Scheldt. If these should be like them! And cutting all cables, hoisting
any sails, the Invincible Armada goes lumbering wildly out to sea, every
ship foul of her neighbor.

The largest of the four galliasses loses her rudder, and drifts helpless
to and fro, hindering and confusing. The duke, having (so the Spaniards
say) weighed his anchor deliberately instead of leaving it behind him,
runs in again after awhile, and fires a signal for return: but his
truant sheep are deaf to the shepherd's pipe, and swearing and praying
by turns, he runs up Channel towards Gravelines picking up stragglers
on his way, who are struggling as they best can among the flats and
shallows: but Drake and Fenner have arrived as soon as he. When Monday's
sun rises on the quaint old castle and muddy dykes of Gravelines town,
the thunder of the cannon recommences, and is not hushed till night.
Drake can hang coolly enough in the rear to plunder when he thinks fit;
but when the battle needs it, none can fight more fiercely, among the
foremost; and there is need now, if ever. That Armada must never be
allowed to re-form. If it does, its left wing may yet keep the English
at bay, while its right drives off the blockading Hollanders from
Dunkirk port, and sets Parma and his flotilla free to join them, and to
sail in doubled strength across to the mouth of Thames.

So Drake has weighed anchor, and away up Channel with all his squadron,
the moment that he saw the Spanish fleet come up; and with him Fenner
burning to redeem the honor which, indeed, he had never lost; and ere
Fenton, Beeston, Crosse, Ryman, and Lord Southwell can join them, the
Devon ships have been worrying the Spaniards for two full hours into
confusion worse confounded.

But what is that heavy firing behind them? Alas for the great galliasse!
She lies, like a huge stranded whale, upon the sands where now stands
Calais pier; and Amyas Preston, the future hero of La Guayra, is
pounding her into submission, while a fleet of hoys and drumblers look
on and help, as jackals might the lion.

Soon, on the south-west horizon, loom up larger and larger two mighty
ships, and behind them sail on sail. As they near a shout greets the
Triumph and the Bear; and on and in the lord high admiral glides stately
into the thickest of the fight.

True, we have still but some three-and-twenty ships which can cope at
all with some ninety of the Spaniards: but we have dash, and daring, and
the inspiratio