For the other Spanish ship had fared worse than the _Rata_, and was already heeling over on her side.
"Haul away, you hulking lubber," yelled Will, "or she'll be on her beam- ends before we are clear." So, for five minutes, we and a parcel of other fellows worked might and main to cut away tackle and clear ourselves of the doomed galleon, which settled over farther and farther, showing her whole broadside from gunwale to keel, and blazing despairingly heavenward with her guns.
"Why not give her a broadside to help her over ?" asked one who worked near.
"Because," said Will, wisely, "we have no shot left to do it." "What!" I asked, "are we in such a plight as that ?" "'Tis true," said Will; "I heard it from the gun officer an hour ago.
And not only are we at an end, but so is all her Majesty's fleet." "Then we are lost!" I said.
"No doubt," replied he.

"Yet we had merry sport with the Don while it lasted; and methinks he will run a bit without our help, before he find out that we fight him with one arm bound." So it turned out.

The fight dragged on through the afternoon, and ship after ship of the King of Spain went to her doom, or drifted helplessly on the mud banks of Gravelines.

But the English fire dropped shorter and shorter; and as evening closed (had the enemy but known it!) we had scarce a broadside left among us.
Yet Heaven remembered us in our extremity.

For no sooner had our guns become mute than the south wind came down on us with a burst, catching us in the small of our backs, and sending the Don away in front of us, staggering and reeling seaward, for his very life.
'Twas a sad spectacle for me.