In his place, I should do the same." But even at that moment the Admiral raised his hand; in the waist, below him, a trumpet blared, and immediately the gunner on the prow touched off his guns.

As the thunder of them rolled out, his lordship saw ahead beyond the English ship and to larboard of her two heavy splashes.
Almost at once two successive spurts of flame leapt from the brass cannon on the Arabella's beak-head, and scarcely had the watchers on the poop seen the shower of spray, where one of the shots struck the water near them, then with a rending crash and a shiver that shook the Milagrosa from stem to stern, the other came to lodge in her forecastle.
To avenge that blow, the Hidalga blazed at the Englishman with both her forward guns.

But even at that short range--between two and three hundred yards--neither shot took effect.
At a hundred yards the Arabella's forward guns, which had meanwhile been reloaded, fired again at the Milagrosa, and this time smashed her bowsprit into splinters; so that for a moment she yawed wildly to port.
Don Miguel swore profanely, and then, as the helm was put over to swing her back to her course, his own prow replied.

But the aim was too high, and whilst one of the shots tore through the Arabella's shrouds and scarred her mainmast, the other again went wide.

And when the smoke of that discharge had lifted, the English ship was found almost between the Spaniards, her bows in line with theirs and coming steadily on into what his lordship deemed a death-trap.
Lord Julian held his breath, and Miss Bishop gasped, clutching the rail before her.