“Gabrielillo, come here.”
It was Marcial who was calling me; I ran to his side and found him trying to work one of the guns which had been left silent for lack of men. A ball had shot away the half of his wooden leg, which made him exclaim: “Well! so long as I can manage to keep the one of flesh and bone … !”
Two sailors lay dead by the gun; a third, though horribly wounded, still tried to go on working it.
“Let be, mate!” said Marcial. “You cannot even light the match,” and taking the linstock from his hand, he put it into mine, saying: “Take it, Gabrielillo.—If you are afraid you had better jump overboard.”
He loaded the cannon as quickly as he was able, helped by a ship’s boy who happened to come up; we ran it forward: “fire!” was the word, I applied the match and the gun went off.
We repeated this operation a second and a third time, and the roar of the cannon fired by my own hand produced an extraordinary effect on my nerves. The feeling that I was no longer a spectator but an actor in this stupendous tragedy for the moment blew all my alarms to the winds; I was eager and excited, or at any rate determined to appear so. That moment revealed to me the truth that heroism is often simply the pride of honor. Marcial’s eye—the eyes of the world were upon me; I must bear myself worthy of their gaze.
“Oh!” I exclaimed to myself with an impulse of pride: “If only my young mistress could see me now! … Bravely firing cannon like a man!” Two dozen of English were the least I might have sent to the other world.
These grand visions, however, did not last long for Marcial, enfeebled by age, was beginning to sink with exhaustion; he breathed hard as he wiped away the blood which flowed profusely from his head, and at last his arms dropped by his side, and closing his eyes, he exclaimed: “I can do no more; the powder is rising to my head. Gabrielillo, fetch me some water.”
I ran to obey him, and when I had brought the water he drank it eagerly. This seemed to give him fresh energy; we were just about to load once more when a tremendous shock petrified us as we stood. The mainmast, cut through by repeated shots, fell amidships and across the mizzen; the ship was completely covered with the wreck, and the confusion was appalling.
I happily was so far under shelter that I got no harm but a slight blow on the head which, though it stunned me for a moment, did not prevent my thrusting aside the fragments of rope and timber which had fallen above me. The sailors and marines were struggling to clear away the vast mass of lumber, but from this moment only the lower-deck guns could be used at all. I got clear as best I could and went to look for Marcial but I did not find him, and casting my eyes up at the quarterdeck, I saw that the captain was no longer at his post. He had fallen senseless, badly wounded in the head by a splinter, and two sailors were just about to carry him down to the stateroom. I was running forward to assist when a piece of shell hit me on the shoulder, terrifying me excessively, for I made sure my wound was mortal and that I was at my last gasp. My alarm did not hinder me from going into the cabin; I tottered from loss of blood and for a few minutes lay in a dead faint. I was roused from my short swoon by hearing the rattle of the cannon below and then a voice shouting vehemently:
“Board her! bring pikes!—axes!”
And then the confusion was so complete that it was impossible to distinguish human voices from the rest of the hideous uproar. However, somehow—I know not how—without thoroughly waking from my drowsy state, I became aware that all was given up for lost and that the officers had met in the cabin to agree to strike; nor was this the work of my fancy, bewildered as I was, for I heard a voice exclaiming: “The Trinidad never strikes!” I felt sure that it was Marcial’s voice; but at any rate someone said it.
When I recovered perfect consciousness, I saw my master sunk on one of the sofas in the cabin, his face hidden in his hands, prostrate with despair, and paying no heed to his wound.
I went to the heartbroken old man, who could find no way of expressing his grief but by embracing me like a father, as if we were both together on the brink of the grave. He, at any rate, was convinced that he must soon die of grief, though his wound was by no means serious. I comforted him as best I might, assuring him that if the battle were indeed lost it was not because I had failed to batter the English to the best of my power; and I went on to say that we should be more fortunate next time—but my childish arguments failed to soothe him.
Going out presently in search of water for my master, I witnessed the very act of lowering the flag which was flying at the gaff, that being one of the few spars, with the remains of the mizzenmast, that remained standing. The glorious flag, the emblem of our honor, pierced and tattered as it was, which had gathered so many fighting-men under its folds, ran down the rope never to be unfurled again. The idea of stricken pride, of a brave spirit giving way before a superior force, can find no more appropriate symbol to represent it than that of a flying standard which sinks and disappears like a setting sun. And our flag thus slowly descending that fatal evening, at the moment when we
