and
hand-spikes hewing a way through the struggling, yellow-faced ruffians
of Philip of Arragon.

While the awful battle raged, fire ships were prepared on shore and
sent down upon the Spanish fleet, burning fiercely and painting the
skyline with red. Some of the large vessels had anchored, and, as
these terrors approached, they slipped their cables in order to
escape. Confusion beset the ranks of the boastful foe and cheered on
the British bull-dogs to renewed exertions.

At six in the evening a mighty cry welled from the British boats.
"They fly! They fly!" sounded above the ruck and roar of battle.

Yes--it was the truth. Beaten and dismayed, the Spanish fleet bore
away to the North, while the English--in spite of the fact that their
powder was wet, and nearly all spent--"gave them chase as if they
lacked nothing, until they had cleared their own coast and some part
of Scotland of them." The Armada--split, part helpless--drifted away
from Plymouth, and wild cheers of joy came from the deck of the vessel
which carried bold Sir Francis Drake. The great battle had been won.

So crippled were many of the Spanish hulks that they were wrecked in
stormy weather, off the coast of Scotland and Ireland. Not half of
those who put to sea ever reached Spain again. Many sailors were
drowned, or perished miserably by the hands of the natives of the
coast, and some who escaped were put to death by the Queen's orders.
Fever and sickness broke out in the English ships and the followers of
bold Drake died by hundreds, "sickening one day and perishing the
next."

The English vessels, themselves, were in a bad way--they had to be
disinfected and the men put ashore--where the report of the many
wrecks and the massacre of Spanish soldiers, eased the anxiety of the
once terrified inhabitants of the tight little isle, and made it
certain that the Armada would never return. Drake and his bold seamen
had saved the people of Merrie England. Again hats off to this pirate
of the Spanish Main!

Safely settled in Buckland Abbey, knighted, honored, respected--the
hero of the defense of England--one would think that Drake would have
remained peacefully at home to die "with his boots on." But not so.
The spirit of adventure called to him with irresistible force, and
again he set out for the Spanish Main. He had sailed around the world
before his grapple with the Armada; he had harassed the Spaniard in an
expedition to Lisbon; he was the idol o