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In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut.
To ruin if possible their increasing trade, Philip III. sent out the admiral Hurtado, with a fleet of eight galleons and thirty-two galleys. The Dutch squadron of five vessels, commanded by Wolfert Hermanszoon, attacked them off the coast of Malabar, and his temerity was crowned with great success. He took two of their vessels, and completely drove the remainder from the Indian seas.
"They come from the Norland, and it is our folk they go to choose. I fear me Hightown will soon be full of widow women." At last came the day of sailing. The six galleys of war were brought down from their sheds, and on the rollers for the launching he-goats were bound so that the keels slid blood-stained into the sea.
The boy's fancy played among the masts like the birds from the ivy. These were the galleys of Inishtore, that rode upon the seven seas for a king's son with a hauberk of gold. The spicy isles, the silver sands, the songs the graugach sang below the prows when the sea dashed they came all into his vision of those little tarred hulks of commerce.
How could I ever be mistaken in that dear voice, those lovely eyes, that sweet little nose?" "Take her away; she's deranged," said O'Leary to the gens d'armes. "Sure, if I'm a Pole, that's enough of misfortune." "I'll follow him to the end of the earth, I will." "I'm going to the galleys, God be praised," said O'Leary.
"True," said Maxime, "but I don't see how a new difficulty is going to help us." "You wouldn't be sorry to send your adversary with the galleys," said Desroches, laughing. "A villain," added Maxime, "who may make me lose a rich marriage; a fellow who poses for stern virtue, and then proceeds to trickery of this kind!"
Their prows stuck fast in the bulwarks of the ship, but the boarders soon found themselves the boarded, and, after a brief contest, again the iron bowsprits snapped like pipe-stems, and again the floundering and inexperienced Spaniards shrank away from the terrible encounter which they had provoked. Soon afterwards, Joost de Moor was assailed by three galleys.
Very naturally, among the ships which suffered most in the gale were the four huge unwieldy galleys a squadron of four under Don Diego de Medrado with their enormous turrets at stem and stern, and their low and open waists. The chapels, pulpits, and gilded Madonnas proved of little avail in a hurricane.
This garrison were sent by their conquerors, some to the galleys, some to the mines, some to no man knows where. The Governor himself Le Sieur Simon was to be sent to Spain, there to stand his trial for piracy.
If he had not seen the place, he might run back in time to the date of the event, and then search the Channel for a fleet of Roman galleys; or he might examine the records of Roman life at about that period, where he would have no difficulty in identifying so prominent a figure as Cæsar, or in tracing him when found through all his Gallic wars until he set his foot upon British land.
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