The man-at-arms departed, and, with his chosen comrades, crossed the river and followed the bank till they came as close to the galley as they could without leaving the firm ground.
Here they divested themselves of their armour, and, clad in their leather jerkins, gripping no other weapon but a heavy hammer and a short iron spike apiece, they looked more like peaceful village smiths than soldiers setting out on a desperate venture.
From the rude huts where the Hamble fishermen kept their stores came a man bearing a dozen square boards, each having four small holes bored through it with leathern thongs attached. These the men-at-arms, with the quickness of frequent use, bound to their feet.
"Are ye ready, comrades?"
A gruff yet determined assent was given, and the men, walking with short, ungainly steps, gained the edge of the mud.
"Now, hark ye," exclaimed their leader, turning to the master-bowman who commanded the archers, "give the word that the bowmen keep up a dropping fire to cover our approach. And I pray thee, let no man shoot who cannot be depended upon, for, little as I reck a shaft in fair fight, I am not in a mind to be feathered in the back by an English arrow!"
The sun was now low down beyond the dark outlines of the New Forest, shining straight into the eyes of the archers. Nevertheless, they shot rapidly and well, the arrows making graceful curves as they sped towards the mark. No sign of life was visible on board the Genoese ship, as slowly and steadily the six men-at-arms plodded, with their boards squelching in the liquid mud, towards their goal.
As they drew near, the covering volleys ceased; but, suspecting a ruse to draw them from shelter, the Genoese refused to show themselves. Thus, without opposition, the Englishmen reached the shelter of the lofty hull of the stranded galley, so that they were protected by her bulging sides from any missile the enemy might launch overboard.
Soon the terrified crew were still more panic-stricken by hearing a succession of dull blows against their ship's side. Lustily swinging their mauls as well as their precarious foothold would allow, the Englishmen drove their iron spikes deep into the seams of the doomed vessel. Oaken tree-nails and iron bolts were unable to stand the wrench, and in a few moments a gaping hole four ells in length and a span in breadth proved that the boast of the man-at-arms that the galley would never again float was an accomplished fact.
But now the startled crew were lashed into active resistance. Over the side, lowered by stout ropes, came the figure of a man fully clad in plate armour—the dreaded Luigi Spinola himself. Though deprived of the sight of one eye and nearly blind in the other—thanks to Redward Buckland's reception at the attack on his house—the Genoese knight could dimly see the forms of his attackers, and that sufficed.