They saw the _Cygnet_, yet burning, upon her way to the open sea; from the galleon _San José_ it was gone to join the caravels. Wreckage strewed the river's bosom, and for those who had manned the two ships, destroyer and destroyed, where were they? Down with the _allegartos_ and the river slime--yet voyaging with the _Cygnet_--rushing, a pale accusing troop towards God's justice bar?... The night was waxing old, the dawn was coming. Upon the _Mere Honour_ Baptist Manwood, a brave and honest soul who did his duty, steered his ship, encouraged his men, fought the Spaniard and made no more ado, trained his guns upon the landing, and with their menace kept back the enemy while, boatload after boatload, the English left the bank and reached in safety the two ships that were left them. The day was breaking in red intolerable splendor, a terrible glory illuminating the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, the river and the sandy shore where gathered the flamingoes and the herons and the egrets, as the Admiral, standing on the poop of the _Mere Honour_, pressed the hands of those his officers that were spared to him, and spoke simply and manfully, as had spoken Francis Drake, to the gentlemen adventurers who had risked life and goods in this enterprise, and to the soldiers and mariners gathered in the waist; then listened in silence to the story of disaster. Nor Robert Baldry nor Henry Sedley was there to make report, but a grizzled man-at-arms told of the trap beyond the tunal into which Baldry had been betrayed. "How did the Dons come to know, Sir John? We'll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no such devil's battery as opened on us was planted there before this night! 'Twas a traitor or a spy that wrought us deadly harm!" He ended with a fearful imprecation, and an echo of his oath came from his fellows in defeat.