Langton was near by, and Archy was troubled to see how pale and exhausted he looked. His former terrible experience on the Spanish coast had not been without its effects, and Archy saw that nothing but Langton's determined will and anxiety to do his duty kept him from dropping at his station. Just as the last piece of cheese and last slice of bread were about to be disposed of, Archy saw the Admiral crossing the deck towards him. He held out the bread and cheese, and the Admiral seized it with enthusiasm.
"Thank you, Mr. Baskerville. Those rascally stewards seem to have forgotten us up here. We'll give them a keelhauling for it as soon as the wind lulls! Hanged if I don't think it deuced unhandsome of Admiral de Langara to make us fight in this awkward cubby-hole of a place! Did you ever see anything like this, sir?"
"I was on the Bon Homme Richard, sir, when she took the Serapis. We had good enough weather, but we were locked together two hours, and at it hammer and tongs all the while."
"Um—ah—hum—I say, lieutenant, I think number four in the starboard battery is doing remarkably fine work. Mr. Langton in command? I shall remember him when we are through with these persistent Spanish gentlemen."
The fire from several of the Spanish ships slackened as the night wore on, and soon after midnight the Monarca, a seventy-gun ship, blew up with a terrific crash that drowned both tempest and battle. Her topmasts and sails flew skyward, and the wreckage from her great masts and spars was tossed like corks over the black waters. In the red illumination from sea and sky the bodies of men, dead and living, were seen floating, and the cries of the unfortunates were responded to by several of the British ships lowering their boats in the teeth of the gale, and pulling about in the line of fire, picking up the half-drowned sailors.
One by one the Spanish ships were disabled and forced to strike their colors, but the flag-ship still fought on. As a gray and pallid dawn broke over the stormy ocean and the drenched and forbidding-looking land, it was seen from the Royal George that her antagonist was in desperate straits. Her main-mast had gone by the board, carrying the mizzen-mast with it, and both cumbered the deck and hung over the side, entangled in a mass of canvas and rigging. Many of her guns had burst, and her decks were strewed with the dead and wounded. The Spanish Admiral, however, was still on the bridge, but the two officers with him were evidently juniors, showing that he had lost his captain and first lieutenant. The fire of the Phœnix was gradually lessening, and about daybreak it entirely ceased, and the Spanish colors were hauled down amid loud cheering from the Royal George. The Spaniards had made a good fight, and the Royal George, although not so badly crippled as her opponent, was much cut up aloft, and had several shot-holes in her hull.
A boat was immediately lowered, and Prince William was given the command of her, both as a compliment to himself and to the brave Admiral de Langara, who would be escorted on board the Royal George by a king's son. It was uncertain whether the Spaniard would need boats to bring the prisoners aboard, or whether his own boats were in condition to do so.
Six of the Spanish ships of the line had struck, one had blown up, while in the distance the remaining two were making off under a press of sail. In Admiral Rodney's fleet the losses in men were not very great, but the terrible disadvantage at which he had fought, and the bad weather, left them still battling for their lives on an unknown and dangerous coast, with six damaged ships to take care of, and thousands of prisoners. No ship had suffered more than the Royal George, and the perilous situation in which she was placed became more evident by daylight. The wind was blowing directly on shore, and it became necessary to put on all the sail the ship could stand in order to keep her from going on the rocks; but her masts and spars were so cut up that it seemed every moment as if they would all come down at once.