that fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with rage,
his mustachios curling up to his very eyes, stood the Spanish captain.

Now was the moment for a counter stroke. Amyas shouted for the
boarders, and in two minutes more he was over the side, and clutching
at the Spaniard's mizzen rigging.

What was this? The distance between him and the enemy's side was
widening. Was she sheering off? Yes--and rising, too, growing bodily
higher every moment, as if by magic. Amyas looked up in astonishment
and saw what it was. The Spaniard was heeling fast over to leeward
away from him. Her masts were all sloping forward, swifter and
swifter--the end was come, then!

"Back! in God's name back, men! She is sinking by the head!" And with
much ado some were dragged back, some leaped back--all but old Michael
Heard.

With hair and beard floating in the wind, the bronzed naked figure,
like some weird old Indian fakir, still climbed on steadfastly up the
mizzen-chains of the Spaniard, hatchet in hand.

"Come back, Michael! Leap while you may!" shouted a dozen voices.
Michael turned--

"And what should I come back for, then, to go home where no one knoweth
me? I'll die like an Englishman this day, or I'll know the reason
why!" and turning, he sprang in over the bulwarks, as the huge ship
rolled up more and more, like a dying whale, exposing all her long
black hulk almost down to the keel, and one of her lower-deck guns as