e had
been scotched, but not killed. More than half the great fleet were far
away, untouched by shot, perhaps able to fight a second battle if they
recovered heart. To follow, to drive them on the banks if the wind held,
or into the North Sea, anywhere so that he left them no chance of
joining hands with Parma again, and to use the time before they had
rallied from his blows, that was the present necessity. His own poor
fellows were famished and in rags; but neither he nor they had leisure
to think of themselves. There was but one thought in the whole of them,
to be again in chase of the flying foe. Howard was resolute as Drake.
All that was possible was swiftly done. Seymour and the Thames squadron
were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From every attainable
source food and powder were collected for the rest--far short in both
ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, 'we were resolved
to put on a brag and go on as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the
admiral and he were again off on the chase.

The brag was unneeded. What man could do had been done, and the rest was
left to the elements. Never again could Spanish seamen be brought to
face the English guns with Medina Sidonia to lead them. They had a fool
at their head. The Invisible Powers in whom they had been taught to
trust had deserted them. Their confidence was gone and their spirit
broken. Drearily the morning broke on the Duke and his consorts the day
after the battle. The Armada had collected in the night. The nor'-wester
had freshened to a gale, and they were labouring heavily along, making
fatal leeway towards the shoals.

It was St. Lawrence's Day, Philip's patron saint, whose shoulder-bone he
had lately added to the treasures of the Escurial; but St. Lawrence was
as heedless as St. Dominic. The _San Martin_ had but six fathoms under
her. Those nearer to the land signalled five, and right before them they
could see the brown foam of the breakers curling over the sands, while
on their weather-beam, a mile distant and clinging to them like the
shadow of death, were the English ships which had pursued them from
Plymouth like the dogs of the Furies. The Spanish sailors and soldiers
had been without food since the evening when they anchored at Calais.
All Sunday they had been at work, no rest allowed them to eat. On the
Sunday night they had been stirred out of their sleep by the fire-ships.
Monday they had been fighting, and Monday night com