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At last, finding that he could not hit the Covadonga in a vital spot, or bring her to a standstill, Captain Moore, the Peruvian captain, determined to risk his own ship in an endeavour to bring the running fight to a close. The combatants were now off Punto Gruesos, where the shore was steeper, and the water consequently of greater depth, and Moore decided to ram his opponent.
An Arab historian said later: "Would to God the Moslems had extinguished that spark which was destined to consume the dominion of Islam in the north" and, he might have added, "in Spain." When Alfonso of Cantabria married the daughter of Pelayo in 751, the cave of Covadonga no longer held the insurgent band.
The lion-hearted captain, when he saw the enormous superiority of the vessels opposed to him, recognised at once that he would have no chance in the coming encounter; but, quite undaunted, prepared at once for action, and signalled to the Covadonga to do the same.
He then ran aft and proceeded to fix the spare staff, under a perfect hail of rifle-bullets from the monitor and corvette, and, having done so, ran up the flag amid cheers from the Covadonga. Then he went forward once more to his place in the conning-tower, which he reached just as Condell gave orders for the battery of 70-pounders to be fired again.
Thus the Esmeralda, refusing to surrender to the very last, went down after a prolonged and desperate engagement with her colours flying; while the tiny Covadonga, having lured one of her opponents into shallow water, and thus caused the Independencia to run aground, blazed away her final volleys of small shot, and retired with all the honours of war.
The fair-haired Goth dispossessed the Italian. The Berber destroyed the Gothic monarchy. Castile and Leon fought their way down inch by inch through three centuries from Covadonga to Toledo, halfway in time and territory to Granada and the Midland Sea.
Day had just begun to dawn when the Union again opened fire, and her first shell unluckily cut the tiller-chains on board the gunboat, so that the Covadonga very nearly ran up on the beach before the chain could be repaired and the ship again got under control; indeed, Jim distinctly felt her keel scrape as she ran over a shoal which stretched out about half a mile into the sea.
Good luck and congratulations." The two ships swept rapidly away in chase of the Peruvian, and the Covadonga, obeying orders and resuming her voyage, made the best of her way to Valparaiso, which she reached the following evening, dropping her anchor in the middle of the assembled Chilian fleet, to the accompaniment of rousing cheers for her gallant conduct at Iquique Bay and Punto Gruesos.
Jim, however, still continued his firing until a man on board the Peruvian crawled aft and, hauling down the colours, hoisted a white flag in its place. The Covadonga then, and only then, ceased firing.
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