The Golden Galleon: Being a Narrative of the Adventures of Master Gilbert Oglander, and of how, in the Year 1591, he fought under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville in the Great Sea-fight off Flores, on board her Majesty's Ship the Revenge — John Shaqi
The Golden Galleon: Being a Narrative of the Adventures of Master Gilbert Oglander, and of how, in the Year 1591, he fought under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville in the Great Sea-fight off Flores, on board her Majesty's Ship the RevengeLeighton, Robert
History
The Golden Galleon: Being a Narrative of the Adventures of Master Gilbert Oglander, and of how, in the Year 1591, he fought under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville in the Great Sea-fight off Flores, on board her Majesty's Ship the Revenge
And she forthwith proceeded to point out to her strangely-assorted
playmates how the wide stretch of grass in front of them was to be
understood by them all to be the Narrow Seas, how the distant plantation
where Timothy had gathered his herbs was to represent the French coast
between Calais and Dunquerque, and how the embankment of the fish-pond
was to be Calais Roads. The higher ground under the beech-trees where
the five were now standing was to be looked upon as the Kentish cliffs.
These matters being arranged to the understanding of all, the Spanish
Armada, in the persons of Sir Richard Grenville and Master Christopher
Pym, sailed obediently up the English Channel, pursued at no great
distance by the English flag-ship and her consorts, who assailed their
enemy with round after round of heavy shot, discharged from their
chase-guns. There was one very tremendous engagement between Frobisher's
_Triumph_ and the Spanish _Santa Anna_, which presently grew into a
general conflict in which many ships were sunk. Then the Spaniards, much
crippled in the fray, were permitted to sail on again, only to be again
pursued by their persistent foes. The English ships bore down upon them,
and then, being within easy range, luffed up and poured their broadsides
into the enemy's hulls with relentless fury. But the Armada looked
always as formidable as ever, and again and again they formed themselves
in line of battle, to endure yet again the prolonged fire of the English
guns.
At last the Queen's fleet fell back and allowed the Spaniards to sail on
in calm security to their desired refuge in Calais Roads. When, as they
imagined, they were at a safe anchorage and hoped to repair the damages
of battle (for in truth Sir Richard Grenville had received some
surprising buffetings at the hands of Drusilla and Gilbert Oglander, to
say nothing of Master Pym, whose wide-brimmed hat lay abandoned in
mid-channel), the English ships drew near with the fell purpose of
dislodging the enemy and driving them out into the open sea. And when
night was supposed to have fallen, the lord-admiral and Sir Francis
Drake put their woolly heads together in warlike conference and decided
to send forth their fire-ships into the midst of the galleons.
Timothy Trollope received his instructions, and straightway drifted into
the bay, waving his hands aloft like leaping flames. His near approach
threatened to spread disaster among the ships of Spain, and at a given
signal from the _San Martin_ the dons all slipped their anchors, and in
a confusion of panic endeavoured to make an escape. In the panic the
great galleass of Don Hugo de Monçada ran aground on the sands and there
lay basking in the sun, an unconcerned witness of the conflict that
ensued between Pym and Trollope, who had now turned Spaniard, on the one
side and Drusilla and her brother on the other.
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