But a faint drip of oars now struck the ears of the Spaniards as they watched from the decks.

A few moments afterwards the sea became, suddenly luminous, and six flaming vessels appeared at a slight distance, bearing steadily down upon them before the wind and tide.
There were men in the Armada who had been at the siege of Antwerp only three years before.

They remembered with horror the devil-ships of Gianibelli, those floating volcanoes, which had seemed to rend earth and ocean, whose explosion had laid so many thousands of soldiers dead at a blow, and which had shattered the bridge and floating forts of Farnese, as though they had been toys of glass.

They knew, too, that the famous engineer was at that moment in England.
In a moment one of those horrible panics, which spread with such contagious rapidity among large bodies of men, seized upon the Spaniards.
There was a yell throughout the fleet--"the fire-ships of Antwerp, the fire-ships of Antwerp!" and in an instant every cable was cut, and frantic attempts were made by each galleon and galeasse to escape what seemed imminent destruction.

The confusion was beyond description.