Five minutes' hard cutting, hand to hand, and the poop was clear. The
soldiers in the forecastle had been able to give them no assistance,
open as they lay to the arrows and musketry from the _Rose's_ lofty
stern. Amyas rushed along the central gangway, shouting in Spanish,
"Freedom to the slaves! death to the masters!" clambered into the
forecastle, followed close by his swarm of wasps, and set them so good
an example how to use their stings that in three minutes more there was
not a Spaniard on board who was not dead or dying.
"Let the slaves free!" shouted he. "Throw us a hammer down, men.
Hark! there's an English voice!"
There is indeed. From amid the wreck of broken oars and writhing
limbs, a voice is shrieking in broadest Devon to the master, who is
looking over the side.
"Oh, Robert Drew! Robert Drew! Come down, and take me out of hell!"
"Who be you, in the name of the Lord?"
"Don't you mind William Prust, that Captain Hawkins left behind in the
Honduras, years and years agone? There's nine of us aboard, if your
shot hasn't put 'em out of their misery. Come down, if you've a
Christian heart, come down!"
Utterly forgetful of all discipline, Drew leaps down hammer in hand,
and the two old comrades rush into each other's arms.
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