Fiercer waxed the fight. Recaldo finding his vessel much battered, rejoined his chief with difficulty and Medina re-collecting his scattered vessels held on his course. For two hours the fight continued, and then Lord Howard thought best to retire to await the coming of other ships which had not yet left the harbor.
Flushed and elated with the victory, with not a single vessel and scarcely a man lost, the English exulted that the great Armada which had been devised to strike terror into their hearts was not so invincible after all. 307
“Is it not glorious, Edward,” cried Francis Stafford from a coil of rope upon which she had thrown herself. “How the Dons flew! Oh, ’tis enough to stir a stone to enthusiasm!”
“’Twould be glorious, Francis, were it not for thee,” answered the youth. “The thought that thou art here hampers my every action, and always am I looking to see that thou art safe. Would thou wert in England; even in the Tower so that thou wert not here.”
“And wherefore? Do I not bear myself as becomes an English lad?” cried Francis. “In all the wide world there is no place that I would rather be than upon the deck of the Ark Royal. So from henceforth speak no more of this. And, Edward, drop no hint of my sex to any. Wherefore should not an English maiden espouse the cause of her country as well as an English youth? Thou seest that there are lads here as maiden like in appearance as I. Give no thought to me, I beseech you.”
“I will speak of it no more, Francis,” rejoined Devereaux. “And yet I would that thou wert not here.”
The girl turned from him impatiently, and 308 hastily joined a group of which the admiral was the centre; for Lord Howard had taken them upon his own vessel.
The next night the air was stormy and the night dark. The English fleet was startled by an explosion on one of the Spanish ships and soon the flames were seen to spring high into the air. But other ships went to her aid and the fire was soon quenched, but the principal galleon of Seville commanded by Pedro de Valdez collided with another vessel and, her foremast being broken, was forsaken and became a prey to Sir Francis Drake.
Dark as the night was, Lord Howard on the Ark Royal, accompanied by two ships only—the Mary and the Rose—hotly pursued the Spaniards. The rest of the English fleet lay still because Drake had neglected to carry a lighted lantern in the poop of his vessel as had been commanded.
At break of day, having a prosperous north wind, the Spaniards bore down upon the English, but the English, to take advantage of the wind, turned westward. And then began a series of maneuvres in which each fleet contended to deprive each other of the benefit 309 of the wind. The contest did not last long and before noon the English having slipped between the Armada and the land bore down upon them right before the wind.