se and confusion as if all the devils of hell had
suddenly been let loose. We heard the shouts of the Englishmen, hoarse
and deep, and the shriller cries of the Spaniards, above the roaring of
the guns. On deck there sounded the wild rush and hurry of feet as the
combatants were driven hither and thither. The overseers had thrown down
their whips and fled to the upper decks as soon as the English boarded,
and now we captives sat breathless and bleeding, listening to the noise
above us and longing for release, so that we too might join in the
fight.

Suddenly there leapt through one of the ports a brawny Englishman, armed
not with sword or pike, but with hammer and chisel, and he was speedily
followed by half-a-dozen more, armed in similar fashion.

"Are there Englishmen here?" roared the first as he tumbled in amongst
us. "Speak, lads, if ye be English!"

And at that there went up such a roar as was like to burst open the
deck above us. Men stretched out their hands and arms to these great
English sailors as if they were angels, and prayed them to knock off
their bonds. So they, staring stupidly at us for a moment,--as is
the manner of Englishmen when they see something which they do not
understand,--suddenly fell to and knocked away our chains and padlocks,
while we wept over them and blessed them as our saviors. And meanwhile
others had handed in pikes and swords and glaives through the ports, and
others were guarding the ladder against the Spaniards, in case any of
them should come below. But they were too busy on the upper decks to
have even a thought of us, and so we were uninterrupted, and ere long
every man of us was free of his chains.

"Now, lads!" cried the big man who had first leapt in upon us, "can ye
fight, or are ye too weak for a brush? If any man thinks he can hold
pike or sword, let him pick his weapon and follow me."

Some of us could fight and some could not. Here and there a man was only
released from his chains to fall upon the deck and die. Others, suddenly
made free, found on striving to rise from the benches that the use of
their legs was gone. Others again, whose minds had suffered under those
long months of fiendish torture, were no sooner released than they
became utterly mad, and fell to laughing and gibbering at their
preservers. But many of us, weak as we were, felt the strength of ten
men come into our arms, and we seized eagerly upon the weapons offered
to us, and followed the sailo