The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-10-05
tight little snow Of which she was ca

of the yearly plateship to sail only dur
ing the day and to remain hove to dur
ing the night hours, but this fellow
must have been under weighall through
the darkness, having been advertised of
our SHOWS presence, probably, and so
from this departure from custom we
Judged that he feared us, and our lads
took heart accordingly.
"a chase to windward is always tedi-
GUS work, but as we sailed better and
faster on every point than the Span
iards, twas only a matter Of time, and
we could tell the hour to nicely when
we should be able to bring them into
action. The thing that vexed some of
my men was the disparity in numbers.
We had been at sea, off and on, for two
years. and had lost half our number
through wounds, scurvy, calentures and
other sickness, and SO could muster but
q poor SO all told, and many of them
half disabled and brought scurvy rotten
from their hunks by the rustic of prepa
ration. The don was 1000 ton galleon
newly out of port, with all her compile
ment hale and sound, and with we'll
nigh 500 men fit to carry arms
AS we rose her hull above the plain
of ocean we saw it was pierced for ord
nance innumerable, for pieces both great
and small; but, though this was some
what discomforting, her lowness in the
water was such that fears were swamped
as they rose to the surface, for there
was surely yellow ballast enough in her
holds to make us all rich men for life,
even surprising that none Of us was
killed, and as out. of our small SO a
third, or perhaps half, might lose the
number of their mess during so hot an
were entering promised to be, there
would be the greater share for the sur
vivors. $50 all were eager for the cast of
fortunes dice box, which might bring
them their death OF might render them
independent of mariners traficking for
the remainder of their natural lives.
"The don was ablaze with banners
and ancients [ensigns], and Oh the am
pie belly of her forecourse was depicted
the head of st. Catherine, her patron
ess, with all the. gauds and embellish-
ments of the master painter s art. She
was replete with carvings and gildings,
with high fore and after castles, with
close quarters and with all the Spanish
devices for naval fertilization, and in
good sooth che was as brave ship as
ever breasted Atlantic or lured honest
English buccaneer to plumber.
"Thus far had writ before we came
within shot range. Our fellows. as is
always their wont, had set cask of
strong ale abroach in the waist and
We're feasting ard making merry, for
fear lest the hap of war should take
from them other opportunity Of doing
that same again. The don, seeing that
his heels were too dull to give us the
| slip, triced boarding MEETINGS up to his
lower yardarms, opened his ports and
ran out the guns, and in fine made all
ready for action. He was willing enough
to run had chance been given him to do
so, but now that he was cornered had
no notion of yielding his treasure with
out battle. But as this fell out as we
had anticipated we were in nowise dis
mayed nor surprised, but cleared our
worked round to windward Of him and
held on to within musket range with
out throwing shot.
''The don had been burning powder
for good half hour before our culverins
and falconets hurtled back their mes
sage. Indeed his great ordnance on both
broadsides had been splitting away at
/
| guessed at the confusion that was rag
| ing in his tween decks and took com
| fort therefrom nightly, remembering
that one small ball driven home is
worth dozen score Of heavy ones
which miss their bourne. Owi..5 to the
closeness of our approach, the don's
gunners could not well depress the muz-
zles of their pieces, by reason of the
narrowness of the gun ports; so that
even the few shot whose direction was
true had too great elevation and whis-
tied harmlessly over our mastheads or
sang through the upper rigging, and
save for a cheesehole punched in the
main topsail and a lee fore topmast
backstay shot in twain we were not
whit the worse for his pelting when at
length we began our own.
"Having run up into such short range
before gave the word to fire, we hacked
him through and through with our very
first broadside, and the groans and yells
from his tween decks told us that we
had made commendable slaughter, but
by this time the arquebusiers in his
roundtops had steadied down to their
work and were browning my gun crews
somewhat too cavalierly. So babe my
fellows load up with bar and chain
shot, knock out some of their quoins
and have at the don's rigging for all
their skins were worth, which salute
the galleon acknowledged by bowling to
us with his foremost head, which had
been twice hit by shot from my main
deck culverins Roundtop and sharp
shooters foreyard and the great belly
ing course with its gaudy painting
came down by the run; the galleon slid
up head to wind, in spite of her timo-
neer's every effort. and we had her at
our mercy.