, 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 h