Page:The Second Armada - Hayward - 1871.pdf/14

8 was seen by a young lieutenant of the invading navy from a ship's launch in which he had been carrying orders. Without a moment's hesitation he commanded the crew to pull back, and they obeyed with such a will that within a few seconds the boat was run aground not many yards from their gallant country-man; and they were springing to the rescue, when a ball struck the lieutenant and he fell. He sacrificed his life to his chivalry, and not a man of the heroic boat's crew got away.

Among the many casualties which added to the confusion, a shell exploded in the boat which carried the leader of the headmost division and his Staff, killing and wounding most of them; and two transports, carrying artillery, ran upon torpedoes and were blown up. Things began to look very unlike Kinderspiel. But large sacrifices had been counted on; it was known and felt that a first landing on the British coast must be effected in the spirit of a forlorn hope, and fresh boats were hurrying in or loading from the transports; when, hark! a low rumbling sound, like intermitting thunder, is heard from far off across the ses. It is the sound of cannon on the extreme left of the Armada. It can be nothing but the English Channel Fleet. A fast steamer had, in fact, overtaken the Admiral, and, dispatching two of his ships to watch the Americans, he had come back (like Desaix at Marengo) to give a decisive turn to the wavering fortunes of the day,—the day big with the fate of England, of Europe, of the world. He brought with him seven first-class iron-clads, with more than twice as many others of heavy metal; and it was a grand and fearful spectacle, the approach of those magnificent machines, instinct with life and motion,