When we had sprung on board of the English ship, Grace O’Malley was left standing at the helm of The Cross of Blood. She had watched the contest, and, fearing that we were overmatched, had cast about for some means of assisting us. Then, taking with her a few of the men whom she had kept in the galley for her own guard, she had climbed up into the forecastle of the enemy, and, as their attention was entirely occupied with us, had, unperceived by them or seen too late, run in board one of the Englishman’s bow-chasers, and had turned it on its owners.
The piece, thus levelled at this terrible short range, swept the deck of its defenders, and among the heaps of the slain and the wounded were several of our own people who had not been able to gain the bulwarks.
I was myself leaning against one of the ship’s beams breathing hard, and clutching with the fingers of my left hand my bleeding throat, while my right still grasped my sword. So dreadful was the sight of the deck that now met my eyes that I could not help closing them, while a shudder shook my whole frame.
But our work was not yet done. For when we essayed to carry the poop we were beaten back in spite of all our endeavours, and what might have been the end I know not if Grace O’Malley had not held possession of that piece of ordnance. A second and a third discharge from it shattered and destroyed the poop, and at length the ship was ours, its whole crew being killed or captured or drowned, for many of the English jumped into the sea and perished.
Having collected her men together, and along with them having brought away the prisoners and what treasure was found on board of The Star of the Sea, which was the name of the ship, she ordered it to be scuttled, and then withdrew to the galley.
But when we came to count up what this battle had cost us, our loss was so great that my mistress deemed it expedient to go no further with her journey at that time, and thus we returned again to Clew Bay, having been absent but a few days. And there was much mourning among us, for many of our people had been slain. De Vilela, however, had come unscathed from the fray, and my own wound was, after all, not much more than a scratch.
But the uncertainty of the issue of our whole conflict with the English had been brought home to me in so decided a manner that for the first time I realised how dark and menacing was the path that lay before our feet.