We could hear shouts of praying and cursing intermingled, as all hands crowded to the decks and gazed forward in the direction of that warning sound.
A lanthorn on the quarter-deck showed us the Don, standing there alone, bare-headed, in his steel breastplate, and sword in hand, quietly waiting the end.

Beyond was a troubled crowd of doomed men, counting the moments and straining their eyes into the darkness.
Beside me, on the poop, Ludar stood erect and noble, with the half- defiant, half-triumphant gleam on his face, as, with hands still on the tiller, he listened to the fatal music of his old home ahead.
In the darkness we could see nothing but the white waste of breakers on to which we were driving.
Presently, as we were almost upon them, Ludar grasped my arm, and pointed high overhead.
There was a momentary gleam of light, and with it a glimpse of a rugged battlement at the rock's edge.
"Dunluce! Dunluce!" he shouted, and let swing the now useless tiller.
Scarce a minute later the _Gerona_ was in her death agony among the lashing breakers.
For a moment or two she held up bravely.

Then with a mighty swirl she reared upward and hung quivering an instant in suspense.
Ludar's hand and mine sought one another, and, as we waited thus, we could see above us the noble form of Don Alonzo, cool and impassive as a man on parade, saluting his King's ensign for the last time.
Then all I remember was a great yell from the slaves at the poop, and the dull thunder of a broadside, as the _Gerona_ fell crashing to her doom.
It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes and saw the sun struggling to break through the black clouds overhead.

The thunder of waves still dinned in my ear, the salt wind was still on my lips, while a sharp pain at my shoulder, when I turned my head to look about me, told me that I was at least alive.
The pain was so acute that I closed my eyes again, and opened them not till I heard the sound of a harsh voice at my side.
What it said I know not, but some one turned me over with his foot, and brought from me a cry of agony which made him reel a pace or two back in consternation.
Then, just as I heard another voice, in plain English, say, "Great God, he lives!" all was dim again before my eyes.

Once more the pain awaked me; and I found myself lying, I suppose, on some stretcher, being slowly borne on men's shoulders up a steep path.