“The English captain hailed us through his speaking-trumpet and told us—there is nothing like plain-speaking—told us to prepare to defend ourselves, as he was going to attack. He asked a string of questions, but all he got out of us was that we should not take the trouble to answer him. Meanwhile the other three frigates had come up and had formed in such order that each Englishman had a Spaniard to the leeward of him.”
“They could not have taken up a better position,” said my master.
“So say I,” replied Marcial. “The commander of our squadron, Don José Bustamante, was not very prompt; if I had been in his shoes. … Well, señor, the English commodore sent a little whippersnapper officer, in a swallowtail coat, on board the Medea, who wasted no time in trifling but said at once that though war had not been declared, the commodore had orders to take us. That is what it is to be English! Well, we engaged at once; our frigate received the first broadside in her port quarter; we politely returned the salute, and the cannonade was brisk on both sides—the long and the short of it is that we could do nothing with the heretics, for the devil was on their side; they set fire to the Santa Bárbara which blew up with a roar, and we were all so crushed by this and felt so cowed—not for want of courage, señor, but what they call demoralized—well, from the first we knew we were lost. There were more holes in our ship’s sails than in an old cloak; our rigging was damaged, we had five feet of water in the hold, our mizzenmast was split, we had three shots in the side only just above the water line and many dead and wounded. Notwithstanding all this we went on, give and take, with the English, but when we saw that the Medea and the Clara were unable to fight any longer and struck their colors we made all sail and retired, defending ourselves as best we could. The cursed Englishman gave chase, and as her sails were in better order than ours we could not escape and we had nothing for it but to haul our colors down at about three in the afternoon, when a great many men had been killed and I myself was lying half-dead on the deck, for a ball had gone out of its way to take my leg off. Those d⸺d wretches carried us off to England, not as prisoners, but as détenus; however, with despatches on one side and despatches on the other, from London to Madrid and back again, the end of it was that they stuck for want of money; and, so far as I was concerned, another leg might have grown by the time the King of Spain sent them such a trifle as those five millions of pesos.”
“Poor man!—and it was then you lost your leg?” asked Doña Francisca compassionately.
“Yes, señora, the English, knowing that I was no dancer, thought one was as much as I could want. In return they took good care of me. I was six months in a town they called ‘Plinmuf’ (Plymouth) lying in my bunk with my paw tied up and a passport for the next world in my pocket.—However, God A’mighty did not mean that I should make a hole in the water so soon; an English doctor made me this wooden leg, which is better than the other now, for the other aches with that d⸺d rheumatism and this one, thank God, never aches even when it is hit by a round of small shot. As to toughness, I believe it would stand anything, though, to be sure, I have never since faced English fire to test it.”
“You are a brave fellow,” said my mistress. “Please God you may not lose the other. But those who seek danger. …”
And so, Marcial’s story being ended, the dispute broke out anew as to whether or no my master should set out to join the squadron. Doña Francisca persisted in her negative, and Don Alonso, who in his wife’s presence
