The boat was now being rowed along the line of the admiral's squadron, and Gilbert Oglander paid no farther regard to the conversation of his companions, but directed his attention to each of the great vessels in turn. There were six of Queen Elizabeth's ships; the largest being the _Bonaventure_ of six hundred tons, and the smallest being the _Crane_ of two hundred tons. But in addition to these there were some half a dozen other vessels which had been contributed to the expedition by certain patriotic English gentlemen and merchant adventurers, as the _Bark Raleigh_, which was Sir Walter Raleigh's share in the enterprise, the _Prudence_, the _Pilgrim_, and the _George Noble_. There were also several smaller ships, victuallers, as they were called, carrying stores and extra ammunition. The whole fleet numbered in all twenty sails, and the combined companies numbered something like two thousand five hundred men and boys. The larger ships mounted from thirty to fifty guns apiece. Of this squadron Lord Thomas Howard was the appointed admiral and general. His vice-admiral was Sir Richard Grenville.
The _Revenge_ lay at anchor in the midst of many merchant ships, pinnaces, and fly-boats,--a very gallant ship, with her carved and gilded bulwarks, with her tall, stout masts, with her silken, swallow-tailed banners flying from her masts and yards, her great standard, bearing the royal arms, at her forecastle. At her maintop the glorious flag of St George's Cross was fluttering in the breeze--the flag under which so many great seamen had beforetime traded, explored, and fought in England's honour, that Drake and Cavendish had borne round the world, that Lancaster carried to the East Indies and Frobisher to the far north; the flag that had blown triumphant against the Spaniards off Gravelines three years before this time, and that was destined soon to wave with less good fortune though not with less glory over the shot-torn wreck of the _Revenge_ herself.
Gilbert had been on board many times during the past two weeks while the business of preparation and victualling was in progress. He had explored the vessel from stem to stern, from the high, square forecastle, where the bowsprit rose steeply upward, and carried at its outer end a small mast with its sprit-topsail; and back aft to the sloping quarter-deck and the higher poop-deck, where a narrow strip of railed platform ran athwart from side to side above the water. He had been below to the main-deck where the heaviest guns were carried, and below that again to the lower deck that was dark and airless as a pit. He had even climbed the tall main-mast and stood upon the gallery, whence in time of battle the ship's archers and musketeers were wont to shoot down upon their enemy alongside. He would willingly have climbed the bonaventure mast also, and crept up to the high peak of the long lateen yard that towered aloft above the ship's stern lantern, but one of the men in authority had warned him against the danger of such an attempt.