“Let him die as he lived, with honor.”

A wild figure sprang out of the mass of sailors who struggled and shrieked amid the foam, and rushed upward at the Spaniard.  It was Michael Heard.  The Don, who stood above him, plunged his sword into the old man’s body:  but the hatchet gleamed, nevertheless:  down went the blade through the headpiece and through head; and as Heard sprang onward, bleeding, but alive, the steel-clad corpse rattled down the deck into the surge.  Two more strokes, struck with the fury of a dying man, and the standard-staff was hewn through.  Old Michael collected all his strength, hurled the flag far from the sinking ship, and then stood erect one moment and shouted, “God save Queen Bess!” and the English answered with a “Hurrah!” which rent the welkin.

Another moment and the gulf had swallowed his victim, and the poop, and him; and nothing remained of the Madre Dolorosa but a few floating spars and struggling wretches, while a great awe fell upon all men, and a solemn silence, broken only by the cry

  “Of some strong swimmer in his agony.”

And then, suddenly collecting themselves, as men awakened from a dream, half-a-dozen desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, leaped overboard, swam towards the flag, and towed it alongside in triumph.

“Ah!” said Salvation Yeo, as he helped the trophy up over the side; “ah! it was not for nothing that we found poor Michael!  He was always a good comrade.  And now, then, my masters, shall we inshore again and burn La Guayra?”

“Art thou never glutted with Spanish blood, thou old wolf?” asked Will Cary.

“Never, sir,” answered Yeo.

“To St. Jago be it,” said Amyas, “if we can get there:  but—­God help us!”

And he looked round sadly enough; while no one needed that he should finish his sentence, or explain his “but.”

The fore-mast was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging in elf-locks, the hull shot through and through in twenty places, the deck strewn with the bodies of nine good men, besides sixteen wounded down below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads, poured down a flood of fire upon a sea of glass.

And it would have been well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some poor fellow below cry out under the surgeon’s knife; or murmuring to each other that all was lost.  Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them that all depended on rigging a jury-mast forward as soon as possible.  They answered only by growls; and at last broke into open reproaches.  Even Will Cary’s volatile nature, which had kept him up during the fight gave way, when Yeo and the carpenter came aft, and told Amyas in a low voice—­

“We are hit somewhere forward, below the waterline, sir.  She leaks a terrible deal, and the Lord will not vouchsafe to us to lay our hands on the place, for all our searching.”