prizes, Jack!"

one.

"Trust my old eyes for not being over-quick at seeing signals, if I be hanging in the skirts of a fat-looking Don. We'm the eagles, Drake; and where the carcase is, is our place, eh ?"

And so the two old sea-dogs chatted on, while their companions dropped off one by one, and only Amyas remained.

"Eh, Captain Leigh, where's my boy Dick ?"

"Gone off with his lordship, Sir John."

"On his punctilios too, I suppose, the young slashed-breeks. He's half a Don, that fellow, with his fine scholarship, and his fine manners, and his fine clothes.

fore he dies, unless he mends.

He'll get a taking down be

Why ain't you gone too, sir?"

I follow my leader," said Amyas, filling his pipe. "Well said, my big man," quoth Drake. "If I could lead you round the world, I can lead you up Channel, can't I?—Eh? my little bantam-cock of the Orinoco? Drink, lad!

over-sad to-day."

You're

"Not a whit," said Amyas. "Only I can't help wondering whether I shall find him after all."

"Whom? That Don? We'll find him for you, if he's in the fleet. We'll squeeze it out of our prisoners somehow. Eh, Hawkins? I thought all the captains had promised to send you news if they heard of him."

'Ay, but it's ill looking for a needle in a haystack. But I shall find him. I am a coward to doubt it," said Amyas, setting his teeth.

"There, Vice-Admiral, you're beaten, and that's the rubber. Pay up three dollars, old high-flyer, and go and earn more, like an honest adventurer."

66

Well," said Drake, as he pulled out his purse, "we'll walk down now, and see about these young hot-heads. As I live, they are setting to tow the ships out already! Breaking the men's backs over-night, to make them fight the lustier in the morning! Well, well, they haven't sailed round the world, Jack Hawkins."

"Or had to run home from St. Juan d'Ulloa with half a crew."

"Well if we haven't to run out with half crews. I saw a sight of our lads drunk about this morning."

"The more reason for waiting till they be sober.

Besides,

if everybody's caranting about to once each after his own men, nobody'll find nothing in such a scrimmage as that. Bye, bye, Uncle Martin. We'm going to blow the Dons up now in earnest."

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE GREAT ARMADA.

"Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep,

Her march is o'er the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep."

CAMPBELL, Ye Mariners of England.

AND now began that great sea-fight which was to determine whether Popery and despotism, or Protestantism and freedom, were the law which God had appointed for the half of Europe, and the whole of future America. It is a twelve days' epic, worthy, as I said in the beginning of this book, not of dull prose, but of the thunder-roll of Homer's verse: but having to tell it, I must do my best, rather using, where I can, the words of contemporary authors than my own.

"The Lord High Admirall of England, sending a pinnace before, called the Defiance, denounced war by discharging her ordnance; and presently approaching within musquet-shot, with much thundering out of his own ship, called the Arkroyall (alias the Triumph), first set upon the admirall's, as he thought, of the Spaniards (but it was Alfonso de Leon's ship). Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher played stoutly with their ordnance on the hindmost squadron, which was commanded by Recalde.' The Spaniards soon discover the superior "nimbleness of the English ships;" and Recalde's squadron, finding that they are getting more than they give, in spite of his endeavours, hurry forward to join the rest of the fleet. Medina the Admiral, finding his ships scattering fast, gathers them into a half-moon; and the Armada tries to keep solemn way forward, like a stately herd of buffaloes, who march on across the prairie, disdaining to notice the wolves which snarl around their track. But in vain. These are no wolves, but cunning hunters, swiftly horsed, and keenly armed, and who will "shamefully shuffle" (to use Drake's own expression) that vast herd from the Lizard to Portland, from Portland to Calais Roads; and who, even in this short two hours' fight, have made many a Spaniard question the boasted invincibleness of this Armada.

One of the four great galliasses is already riddled with shot, to the great disarrangement of her "pulpits, chapels," and

friars therein assistant. The fleet has to close round her, or Drake and Hawkins will sink her; in effecting which manœuvre, the "principal galleon of Seville," in which are Pedro de Valdez and a host of blue-blooded Dons, runs foul of her neighbour, carries away her foremast, and is, in spite of Spanish chivalry, left to her fate. This does not look like victory, certainly. But courage! though Valdez be left behind, "our Lady," and the saints, and the Bull Cœnâ Domini (dictated by one whom I dare not name here), are with them still, and it were blasphemous to doubt. But in the meanwhile, if they have fared no better than this against a third of the Plymouth fleet, how will they fare when those forty belated ships, which are already whitening the blue between them and the Mewstone, enter the scene to play their part?

So ends the first day; not an English ship, hardly a man, is hurt. It has destroyed for ever, in English minds, the prestige of boastful Spain. It has justified utterly the policy which the good Lord Howard had adopted by Raleigh's and Drake's advice, of keeping up a running fight, instead of "clapping ships together without consideration," in which case, says Raleigh, "he had been lost, if he had not been better advised than a great many malignant fools were, who found fault with his demeanour."

Be that as it may, so ends the first day, in which Amyas and the other Bideford ships have been right busy for two hours, knocking holes in a huge galleon, which carries on her poop a maiden with a wheel, and bears the name of Sta. Catharina. She had a coat of arms on the flag at her sprit, probably those of the commandant of soldiers; but they were shot away early in the fight, so Aymas cannot tell whether they were De Soto's or not. Nevertheless, there is plenty of time for private revenge; and Amyas, called off at last by the Admiral's signal, goes to bed and sleeps soundly.

But ere he has been in his hammock an hour, he is awakened by Cary's coming down to ask for orders.

"We were to follow Drake's lantern, Amyas; but where it is, I can't see, unless he has been taken up aloft there among the stars for a new Drakium Sidus."

Amyas turns out grumbling: but no lantern is to be seen; only a sudden explosion and a great fire on board some Spaniard, which is gradually got under, while they have to lie-to the whole night long, with nearly the whole fleet.

The next morning finds them off Torbay; and Amyas is

hailed by a pinnace, bringing a letter from Drake, which (saving the spelling, which was somewhat arbitrary, like most men's in those days) ran somewhat thus :

"DEAR LAD,

:

"I have been wool-gathering all night after five great hulks, which the Pixies transfigured overnight into galleons, and this morning again into German merchantmen. I let them go with my blessing; and coming back, fell in (God be thanked!) with Valdez' great galleon; and in it good booty, which the Dons his fellows had left behind, like faithful and valiant comrades, and the Lord Howard had let slip past him, thinking her deserted by her crew. I have sent to Dartmouth a sight of noblemen and gentlemen, maybe a half-hundred; and Valdez himself, who when I sent my pinnace aboard must needs stand on his punctilios, and propound conditions. I answered him, I had no time to tell with him; if he would needs die, then I was the very man for him; if he would live, then, buena querra. He sends again, boasting that he was Don Pedro Valdez, and that it stood not with his honour, and that of the Dons in his company. I replied, that for my part, I was Francis Drake, and my matches burning. Whereon he finds in my name salve for the wounds of his own, and comes aboard, kissing my fist, with Spanish lies of holding himself fortunate that he had fallen into the hands of fortunate Drake, and much more, which he might have kept to cool his porridge. But I have much news from him (for he is a leaky tub); and among others, this, that your Don Guzman is aboard of the Sta. Catharina, commandant of her soldiery, and has his arms flying at her sprit, beside Sta. Catharina at the poop, which is a maiden with a wheel, and is a lofty built ship of 3 tier of ordnance, from which God preserve you, and send you like luck with

"Your deare Friend and Admirall,

F. DRAKE.

"She sails in this squadron of Recalde. The Armada was minded to smoke us out of Plymouth; and God's grace it was they tried not: but their orders from home are too strait, and so the slaves fight like a bull in a tether, no farther than their rope, finding thus the devil a hard master, as do most in the end. They cannot compass our quick handling and tacking, and take us for very witches. So far so good, and better to come. You and I know the length of their foot of old. Time