thus, as it were, between two fires, and were badly hampered by the necessity to climb from the one vessel to the other. Those of them who could not gain the deck of the other ship were driven overboard, and very few of them survived to reach their goal.

“Quickly, lads,” shouted Roger; “drive these fellows off the deck, and let us regain our own ship while we can. The other Spaniards are drawing up, and will be on us before we are ready for them if we do not look sharp.”

The seamen, animated by his voice, and seeing the necessity for doing as he said, redoubled their efforts, and, with hearty cheers, massed themselves together and charged along the reeking and slippery decks.

The Spaniards, unable to resist the weight of the charge, scattered, and, finding no other way of escape, dashed below; but they could not so easily avoid the victorious English, who followed and hunted them out of their hiding-places.

As Roger and Harry, having dashed below in pursuit, were running down one of the narrow alleyways, searching for hidden Spaniards, a man sprang from behind a curtain and aimed a heavy blow with his sword at Roger, who was foremost, cutting him down.

With a faint groan Roger fell, and Harry stumbled over his body, thus enabling the Spaniard to effect his escape.

Half-stunned from the force of his fall, Harry raised himself and bent over Roger.

“Roger, Roger,” he exclaimed, “are you much hurt? Speak to me, lad.”

But Roger made no reply, lying perfectly still, with a stream of red slowly spreading from under his head and staining the white planking. Suddenly, from above sounded a harsh cry.

“Back, back, every man of you, and cut the ships adrift; the Spaniards are firing the magazines; back, for your lives!” Loud and imperative rang out the voice of Cavendish. “Quick, lads, for your lives, or we shall be all blown up together!”

“Roger, Roger, wake, lad,” cried Harry; “the ship has been set on fire, and will blow up directly. Heavens, what can I do?”

But Roger never stirred; so, as there was nothing else to be done, Harry took his body under the arms and began to drag him along toward the nearest hatchway.

At this moment the broadsides of the English again rang out, showing that the other three Spaniards were drawing up, and were within gunshot.

Meanwhile, on board the Spanish ship no sound was to be heard save the roar and crackle of the flames, as Harry, putting out all his strength, lifted the inanimate body of his friend to his shoulder, and plunged along the passage through the blinding and suffocating smoke.

He was dashing forward, holding his breath as much as possible, with his eyes smarting with smoke, and feeling as though they would burst from their sockets, when he crashed up against some obstacle, dropping the body of Roger from the force of the contact. A puff of fresh air now blew the smoke aside for a moment, and Harry saw what was the cause of his stoppage. His way was blocked by a stout oaken door, that had evidently been closed by some seaman when he retreated upon hearing the alarm that the magazine was in danger of being fired.

Harry dragged frantically at the handle and turned it wildly, but in vain; the door was secured on the other side by some kind of spring latch, and escape seemed impossible.

The smoke meanwhile was momentarily becoming more and more dense, and it was now an agony to breathe, while every second of delay meant awful danger; and Roger seemed to be rapidly bleeding to death for want of attention to his wound.

Harry looked round for some instrument with which to force the door, and his eye fell upon a handspike, probably dropped by some flying foe. Seizing this, he smashed madly at the door, till at length the panel splintered under his frantic blows; then, putting his hand through the opening, he felt for the latch, found it, and the door opened at his touch.

Once again raising Roger in his arms, he staggered blindly along; and at last, bleeding from contact with splinters, and his hands almost raw with wielding the handspike, he reached the foot of the companion-ladder and dashed up it with his still inanimate burden in his arms.

On reaching the deck he saw that the grapnels had been cut, the three English vessels had drifted some hundreds of yards away, and were even then engaging the three other Spanish ships which had come up; and the air was again full of the roar of cannon, the crashing of timbers, falling of masts, shrieks, groans, cries, orders, and imprecations.

The Spanish ship which had been in company with the craft that caught fire had vanished, and only a few timbers and fragments were floating on the surface; she had evidently been sunk by the terrible fire of the English guns.

The ship on which they now were, the Maria Dolorosa, was by this time a spouting fountain of flame, from her bows as far aft as her mainmast. Her guns were exploding one after another as the fire reached them, and added their thunder to the already awful din.

Harry raised his voice, and shouted over the water with all the power of his lungs to the English ships, but the continued roar of the cannon, mingled with the rattling crash of musketry volleys, the shouted commands of the officers, the hoarse outcries of toiling and fighting men, and the crash of rending wood as the broadsides tore their way into the vitals of the reeling ships effectually drowned his outcries; while everybody was far too busily engaged to notice his critical situation.

“Ah, Roger!” said he, apostrophising the inanimate figure that lay at his feet as he stood at the extreme edge of the poop, in order to be as far away from the furnace heat as possible,—“Ah, Roger, I fear, dear lad, that our lives are coming to an end even before we are fairly launched on our adventures! Oh, why cannot they—!”

At this moment there was a roar as if all earth and heaven were dissolving in chaos, and Harry, feeling as if he were being whirled downward into everlasting night, knew no more.

The fire had at last reached the magazine!