CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
HOW LUDAR BROUGHT BACK THE DUKE'S LETTER.
It may have been near midnight on that Sunday night when I went aloft to the main-tops.

The sea was still running high, and it was all I could do, in the drizzling rain and wild wind, to hold on to my perch.

Now and then a wild gull, terrified by the invasion of its peace, whirled past me, and shrieked away seaward.

Once, with a swish and dull boom behind it, a shot passed below me; and once or twice a quiver up the tall mast told me the _Rata's_ guns were at work.
I could detect nothing in the darkness, save the twinkling of many a dim light ahead, and the glare of the ship's lanthorns on the deck below.
But, amid the howling of the squall, I heard the thunder of a battle somewhere near, with now and then a loud shout and a rattling of chains, and knew that King Philip of Spain had not yet muzzled the English sea- dogs.
So the night passed, and when morning dawned, cold and grey, I was stupid with sleep, and hunger, and loneliness.

The storm had died away, and the water lay sullen and still, while the sails below flapped heavily in the wind.