So I went up very sadly. And presently from my high perch I heard the running of a cord and the splash of oars, and saw, on the pale water below me, a black shadow glide out from the ship’s side, and lose itself in the darkness.
Chapter Twenty Six.
How Ludar brought back the Duke’s Letter.
It may have been near midnight on that Sunday night when I went aloft to the main-tops. The sea was still running high, and it was all I could do, in the drizzling rain and wild wind, to hold on to my perch. Now and then a wild gull, terrified by the invasion of its peace, whirled past me, and shrieked away seaward. Once, with a swish and dull boom behind it, a shot passed below me; and once or twice a quiver up the tall mast told me the Rata’s guns were at work.
I could detect nothing in the darkness, save the twinkling of many a dim light ahead, and the glare of the ship’s lanthorns on the deck below. But, amid the howling of the squall, I heard the thunder of a battle somewhere near, with now and then a loud shout and a rattling of chains, and knew that King Philip of Spain had not yet muzzled the English sea-dogs.
So the night passed, and when morning dawned, cold and grey, I was stupid with sleep, and hunger, and loneliness. The storm had died away, and the water lay sullen and still, while the sails below flapped heavily in the wind. The Rata had dropped to the rear of the Armada, which spread eastward in a long irregular line, very different from the grand curve with which she had swept on Plymouth.
Behind us, some three miles away, cruised the Englishmen, looking at us; while, betwixt us and the far distant Portland headland, I could see the vast hull of one of our own galleons (the same which had blown up in the night), surrounded by a swarm of little craft that picked her bones, like crows on a carcase. Nearer still lay a great disabled Spaniard, with bowsprit and top-masts gone, and flag struck, being towed by her capturers into port. As for the Rata herself, ’twas sad to see how dingy the gay gilding had become in one day, and how sails were riddled, tackle flying, and scutcheons toppled over.
Yet, I had but a passing glance for all these. Where was Ludar? Was he returned? Or was he in the Englishmen’s hands? Or was the little cock-boat, perchance, floating somewhere bottom uppermost, and he beneath it? I scanned the waters till my eyes ached. Far ahead, miles away, I fancied I could see, towering among the other galleons, the Duke’s royal standard. But, amidst these huddled ships, and water littered with many a spar and little boat, with galleys gliding here and there, signals going, with movings in and out, this way and that, who was to find a solitary man in a cock-boat?