gun! The ships!

John Nevil and his company left attacking forever the fortress of Nueva
Cordoba, and rushed down the hillside towards plain and river. Forth
from the town burst Ambrose Wynch with the guard which had been left in
the square--but where were Robert Baldry and his men? Were these
they--this dwindled band staggering, leaping down from the heights, led
by Henry Sedley, gray, exhausted, speaking in whispers or in strained,
high voices? No time was there for explanation, bewildered conjecture,
tragic apprehension. Scarcely had the three parties joined, when hard
upon their heels came De Guardiola and all his men-at-arms. Nevil
wheeled, fought them back, set face again to the river, but his
adversaries chose not to have it so.

They achieved their purpose, for he gave them battle on the plain, at
his back the red light from the river, before him that bitter,
triumphant fortress. Hard and long did they fight in a death struggle,
fierce and implacable, where quarter was neither asked nor given. Nevil
himself bore a charmed life, but many a gentleman adventurer, many a
simple soldier or mariner gasped his last upon Spanish pike or sword.
Not fifty paces from the river bank Henry Sedley received his quietus.
He had fought as one inspired, all his being tempered to a fine agong of
endeavor too high for suffering or for thought. So now when Arden
caught him, falling, it was with an unruffled brow and a smile remote
and sweet that he looked up at the other's haggard, twisted features.

"My knighthood's yet to seek," he said. "It matters not. Tell my Captain
that as I fought for him here, so I wait for him in Christ His court.
Tell my sister Damaris--" He was gone, and Arden, rising, slew the
swordsman to whom his death was due.