The youth turned, and, overestimating his opponent’s strength, despatched the kneeling soldier with no compunction nor instinctive mercy. He was a man who would demand little quarter, and who, for all his boyish fribbling, gave less. “Quick, Towaye!” But once more Gyll cried out, though Eleanor stood impassive by her side. The youth frowned. “Gag them,” and he hurried to Eleanor. “My love,” he whispered, “the king wins.” * * * * * On the water a dense shadow moved slowly toward Roanoke. Like Destiny it glided forward, silent, inexorable, black. Without resistance, it came closer and yet closer to its quarry, until at last the shadow met a shadow like itself, as cloud meets cloud. And as from clouds, a guttural oath of thunder burst suddenly forth in fury to smite and profane the ear of night. The shadow was a panther of the sea, stealing on a prey seemingly tranquil and asleep—a wild beast of the desert coming to claim by the law of might an oasis in the waste. The crucial moment, so long awaited, had come at last. Two ships became alive and fought for Roanoke Island. * * * * * “Captain Vytal, they are here!” “How near, Dyonis?” “So near that in another instant they will board us.” “To arms, then!” “Ay,” and a whisper ran from mouth to mouth along the deck. There was a low click as of pistol-triggers cocking, and fifty dark shadows, which had lain prone behind the bulwark, rose, each to one knee. The ships lay breast to breast, feeling each other’s sides. And suddenly the glare of a hundred new-lit torches illumined the Spanish deck; but the _Admiral’s_ bulwark shielded her ambush from the light. Without warning, a line of steel corselets and morions, flashing in the radiance, started forward from the _Madre de Dios_, started, rolled on, and rose to the bulwark as a silver wave rises in the moonlight, superb, brilliant, invincible, vaunting itself before the sable shore. And, like moon-rays playing across the crest, a hundred swords flashed high. The silver surf, crashing, broke. Hidden rocks had awaited it in darkness. Baffled, it lashed them, rose, fell, dispersed, concentrated—a wild seethe of tormented fury. The wave was foam: there was momentarily no concertion, no detail. Chaos rose above order, anarchy above method, chagrined amazement above victorious triumph. The surprise was complete. At both ends the Spanish line wavered. Here the counter-attack began more suddenly than in the centre. Vytal at one end, Dyonis Harvie at the other, turned both flanks of the enemy. It was a manœuvre that gave the lie to chaos. Method lurked in the seeming madness. The Spanish cannoneers, having heard the sounds of a hand-to-hand conflict, at the first surprise rushed to their comrades’ aid. The culverins and minions, nosing the _Admiral’s_ hull, were for a moment deserted. The impulse had been foreseen; hence the flank movement.