Her decks, like ours, were cleared for action, and above the gunwales we could spy many a bare head peeping over at us.
I marvelled that she had not long since given us a shot; but, like the Spaniard, she seemed bent on close quarters, and was saving up for a hand-to-hand fight.
So, at least, we and all who watched them thought: when suddenly, scarce a cable's length away, she put about full in the wind, and letting fly at us with every shot in her broadside, slipped gaily under our helm, on her way to regain the course she had left, and finish her career down the line of the Dons.

Don Alonzo was so taken by surprise, and unready for this sudden move, that he had not a word to say.

His broadside, when it went off, fell wide of the mark in the open sea, at the very moment when the English shot rang about his stern, riddling his sails, and knocking the gilded cross in shivers by the board.

Nor did they give us shot only, for a cloud of cloth-yard arrows whistled through the rigging, picking off a dozen or so of the men perched there, and grazing the polished breastplates of not a few of the bewildered grandees on the quarter-deck.
Never shall I forget the howl of Spanish curses which greeted this misadventure.

The grandees swore at the sailors, and bade them put about and give chase; the sailors swore at the grandees, and bade them come and try to turn the ship quicker than they, if they knew how.