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?