at as we drove past her I
heard the sickening crack of our oars as they snapped off one after the
other against her side, tossing those that manned them in bloody,
struggling heaps.

And now from every English gun leaped roaring flame; the air was full
of shrieks and groans and the crash of splintering wood, and through
the eddying smoke I could see many of our soldiery that lay in strange,
contorted attitudes while others crawled, sobbing on hands and knees;
but on the scarlet-dropping rowing-benches I dared not look.

Hotter waxed the fight, louder swelled the din and tumult with the
never-ceasing thunder of the guns; and amid it all Don Miguel paced to
and fro, impassive as always, the blade of his long rapier gleaming
here and there as he directed the fire.

Up rolled the smoke thicker and denser, but, ever and anon, through
some rift I might catch a glimpse of the scarred, blackened side of the
English ship, or the litter and confusion of our decks. Twice shots
ploughed up the planking hard by me, and once my post itself was
struck, so that for a moment I had some hope of winning free of my
bonds, yet struggle how I would I could not move; the which filled me
with a keen despair, for I made no doubt (what with the smoke and
tumult) I might have plunged overboard unnoticed and belike have gained
the English ship.

Slowly and by degrees our fire slackened, one by one the guns fell
silent and in their place rose the more hateful sounds of anguish. Now
as I stood thus, my eyes smarting with burnt powder, my ears yet
ringing with the din, I grew aware how the deck sloped in strange
fashion; at first I paid small heed, yet with every minute this slope
became steeper, and with this certainty came the knowledge that we were
sinking and, moreover (judging by the angle of the deck) sinking by the
stern.

Hereupon, impelled by that lust of life the which is implanted in each
one of us, I fell to a wild struggling against my bonds, until, seeing
in a little the hopelessness of this, I grew resigned to despair, and,
ceasing my passionate efforts, looked about me, for the smoke was
thinned away. And truly an evil sight was this great galleass, with
its shot-torn decks and huddled heaps of dead, its litter of broken
spars and dismantled guns, and with everywhere great gouts and pools of
blood, while below and beyond were the shattered rowing-benches
cumbered now with awful red heaps, silent for the most part, yet some
t