Hawkins roared "to
cut the cables." It was a hand-to-hand slaughter on decks slippery
with blood. No light but the musketry fire and glare of burning masts!
The little English company were fighting like a wild beast trapped,
when with a {138} thunderclap that tore bottom out of hull--Hawkins's
ship flew into mid-air, a flaring, fiery wreck--then sank in the
heaving trough of the sea, carrying down five hundred Spaniards to a
watery grave. Cutlass in hand, head over heels went Hawkins into the
sea. The hell of smoke, of flaming mast poles, of blazing musketry, of
churning waters--hid him. Then a rope's end flung out by some friend
gave handhold. He was up the sides of a ship, that had cut hawsers and
off before the fire-rafts came! Sails were hoisted to the seaward
breeze. In the carnage of fire and blood, the Spaniards did not see
the two smallest English vessels scudding before the wind as if
fiend-chased. Every light on the decks was put out. Then the dark of
the tropic night hid them. Without food, without arms, with scarcely a
remnant of their crews--the two ships drifted to sea.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186