Meanwhile, Captain Robinson held speech with his fellows and won many of them to his side, and he besought Ambrose Pennington to leave the ship and go on board the St. Paul and parley with Don Alonzo de Bassan for conditions. So Pennington and Jacob Hartop and some three others, all of them sorely wounded and looking strangely ill-conditioned, went down into an empty boat that was alongside, and holding up a white flag in their bow they crossed the intervening space of sea to the admiral.

They found Don Alonzo in no great haste to make another entry upon the Revenge, for his men had had enough of her, and even still feared her. Pennington told him that Sir Richard Grenville had a mind to blow up his ship with himself and all his ship's company.

"And wherefore should he resort to a measure so extreme?" questioned Don Alonzo. "Since his disposition is so dangerous, return to him, I beg you, and let him know that I am willing to put an end to this battle, and that I have already lost more men and more ships than I had ever thought to lose at the hands of one small English man-of-war. Bid him understand that I yield to him his life, and that the lives of all his ship's company shall be spared and sent home to England. For the better sort, such reasonable ransom shall be paid as their estates may bear. But I do aver, and swear by the Holy Mother, that all of you shall be free from the galleys and from imprisonment. I care not to expose myself and my fleet to further loss and mischief. Also, 'tis my great desire to rescue your Sir Richard Grenville, whom for his most notable valour I do greatly honour and admire."

With this answer Pennington returned to the Revenge, and since safety of life was promised, the larger number of the men, feeling themselves to be now at the end of their peril, stood up against Sir Richard and Edward Webbe, and declared their willingness to surrender.

"What!" cried Edward Webbe with bitter scorn and contempt in his voice. "Do you ask me to surrender to a Spaniard? Me who have borne so much of horror and torture and cruelty at their hands, and at the hands of their accursed Inquisition? God forbid! No, I will not surrender. Rather would I die now at this moment where I stand!"

And thus saying he whipped out his sword, and resting its hilt upon the deck, held its point towards his body with intent to throw himself upon it. But the captain arrested him in the act, kicking the sword away. Webbe struggled to regain his weapon, and, failing, was about to rush to the ship's side and fling himself into the sea, when Ambrose Pennington and another caught him and carried him down to his cabin and there locked him in, making sure that he had no weapon within reach.

Sir Richard Grenville stood alone, not attempting to dissuade his men from their resolve, and presently in the silence Jacob Hartop spoke.

"Ned was right," said he, stepping to Sir Richard's side. "An English ship, even though she be a poor battered hulk, were ever a better home than a galleon of Spain." He glanced aft to the flag-staff upon which a tattered remnant of the honoured flag still fluttered in the morning air, and baring his head he added: "God bless Queen Elizabeth!"

Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollops had taken no part in this little scene. They were at the time both below in the cockpit attending to their wounds and giving what small help was in their power to their sick and dying companions. Here, too, was Roland Grenville. But in good time the death-like silence of the abated battle brought the three up on deck. As they came to the stair-head they glanced upon the water, which rippled and glanced in the morning light; for there were now no intervening bulwarks to shield it from their sight. And they saw some six gaily-furnished boats approaching. The boats were brought alongside, and the boys at their bows threw up coils of rope as they touched, which, falling upon the blood-stained deck, were taken by certain of Sir Richard's men and secured to such balks of timber as could be found. Then one by one the men stole away into the boats and were taken aboard Don Alonzo's ship and others of the galleons.