I jeered the King of Spain, and hooted his men.

No one heard me; but it did me good.
When day broke, there we were, the glorious Armada, like a scared flock of sheep, six miles away from Calais, looking round at one another with white faces, and counting the cost of that night's fireworks.

A few charred hulks drifting in the distance were all that were left of the terrible brands which had routed the Don from his beauty sleep; while many a disabled galleon on our side told of the panic they had caused.
Like sheep, at a safe distance, the Spaniards swung round cautiously to face the danger that had passed; and a cry presently arose, not unmingled with shame, of "Back to Calais!" But the cunning Englishmen had risen too early in the morning to permit that.

Already their sails crowded the western horizon and, as we lay in a long crooked line, waiting the Admiral's signal to beat up again for our lost anchorage, down they bore upon us--half of their sail swooping on the right of our line, the other half on the left.
Then followed the biggest battle of all that great sea-fight.

For, taking us on either flank, the Englishmen, coming for the first time to close quarters, huddled our ships in towards the centre, sending us one on the top of the other, so that for every ship they sank by their own shot, another went down, stove in by her next neighbour.