Thus impeded, the galleon almost at once lost her sea-way, and both the Santa Ana and the Capitana began rapidly to come up with her. Meanwhile shouts and shrieks resounded from her decks; her sailors ran about in fear and confusion, but after awhile they appeared to be got into some kind of order, and, as a ball from her boomed across our bows, it was evident that her captain was resolved to fight for his ship.
As our vessels approached, we received a broadside from her which did us both no little harm, especially to our hulls and rigging, and a shot tore along the forecastle of the Capitana in an oblique direction, killing two of my crew and wounding three or four men before it plunged into the sea.
But it was impossible for her to prevent us from coming up alongside of her, and so soon as we had made ourselves fast to her our boarders poured in upon her. And thereupon ensued a battle not more terrible than obstinate, while the faint streaks of a cold and troubled dawn stole upon us, shedding its gleams on the dead and dying as they lay in pools of blood upon her decks.
No quarter was asked or given. Whom the sword or the battle-axe or the spear smote not, him the sea received, for many of the Spaniards, crying that all was lost, threw themselves from the galleon into the water and were drowned. There remained, however, towards the end of the fight a small company of arquebusiers and swordsmen upon the poop, and among them was the captain of the ship, his clothing stained and disordered, and a great, red sword in his hand.
Seeing that no hope remained, he made signs that he wished to surrender, and begged that his life and the lives of those with him might be spared, to which Grace O’Malley straightway assented.
As he walked towards her with his sword in his hand, with the purpose apparently of presenting it to her in token of his submission, he seemed to stumble on the planks, which were slippery with blood, and then, suddenly recovering himself, he made a mad, swift rush forward, and would have wounded, perhaps killed, my mistress if his intention had not been guessed by Tibbot, who in the very nick of time dashed aside the point of the captain’s sword and brained him with his battle-axe.
So incensed were the Irish at this act of treachery that they would show no mercy, and not a soul was left alive.
Thus was the San Miguel, as she proved herself to be, taken.
Our first care now was to return to Inisheer, so the three galleons were trimmed as well as was within our power, and our course was shaped for the island, where our three galleys lay, and which was reached in due time without our seeing any more ships of the wine fleet.
And here we remained, among the islands of Arran, for several days, waiting for the other two galleons of which we had heard; but as they did not come into sight, we conjectured that they had either put into some port in another part of Ireland or had been driven on the rocks and wrecked.