Some flung themselves into the sea after the boats, yelling and cursing till the flash of a sword or the pitiless thud of an oar sent them back into silence.

Some, rather than others should go and not they, tore the craft board from board, and fought with the fragments.

Some with muskets poured fire on the boats.

And some wreaked their vengeance on the haughty Spanish gallant and hurled him from the rock on which he stood into the depths below.
'Twas a hideous scene; and when, after all was done, sixty gasping souls scrambled on board, glaring at one another like beasts of prey, and hissing defiant taunts at the wretches on shore, it boded ill--very--ill for this voyage.
For a while neither Ludar nor I was fit to take our seat on the thwarts or lend a hand with the oars, much as help was needed.
For two days, indeed, the _Gerona's_ sails were of little service owing to the perverse south-wester, which threatened to imprison us in the bay of Killybegs, and well-nigh defied every effort of the crew to bring the galley beyond the great headland of Malinmore.
But once out in the open, where the south-wester would have favoured our course to Scotland, the wind veered to westward and drove us in perilously near the rocks.

So that we at the oars (for, by then, Ludar and I perforce had to take our share of the toil) were kept hard at work, and the roar of breakers on our starboard quarter never ceased, day nor night.
The _Gerona_, moreover, had been but indifferently patched, and, in the heavy sea across which she laboured, answered her helm hardly, and could by no means be counted upon to sail more than a point or two out of the wind.