two o'clock
He returns for answer , first , that his victual is not ready ; next , that his Dutch sailors , who have been kept at their post for many a week at the sword 's point , have run away like water ; and thirdly , that over and above all , he can not come , so `` strangely provided '' of great ordnance and musketeers are those five-and-thirty Dutch ships , in which round-sterned and stubborn-hearted heretics watch , like terriers at a rat 's hole , the entrance of Nieuwport and Dunkirk . Having ensured the private patronage of St. Mary of Halle , he will return to-morrow to make experience of its effects : but only hear across the flats of Dixmude the thunder of the fleets , and at Dunkirk the open curses of his officers . For while he has been praying and nothing more , the English have been praying , and something more ; and all that is left for the Prince of Parma is , to hang a few purveyors , as peace offerings to his sulking army , and then `` chafe , '' as Drake says of him , `` like a bear robbed of her whelps . '' For Lord Henry Seymour has brought Lord Howard a letter of command from Elizabeth 's self ; and Drake has been carrying it out so busily all that Sunday long , that by two o'clock on the Monday morning , eight fire-ships `` besmeared with wild-fire , brimstone , pitch , and resin , and all their ordnance charged with bullets and with stones , '' are stealing down the wind straight for the Spanish fleet , guided by two valiant men of Devon , Young and Prowse . -LRB- Let their names live long in the land ! -RRB- The ships are fired , the men of Devon steal back , and in a moment more , the heaven is red with glare from Dover Cliffs to Gravelines Tower ; and weary-hearted Belgian boors far away inland , plundered and dragooned for many a hideous year , leap from their beds , and fancy -LRB- and not so far wrongly either -RRB- that the day of judgment is come at last , to end their woes , and hurl down vengeance on their tyrants . And then breaks forth one of those disgraceful panics , which so often follow overweening presumption ; and shrieks , oaths , prayers , and reproaches , make night hideous .