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We have all the sea-room we want; there are no rocks or shoals in our road for us to fetch up on; and if we should happen to fall in with any other vessels, they will be going the same way as ourselves, so we shall see them in ample time to avoid running over them.
I don't think a horse is worth riding that will go in a crowd. It's just like yachting, you should have plenty of sea-room. If you're to pull your horse up at every fence till somebody else is over, I think you'd better come out on a donkey." And so they went away to Pickwell Gorse.
Slowly for his body was heavy, and his wings were rather small for his size slowly he lifted himself from the water, all the time rushing forward faster and faster. He couldn't have made it if he hadn't had plenty of sea-room, but by swinging round and round in long, wide circles he managed to rise little by little till at last he was clear of the tree-tops.
They were driven together, and became entangled in a confused and helpless mass. "Drake, in the mean time, had fallen upon a score of galleons under the direct command of Medina Sidonia himself. They were better handled than the rest, and were endeavoring to keep sea-room and retain some command of themselves.
And so we prepared for the night. Yet, a little before dark, we discovered that the weed-continent trended out towards us; so that we should pass it, maybe, at a distance of something like half a mile, and, at that, there was talk between the second mate and the bo'sun as to whether it was better to put the ship about, and gain a greater sea-room before attempting to pass this promontory of weed; but at last they decided that we had naught to fear; for we had fair way through the water, and further, it did not seem reasonable to suppose that we should have aught to fear from the habitants of the weed-continent, at so great a distance as the half of a mile.
All we could hope was that, when daylight returned, we might find ourselves clear to the northward of all dangers, and then with tolerable sea-room we might expect to make sail so as to carry the ship into an English port. Vain were our hopes. Suddenly there was a cry, "Breakers ahead! breakers on the lee beam!" The ship struck, again and again, with terrific violence.
The second lieutenant went up the main-rigging, and pointed with his hand to about two points before the beam. "Do you see two hillocks inland?" "Yes, sir," replied the second lieutenant. "Then it is so," observed the captain to the master, "and if we weather it, we shall have more sea-room. Keep her full, and let her go through the water; do you hear, quarter-master?" "Ay, ay, sir."
"What think ye of things?" enquired one of the men, as Ruby came up from the mortar-gallery, to which he had descended at the first gust of the storm. "I don't know what to think," said he gravely. "It's clear enough that we shall have a stiffish gale. I think little of that with a tight craft below me and plenty of sea-room; but I don't know what to think of a beacon in a gale."
The wind would not admit of the schooners steering much more than a cable's length from the rocks for quite a league; after which the shore trended to the southward, and a little sea-room would be gained. But on those rocks the waves were then beating heavily, and their bellowings as they rolled into the cavities were at almost all times terrific.
Columbus's little fleet, finding shelter denied them, had moved a little way along the coast, the Admiral standing close in shore, the others working to the south for sea-room; and although they survived the hurricane they were scattered, and only met several days later, in an extremely battered condition, at the westerly end of the island. But the large home-going fleet had not survived.
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