ther appeared to mend. The
galleass was patched up, and De Leyva ventured an attempt to make his
way in her to Scotland. He had passed the worst danger, and Scotland was
almost in sight; but fate would have its victims. The galleass struck a
rock off Dunluce and went to pieces, and Don Alonzo and the princely
youths who had sailed with him were washed ashore all dead, to find an
unmarked grave in Antrim.

Most pitiful of all was the fate of those who fell into the hands of
the English garrisons in Galway and Mayo. Galleons had found their way
into Galway Bay--one of them had reached Galway itself--the crews half
dead with famine and offering a cask of wine for a cask of water. The
Galway townsmen were human, and tried to feed and care for them. Most
were too far gone to be revived, and died of exhaustion. Some might have
recovered, but recovered they would be a danger to the State. The
English in the West of Ireland were but a handful in the midst of a
sullen, half-conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond rebellion
were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and his Legatine Commission were
fresh in immediate memory. The defeat of the Armada in the Channel could
only have been vaguely heard of. All that English officers could have
accurately known must have been that an enormous expedition had been
sent to England by Philip to restore the Pope; and Spaniards, they
found, were landing in thousands in the midst of them with arms and
money; distressed for the moment, but sure, if allowed time to get their
strength again, to set Connaught in a blaze. They had no fortresses to
hold so many prisoners, no means of feeding them, no men to spare to
escort them to Dublin. They were responsible to the Queen's Government
for the safety of the country. The Spaniards had not come on any errand
of mercy to her or hers. The stern order went out to kill them all
wherever they might be found, and two thousand or more were shot,
hanged, or put to the sword. Dreadful! Yes, but war itself is dreadful
and has its own necessities.

The sixty ships which had followed the _San Martin_ succeeded at last in
getting round Cape Clear, but in a condition scarcely less miserable
than that of their companions who had perished in Ireland. Half their
companies died--died of untended wounds, hunger, thirst, and famine
fever. The survivors were moving skeletons, more shadows and ghosts than
living men, with scarce strength left them to draw a rope or handl