Indeed, the pirates might have made good their escape, with at most only a shot or two from the men-of-war, had it not then been about the full of the moon, which, having arisen, presently discovered to those of the fleet that lay closest about them what was being done aboard the vice-admiral.

At this one of the vessels hailed them, and then after a while, having no reply, hailed them again.  Even then the Spaniards might not immediately have suspected anything was amiss but only that the vice-admiral for some reason best known to himself was shifting his anchorage, had not one of the Spaniards aloft—­but who it was Captain Morgan was never able to discover—­answered the hail by crying out that the vice-admiral had been seized by the pirates.

At this the alarm was instantly given and the mischief done, for presently there was a tremendous bustle through that part of the fleet lying nighest the vice-admiral—­a deal of shouting of orders, a beating of drums, and the running hither and thither of the crews.

But by this time the sails of the vice-admiral had filled with a strong land breeze that was blowing up the harbor, whereupon the carpenter, at Captain Morgan’s orders, having cut away both anchors, the galleon presently bore away up the harbor, gathering headway every moment with the wind nearly dead astern.  The nearest vessel was the only one that for the moment was able to offer any hinderance.  This ship, having by this time cleared away one of its guns, was able to fire a parting shot against the vice-admiral, striking her somewhere forward, as our hero could see by a great shower of splinters that flew up in the moonlight.

At the sound of the shot all the vessels of the flota not yet disturbed by the alarm were aroused at once, so that the pirates had the satisfaction of knowing that they would have to run the gantlet of all the ships between them and the open sea before they could reckon themselves escaped.

And, indeed, to our hero’s mind it seemed that the battle which followed must have been the most terrific cannonade that was ever heard in the world.  It was not so ill at first, for it was some while before the Spaniards could get their guns clear for action, they being not the least in the world prepared for such an occasion as this.  But by-and-by first one and then another ship opened fire upon the galleon, until it seemed to our hero that all the thunders of heaven let loose upon them could not have created a more prodigious uproar, and that it was not possible that they could any of them escape destruction.

By now the moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke that rose in the air appeared as white as snow.  The air seemed full of the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the galleon, was magnified by our hero’s imagination into ten times its magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of splinters it would cast up into the moonlight.  At last he suddenly beheld one poor man knocked sprawling across the deck, who, as he raised his arm from behind the mast, disclosed that the hand was gone from it, and that the shirt-sleeve was red with blood in the moonlight.  At this sight all the strength fell away from poor Harry, and he felt sure that a like fate or even a worse must be in store for him.