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The Egret streaked within five hundred yards, then four.

A second full salvo and a third followed the first, all of the shots falling well shy of any real threat, and by twos and threes the grins began to break out on board the English merchantman.

The biggest grin by far came on the face of the Cimaroon, who startled everyone around him by leaping nimbly up onto the deck rail, flinging his loincloth aside, and sending a long stream of yellow liquid in the direction of the Spaniard.

Spence ordered the gunners to open fire at three hundred yards.

Geoffrey Pitt’s crew scored the first direct hit, albeit a harmless one, bouncing an iron ball off the San Pedro’s two-foot-thick outer hull.

His succeeding shots, and those of his other gunners, were more accurate and far more deadly, blasting away sails and yards and the men who balanced there precariously awaiting orders from their helm.

Standing off at what must have seemed a preposterous distance from the startled Spaniard, Pitt’s crews split rails and smashed through the ornately gilded stern galleries.

They maintained a steady barrage, firing as quickly and as smoothly as the guns could be swabbed and reloaded.

Clouds of smoke and flame erupted continuously from the long black row of muzzles, cloaking the lower deck in a thick, impenetrable fog of choking cordite.

Sweat streamed from the bodies of the men who lifted and rammed the thirty-pound shot into the smoking muzzles.

A shout had them jumping back from the anticipated recoil and covering their ears against the tremendous roar of each explosion.

Another shout had them leaping forward and swarming over the gun again, feeding a powder cartridge down the barrel, packing down the shot and wadding, then grunting against the winch lines to reseat the carriage in front of the gunport.

More black powder was poured down the touch hole and ignited, and the macabre dance began again.

Beau’s throat soon grew raw from the smoke and heat, from shouting orders to the men who worked the miles of rigging, setting the sails to her directions.

By the time they made their fourth pass around the Spaniard, each one as tight and clean as if executed with a brush stroke, her nerves had settled, although her blood still roared with the excitement, the thrill of battle.

The treasure ship was so sluggish and heavy, she seemed to be standing still while the Egret swooped and carved furrows in the sea around her.

They were returning fire, but for every shot that chanced off the Egret’s hull or decking, the San Pedro de Marcos suffered thirty or more in return.

The afterdeck was Spence’s domain and he ruled it with thunderous authority, ordering tighter circles on each pass, allowing the gunners on the smaller culverins to join in and pour round after round of mercilessly destructive shot down the Spaniard’s throat.

She was a magnificent example of Spain’s finest, with gold figureheads and ornate carvings on all her decks.

Regal beauty though she was, Spence’s armaments made short work of her fancy trimmings and scrolled grotesques.

The rows of diamond-paned windows across her stern galleries were reduced to powder, exploding in founts of shattered glass.

The sails were shredded, the rigging slashed in so many places, the yards swung loose in their braces.

Two of the masts took direct hits and were cracked off midway down the stems. They hung over the side of the ship, dragging their sodden sails and lines in the water, further hampering the ability of her helm to respond .

Dante’s demi-cannon were impressive, wreaking most of the damage on the San Pedro’s sails while well out of range of the Andalusian guns.

De Tourville and Lucifer labored side by side on one of the cannon, both men working as hard as the rest of the gun crew.

Dante was stripped to the waist like the common seamen, trading off blisters and cuts from flying splinters against the more dangerous threat from the clouds of live sparks and burning cinders.

His chest was a gleaming wall of muscle, rippling under the strain of loading shot and hauling winch lines.

His hair was tied back with a leather thong, his face streaked with sweat and as blackened by smoke as Lucifer’s was by nature.

Geoffrey Pitt stalked the rows of guns like a panther, thundering as loud as the cannon if he saw a line too slack or a flambeau hovering too carelessly close to a bucket of loose powder.

The crew of the Egret had become accustomed to his amiable and cheerful presence on board their ship; they had to adjust their perceptions accordingly as he turned into a green-eyed devil in battle.

But they responded each time he pounded them on the back for encouragement, and they grinned as broadly as he did each time one of their shots tore down rigging or sail.

Even Spit McCutcheon, whose bony nose had been put out of joint watching the demis outshine his culverins, was seen to roar and leap with approval a time or two and he began to look to Pitt and watch for his signal that they might send the next volley arcing out across the water in unison.

The Spanish galleon staggered under the assault.

She had been caught completely off guard by the Egret’s size and audacity.

The haughty, armor-clad hidalgos paced atop the tall forecastle in frustration, their polished breastplates winking through the smoke, their plumed helmets bobbing up and down as they shouted useless commands to their crews.

Sailors and soldiers alike were helpless to do more than watch as the Egret’s guns turned the open and unprotected decks into a bloody slaughterhouse.

As the Egret closed her deadly circle the returning fire came closer to the mark, but the shots were solid and easy enough for a man to avoid by tracking the high-pitched whistle.

Unlike Pitt’s little innovations. He began to fill hollow shells with combustibles, rusty nails, and sharp iron filings.

They flew in silent, lethal arcs across the water, exploding on the enemy deck with a decimating spray of slivered metal and smoldering faggots.

Fires began to break out on the San Pedro’s shattered decks, turning the entire length of the ship into an inferno of thick, boiling clouds of black smoke shot through with columns of orange flame.

On every gust of wind they could hear the screams of the soldiers and crewmen, for a shipboard fire was dreaded even more than sinking in shark-infested waters.

Dante’s earlier misgivings were replaced by genuine admiration each time he looked through the smoke and spouting water and saw that the distance between the two ships had not varied by more than the length of a knife throw despite the increasingly choppy waves.

The Egret’s motion was becoming more unstable as she rocked against the swells and the spine-juddering recoils, but they had the wind to their advantage, blowing sharp and steady, and a helmsman who was relentlessly efficient at presenting the Egret’s best broadside to her enemy.

Spence’s daughter was good, as much as it galled him to admit it.

Damned good. She was guiding the helm with a sure, deft touch and the Egret was responding like a lover, thrusting and withdrawing, thrusting and withdrawing, at her pleasure.

More than once Dante found himself staring at the slender figure on the afterdeck.

She worked the tiller with a young, muscle-bound crewman named Billy Cuthbert, and even though her arms surely had to be tiring from holding the rudder in such a tight pattern for so long, she did not take more than a few minutes’ break at a time.

Her shirt was soaked in sweat and her cheeks wore two red blazes from her exertions …

yet Dante suspected she would have to fall over in a dead faint before she would relinquish the helm.

The Egret was a damned fine ship as well and Dante was envious of the bald-headed walrus who was her master.

She was stout hearted and fast as lightning, capering through the waves with a headstrong grace that reminded him all too painfully of his sylphlike Virago .

He regretted he was not the one passing orders to the helm, for there were some tricks, some clever maneuvers, he was certain the Egret could execute that might bring a quicker end to the Spaniard’s stubbornness.

The thought had barely left his head when he felt the incline of the deck shift beneath his feet.

His crew had just fired the demi-cannon and it took a moment for the echo of the explosions to fade and for the cloud of hot, roiling smoke and sparks to clear.

When it did, Dante looked up sharply at the groaning of spars and snapping of canvas sheets overhead.

On a signal from the helm alt the sails had been backed and the yards swung about in their braces.

A quick took over the rail confirmed what the sudden shift implied: The Egret had taken a stunningly sharp turn, almost skidding sidelong through the swells, and was refitting her canvas to sweep her in a new direction.