Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth

“Can I help you, Captain Leigh?” asked Lord Henry Seymour, as he passes within oar’s length of him, to attack a ship ahead. “The San Matthew has had his dinner, and is gone on to Medina to ask for a digestive to it.”

“I thank your lordship: but this is my private quarrel, of which I spoke. But if your lordship could lend me powder—”

“Would that I could! But so, I fear, says every other gentleman in the fleet.”

A puff of wind clears away the sulphurous veil for a moment; the sea is clear of ships towards the land; the Spanish fleet are moving again up Channel, Medina bringing up the rear; only some two miles to their right hand, the vast hull of the San Philip is drifting up the shore with the tide, and somewhat nearer the San Matthew is hard at work at her pumps. They can see the white stream of water pouring down her side.

“Go in, my lord, and have the pair,” shouts Amyas.

“No, sir! Forward is a Seymour’s cry. We will leave them to pay the Flushingers’ expenses.” And on went Lord Henry, and on shore went the San Philip at Ostend, to be plundered by the Flushingers; while the San Matthew, whose captain, “on a hault courage,” had refused to save himself and his gentlemen on board Medina’s ship, went blundering miserably into the hungry mouths of Captain Peter Vanderduess and four other valiant Dutchmen, who, like prudent men of Holland, contrived to keep the galleon afloat till they had emptied her, and then “hung up her banner in the great church of Leyden, being of such a length, that being fastened to the roof, it reached unto the very ground.”

But in the meanwhile, long ere the sun had set, comes down the darkness of the thunderstorm, attracted, as to a volcano’s mouth, to that vast mass of sulphur-smoke which cloaks the sea for many a mile; and heaven’s artillery above makes answer to man’s below. But still, through smoke and rain, Amyas clings to his prey. She too has seen the northward movement of the Spanish fleet, and sets her topsails; Amyas calls to the men to fire high, and cripple her rigging: but in vain: for three or four belated galleys, having forced their way at last over the shallows, come flashing and sputtering up to the combatants, and take his fire off the galleon. Amyas grinds his teeth, and would fain hustle into the thick of the press once more, in spite of the galleys’ beaks.

“Most heroical captain,” says cary, pulling a long face, “if we do, we are stove and sunk in five minutes; not to mention that Yeo says he has not twenty rounds of great cartridge left.”

So, surely and silent, the Vengeance sheers off, but keeps as near as she can to the little squadron, all through the night of rain and thunder which follows. Next morning the sun rises on a clear sky, with a strong west-north-west breeze, and all hearts are asking what the day will bring forth.

They are long past Dunkirk now; the German Ocean is opening before them. The Spaniards, sorely battered, and lessened in numbers, have, during the night, regained some sort of order. The English hang on their skirts a mile or two behind. They have no ammunition, and must wait for more. To Amyas’s great disgust, the Sta. Catharina has rejoined her fellows during the night.

“Never mind,” says Cary; “she can neither dive nor fly, and as long as she is above water, we—What is the admiral about?”

He is signalling Lord Henry Seymour and his squadron. Soon they tack, and come down the wind for the coast of Flanders. Parma must be blockaded still; and the Hollanders are likely to be too busy with their plunder to do it effectually. Suddenly there is a stir in the Spanish fleet. Medina and the rearmost ships turn upon the English. What can it mean? Will they offer battle once more? If so, it were best to get out of their way, for we have nothing wherewith to fight them. So the English lie close to the wind. They will let them pass, and return to their old tactic of following and harassing.

“Good-bye to Seymour,” says Cary, “if he is caught between them and Parma’s flotilla. They are going to Dunkirk.”

“Impossible! They will not have water enough to reach his light craft. Here comes a big ship right upon us! Give him all you have left, lads; and if he will fight us, lay him alongside, and die boarding.”

They gave him what they had, and hulled him with every shot; but his huge side stood silent as the grave. He had not wherewithal to return the compliment.

“As I live, he is cutting loose the foot of his mainsail! the villain means to run.”

“There go the rest of them! Victoria!” shouted Cary, as one after another, every Spaniard set all the sail he could.

There was silence for a few minutes throughout the English fleet; and then cheer upon cheer of triumph rent the skies. It was over. The Spaniard had refused battle, and thinking only of safety, was pressing downward toward the Straits again. The Invincible Armada had cast away its name, and England was saved.

“But he will never get there, sir,” said old Yeo, who had come upon deck to murmur his Nunc Domine, and gaze upon that sight beyond all human faith or hope: “Never, never will he weather the Flanders shore, against such a breeze as is coming up. Look to the eye of the wind, sir, and see how the Lord is fighting for His people!”

Yes, down it came, fresher and stiffer every minute out of the gray north-west, as it does so often after a thunder-storm; and the sea began to rise high and white under the “Claro Aquilone,” till the Spaniards were fain to take in all spare canvas, and lie-to as best they could; while the English fleet, lying-to also, awaited an event which was in God’s hands and not in theirs.

“They will be all ashore on Zealand before the afternoon,” murmured Amyas; “and I have lost my labor! Oh, for powder, powder, powder! to go in and finish it at once!”

“Oh, sir,” said Yeo, “don’t murmur against the Lord in the very day of His mercies. It is hard, to be sure; but His will be done.”

“Could we not borrow powder from Drake there?”

“Look at the sea, sir!”

And, indeed, the sea was far too rough for any such attempt. The Spaniards neared and neared the fatal dunes, which fringed the shore for many a dreary mile; and Amyas had to wait weary hours, growling like a dog who has had the bone snatched out of his mouth, till the day wore on; when, behold, the wind began to fall as rapidly as it had risen. A savage joy rose in Amyas’s heart.

“They are safe! safe for us! Who will go and beg us powder? A cartridge here and a cartridge there?—anything to set to work again!”

Cary volunteered, and returned in a couple of hours with some quantity: but he was on board again only just in time, for the south-wester had recovered the mastery of the skies, and Spaniards and English were moving away; but this time northward. Whither now? To Scotland? Amyas knew not, and cared not, provided he was in the company of Don Guzman de Soto.

The Armada was defeated, and England saved. But such great undertakings seldom end in one grand melodramatic explosion of fireworks, through which the devil arises in full roar to drag Dr. Faustus forever into the flaming pit. On the contrary, the devil stands by his servants to the last, and tries to bring off his shattered forces with drums beating and colors flying; and, if possible, to lull his enemies into supposing that the fight is ended, long before it really is half over. All which the good Lord Howard of Effingham knew well, and knew, too, that Medina had one last card to play, and that was the filial affection of that dutiful and chivalrous son, James of Scotland. True, he had promised faith to Elizabeth: but that was no reason why he should keep it. He had been hankering and dabbling after Spain for years past, for its absolution was dear to his inmost soul; and Queen Elizabeth had had to warn him, scold him, call him a liar, for so doing; so the Armada might still find shelter and provision in the Firth of Forth. But whether Lord Howard knew or not, Medina did not know, that Elizabeth had played her card cunningly, in the shape of one of those appeals to the purse, which, to James’s dying day, overweighed all others save appeals to his vanity. “The title of a dukedom in England, a yearly pension of 5000 pounds, a guard at the queen’s charge, and other matters” (probably more hounds and deer), had steeled the heart of the King of Scots, and sealed the Firth of Forth. Nevertheless, as I say, Lord Howard, like the rest of Elizabeth’s heroes, trusted James just as much as James trusted others; and therefore thought good to escort the Armada until it was safely past the domains of that most chivalrous and truthful Solomon. But on the 4th of August, his fears, such as they were, were laid to rest. The Spaniards left the Scottish coast and sailed away for Norway; and the game was played out, and the end was come, as the end of such matters generally comes, by gradual decay, petty disaster, and mistake; till the snow-mountain, instead of being blown tragically and heroically to atoms, melts helplessly and pitiably away.

CHAPTER XXXII

HOW AMYAS THREW HIS SWORD INTO THE SEA

“Full fathom deep thy father lies;
Of his bones are corals made;
Those are pearls which were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange;
Fairies hourly ring his knell,
Hark! I hear them.  Ding dong bell.”

                               The Tempest.
Yes, it is over; and the great Armada is vanquished. It is lulled for awhile, the everlasting war which is in heaven, the battle of Iran and Turan, of the children of light and of darkness, of Michael and his angels against Satan and his fiends; the battle which slowly and seldom, once in the course of many centuries, culminates and ripens into a day of judgment, and becomes palpable and incarnate; no longer a mere spiritual fight, but one of flesh and blood, wherein simple men may choose their sides without mistake, and help God’s cause not merely with prayer and pen, but with sharp shot and cold steel. A day of judgment has come, which has divided the light from the darkness, and the sheep from the goats, and tried each man’s work by the fire; and, behold, the devil’s work, like its maker, is proved to have been, as always, a lie and a sham, and a windy boast, a bladder which collapses at the merest pinprick. Byzantine empires, Spanish Armadas, triple-crowned papacies, Russian despotisms, this is the way of them, and will be to the end of the world. One brave blow at the big bullying phantom, and it vanishes in sulphur-stench; while the children of Israel, as of old, see the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore,—they scarce know how, save that God has done it, and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb.

And now, from England and the Netherlands, from Germany and Geneva, and those poor Vaudois shepherd-saints, whose bones for generations past

“Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;”

to be, indeed, the seed of the Church, and a germ of new life, liberty, and civilization, even in these very days returning good for evil to that Piedmont which has hunted them down like the partridges on the mountains;—from all of Europe, from all of mankind, I had almost said, in which lay the seed of future virtue and greatness, of the destinies of the new-discovered world, and the triumphs of the coming age of science, arose a shout of holy joy, such as the world had not heard for many a weary and bloody century; a shout which was the prophetic birth-paean of North America, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, of free commerce and free colonization over the whole earth.

“There was in England, by the commandment of her majesty,” says Van Meteran, “and likewise in the United Provinces, by the direction of the States, a solemn festival day publicly appointed, wherein all persons were solemnly enjoined to resort unto ye Church, and there to render thanks and praises unto God, and ye preachers were commanded to exhort ye people thereunto. The aforesaid solemnity was observed upon the 29th of November: which day was wholly spent in fasting, prayer, and giving of thanks.

“Likewise the Queen’s Majesty herself, imitating ye ancient Romans, rode into London in triumph, in regard of her own and her subjects’ glorious deliverance. For being attended upon very solemnly by all ye principal Estates and officers of her Realm, she was carried through her said City of London in a triumphant Chariot, and in robes of triumph, from her Palace unto ye said Cathedral Church of St. Paul, out of ye which ye Ensigns and Colours of ye vanquished Spaniards hung displayed. And all ye Citizens of London, in their liveries, stood on either side ye street, by their several Companies, with their ensigns and banners, and the streets were hanged on both sides with blue Cloth, which, together with ye foresaid banners, yielded a very stately and gallant prospect. Her Majestie being entered into ye Church together with her Clergy and Nobles, gave thanks unto God, and caused a public Sermon to be preached before her at Paul’s Cross; wherein none other argument was handled, but that praise, honour, and glory might be rendered unto God, and that God’s Name might be extolled by thanksgiving. And with her own princely voice she most Christianly exhorted ye people to do ye same; whereunto ye people, with a loud acclamation, wished her a most long and happy life to ye confusion of her foes.”

Yes, as the medals struck on the occasion said, “It came, it saw, and it fled!” And whither? Away and northward, like a herd of frightened deer, past the Orkneys and Shetlands, catching up a few hapless fishermen as guides; past the coast of Norway, there, too, refused water and food by the brave descendants of the Vikings; and on northward ever towards the lonely Faroes, and the everlasting dawn which heralds round the Pole the midnight sun.

Their water is failing; the cattle must go overboard; and the wild northern sea echoes to the shrieks of drowning horses. They must homeward at least, somehow, each as best he can. Let them meet again at Cape Finisterre, if indeed they ever meet. Medina Sidonia, with some five-and twenty of the soundest and best victualled ships, will lead the way, and leave the rest to their fate. He is soon out of sight; and forty more, the only remnant of that mighty host, come wandering wearily behind, hoping to make the south-west coast of Ireland, and have help, or, at least, fresh water there, from their fellow Romanists. Alas for them!—

“Make Thou their way dark and slippery,
And follow them up ever with Thy storm.”

For now comes up from the Atlantic, gale on gale; and few of that hapless remnant reached the shores of Spain.

And where are Amyas and the Vengeance all this while?

At the fifty-seventh degree of latitude, the English fleet, finding themselves growing short of provision, and having been long since out of powder and ball, turn southward toward home, “thinking it best to leave the Spaniard to those uncouth and boisterous northern seas.” A few pinnaces are still sent onward to watch their course: and the English fleet, caught in the same storms which scattered the Spaniards, “with great danger and industry reached Harwich port, and there provide themselves of victuals and ammunition,” in case the Spaniards should return; but there is no need for that caution. Parma, indeed, who cannot believe that the idol at Halle, after all his compliments to it, will play him so scurvy a trick, will watch for weeks on Dunkirk dunes, hoping against hope for the Armada’s return, casting anchors, and spinning rigging to repair their losses.

“But lang, lang may his ladies sit,
With their fans intill their hand,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the land.”