He had, however, made up his mind that we were within his grasp, and had determined to have us. As he came slowly nearer, our oarsmen sent the galley on through the passage, and on he moved after us.
There was now a lull in his cannonading, and a strange silence fell upon us all. In that silence I waited anxiously, a prey to mingled doubts and fears, expecting to hear a slight grating, scraping sound, and to see the galley shiver and quake as she passed over the knife-edges of rocks that lie a few feet below the surface of the sea at the further end of the Gate. The tide was high, as I had reckoned, else I never would have attempted it.
Then there was a sudden tempest of smoke and flame from the Englishman, in the midst of which The Cross of Blood swayed and reeled as if she had been struck. I sickened with apprehension, but the swaying and the reeling quickly ceased. We were safely over the jagged barrier of rock; we had passed through the Gate, and were in the deep water beyond.
Below me I could see Calvagh’s white, set face as he looked up; then, as he realised that we were out of the dangers of the passage, a war chant broke from his fierce lips, the oarsmen rowing mightily, and keeping time to that savage, deep-chested music of his.
And on behind us came the unwitting Englishman.
In a few minutes more, looking towards her, I saw her bows tilt up and then plunge high into the air. She was lifted up and dashed down again and again on the rocks, so that her back broke, and she was torn to pieces before my eyes, while some of her sailors cast themselves into the water, with outcries and bewailings very piteous to hear, and others got into the ship’s boats and put out to sea, where I know not what fate overtook them.
My men clamoured that they should be pursued, but this I would not suffer, for my end was attained, as Sir Nicholas now would have no ordnance for the battering down of the walls of Carrickahooley, and must therefore raise the siege.