Harry, however, determined not to leave without his friend, and he was therefore left behind when the Englishmen returned to their own vessel. The grapnels uniting the two ships were cut, and at once the craft began to drift apart, Harry being left on board the Spanish vessel searching for Roger.
How he found him and rescued him, obtaining possession of certain documents at the very last moment, and hoisted Roger on deck even as the ship swamped beneath their feet, has already been told.
Now, as to the result of the action. Of the two ships first engaged by the English—the Maria Dolorosa and the Buena Vista—the latter had been sunk at the commencement of the action, and the former had blown up.
The third ship, the Gloria del Mundo, had sunk. The Salvador and El Capitan were the only two of the Spanish fleet that still remained afloat, and both were fearfully knocked about. The Salvador had lost all her masts, every one of her boats had been smashed to pieces by the gun-fire of the English, and her sides were everywhere perforated with shot-holes. But a prize crew had been put on board her, and was now hard at work patching her up and rendering her seaworthy, rigging jury-masts, cutting away wreckage, and otherwise putting her once more into sailing trim. El Capitan was in a similar condition. She had still her mizzenmast standing; but otherwise she was as badly damaged as her companion, and was undergoing the same repairs and refit.
The Spaniards who had escaped on board the Salvador and El Capitan from the other vessels, and the crews of the two ships themselves still left alive, had been divided into five batches, one being put on board each ship. This was done by way of precaution, since, thus separated, there was much less likelihood of their attempting to recapture their own ships or take those of the English.
The English squadron had suffered almost as badly, for although none of the vessels had been sunk, they were all in a very seriously damaged condition. Cavendish’s vessel, the Stag Royal, had lost all her masts, and was in great danger of foundering, her appearance being that of a huge mass of wreckage rather than a ship; but the carpenters were hard at work on her, and were making good her defects as quickly as possible.
The other two vessels of the English fleet, the Elizabeth and the Good Adventure, were not quite so much cut up as the ship of the commodore, but stood in need of a good deal of repair before they would be again serviceable.
The English had put prize crews on board the two Spanish ships, sadly depleting the companies of their own ships, and all hands were kept hard at the work of repair, for Cavendish knew that, in the event of a gale springing up, none of the ships would weather it in their existing condition. It was very trying work, too, this patching up of the vessels at sea, and at the best it could be nothing more than a temporary repair. But at last, after three days of incessant toil, all five of the craft were reported as fit to proceed on the voyage. Yet it was agreed that they ought to run for some place where the ships might be beached, careened, and overhauled thoroughly; otherwise they could not be trusted to weather the storms which they would inevitably meet with on their proposed cruising-ground, which was the Caribbean Sea.
Cavendish therefore summoned a conclave of the captains of his little squadron in the cabin of the flag-ship, to decide upon some place where they might go to execute the necessary repairs.
The charts were got out and laid upon the table; courses were laid off to various places, and the distances thereto measured and calculated; and after some discussion it was decided unanimously that they should run for the West India Islands, trusting that they might meet with no Spanish squadron either on the way or at their rendezvous for overhauling.