played out He said that there was plenty of time both to win the game and beat the Spaniards. The best and bravest match that ever was scored, was resumed accordingly. Drake and his friends aimed their last bowls with the same steady calculating coolness, with which they were about to point their guns. The winning cast was made; and then they went on board, and prepared for action, with their hearts as light and their nerves as firm as they had been on the Hoe Bowling Green.
Meanwhile the messengers and signals had been despatched fast and far through England, to warn each town and village that the enemy had come at last. In every sea-port there was instant making ready by land and by sea; in every shire and every city there was instant mustering of horse and man.[1] But England's best defence then, as ever, was in her fleet; and after warping laboriously out of Plymouth harbour against the wind, the LordAdmiral stood westward under easy sail, keeping an anxious look-out for the Armada, the approach of
- ↑ In Macaulay's Ballad on the Spanish Armada, the transmission of the tidings of the Armada's approach, and the arming of the English nation, are magnificently described. The progress of the fire-signals is depicted in lines which are worthy of comparison with the renowned passage in the Agamemnon, which describes the transmission of the beacon-light announcing the fall of Troy from Mount Ida to Argos.
