Their decks were thick with men, and from their
high poops came the weird clashing which filled the air. For one
moment they lay there, this wondrous fleet, surging slowly
forward, framed in gray vapor. The next the clouds closed in and
they had vanished from view. There was a long hush, and then a
buzz of excited voices.
"The Spaniards!" cried a dozen bowmen and sailors.
"I should have known it," said the shipman. "I call to mind on
the Biscay Coast how they would clash their cymbals after the
fashion of the heathen Moor with whom they fight; but what would
you have me do, fair sir? If the fog rises we are all dead men."
"There were thirty ships at the least," said Knolles, with a moody
brow. "If we have seen them I trow that they have also seen us.
They will lay us aboard."
"Nay, fair sir, it is in my mind that our ship is lighter and
faster than theirs. If the fog hold another hour we should be
through them."
"Stand to your arms!" yelled Knolles. "Stand to your arms--!
They are on us!"
The Basilisk had indeed been spied from the Spanish Admiral's ship
before the fog closed down. With so light a breeze, and such a
fog, he could not hope to find her under sail. But by an evil
chance not a bowshot from the great Spanish carack was a low
galley, thin and swift, with oars which could speed her against
wind or tide. She also had seen the Basilisk and it was to her
that the Spanish leader shouted his orders.
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