y Rose_ had rushed so close to the two
entangled ships that it was impossible for her to escape hitting them.
The English captain would have given anything if he could have gone
free of the mass, for he could have passed under the stern of the two
helpless ships, raked them, and probably would have had them at his
mercy; but his dash at them had been an earnest one, and in order to
carry out his plan successfully he had been forced to throw his ship
right upon them. Therefore, though the helm was shifted and the braces
hauled in an effort to get clear, and though the ship under Morgan's
conning and Hornigold's steering was handled as few ships have ever been
handled, and though it was one of the speediest and most weatherly of
vessels, they could not entirely swing her clear. The stern of the
frigate crashed against the stern of the nearest Spanish ship drifting
frantically to leeward.

The Spanish captain, mortified and humiliated beyond expression by the
mishap, instantly realized that this contact presented them with a
possibility of retrieving themselves. Before the ships could be
separated, grappling irons were thrown, and in a second the three were
locked in a close embrace. Morgan had anticipated this situation also,
although he had hoped to avoid it, and had prepared for it. As the two
ships became fast the high poop and rail of the Spaniard were black with
iron-capped men. They swarmed over on the lower poop and quarter-deck of
the _Mary Rose_ in a dense mass. Fortunately, the small arms on both
sides had been discharged a moment before and there had been no time to
reload. The remainder of the engagement to all intents and purposes
would be fought with the cold steel.

Morgan had gained an advantage in throwing the two ships into collision,
but he appeared to have lost it again because he had been unable to
clear the wrecks himself. The advantage was now with the Spaniards,
whose force outnumbered his own two or three to one. Surprising as it
was to the old buccaneers and the bolder spirits among his crew, whose
blood was up sufficiently to enable them to long for the onset, Morgan
had run to the waist of the ship when he saw the inevitable collision
and had called all hands from the poop and quarter. The _Mary Rose_ was
provided with an elevated quarter-deck and above that a high poop.
Massing his men in the gangways just forward of the mainmast and on the
forecastle itself, with the hardiest spirits in the