Once again raising Roger in his arms, he staggered blindly along; and at last, bleeding from contact with splinters, and his hands almost raw with wielding the handspike, he reached the foot of the companion-ladder and dashed up it with his still inanimate burden in his arms. On reaching the deck he saw that the grapnels had been cut, the three English vessels had drifted some hundreds of yards away, and were even then engaging the three other Spanish ships which had come up; and the air was again full of the roar of cannon, the crashing of timbers, falling of masts, shrieks, groans, cries, orders, and imprecations. The Spanish ship which had been in company with the craft that caught fire had vanished, and only a few timbers and fragments were floating on the surface; she had evidently been sunk by the terrible fire of the English guns. The ship on which they now were, the _Maria Dolorosa_, was by this time a spouting fountain of flame, from her bows as far aft as her mainmast. Her guns were exploding one after another as the fire reached them, and added their thunder to the already awful din. Harry raised his voice, and shouted over the water with all the power of his lungs to the English ships, but the continued roar of the cannon, mingled with the rattling crash of musketry volleys, the shouted commands of the officers, the hoarse outcries of toiling and fighting men, and the crash of rending wood as the broadsides tore their way into the vitals of the reeling ships effectually drowned his outcries; while everybody was far too busily engaged to notice his critical situation. "Ah, Roger!" said he, apostrophising the inanimate figure that lay at his feet as he stood at the extreme edge of the poop, in order to be as far away from the furnace heat as possible,--"Ah, Roger, I fear, dear lad, that our lives are coming to an end even before we are fairly launched on our adventures! Oh, why cannot they--!" At this moment there was a roar as if all earth and heaven were dissolving in chaos, and Harry, feeling as if he were being whirled downward into everlasting night, knew no more. The fire had at last reached the magazine! CHAPTER FOUR. WHAT HAPPENED TO ROGER ON BOARD THE GLORIA DEL MUNDO. When Roger next opened his eyes he was at a loss to to recall immediately to mind the preceding events; nor could he for the moment imagine where he might be. He was in great pain from the wound in his head, received on board the Spanish ship which he and Harry had boarded together, and this served to bring his memory back to what had occurred. He remembered rushing with Harry down a dark alleyway, with cutlass in hand, and also that a man had suddenly sprung at him and cut him down; that he had received so violent a blow on his head that he had felt certain his skull was cloven asunder; and then his memory ceased abruptly. But where was Harry, his inseparable companion?