One creature of Fonseca, named Jimeno de Briviesca, carried his insolence beyond the bounds of the endurance even of the dignified and long-suffering admiral, who very properly took him by the scruff of the neck on one occasion and kicked him off the poop of the flag-ship.

Throughout the whole of the long night, which had succeeded the events of the important day just past, he had been seen to pace the poop in brooding silence.

A thin, knock-kneed officer shambled across the poop to him.

Only active measures, promptly applied, can provide this poor, pusillanimous poop with the proper pep.

The mate had shot the length of the poop at the shock, and had narrowly escaped from the falling mast, while of his four men two had been hurled through the huge gap which yawned in the bows, while a third had dashed his head to pieces against the stock of the anchor.

Swinging off from the poop by a backstay that had been shot away a moment before, he alighted on the quarter-deck by the side of the master.

Leaning over the slight rail that separated the break of the poop from the quarter-deck, he said, in that familiar manner which the Commander is most wont to use to his inferiors when their services are becoming of the greatest importance, "I hope, master Fid, they have put you at a gun that knows how to speak.