Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/400

354 ting go his broadside. The situation was ticklish in the extreme, but the narrative explains it quite calmly:

Drifting under the admiral's lee, the Speedwell was becalmed for an hour, while the powder-smoke obscured them both, the guns flamed, and the round shot splintered the oak timbers. Captain Shelvocke's ensign was shot away, and the Spanish sailors swarmed upon their high forecastle and cheered as they made ready to board; but another British ensign soared aloft, and then a breeze drew the privateer clear, and she bore for the open sea. Her rigging was mostly shot away, there was a cannon-ball in the mainmast, the stern had been shattered, guns were dismounted, and the launch had been blown to match-wood by the explosion of a pile of powder-bags; but she clapped on sail somehow and ran away from the Spanish flag-ship, which came lumbering out after her.