The day was breaking in red intolerable splendor, a terrible glory illuminating the Mere Honour and the Marigold, the river and the sandy shore where gathered the flamingoes and the herons and the egrets, as the Admiral, standing on the poop of the Mere Honour, pressed the hands of those his officers that were spared to him, and spoke simply and manfully, as had spoken Francis Drake, to the gentlemen adventurers who had risked life and goods in this enterprise, and to the soldiers and mariners gathered in the waist; then listened in silence to the story of disaster.  Nor Robert Baldry nor Henry Sedley was there to make report, but a grizzled man-at-arms told of the trap beyond the tunal into which Baldry had been betrayed.  “How did the Dons come to know, Sir John?  We’ll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no such devil’s battery as opened on us was planted there before this night!  ’Twas a traitor or a spy that wrought us deadly harm!” He ended with a fearful imprecation, and an echo of his oath came from his fellows in defeat.

Michael Thynne, Master of the Cygnet, a dazed and bleeding figure, snatched from the water by one of the Marigold’s boats, spoke for his ship.  “Came to us that were nearest the shore a boat out of the shadow—­and we saw but four or maybe five rowers.  ‘Who goes there?’ calls I, standing by the big culverin.  ‘The word or we fire!’ One in the boat stands up. ‘Dione,’ says he, and on comes the boat under our stern.”  He put up an uncertain hand to a ghastly wound in his forehead....  “Well, your Honor, as I was saying, they were Spaniards, after all, and a many of them, for they were hidden in the bottom of the boat. ‘Dione,’ says they, and I lean over the rail to see if ’twere black Humphrey clambering up and to know what was wanted....  After that I don’t remember—­but one had a pistolet, I think....  There was another boat that came after them—­and we were but twenty men in all.  They swarmed over the side and they cut us down.  They must ha’ found the magazine, for they fired the ship—­they fired the Cygnet, Sir John, and it bore down with the tide and struck the Phoenix.”  His voice falling, one caught and drew him aside to the chirurgeon’s care.

The Admiral turned to Ambrose Wynch, who burst forth with:  “Sir John Nevil, as I have hope of heaven, I swear I did guard that man as you bade me do!  The room was safe, the window high and barred, the door locked—­”

“I doubt not that you did your duty, Ambrose Wynch,” spoke the Admiral.  “But the man escaped—­”

“At the nooning he was safe enough,” pursued the other, with agitation.  “I, going the rounds, looked in and saw him sitting on his bed, smiling at me like a woman—­Satan take his soul!  I left Ralph Walter in the hall without, and you know him for a stanch man....  When we heard the Mere Honour’s guns, and the town rose against us who were left within it, and I and my handful were cutting our way out to join you, Walter got to my side for a moment.  ‘He’s gone!’ says he.  ’When I heard the alarum I went to fetch him forth to the square with me—­and he was not there!  When he went and how, except the devil aided him, I know no more than you!’”