"Savage as they were, the Spaniards paused a moment; but Don Juan was the first to fire a musket, and observing that his men were still reluctant, he knocked one down with the butt-end, and threatened the rest with death if they disobeyed him.
"'Fire!' he shouted again, and then on the unsuspecting crowd there was poured the concentrated volley of these three hundred miscreants; thus, in ten minutes the dreadful massacre was complete. On the beach all were lying dead and drenched in blood--husband and wife, parent and child--all save one woman, who, with her infant, concealed herself in the rocks, and her husband, who, with a ball lodged in his arm, sprang into the sea and endeavoured to swim to the ship.
"Failing in this, faint with loss of blood, weary and despairing, he turned about and sought the shore, where he was hewn to pieces by sabres as he clung to a seaweedy rock. On beholding this dreadful sight, his poor wife, who was concealed in a cleft of the cliffs not far off, uttered a shriek of dismay, which drew the murderers, now flushed with blood, towards her.
"She was soon dragged out, and with his own dagger Don Juan stabbed her to the heart, and then killed the child, which he tossed into the sea beside its father!
"Paralysed by rage and astonishment, my grandfather and his crew saw all this from the deck of the _Dublin_. They could see the red musketry flashing from the rocks, filling all the little cove with slaughtered corpses and smoke. They could hear the shrieks that were borne over the water on the evening wind; and after a time, when all was still, they could see the beach strewn with dead bodies, and in possession of the Spaniards, who were stripping them, and who brought up field-pieces to fire on the _Dublin_.
"He hoisted his anchor and bore away; but on coming abreast of the capital with British colours flying _above_ the Spanish ensign _reversed_, he pitched a few shot into it from his carronades, sunk three craft at their anchors, with all their crews on board, and then bore away for England, and there was an end of it. We were at peace with Spain; but I never heard that satisfaction was given, or the atrocity revenged. That is _my_ yarn, lads."
*