For a few days everything went well. Then suddenly the Spaniards set
on the English, killed every Englishman they could catch ashore, and
attacked the little English fleet by land and sea. Once the two
Spanish fleets had joined they were in overwhelming force and could
have smothered Hawkins to death by sheer weight of numbers. But he
made a brave fight. Within an hour the Spanish flagship and another
vessel had been sunk, a third was on fire, and every English deck was
clear of Spanish boarding parties. But the King's Island, to which
Hawkins had moored his vessels, now swarmed with Spaniards firing
cannon only a few yards off. To hearten his men he drank their health
and called out, "Stand by your ordnance lustily!" As he put the goblet
down a round shot sent it flying. "Look," he said, "how God has
delivered me from that shot; and so will He deliver you from these
traitors." Then he ordered his own battered ship to be abandoned for
the _Minion_, telling Drake to come alongside in the _Judith_. In
these two little vessels all that remained of the English sailed safely
out, in spite of the many Spanish guns roaring away at point-blank
range and of two fire-ships which almost struck home.
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