The Dutch threw out ropes and broken spars to the few desperate survivors who swam towards them. The captain, bitterly wounded, and a young lieutenant, were hauled on board The City of Groningen; the first fainted as he reached the enemy’s deck, and the other, flinging back his wet hair, gazed at his burning ship.
“Where is my lord?” he asked. “Where is the Admiral?”
A crowded boat put out from The Royal James, and the Dutch pinnace tried to reach it; but numbers of drowning wretches striving frantically to cling to its sides, it became waterlogged and sank under the rescuers’ gaze.
Then those who watched with straining eyes saw the Vice-Admiral of England, in his courtier’s dress, advance out of the smoke and mount up to the untouched portion of the ship where the flag still floated; Lord Montague, his son, was with him. The English knew him by his gold coat and scarlet sash; he had his useless sword in his hand, and set his back against the flagstaff, facing the advancing flames.
A heavy swell troubled the sea; The Royal James swung about as if she writhed, and the flames swept windward, blowing over the battle like an enormous banner of a vivid, transparent whiteness, edged with leaping tongues of crimson that licked into the smoky background.
The crew of The City of Groningen could see the Earl of Sandwich calmly placed beside his flag; could see his son drop his sword and put his hand over his eyes.
The fire darted on with a sinister roar; it was the last seen of my Lord Sandwich.… The ship was burning to the water’s edge; the hull dipped as if the tortured vessel strove to quench her agony in the bloodstained waves; the English flag fluttered a moment, then disappeared in fire.
The powder being wet there was no explosion; she burnt slowly, pitilessly, to ashes, till at length the flames rose sheer from the sea and sank reluctantly to nothingness above their annihilated prey.
At the end of an hour the waves had closed over the fragments of The Royal James, and the fire hissed sullenly along floating planks and overturned boats.
“I would I could have saved my lord Admiral,” said Captain Van Brakel.