And the scene was one of beauty and quiet peace, though it might be pregnant with menace of coming war, as the three galleys, like wide-winged birds, with white gleams of foam at their sides from the measured strokes of the oars, left the dark coastline of Spain behind, and moved outward toward the dawn.
The two galleys of Don Manuel, which had been built at Cadiz, and were the gift of the Spanish king, were each of a length of two hundred feet, being among the largest ships of their kind that were then afloat. The waist was low, where the rowers sat, and they would be drenched in a windy storm, and might even be glad of their chains at such times, without which they had been sucked away by a falling wave; but poop and bow were built high, having several decks. They were like castles, bri
