That huge vessel failed to enter the harbour, and stuck fast upon the bar.  There was much dismay on board, but Don Hugo prepared resolutely to defend himself.  The quays of Calais and the line of the French shore were lined with thousands of eager spectators, as the two boats-rowing steadily toward a galeasse, which carried forty brass pieces of artillery, and was manned with three hundred soldiers and four hundred and fifty slaves—­seemed rushing upon their own destruction.  Of these daring Englishmen, patricians and plebeians together, in two open pinnaces, there were not more than one hundred in number, all told.  They soon laid themselves close to the Capitana, far below her lofty sides, and called on Don Hugo to surrender.  The answer was, a smile of derision from the haughty Spaniard, as he looked down upon them from what seemed an inaccessible height.  Then one Wilton, coxswain of the Delight; of Winter’s squadron, clambered up to the enemy’s deck and fell dead the same instant.  Then the English volunteers opened a volley upon the Spaniards; “They seemed safely ensconced in their ships,” said bold Dick Tomson, of the Margaret and Joan, “while we in our open pinnaces, and far under them, had nothing to shroud and cover us.”  Moreover the numbers were, seven hundred and fifty to one hundred.  But, the Spaniards, still quite disconcerted by the events of the preceding night, seemed under a spell.  Otherwise it would have been an easy matter for the great galeasse to annihilate such puny antagonists in a very short space of time.

The English pelted the Spaniards quite cheerfully, however, with arquebus shot, whenever they showed themselves above the bulwarks, picked off a considerable number, and sustained a rather severe loss themselves, Lieutenant Preston of the Ark-Royal, among others, being dangerously wounded.  “We had a pretty skirmish for half-an-hour,” said Tomson.  At last Don Hugo de Moncada, furious at the inefficiency of his men, and leading them forward in person, fell back on his deck with a bullet through both eyes.  The panic was instantaneous, for, meantime, several other English boats—­some with eight, ten; or twelve men on board—­were seen pulling—­towards the galeasse; while the dismayed soldiers at once leaped overboard on the land side, and attempted to escape by swimming and wading to the shore.  Some of them succeeded, but the greater number were drowned.  The few who remained—­not more, than twenty in all—­hoisted two handkerchiefs upon two rapiers as a signal of truce.  The English, accepting it as a signal of defeat; scrambled with great difficulty up the lofty sides of the Capitana, and, for an hour and a half, occupied themselves most agreeably in plundering the ship and in liberating the slaves.

It was their intention, with the flood-tide, to get the vessel off, as she was but slightly damaged, and of very great value.  But a serious obstacle arose to this arrangement.  For presently a boat came along-side, with young M. de Gourdon and another French captain, and hailed the galeasse.  There was nobody on board who could speak French but Richard Tomson.  So Richard returned the hail, and asked their business.  They said they came from the governor.