Page:The Second Armada - Hayward - 1871.pdf/15

Rh cleaving their way right onward through the thick of the hostile armament without stopping to engage the ships of war, and running down transport after transport; while almost every shot from their enormous guns sent a ship to the bottom, or left a boat load of gallant men struggling for life in the waves. If such a fate is appalling to think of or contemplate at a safe distance, what must it have been to those who saw and felt that their own turn was coming,—who watched with fixed and fascinated gaze the rush of the iron monster that was about to pass crashing over them?

The military organization of the invading army was beyond all praise; an order emanating from headquarters might be said to live along the line, and the skill to restore a losing battle or effect a retreat was never wanting, any more than the strategy which wins or improves a victory. But what did such skill avail here, on an untried element, where soldiers and generals were equally helpless, where strategy was useless and bravery thrown away? All hope of carrying out any pre-organized plan was at an end. Sauve qui peut became the word among the hired or pressed masters of transports, who, such of them as escaped being run down, made off without waiting to take in their original freights. The wind rose and soon freshened to a gale. The gunboats which had fallen back before the advancing armament now assailed it on every side. The fire of shells was continued from the heights. A desperate sea-fight was prolonged till dark, and partially continued through the night. When morning broke the catastrophe was made clear in all its horrors. The second Armada had shared the fate of the first. Most of the hostile iron-clads were missing. That