could not get in the West Indies; overladen with accumulations of merchandise. It had already suffered heavy loss from storms. And now it was rolling along before the westerly winds of the North Atlantic; as helpless a mass of booty as any admiral could wish to see sail into his hands. And Lord Thomas Howard was cruising between Flores and Corvo, the two most westerly of the Azores. He had with him six of the queen's ships, the Bark Raleigh, belonging to Sir Walter, two or three private vessels, and the victuallers-sixteen sail in all. There was fever and scurvy among his men, as was commonly the case after a cruise of any length, when large crews were crowded into small ships; when food was saved by putting six upon the rations of four; when the ballast was of shingle or sand; when the galley fire stood on the ballast, which was soaked in bilge water enriched by all the drainings of the vessel. had never expected to have to deal with a fighting fleet from Spain. Of the ships with him four were of the second rank of the queen's vessels-his own flagship, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Bonaventure, commanded by Captain Crosse, the Lion, of which George Fenner was captain. Two, the Foresight, Captain Vavassor, and the Crane, Captain Duffield, were smaller. The Bark Raleigh might pass among the queen's ships. But the private ships and the victuallers were small craft, good to take merchantmen, but not to fight galleons. To a sensible officer the one course was to get to sea, and to windward of the Spaniards, as fast as possible. If Don Alonso was allowed to come up on the west side of the island before the English had time to stand out, he might get the wind of them and pin them against the land. Although the Elizabethan seamen enjoy a reputation for desperate valor, their fighting with the Spanish galleons was commonly very cautious. It was their regular course to get to windward, and then to rely on their heavier guns and better gunnery, to make the most of a long bowls fight. The queen had few ships, and was very chary of them. Her officers knew that they would not easily be forgiven for losing a vessel; and so they played for safety in battle. The course followed by Lord Thomas was, therefore, perfectly consistent with the practice of the time; even if it had not been dictated by the circumstances of this particular case. And but for the presence of Grenville in the fleet, all the ships would have got off; there would have been no action with the Spaniards; and the voyage to the Isles of 1591 would have been no more memorable than the voyage of Hawkins and Frobisher in 1590, or the later cruises of Essex and Raleigh, and Sir Richard Levison. Cumberland was watching on the coast of Spain. In Cadiz a Spanish squadron was being fitted for sea under the command of Don Alonso de Bazan, the brother of the Marquess of Santa Cruz, who was to have commanded the Armada. It consisted of fifty-three vessels, twenty of them warships, and the others "urcas,"-victuallers carrying food for the galleons and the homecoming flota. Don Alonso sailed towards the end of August and was sighted at once by Cumberland's ships. One of them, the Moonshine, commanded by a Captain Middleton, kept company with the slow sailing Spaniards till it was sure that they were heading for the Azores. Then Middleton stood on to warn Lord Thomas. On the 31st August he found him at the north end of Flores at anchor. Some of his men were ashore getting water, some of the sick with scurvy had been landed. Middleton had headed the Spaniards by a very little. His mes- It was probably about midday that sage was hardly given before Bazan's the English Squadron began to put to fleet was seen coming on, probably sea, and the last of the queen's ships to round the south end of the island which go was the Revenge. According to stretches from south to north. Lord Monson's version of the story, Grenville Thomas was clearly surprised. He had persuaded himself that the Spanish "Hota" from the Indies. But this is clearly impossible. Sir Richard Grenville must have heard Middleton's message, and must have known that these were not the Indian ships, even if the course Don Alonso de Bazan was steering did not tell him as much. Raleigh's report, that his cousin strived to pick up the men on shore, is no doubt the correct one. And for two reasons. The Revenge was one of the best sailors among the queen's ships, and would naturally be chosen when quick work might be required. Then, we may feel confident that a gentleman who was about to show such a fixed determination not to run when he had picked up the men, was eminently unlikely to inthe disgrace of deserting her Majesty's subjects. cur ships belonged to the long-expected destiny, let us take a look at her. She is of "the second sort of the queen's ships," a vessel of five hundred tons, and is shorter than a clipper of that tonnage. She is also broader in the beam, and built higher. Fore and aft she has castles, which are shut off from the space between by solid barriers called cobridges. The space between is called the waist, and is lower than the castles. If it is invaded by the enemy, the crew can take refuge behind the cobridges, and clear the deck by their fire. She carries a heavy armament of two demi cannon, thirty-two pounds; four cannon petroes or perriers, twenty-four pounds; ten culverins, seventeen pounds; six demi culverins, nine pounds; five sakars, five pounds; and fourteen small pieces-forty-six pieces of ordnance in all. (Our ships were always more heavily armed than the Spaniards, and our arms were better.) Her crew is of two hundred and fifty men, but there was not that number available on the 31st August, 1591. Eighty or ninety sick were lying on the reeking ballast below. Many were dead, and Raleigh gives one hundred as the number of those fit to fight and work. Sir Richard Hawkins says that the queen paid wages to two hundred and sixty men, "as by the pay books doth appear;" but this may mean that she paid the families of those who had fallen. The balance of evidence is that the Revenge is short-handed; not that she is crowded with extra men, as she must have been if the queen paid two hundred and sixty survivors. She has three masts, with a lateen sail on the mizen, square sails on the main and fore, and a bowsprit, at the end of which is shipped an upright mast with a small square spritsail. She is not painted Anyhow, the sick being duly on board, and there being nothing to delay him, Sir Richard followed the admiral. One little victualler, the George Noble, of London, had remained with the Revenge. When the two stood out from the anchorage there must have been a great gap between them and the ships around Lord Thomas Howard. The admiral had gained the wind "very hardly," says Raleigh. He had, in fact, just had time to cross the route of the Spaniards, who were coming up from the south, and he had worked out to the west and north. As Don Alonso de Bazan held on, he placed himself in the space between the bulk of the English squadron and the Revenge with her little attendant victualler. If Grenville endeavored to reach his admiral by the course he was following, he must pass through the Spanish fleet. This is what nobody expected he would attempt to do in "so great an impossibility of prevailing." And Linschoten was told that the men were standing with their hands on the sheets, expecting the order to go about. And, in effect, by turning before the wind and running to the north-east, Grenville might have headed the Spaniards, and have rejoined his admiral even if it had been necessary to round Corvo. black with a white band in the modern fashion, but in some bright color, perhaps in more than one, and is freely carved and gilded at bow and stern and round the portholes. And she flies the English ensign, the red cross of St. George, and probably also the banner of Sir Richard. The reader, by the way, must not let Mr. Kingsley perBefore the Revenge goes to fulfil her suade him that the Spaniards of the time flew the red and yellow flag of today. They used the Hapsbourg ensign, the banner of Burgundy, which is a red saltire on a white ground. Sir Richard Grenville was probably standing on the after castle of the Revenge with his captain and his sailingmaster, as they neared the Spaniards. When it was clear that they could not weather the head of Don Alonso's line the captain and master implored him to go about, but he refused. Linschoten was told that the master had actually given the order to "cut [i.e., set] the mainsail" and put before the wind, but that Grenville threatened to hang him, or any man who touched a rope. What ever the truth here, it is the fact that the Revenge held on; and all agree that she held on by the decision of the admiral, and against the wish of her officers and crew. Why? Mr. Laughton thinks that the admiral "was not a seaman, nor had he any large experience of the requirements of actual war." But he had been at sea and in fights. If he did not understand the elementary facts of the case, he must have been a born fool, which nobody ever called him. Monson saw in his action only temper and wrong-headedness; but then, Monson was of the earth, earthy, and adds that Grenville repented at the last moment, and would have come back if he could, which is against all the other evidence. Raleigh thought that to have gone about would have been the wiser course, "in so great an impossibility of prevailing," and adds, "notwithstanding, out of the greatness of his mind he could not be persuaded." But is it greatness of mind to throw away a ship and a ship's company on a point of honor? Cochrane would not have thought so, nor Nelson; though both could be brave to the verge of madness. et Raleigh was right. It was greatness of mind as it was understood by a generation which revelled in Marlowe, and which knew what was meant by an "heroic fury." The "requirements of actual war" have, in truth, nothing to do with what was a rodomontade, not in our jeering modern sense, but as Brantôme used the word—a furious outbreak of pride, passion, and longing for the joys of battle. Months of dull cruising, of stenches from the soaking ballast, of scurvy, and of fever, may have helped to exasperate a naturally fierce man. Yet at all times Grenville must have hated the prudent game of working to windward, and fighting at long bowls. There were Englishmen in the fleet collected against the Armada in the Channel, who would have forced Lord Howard of Effingham to leave his cautious manoeuvres, and grapple with the Spaniards, if only they could. If Grenville had been there, his voice would have been with them. Now he was free to act. For the queen's ship he cared not much-or, as the Bearserk mood rose in him, he got past caring. For his men he cared not a jot. He would not have deserted them, for that would have been an act of cowardice, but he never doubted for an instant of his right to lead them to death, if honor was thereby to be earned for Richard Grenville. Now, to sail into that great fleet, defying the danger from which Lord Thomas Howard shrank; to force it to give way, and glory over it if its spirit failed; or, if it barred his road, then to show what virtue was in him by laying about him to his will before he died-that would be great honor. So he held on, knowing well what he did. Divers Spaniards bore up to let him pass, but the bullets began to fly, and the George Noble was shot through and through. Then the great Saint Philip crossed the Revenge's bow, taking the wind out of her sails. The George Noble came under Grenville's stern and her master hailed to ask if he should stay. Sir Richard told the trader to go. and leave him to his fate. That answer, which Raleigh must have heard from the skipper, tells us enough of what was in the admiral's mind. He was then as his Norse ancestors had been when the last hour was come. when all that was in a man's power was to meet his fate like a man. The poet who wrote the "Hamdis Mal" would have known how to word it. "We have fought a good fight," said the sons of Gudrun in the Hall of Ermanric. "We stand on slaughtered Goths, on the sword-sated slain, like eagles on their perch. We have gotten a good report, though we die to-day or to-morrow." Sir Richard was not left wholly alone to meet his fate. The fight began at three o'clock in the afternoon. For two hours Captain Vavassor, in the Foresight, was near the Revenge, fighting hard, and Lord Thomas Howard came down from windward as near as he could without entangling his ships among the Spaniards. But his fear to lose the queen's ships kept him always to windward. A Norseman or a knight would have thought it better to perish with Grenville than to leave him; but Lord Thomas Howard was a sensible English officer, and he listened to subordinates, who told him that it was not the part of a judicious commander to sacrifice a whole squadron to no purpose. So at dark he sailed away, and Sir Richard was left to his fate. All night the Spaniards fired into him or tried to board, and, when day came, the Revenge was a dismasted hulk. Grenville lay desperately wounded. He would, so Raleigh was told, have blown up the ship to make the more glorious end, and his master-gunner would have fulfilled his wish. But his crew were not the band of a Norse chief. They were Englishmen of the new time, and, having done their duty, refused to be sacrificed. They surrendered on terms, and Grenville was carried to die in Don Alonso's flagship. "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and a quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, who has fought for his country, queen, religion, and honor. Wherefore my soul joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a true soldier, who hath done his duty as he was bound to do. But the others of my company have done as traitors and dogs, for which they shall be reproached all their lives and leave a shameful name forever." The early translator of Linschoten suppressed the last sentence, which yet is not the least significant part of this farewell to the world. Perhaps they thought it unjust, for they, too, were modern men, and were half amazed at Sir Richard even while they admired him. DAVID HANNAY. From Temple Bar. TWO TALES FROM THE RUSSIAN OF ANTON TSCHECHOW. THE BITER BIT. The land surveyor, Gleb Gawrilowitsch Smirnow, had arrived at the Gniluschka station. He had still thirty versts to drive before reaching the estate where his services were required. If the driver is sober and the horses are not slaughter-house nags, a distance of thirty versts is hardly worth mentioning; whereas if the coachman is drunk and the horses exhausted, the distance appears to be more like fifty versts. "Tell me, please, where I can procure posthorses," said the surveyor to station gendarme. the "What kind of horses? Posthorses? Why, there is hardly a dog in the whole country-side that you could put into harness, let alone horses. Where do you wish to go?" "To Dewkino, to General Hohotow's estate." "Well, then," yawned the gendarme, "go to the back of the station; in the yard there you will find some peasants and their carts; travellers sometimes get a lift in that way." The surveyor sighed and went in the direction indicated. After a good deal of fruitless inquiry and searching, he discovered a peasant, a powerful, gloomy-looking man, pitted with smallpox, who, shod in felt shoes and wrapped in a coarse ragged blanket, stood motionless as a pillar of salt. "The devil alone knows what sort of a cart this is," grumbled the surveyor as he got up. "One can hardly tell the front from the back." "What possible difficulty can there be? The front is where the horse's tail is, and the back is where your honor is sitting." The horse was young, in good condition, with broad flat hocks and fly-bitten ears. When it was struck with the whip (which was made of string) it merely shook its head; when struck for the second time and roundly abused as well, the cart began to quake and quiver as if in an ague. After the third blow, it swayed backwards and forwards, but the fourth blow set it fairly in motion. "Does this sort of thing go on the whole time?" inquired the surveyor after receiving a most violent shock. Inwardly he wondered how it was that Russian drivers can always manage to shake body and soul asunder, although driving at a foot's pace. "We shall get there all right," answered the driver soothingly. "This is a mare, young and fast. If she once begins to gallop there is no holding her. Come up, accursed beast!" If tainly a most suspicious and bestial face." "Well, my man, and what is your name?" inquired the surveyor. "I-my name is Klim." "Tell me, Klim, is the neighborhood quite safe? No robberies? No violence?" "No, God is always merciful to me. Besides, who is there to commit robberies?" "It is lucky that things are so quiet. But to make sure I have brought three revolvers with me," said the land surveyor, lying freely. "And, as you know, a revolver is not a child's toy; one is quite sufficient to polish off ten robbers." It was now quite dark. Suddenly the cart began to creak and groan and shiver, swerving apparently accidentally towards the left. "Where is he going?" thought the surveyor. "He was going straight forward just now, and here he is turning off to the left. I should not be surprised if the rogue is taking me straight into a trap-and then-all sorts of things might happen." Twilight had set in as the cart left the station. To the right of the road stretched an immense frozen plain which seemed to have no limits. one drove to its uttermost parts, one would certainly fall into the devil's clutches. On the horizon, where earth and sky merged into one, the crimson autumnal glow was slowly fading. To the left of the road huge mounds defined themselves vaguely in the fast darkening atmosphere; they bore fantastic resemblances, some to hayricks, some to houses. It was impossible for the surveyor to see anything in front of him, for the driver's broad back entirely obstructed his vision. The atmosphere was still but cold, almost and wring his neck." freezing. "So you say the neighborhood is quite safe," he continued, addressing the driver. "That is rather a pity. I should rather like an encounter with highwaymen. Although I look so weakly and delicate I am really endowed with the strength of an ox. Once upon a time three robbers attacked me. Well. what do you think happened? One 1 struck so hard that he-that he died there and then; the other two, thanks to my assistance, were sent to Siberia to penal servitude. I myself do not know whence comes this strength. I can seize a burly fellow like you-and "What a desert!" reflected the surveyor, pulling his coat collar over his ears. "Far and wide is neither house nor hut. If I were to be attacked and robbed, not a creature would be a bit the wiser, even if I were to fire off a cannon-and the driver looks anything but trustworthy. If such a son of Anak were merely to raise a finger, my fate would be decided. He has cer Klim turned to look at the surveyor. wrinkled his face in a curious way, and gave the mare a blow with his whip. "Yes, brother, so it is," continued the surveyor. "May God protect anybody who ventures to attack me. Not only would he lose his hands and feet, but he would have to answer for his crime before the judges. I am known to all the judges and magistrates. I am an |