JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 203 



known of, though they had not been on the coast 

 in person. But the Irish themselves were with 

 Alonzo da Leyva, and Sidonia happily took the 

 opinion of the pilots. The day was fine and the 

 sick were divided ; those which could be moved 

 were transferred wherever there was most room 

 for them, and as Calderon passed to and fro 

 among the galleons with his medicines and his 

 arrowroot, he was received everywhere with the 

 eager question, where was Alonzo da Leyva ? 

 There was scarcely a man who did not forget his 

 own wretchedness in anxiety for the idol of them 

 all. 



The calm had been but an interlude in the 

 storm. The same night the wild west wind came 

 down once more, and for eleven consecutive days 

 they went on in their miser)', unable to communi- 

 cate except by signals, holding to the ocean as far 

 as their sailing powers would let them, and seeing 

 galleon after galleon, Oquendos among them, fall- 

 ing away to leeward amidst driving squalls and 

 rain, on the vast rollers of the Atlantic. An 

 island which he supposed to be ten leagues from 

 the coast, Calderon [lassed dangerously near. It 

 was perhaps Achill, whose tremendous clifTs fall 

 sheer two thousand feet into the sea, or pciiiaps 

 Innisbofin or Innishark. On the 4th-i4th of 

 September, he, with Sidonia and fifty vessels, fifty- 

 two ships only out of a hundred and fifty, leaking 



