Chapter Ten.
How the plate ships sought to escape from San Juan.
“We die?” reiterated the Grand Inquisitor, now at last fully awakened to the tremendous gravity of the situation. “And pray, señor, at whose behest do we die?”
“At mine, most reverend señor,” answered George, simply. “Have I not yet succeeded in making that clear to you?”
“That means, then, that you intend to murder us?” demanded the Grand Inquisitor, with pale, tremulous lips.
“Señores,” replied George, in a tone of finality, “it matters not to me how you choose to designate your impending execution. Call it murder, if the expression affords you any satisfaction. I call it an act of stern justice, the richly merited punishment due to a long series of atrociously inhuman crimes committed by you, if not actually with your own hands, at least by your orders. Such crimes as you and your associates have most callously and cold-bloodedly committed under the cloak of religion deserve a far more severe punishment than the mere deprivation of life, and if I were constituted like yourselves I should make that deprivation of life a long, lingering agony, a slow death of exquisite torment, such as you have inflicted upon countless victims; but torture is indescribably repugnant to the mind of an Englishman, therefore I intend to carry out the death-sentence which I have passed upon you, as mercifully as possible, by causing you to be shot—with one exception, that exception being in the case of the Grand Inquisitor, whom I purpose to hang, as an example to others. And I have taken upon myself the terrible task and responsibility of execution, for the simple reason that there is no other who will do so; and justice must be satisfied. And now, having said all that there is to be said, I leave you all to prepare for death as best you may.” Whereupon, the young man, with stern, set face, turned away and walked over to Basset, who was still doing what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the latest victim to the Inquisition’s merciless methods of conversion.
“Well, Basset,” he said, indicating the unfortunate individual in the chair, “whom have we here? He looks to me something like an Englishman.”
“So he be,” answered Basset. “He says his name be Job Winter, and that he was one of the crew of Admiral Hawkins’ ship, the Minion. He’ve been in this hell upon earth since last August, and all that time they fiends in human form up there,” indicating the occupants of the dais, “have been trying their hardest to make a good Catholic of him. And this is how they’ve been doing it. Look to mun.” And very gently and tenderly the soldier disclosed certain horrible and blood-curdling injuries very recently inflicted, together with a number of healed and half-healed scars which bore eloquent testimony to a long period of dreadful torment. So frightful was the sight that both the beholders fairly reeled under the horrible qualm of sickness and repulsion induced by it, and if anything further was needed to confirm the young Captain in his full determination to make an example of the Inquisitors, he found it in the revolting spectacle before him.
“My poor dear man,” he said, his voice quivering with compassion, “what you must have suffered! But, cheer up; we are Englishmen and Devon men, like yourself, and one of our purposes in coming here was to deliver you out of the hands of these Spanish devils, and we’ll do it, too. We’ve a good surgeon aboard our ship, and you shall be in his hands this very day, please God. Are there any more of you in this place?”
“He doesn’t know, poor soul,” answered Basset, interposing, “but I do; there be two more Englishmen that we’ve found in the cells; and they’m almost so bad as this man. We found ’em safely locked up; but they’m out now and being taken care of by our men.”
“Can they walk?” demanded George.
“A few yards, perhaps,” surmised Basset, “but not so far as the wharf.”
“Then they must be carried,” decided George. “And these men,” indicating the scarlet-garbed individuals, whose business it evidently was to actually carry out the fiendish commands of the Inquisitors—“shall help to do it. I dare say we can find all the additional help we need somewhere in this building. I will go out and see to it; and, meanwhile, you will remain here and see that none of these persons escape.”
“Ay, ay,” responded Basset, “I’ll take care of that, trust me. I don’t think there’ll be any trouble, after the example I made of that fellow,” pointing to the prostrate figure on the paved floor. “The rascal presumed to dispute my authority when I came in here and told everybody that they were prisoners, and—there a be! No, I don’t think there’ll be any more trouble.”
Whereupon George passed from the terrible chamber with its fearful evidences of the dreadful lengths to which misguided fanaticism will occasionally carry men, even in the cause of religion, and proceeded to busy himself in making all the arrangements necessary for the comfortable conveyance of the three unfortunate victims of Inquisitional cruelty down to the ship.
The thing was done! Righteously, or unrighteously, it was done at last, and the little party of stern, inflexible-visaged Englishmen emerged from the Inquisition building of San Juan de Ulua grouped protectively round the three litters in which lay the quivering, emaciated, anguished bodies of their fellow-countrymen, delivered, against all hope, from a fate a thousand times worse than any ordinary kind of death, while within the gloomy, forbidding walls of the building they left behind them nine corpses as a warning and example that, even in that far-off land, Englishmen might not be tortured to death with impunity. It was a terrible demonstration of crude, primitive justice; and whether or not it was as effective in inculcating a lesson as it was intended to be, it is now impossible to say; but one thing at least is certain, that from that time forward there is no record of any Englishman having ever been received into the Inquisition at San Juan.
The party reached the ship unmolested, although they naturally attracted a great deal of attention during their passage through the streets. How it would have been with them during that short march if the inhabitants of the city had been aware of the terrible tragedy which had just been enacted within the walls of the Inquisition can never be known, possibly it might have resulted in a still more terrible tragedy in the streets, with far-reaching results upon the city itself, but Saint Leger believed that he had taken every possible precaution against such an occurrence.
As events proved, however, there was one precaution which he had omitted to take; he should have insisted upon the arrest by the alcalde of Don Manuel Rebiera, the acting Commandant, upon that individual’s display of hostility at the termination of their interview with him; and this George had not done. Now, Don Manuel was both a bigoted Catholic and a Government official. He was one of those who held that the Church—and in his case the term included every individual belonging to the Church—could do no wrong; even the atrocities of the Inquisition, which many devout Catholics secretly reprobated, were to him perfectly justifiable, and the institution itself as sacred as the cathedral; and the suspicion aroused within him by George’s question as to the whereabouts of the building—that this little band of autocratic, domineering heretics meditated an invasion of its sacred precincts, possibly with the intention of perpetrating some act of violence therein, and in any case desecrating it by their intrusion—stirred his fanatical religious rancour to boiling point, while the fact that those same heretics held the town—a possession of his Most Catholic Majesty—at their mercy, was not only as great an offence from his patriotic point of view, but he also felt that it inflicted a deep stain upon his honour as a Spanish soldier, which he was resolved to wipe out, if possible.
These feelings he had wit enough to understand he must conceal from George and the alcalde, and he contrived to do so pretty successfully; but the effort only caused them to gall and rankle the more intolerably, and when, at the termination of his interview with them, he quitted their presence with a certain scarcely veiled hint of insolence in his manner, he was in the throes of a perfect frenzy of anger and humiliation; in the precise frame of mind, in fact, as that of the man who, forgetting everything but his own grievances, is ready to commit any crime, however atrocious, in order to avenge himself and salve his wounded feelings. Too often, unhappily, reflection does not come until it is too late, and the crime has been perpetrated, and Don Manuel’s first impulse was to muster his soldiers, follow after the Englishmen, and slay them, if possible, before they should reach the Inquisition building. But as he hurried toward the barracks with this fell intention, he realised that what he meditated was impossible; before he could muster his soldiers and put them upon the track, the Englishmen would have reached their goal; and once within the massive walls of the building, they would be safe. But there was no reason, he told himself, why they should not be attacked as they came out—and here his meditations came to a sudden halt. There was a very good reason, which was that, even if his meditated attack should prove successful, only a paltry dozen of Englishmen would fall, and their comrades would remain to wreak a terrible retribution, in the course of which he, among others, would have to pay the full penalty. No, that would not do at all; it was not that Don Manuel Rebiera was a coward; very far from it; but with the speed of thought he pictured to himself the happenings that must inevitably follow the perpetration of an act of such base treachery as he meditated; he saw in imagination the execution of the hostages—among whom, he suddenly remembered, were one or two very dear friends of his own; the bombardment of the town, with the concomitant slaughter of women and children as well as men; the exasperation of the citizens at the author of the deed which had brought such a frightful calamity upon them, and his own arrest and summary execution. No; that would not do; he was not in the least afraid to face death in fair fight, but to be arrested by his own countrymen, handed over by them to the hated English, and publicly hanged by the latter from one of the yard-arms of their ship—No; he could not face that ignominy.
Then what was to be done—for something he was determined to do? He somehow found his way back to the private room in his quarters, and there, flinging himself into a chair, set himself to think. And gradually from out the chaos of his thoughts there emerged an idea, a plan, a mad, desperate plan that, if successful, would mean the destruction or capture of the Nonsuch and every Englishman aboard her, which was what Rebiera wanted; while, if it failed—! But it must not, should not fail; no, he would see to that. So presently he took pen and paper, and proceeded to jot down his plan of campaign, altering its details here and there as he went on, until finally he had evolved a scheme that commended itself to him as eminently satisfactory. Then he proceeded to jot down a number of names of persons whose co-operation it was necessary to secure; and, this done, he called for an orderly, who forthwith proceeded to ride hither and thither about the city, calling at this house and that and leaving instructions that the persons whom he named were to present themselves without fail at the Commandant’s office at a certain hour, namely, four o’clock in the afternoon, which just gave the Commandant nice time to complete his plans before the arrival of the persons whom he had summoned to meet him.
And in due time, with very commendable punctuality, those persons turned up and were ushered into the Commandant’s private office. There were some thirty of them in all, and when the whole of them were present Don Manuel proceeded to address them, at first in quick, tense tones, which gradually changed to the fiery, impassioned language and gestures characteristic of an invocation. For a man of his parts he was rather an able orator, moreover he was more profoundly stirred than, probably, he had ever before been in the whole course of his life. It is not to be greatly wondered at, therefore, that before he ended he had wrought his audience up to almost as high a pitch of ferocity and enthusiasm as himself; and when at length he reached his peroration and concluded by making a certain demand, the men who had hitherto sat listening to him sprang to their feet with one accord and vowed, by all they held sacred, that they would obey him and perform his behest, or die in the attempt. And they were all resolute, determined men, too, of the seafaring class, who looked as though they might be safely counted upon to keep their word; wherefore, as soon as their excitement had subsided sufficiently to permit of a return to business, Don Manuel drew toward him a bundle of documents which he had already prepared, and which were, in fact, temporary commissions, and distributed them, one to each man present. Then, selecting a particular memorandum from a number which were lying upon his desk, and referring to it for guidance from time to time, he proceeded to give specified instructions to each person, who, having received them, at once rose and bowed himself out, by which arrangement the party gradually dissolved and left the building one man at a time, thus reducing to a minimum the chances of attracting undue attention.
The afternoon was well advanced when at length George Saint Leger and his party returned to the Nonsuch, and handed over to Jack Chichester, the surgeon, the three human wrecks whom they had rescued from the clutches of the Inquisition, with special instructions that no pains were to be spared, no trouble to be regarded as too great, nothing that the ship contained too precious for the mitigation of their suffering and, as all hoped, their ultimate restoration to something approaching as nearly as might be to perfect health. It was pitiful to witness the almost incredulous joy and transport manifested by the unfortunates at finding themselves once more in the midst of their fellow-countrymen, and especially of men who spoke in the accents of that beloved Devon whose scented orchards, winding lanes, swelling moors, and lonely tors they had utterly despaired of ever again beholding. But they were sturdy fellows, too, and even broken down as they were, with their strength sapped and their courage almost quelled by long months of protracted agony and privation, they quickly recovered spirit when once they found themselves outside the gloomy precincts of the Inquisition building; and though, despite the utmost precaution and the most tender care in getting them out of the boat and up the ship’s lofty side, the pain they suffered in the process must have been excruciating, they made light of it, declaring, with a laugh that moved those who heard it to tears—so hollow and pathetic was it—that such pain was less than nothing compared with the awful long-drawn-out torments to which they had almost grown accustomed!
And if the three rescued Englishmen were glad to find themselves once more, against all hope, delivered from the power of their tormentors, and comparatively safe under the shelter of the glorious Cross of Saint George, the hostages who had most unwillingly remained on board the English ship to insure the good faith of their countrymen—in which, if the truth must be told, they had no very profound belief—were scarcely less so when they saw the little party of adventurers return in safety from their desperate errand; for that return meant that one great danger at least had been safely passed, and surely now they might rely upon the citizens of San Juan to do nothing foolish. So they plucked up heart of grace, and became quite cheery and affable with the Englishmen until Heard, the purser, rather maliciously reminded them that the matter of the indemnity still remained unsettled and that many things might happen before the citizens consented to part with such an enormous sum of money. And the hostages would have felt very much more disconcerted at his remark than they actually were, had they dreamed that the Englishman was speaking truer than he knew.
By the time that the excitement attendant upon the safe return of the Captain and his escort had begun to simmer down a little, night had fallen, and those who were not on duty began to think of retiring to rest, for the day had been a long and rather trying one to all hands, and especially so to those who had been of the shore-going party. But George did not forget, nor would he allow anyone else on board to forget, that the ship was in a hostile port, surrounded on all sides by enemies; and that although, for the moment, a truce prevailed, nobody could possibly say how long that truce might last, or at what moment it might be broken. He reminded his compatriots that the harbour of San Juan de Ulua, where they now lay, was the scene of that act of stupendous treachery which it was a part of their business to avenge; he pointed out that it was the very people who now surrounded them who had perpetrated that act of treachery and were therefore quite capable of perpetrating another if they believed that they saw the opportunity to do so successfully, and he drew their attention to the fact that although, thank God, they had a sound ship under them, they were very much fewer in numbers than those who were the victims of the tragedy of a year ago, and were consequently at least as tempting a mark as those others had been; and finally he issued his commands that the same watches should be maintained as though the ship were at sea, and that the utmost vigilance should be observed by the look-outs and especially by the officers, that the ordnance should be kept loaded, that no man should lay aside his arms, even to sleep; and that, lastly, if any craft or boat of any kind were seen to be approaching the ship during the hours of darkness, she was to be first challenged, and then fired upon if she did not immediately reply.
The night fell dark and overcast, with a brisk easterly breeze and occasional heavy rain squalls, taxing the vigilance of the look-outs to the utmost, and causing young Saint Leger to frequently quit his cabin to personally assure himself that his instructions were being carried out in their entirety. But nothing in the slightest degree suspicious was observed until shortly after three o’clock in the morning, when Dyer, the pilot, whose watch it then was, suddenly presented himself at the door of George’s cabin with the startling intimation that two of the plate ships, if not three, seemed to have slipped their cables and were getting under way. “There baint a light to be seed aboard any of ’em,” he reported, “and it’s so dark as Tophet, but I be certain sure that two of they ships is settin’ their canvas, and there be another that, to my mind, be adrift.”
“But how can that be, when we have the officers of the ships aboard here?” demanded George as he sprang from his cot and followed Dyer out on deck.
“Don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Dyer; “but it’s a fact that some of ’em be gettin’ under way.”
As the pair emerged from the poop cabin, they were met by Drew, the boatswain, who reported:
“There be four of ’em on the move now, Cap’n; and I baint at all sure but where there’s one or two more of ’em makin’ ready for a start, though the light be that bad—”
“Mr Dyer,” interrupted George crisply, “let our cable be buoyed, ready for slipping, and call all hands, if you please, to fighting stations. Also, let the sail-trimmers be sent aloft to loose the canvas. We will get under way at once. It is too dark for me to see anything just now, coming directly from the lighted cabin, but I’ll take your word for it that things are as you say. Evidently, there is treachery afoot again, somewhere; and it will never do to allow any of those plate ships to escape. Rather than permit that to happen, I’ll sink them!”
Thereupon there ensued on board the Nonsuch a brief period of intense but almost silent activity, during which the severely strict discipline which Saint Leger had imposed upon his crew amply justified itself, for every man exactly knew his station and the duty which the exigencies of the moment demanded of him, and did it without the need of a single superfluous order. A few cries there were, of course, demanding that this or that rope should be let go, or intimating that such and such a sail was ready for setting, for the darkness was so intense that it was impossible to see exactly everything that was happening even aboard their own ship, nor was the work executed with quite that automatic precision and astonishing speed that is characteristic of the Navy of the present day, yet the work went forward so smoothly and rapidly that within ten minutes of the delivery of George’s first order the Nonsuch was under way and turning to windward in pursuit of the plate ships that were cumbrously attempting to effect their escape from the harbour.
Within the next five minutes it became evident that the Spanish sailors were no match for the English, nor the Spanish ships for the Nonsuch; for although the former had secured a pretty good start of the latter, they had slipped their cables with only just enough canvas set to give them steerage way and enable them to avoid colliding with other ships, slowly increasing their spread of canvas as they went, whereas the Nonsuch hung on to her anchor until practically the whole of her working canvas was set, wherefore no sooner had the ponderous hempen cable gone smoking out through her hawse pipe than she came under command, when her extraordinary speed at once told, and she began to rapidly overhaul the ships of which she was in chase. But it was nervous work threading her way out of that crowded anchorage in the intense darkness, for there were fully fifty sail in the port, apart from the plate ships, and for some unknown reason—but probably in accordance with orders received—not one was showing a light, consequently there were several occasions when a collision was avoided only by the remarkable working qualities of the ship herself and the instantaneous response of the mariners to the orders issued from time to time from the quarter-deck.
To avoid collision with a craft lying passively at anchor was, under the circumstances, quite sufficiently difficult, but it was infinitely worse when it came to steering clear of the plate ships beating out of the harbour; and indeed something more than a mere suspicion soon took possession of the minds of the English that a deliberate attempt was being made by the Spaniards to either run them down or disable them, for whenever, in the course of manoeuvring, they drew near a Spanish ship, the latter seemed to alter her course and come blundering headlong at them, when, if a collision had chanced to have occurred, the English ship must of necessity have been the greatest sufferer, because of her inferior size. But here again the nimbleness of the Nonsuch and the activity of her crew sufficed to avert disaster, and ship after ship was overtaken and passed in deadly, ominous silence, for it was George’s intention to make no demonstration until he had overtaken and weathered the leading ship, when he was determined to administer such a lesson as should not be readily forgotten.
And at length the fateful moment arrived, about half an hour after the Nonsuch had slipped her cable and slid away from her anchorage. She had overtaken and passed every ship but one, and that one was now approaching her, the two ships being on opposite tacks. It was difficult, just then, to determine which ship would weather the other; but as the distance between the two narrowed it presently became apparent that neither would weather the other, and that a collision was inevitable, unless one of the two gave way. George issued certain orders, and then walked forward, climbed the forecastle, that he might see the better, and intently fixed his gaze upon the approaching ship. She was then about a point on the lee bow of the Nonsuch, and was steering such a course that, unless one or the other gave way, the stranger must certainly strike the English ship somewhere between her stem and foremast, probably bringing down the latter, most certainly carrying away the bowsprit, and in any case rendering the Nonsuch unmanageable. On she came, a blot of deeper blackness upon the black background of the night, and it was clear to George that those on board her were deliberately manoeuvring to strike the English ship. But Saint Leger had already made his plans, and when presently the space between the two craft had narrowed until only a few fathoms separated them, and still there was no sign of the Spanish ship giving way, the young man put a whistle to his lips and blew a shrill blast, whereupon the helm of the Nonsuch was put hard up, and as she bore broad away the whole of her starboard broadside was poured into the approaching ship, within biscuit-toss, and the discharge was instantly followed by a dreadful outcry aboard her, mingled with the sound of rending timbers; and as the two ships drove close past each other it was seen that her foremast had been shot away. Then, to the amazement of all on board the English ship, an order in Spanish was shouted, and the next instant a straggling but heavy musketry fire was opened upon the former from the decks of the latter, in the midst of which George hailed the Spaniard with:
“Hola! there. How dare you, señor, quit your anchorage without orders, and attempt to leave the harbour? Return at once, or I swear to you that I will sink you forthwith. If you are not round and heading for the anchorage by the time that I am again alongside you, I will give you another broadside. And—arrest the man, whoever he is, who issued the order to you to open fire upon us, for somebody will have to be punished for that outrage.”
Whether or not the Spaniards were able to assimilate the whole of his instructions, George could not tell, for the two ships were fast driving apart; but when at length the Nonsuch was hove about and once more approached the Spaniard’s weather quarter, with guns run out, a figure leaped up on the plate ship’s taffrail, frantically waving a lighted lantern, and as he did so, he hailed:
“Do not fire upon us again, señor, for the love of God! We are busily engaged in clearing away the wreck of our foremast, and as soon as that is done and the ship is once more under command, I give you my word, upon the honour of a Spaniard, that we will return to the anchorage.”
“The honour of a Spaniard!” retorted George, contemptuously. “How much is that worth, after the specimen of it which you have given me this night? However, you cannot possibly escape, so I will spare you for the present. Have you arrested the man who ordered your musketeers to fire upon us?”
“No, señor,” was the answer. “Do you wish him to be put under arrest?”
“That was part of my order when I just now hailed you,” retorted George. “But,” he continued, “possibly you did not hear me; wherefore I repeat the order now.”
“It shall be done,” replied the stranger. “And, señor,” he continued, “although the evidence against us be strong, I beg you not to think that all Spaniards are liars and faithless. There are some—of whom I am one—who know how to keep faith as well as an Englishman; and I will keep faith with you.”
“See that you do so, señor,” retorted George, as the ships again drew apart. “It will be better for you and those with you.”
It was at this moment that the weather suddenly cleared, the clouds drove away to leeward, and the stars shone forth with that mellow lustre and brilliancy which renders a starlit night in the tropics so inexpressibly beautiful; in an instant the intense darkness which had hitherto enveloped the scene was rolled away like a curtain, and objects which a moment before had been invisible were now seen with comparatively perfect distinctness, the several ships which comprised the plate fleet—the whole of which were by this time under way—and even the wharves and houses of the town gleaming faintly and ghostly against the darker background of the country beyond and the blue-black of the star-spangled heavens. And now, too, lights suddenly began to appear in the two batteries which guarded the town. A few seconds later, as the Nonsuch was steering to intercept and order back to her anchorage the second of the escaping plate ships, first one and then the other of those same batteries opened fire, and that their ordnance was levelled against the English ship immediately afterward became apparent from the fact that several heavy shot came hurtling immediately overhead, one or two of which passed through the Nonsuch’s canvas, but fortunately without inflicting any more serious damage.
“Spanish treachery again!” growled George to Basset, who was now standing on the poop beside him. “It would appear that the scoundrels know not what keeping faith means. I felt fully convinced that by securing possession of a dozen of the most important citizens as hostages, we should effectually protect ourselves from all possibility of attack; but it is clear that there is somebody ashore there who cares not what happens to the hostages, if he can only find a chance to strike at us a treacherous blow. Now, then, to deal with this rascal,” indicating the approaching plate ship. “Severe measures are best in such cases as this, and if we deal with this fellow sharply, perhaps the others will take the hint, and return to the anchorage without waiting to be shot at. Starboard your helm, Mr Dyer”—to the pilot; “we will pass under this fellow’s stern, shaving him as closely as may be and pouring a raking broadside into him as we pass; and if that does not make him bear up, we will follow him and give him another. Now, gunners of the starboard battery, stand by your ordnance, and discharge when we are square athwart this big ship’s stern.”
The two craft were by this time within hailing distance of each other, but perfect silence was maintained on board both until the Nonsuch, by hauling her wind to pass under the plate ship’s stern, exposed practically the whole of her deck to those aboard the bigger ship, when an order suddenly rang out, and the whole of the Spaniard’s bulwark instantly flashed into a hundred points of flame as a party of musketeers aboard her discharged their weapons at close range. At such an exceedingly short distance it was inevitable that a certain number of casualties should occur, and George, with rage in his heart, saw several figures collapse and fall upon the deck of his own ship, Dyer’s among them, while a bullet rang sharply upon his own steel headpiece, causing him to stagger slightly.
“The villains!” he muttered savagely; “they shall pay dearly for this. Hold your fire, men; do not discharge your ordnance until we are square athwart his stern. Then let him have it and rake him fore and aft!”
Some five seconds later, the starboard broadside of the Nonsuch’s ordnance, great and small, crashed out, one piece after another in rapid succession; and mingled with the roar of the guns there arose a dreadful chorus of shrieks and yells from the Spaniard’s crowded decks. At the same instant the shore batteries renewed their fire, and so eager, apparently, were the artillerymen to destroy the English ship that they seemed to care little though their own countrymen shared her destruction, for at least half the shot fell on board the ship that had just sustained such a punishing broadside from the English, which still further added to the confusion on board her. And when, a moment later, the Nonsuch hove in stays, with the evident intention of repeating the dose with her larboard broadside, the mere threat proved quite enough, for the big craft hurriedly put up her helm and bore away again for the anchorage, with her scuppers streaming blood. The lesson seemed to have sufficed for the rest also; for, one after the other, as they saw the Nonsuch heading toward them, they, too, bore up and headed back toward the anchorage, while the artillerymen manning the batteries plumped shot into them indiscriminately, apparently unable to distinguish between friend and foe, so that, as they ran in again, those who had hitherto escaped the broadsides of the Englishmen received a pretty severe castigation from their friends ashore. At length, however, the whole fleet got back to the anchorage, well peppered on the one hand by their own batteries, and, on the other, receiving an occasional reminder from the Nonsuch, until they were all once more at anchor, when the Englishmen, as they passed to their own sheltered berth, stood close inshore and poured a couple of broadsides into the nearest battery, so well directed and with such deadly effect that it was effectually silenced, while, as for the other, she soon passed beyond the range of its guns and dropped her anchor as near to the spot which she had previously occupied as could be determined by the elusive light of the stars.