midnight
In a moment a dozen long bows were bent at the daring foeman : but Amyas behind shouted -- `` Shame , lads ! Stop and let the gallant gentleman have due courtesy ! '' So they stopped , while Amyas , springing on the rampart of the battery , took off his hat , and bowed to the flag-holder , who , as soon as relieved of his charge , returned the bow courteously , and descended . It was by this time all but dark , and the firing began to slacken on all sides ; Salvation and his brother gunners , having covered up their slaughtering tackle with tarpaulings , retired for the night , leaving Amyas , who had volunteered to take the watch till midnight ; and the rest of the force having got their scanty supper of biscuit -LRB- for provisions were running very short -RRB- lay down under arms among the sand-hills , and grumbled themselves to sleep . He had paced up and down in the gusty darkness for some hour or more , exchanging a passing word now and then with the sentinel , when two men entered the battery , chatting busily together . One was in complete armor ; the other wrapped in the plain short cloak of a man of pens and peace : but the talk of both was neither of sieges nor of sallies , catapult , bombard , nor culverin , but simply of English hexameters . And fancy not , gentle reader , that the two were therein fiddling while Rome was burning ; for the commonweal of poetry and letters , in that same critical year 1580 , was in far greater danger from those same hexameters than the common woe of Ireland -LRB- as Raleigh called it -RRB- was from the Spaniards .