The Englishmen hung doggedly on our heels; now and then coming up within shot, and then, having let off their broadsides, dropping away before we could put round to engage them. Never once did they come to close quarters, much as the Spaniard longed for it; and never once did they give him time to try conclusions on equal terms. The rest of that day Ludar and I were so busy at our carpenters' work abaft that we had no clear view of what passed. We heard dropping shot now and then, and now and again a bolt thundered on to our own hull and buried itself deep in our timbers; while, once, a terrible blaze ahead, followed by a rumbling which set the _Rata_ shivering in all her planks, told us of disaster and explosion somewhere near among the Spaniards themselves. What it all meant we could only guess. For the night came on us roughly, and, as darkness closed, it was all our helmsman could do, with a sharp look-out, to give his fellow ships a wide berth, without going out of his course to look after them. As soon as ever it was dark, Ludar and I and some dozen others were ordered over the stern in baskets to patch up the holes made by the English shot, and repair the insulted gilding of his Majesty of Spain. No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping with lanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging with the waves, and every now and then hearing the boom of a gun behind, which made us wince and wonder whose head was wanted next. Once I thought it was mine; for a great crashing shot came past me out of the darkness, spinning my basket round like a top, and lodging fair in the hole I was mending. Scarce had I time to thank God for my escape, when the man next me uttered a cry and flung up his arms; and there he hung a moment, pinned to the stern by a cloth-yard arrow which pierced his back, before he tumbled over, a dead man, into the sea. One after another of our comrades dropped, till at last it seemed to me Ludar and I alone were left. "Humphrey," he said, when at last we stood on deck, "I reckon we be almost quits with the King of Spain by now." "Ay indeed," said I, "and I think further that they who dream of us far away need not despair. For assuredly Heaven wants something more of us before we go under; else we had not been standing here." But whatever Heaven wanted of us, the ship's master angrily ordered us off to the forecastle, to look to the tackle of the bowsprit. This, but for the plunging of the vessel, was safe work compared with our labour on the poop; for here we were clear of the enemy's shot. But Ludar and I were clumsy with the tackle, not being seamen born; and on that account a trouble arose. For the fellow who overlooked our work chose not only to swear at us by all the saints in the Spaniards' calendar (to which he was welcome), but he pulled out a whip from under his coat and gave Ludar a crack with it, which laid open his cheek-bone, and well- nigh sent him backwards by the board.