The doctor raised his rifle--and Captain Diego Pinto, commander in his Most Catholic Majesty's navy, slept with his fathers.
A heavier sea than ordinary, a moment after this, lifted the Albatross, and forced her ahead: the bowsprit of her antagonist snapped close to the knight-heads; but, being held by the lashing, the guarda-costa was towed along, till a blow or two of a pole-axe severed the rope that connected the two vessels, and she dropped astern. The desperate and frantic courage of the Spaniards died with their commander; their first lieutenant had received a slight splinter-wound in the foot at the first fire of the Albatross, in consequence of which he went below, and had not been seen on deck since; the second lieutenant's orders were not attended to; and all was anarchy and confusion on board. A few minutes after she drifted from the Albatross, her foremast, already badly crippled and no longer supported by the bowsprit, fell over the larboard bow, dragging down with it the main topmast. At this the Yankees cheered. The Albatross soon after wore ship, and stood to the westward. Upon mustering the crew, it was ascertained that but one man was killed, and eight more or less wounded; her sails and rigging were much cut up; and the services of all hands were immediately put in requisition, to repair damages, and put the ship in condition to proceed on her voyage.
The first intelligence of the victory was conveyed to Isabella by Morton himself. As he approached her place of refuge with his head bound up with a bloody handkerchief, having received a slight wound in the left temple from a splinter, she uttered a scream of terror, and it was long before she could be convinced that the wound was trifling. As lady passengers are of no great use on deck when the ship's sails and rigging are hanging about her ears, she was conducted once more below.
In the mean time Jones, as he trudged backwards and forwards, thought he saw something amiss about the galley, which he entered, and a moment after backed out, exclaiming,
"D--n my two-and-twenty top-lights! if this here doesn't beat all my going down east!"
"What's the matter, Jones? what are you swearing about now?"
"Swearing? it's enough to make a minister pull off his wig, and rip right out in the middle of his sarmont!"