The red ensign was already fluttering from a staff at the stern, and the house flag of David Verity & Co.

was at the fore, but these emblems did not satisfy Coke's fighting mettle.

The _Andromeda_ would probably crack like an eggshell the instant she touched the reef towards which she was hurrying; he determined that she would go down with colors flying if he were not put out of action by a bullet before he could reach the main halyard.
The swerve in the ship's course as she passed the island gave him an opportunity.

In justice to Coke it should be said that he recked naught of this, but it would have been humanly impossible otherwise for the soldiers to have missed him.

And now, while the vessel lay with straight keel in the set of the current, the national emblem of Britain, with the _Andromeda's_ code flags beneath, fluttered up the mainmast.
There are many imaginable conditions under which Coke's deed would be regarded as sublime; there are none which could deny his splendid audacity.