19589	----	{Transcriber's note: The spelling and punctuation in the original are inconsistent. No corrections have been made except those that have been noted explicitly at the end of the etext. The maps referred to on the title page and after the Dedication were not present in the original.} A SVMMARIE AND TRVE DISCOVRSE OF SIR FRANCES DRAKES VVest Indian Voyage. VVherein were taken, the Townes of _Saint Iago, Sancto Domingo, Cartagena, and Saint Augustine_. With Geographicall Mappes exactly describing each of the Tovvnes vvith their scituations, and the maner of the Armies approching to the vvinning of them: diligently made by BAPTISTA BOAZIO. [Illustration] Printed at London by Roger Ward dvvelling vpon Lambard Hill, neere olde Fish-streete. 1589. [Illustration: decorative page header] TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE ROBERT D'EVREVX, EARLE _OF ESSEX AND EVVE, VISCOVNT_ of Hereford and Bourchier, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Bourchier, and Louaine, Maister of the Queenes Maiesties horse, and knight of the most honorable order of the Garter. T. C. vvisheth increase of all honour and happinesse. _Right Honorable, hauing by chaunce recouered of late into my handes (after I had once lost the same) a copie of the Discourse of our late West Indian Voyage, which was begun by Captaine Bigges; who ended his life in the said voyage after our departure from _Cartagena_, the same being afterwardes finished (as I thinke) by his Lieutenant Maister Croftes, or some other, I know not well who. Now finding therein a most true report of the seruices and other matters which happened in the said voyage, the sight whereof is wonderfully desired of manie honest and well disposed persons. I haue presumed to recommend the publishing thereof, vnto your Lordships protection and fauour, for these two causes. The one, for that your Lordships honourable disposition is in the knowledge of all men that know your selfe, most thirstingly affected to embrace in your owne person, the brauest enterprises, if the time would once afford anie such fit occasion, as might be agreeable to her Maiesties resolution: who wisely (and long may she do it) gouerneth all thinges to the greatest aduantage of her selfe and people. The other, because my selfe hauing bene a member in the said actions, and was Lieutenant of Maister Carleils owne companie, whereby I can well assure the truth of this report: I thought it my bounden duetie, hauing professed my seruice to your Lordship before all men, to dedicate the same rather vnto your Lordship then vnto any other. And although it be now a yeare and a halfe sithence the voyage ended, whereby some man will say, that it is now no new matter: yet the present time considered, how doubtfull some of our meaner sort of people are of the Spanish preparations, I thinke this Discourse a verie fit thing to be published, that they may see what great victories a fewe English men haue made vpon great numbers of the Spaniardes, euen at home in their owne Countries. The beholding whereof will much encourage those, who by fame and bare wordes are made to doubt much more then there is cause why they should. Vpon which point, as there may be much said: so my selfe being no Discourser, do desire to be held excused therein; and therefore doe onely commend the trueth of this report vnto your Lordship: which will be also auowed by diuers Captaines that were in the said voyage. And so in all humblenesse do take my leaue, readie to do your Lordship all faithfull seruice._ Your Lordships souldier and humble seruant THOMAS GATES. [Illustration: decorative page header] _¶ The Reader must vnderstand, that this Discourse was dedicated, and intended to haue bene Imprinted somewhat before the comming of the Spanish Fleete vpon our coast of England: but by casualtie the same was forgotten and slacked for a time of some better leasure._ The Order and maner for the true placing _of the Mappes in this Booke_. { S'. Iago in fol. 10. { S'. Domingo in fol. 19. Place the Mappe of { Cartagena in fol. 23. { S'. Augustine in fol. 31. [Illustration] [Illustration: decorative page header] A SVMMARIE AND TRVE DISCOVRSE OF SIR FRANCIS _DRAKES WEST INDIAN VOYAGE_, WHEREIN WERE TAKEN THE TOVVNES OF SAINT IAGO, _Sancto Domingo, Cartagena_, and Saint Augustine, This vvorthie Knight for the seruice of his Prince and Countrie, hauing prepared his vvhole fleete, and gotten them downe to Plimmouth in Deuonshire, to the number of fiue and twentie saile of ships and pinnaces, and hauing assembled of Souldiours and Marriners to the number of two thousand and three hundred in the vvhole, embarqued them and himselfe at Plimmouth aforesaid, the twelfth day of September 1585. being accompanied vvith these men of name and charge, vvhich hereafter followe. Maister Christopher Carleill Lieftenant Generall, a man of long experience in the vvarre as vvell by sea as land, and had formerly carried high offices in both kindes in many fightes, vvhich he discharged alvvaies verie happilie, and with great good reputation. Anthonie Povvell Sergeant Maior. Captaine Mathevve Morgan, and Captaine Iohn Sampson, Corporals of the field. These Officers had commaundement ouer the rest of the land Captaines, vvhose names hereafter follovve. Captaine Anthony Plat. Captaine Edvvard Winter. Captaine Iohn Goring. Captaine Robert Pevv. Captaine George Barton. Captaine Iohn Merchant. Captaine William Cecill. Captaine Walter Bigs. Captaine Iohn Hannam. Captaine Richard Stanton. Captaine Martine Frobusher Viceadmirall, a man of great experience in sea faring actions, & had caried chiefe charge of many shippes himselfe, in sundry voyages before, being novv shipped in the Primrose. Captaine Francis Knollis, Rieradmirall in the Gallion Leicester. Maister Thomas Venner Captaine in the Elizabeth Bonaduenture vnder the Generall. Maister Edvvard Winter Captaine in the Aide. Maister Christopher Carleill the Lieftenant generall, Captaine in the Tygar. Henry White Captaine of the sea Dragon. Thomas Drake Captaine of the Thomas. Thomas Seelie Captaine of the Minion. Baily Captaine of the Barke Talbot. Robert Crosse Captaine of the Barke Bond. George Fortescute Captaine of the Barke Bonner. Edward Carelesse Captaine of the Hope. James Erizo Captaine of the vvhite Lion. Thomas Moone Captaine of the Francis. Iohn Riuers Captaine of the Vantage, Iohn Vaughan Captaine of the Drake. Iohn Varney Captaine of the George, Iohn Martin Captaine of the Beniamin. Edward Gilman Captaine of the Skout. Richard Haukins Captaine of the Galliot called the Ducke. Bitfield Captaine of the Svvallowe. After our going hence, which vvas the fourteenth of September, in the yeare of our Lord, one thowsand fiue hundred eightie and fiue: & taking our course towardes Spaine, vve had the winde for a fewe daies somevvhat skant, and sometimes calme. And being arriued neere that part of the coast of Spaine, vvich is called the Moores, vvee happened to espie diuerse Sailes, vvich kept their course close by the shore, the vveather being faire and calme. The Generall caused the Vizeadmirall to goe vvith the Pinnaces vvell manned to see vvhat they vvere, vvho vpon sight of the said Pinnaces approching neere vnto them, abandoned for the most part all their shippes (being Frenchmen) laden all vvith salt, and bound homewardes into France, amongst vvhich shippes (being all of small burthen) there was one so vvell liked, vvhich also had no man in her, as being brought vnto the Generall, he thought good to make stay of her for the seruice, meaning to pay for her, as also accordingly performed at our returne: vvhich Barke vvas called the Drake. The rest of these shippes (being eight or nine) vvere dismissed vvithout any thing at all taken from them. Who beeing aftervvardes put somevvhat further off from the shore, by the contrarietie of the vvinde, vve happened to meete vvith some other French shippes, full laden vvith Newland fish, beeing vpon their returne homewarde from the saide New found land: vvhom the Generall after some speech had vvith them, (and seeing plainely that they vvere Frenchmen) dismissed vvithout once suffering any man to goe aboord of them. The day follovving standing in vvith the shore againe, vve discried an other tall ship of twelue score tunnes or theraboutes, vpon vvhom Maister Carleill the Lieuetenant generall being in the Tygar, vndertooke the chase, vvhome also anon after the Admirall follovved, and the Tygar hauing caused the saide straunge shippe to strike her sayles, kept her there without suffering anye bodie to goe aboorde vntill the Admirall vvas come vp: vvho foorthwith fending for the Maister, and diuerse others of their principall men, and causing them to be seuerally examined, found the Shippe and goodes to be belonging to the inhabitantes of Saint SEBASTIAN in Spaine, but the Marriners to bee for the most parte belonging to Saint IOHN de LVCE, and the Passage. In this ship was greate store of dry Nevvland fish, commonly called vvith vs Poore Iohn, vvhereof aftervvards (being thus found a lavvfull prize) there vvas distribution made into all the shippes of the Fleete, the same being so new and good, as it did verie greatly bestead vs in the whole course of our voyage. A day or two after the taking of this ship, vve put in within the Isles of BAYON, for lacke of fauourable vvind, where we had no sooner anckered some part of the Fleete, but the Generall commaunded all the Pinnaces with the ship boates to be manned, and euerye man to be furnished with such armes as vvas needefull for that present seruice; vvhich being done, the Generall put himselfe into his Galley, vvhich was also well furnished, and rowing towardes the Citie of BAYON; with intent, and the fauour of the Almightie to supprise it. Before we had aduaunced one halfe league of our way, there came a messenger beeing an English Marchant from the Gouernour, to see what straunge Fleete we were, who came to our Generall, and conferred a while with him, and after a small time spent, our Generall called for Captaine Sampson, and willed him to goe to the Gouernour of the Citie, to resolue him of two pointes. The first, to knowe if there were any warres beetweene Spaine and England. The second, vvhy our Merchantes with their goodes were imbarred or arrested. Thus departed Captaine Sampson with the saide Messenger to the citie, vvhere he found the Gouernour and people much amazed of such a suddaine accident. The Generall with the aduice and counsell of Maister Carliell his Lieuetenant generall, who was in the Galley with him, thought not good to make any stand, till such time as they were within the shot of the Citie, wher they might be ready vpon the returne of Captaine Sampson, to make a suddaine attempt if cause did require before it were darke. Captaine Sampson returned with his message in this sort. First, touching peace or warres the Gouernour said he knevve of no warres, and that it lay not in him to make any, he being so meane a subiect as hee vvas. And as for the stay of the Marchantes with their goodes, it vvas the Kinges pleasure, but not with intent to endommage any man. And that the Kinges conter commaundement vvas (vvhich had bene receiued in that place some seauennight before) that English Marchants vvith their goods should be discharged: for the more verifying vvhereof, he sent such Marchants as vvere in the tovvne of our Nation, who traffiqued those parts; vvhich being at large, declared to our generall by them, counsell vvas taken vvhat myght best be done. And for that the night approched, it vvas thought needefull to land our force, vvhich vvas done in the shutting vp of the day, and hauing quartered our selues to our most aduantage, vvyth sufficient gard vpon euery straight, vve thought to rest our selues for that night there. The Gouernour sent vs some refreshing, as bread, vvine, oyle, apples, grapes, marmalad and such lyke. About midnight the vveather beginnes to ouercast, insomuch that it vvas thought meeter to repaire aboord, then to make any longer abode on land, and before vve could recouer the Fleete, a great tempest arose, vvhich caused many of our ships to driue from their anker hold, and some vvere forced to sea in great peril, as the barke Talbot, the barke Hawkins, and the Speedewell, vvhich Speedewel onely vvas driuen into England, the others recouered vs againe, the extremitie of the storme lasted three dayes, vvhich no sooner beganne to asswage, but Maister Carleill our Lieutenant generall, vvas sent vvith his ovvne ship and three others: as also vvith the galley and vvith dyuers Pinnaces, to see vvhat he might do aboue VIGO, vvhere he tooke many boates and some Caruels, diuersly laden vvith thinges of small value, but chiefly vvith houshold stuffe, running into the high countrey, and amongst the rest, he found one boate laden vvith the principal Church stuffe of the high Church of VIGO, vvhere also vvas their great Crosse of siluer, of very fayre embossed vvorke, and double gilt all ouer, hauing cost them a great masse of money. They complayned to haue lost in all kind of goods aboue thirtie thowsand Duckets in this place. The next day the General vvith his vvhole Fleete vvent vp from the Isles of BAYON, to a very good harbour aboue VIGO, vvhere Maister Carleill stayd his comming, asvvell for the more quiet riding of his ships, as also for the good commoditie of fresh vvatering, vvhich the place there did afoord full vvell. In the meane time the Gouernour of GALLISIA had reared such forces as he might, his numbers by estimate vvere some two thowsand foot, and three hundred horse, and marched from BAYON to this part of the countrey, vvhich lay in sight of our Fleete, vvhere making stand, he sent to parle vvith our Generall, vvhich vvas graunted by our Generall, so it might be in boates vpon the vvater: and for safetie of their persons, there vvere pledges deliuered on both sides, vvhich done, the Gouernour of GALLISIA put him selfe vvith two others into our Vice-Admirals Skiffe, the same hauing bene sent to the shore for him. And in like sort our Generall in his owne Skiffe, vvhere by them it vvas agreed, vve should furnish our selues vvith fresh vvater, to be taken by our owne people quietly on the land, and haue all other such necessaries, paying for the same, as the place vvould affoord. VVhen all our businesse vvas ended, vve departed, and tooke our vvay by the Islands of CANARIA, vvhich are esteemed some three hundred leagues from this part of Spaine, and falling purposely vvith PALMA, vvith intention to haue taken our pleasure of that place, for the full digesting of many thinges into order, and the better furnishing our store vvith such seuerall good thinges as that affoordeth very abundantly, vve vvere forced by the vile sea gate, vvhich at that present fell out, and by the naughtinesse of the landing place, being but one, and that vnder the fauor of many Platformes, vvell furnished vvith great ordinance, to depart vvith the receipt of many their Canon shot, some into our ships, and some besides, some of them being in very deede full Canon high. But the onely or chiefe mischiefe, vvas the daungerous sea surge, vvhich at shore all alongest, plainly threatned the ouerthrovv of as many Pinnaces and boates, as for that time should haue attempted any landing at all. Novv seeing the expectation of this attempt frustrated by the causes aforesaid, vve thought it meeter to fall vvith the Isle FERRO, to see if vve could find any better fortune, and comming to the Island, vve landed a thousand men in a valley vnder a high mountaine, vvhere we stayed some two or three houres, in which time the inhabitants, accompanied vvith a yong fellovv borne in England, who dwelt there with them, came vnto vs, shewing their state to be so poore, that they were all readie to starue, which was not vntrue: and therefore without any thing gotten, we were all commaunded presently to imbarke, so as that night we put off to sea South Southeast along towards the coast of Barbarie. Vpon Saterday in the morning, being the thirteenth of Nouember, we fell with Cape Blancke, vvhich is a lovve lande and shallowe vvater, where vvee catched store of fish, and doubling the Cape, we put into the Bay, where wee found certaine French shippes of warre, whom we entertained with great courtesie, & there left them. The after noone the whole Fleete assembled, vvhich was a little scattered about their fishing, and put from thence to the Isles of Cape Verde, sailing till the sixteenth of the same moneth in the morning, on which day we discryed the Island of Saint IAGO, & in the euening we anckered the Fleete betweene the towne called the PLAIE or PRAIE and Saint IAGO, where we put on shore a thowsand men or more, vnder the leading of Maister Christopher Carleill Lieuetenant Generall, who directed the seruice most like a wise commaunder. The place where wee had first to march did affoord no good order, for the ground was mountaines and full of dales, being a marueilous stonye and troublesome passage, but such vvas his industrious disposition, as hee woulde neuer leaue, vntill wee had gotten vppe to a faire plaine, vvhere we made stand for the assembling of the armie. And when vve vvere all gathered together vpon the plaine, some two litle miles from the Towne, the Lieuetenant general thought good not to make attempt till day light: because there vvas not one that could serue for guide or giuing knovvledge at all of the place. And therefore after hauing vvell rested, euen halfe an hovver before day, he commaunded the Armie to be deuided into three speciall partes, such as he appointed, vvhereas before vvee had marched by seuerall companies, being thereunto forced by the naughtinesse of the vvay as is aforesaid. Now by the time we wer thus raunged into a very braue order, daylight began to appeare, and being aduaunced hard to the vvall, we saw no enemie to resist, whereupon the Lieutenant generall appointed Captaine Sampson with thirtie shot, and Captaine Barton with other thirtie, to goe downe into the tovvne vvhich stood in the valey vnder vs, and might verie plainly be viewed all ouer from that place vvhere the vvhole Army vvas novv arryued and presently after these Captaines vvas sent the great Ensigne, vvhich had nothing in it but the plaine English crosse, to be placed tovvardes the Sea, that our fleete might see Saint Georges crosse florish in the enemies fortresse. Order vvas giuen that all the ordinance throughout the towne, and vpon all the platformes, vvhich vvas aboue fifty peeces al ready charged, should be shot off in honor of the Queenes Maiesties Coronation day, being the seuententh of Nouember, after the yearly custome of England, which was so aunswered againe by the ordinance out of all the ships in the fleete which novv was come neere, as it was straunge to heare such a thondering noise last so long together. In this meane while the Lieutenant general held still the most part of his force on the hill top, till such time as the tovvne was quartered out for the lodging of the whole Armie, which being done euery Captaine toke his owne quarter, and in the euening was placed such sufficient gard vpon euerie part of the tovvne that vve had no cause to feare any present enemie. Thus we continued in the Citie the space of fourteene daies, taking such spoiles as the place yelded, which were for the most part, wine, oyle, meale, and some such like thinges for victuall, as vineger, oliues, and some such other trash, as marchandise for their Indian trades. But there was not founde any trasure at all, or any thing else of vvorth besides. The scituation of Sainct IAGO is somewhat strange, in forme like to a triangle, hauing on the East and West sides two Mountaines of Rocke and cliffie, as it were hanging ouer it, vpon the top of which two mountaines was builded certaine fortifications to preserue the towne from any harme that might be offered, as in this Plot is plainly shevved. From thence: on the South side of the towne is the maine sea, and on the North side, the valley lying betweene the foresayd mountaines, wherein the towne standeth: the said valley and towne both do grow verie narrow, insomuch that the space betweene the two cliffes of this ende of the towne is estimated not to be aboue tenne or twelue score ouer. In the middest of the valley commeth dovvne a riueret, rill, or brooke of fresh vvater, which hard by the sea side maketh a pond or poole, vvhereout our ships were vvatered vvith verie great ease and pleasure. Somewhat aboue the Towne on the North side betweene the two mountaines, the valley vvaxeth somewhat larger then at the townes end, vvhich valley is vvholie conuerted into gardens and orchardes well replenished vvith diuers sorts of fruicts, herbes and trees, as lymmons, orenges, suger canes, cochars or cochos nuts, plantens, potato roots, cocombers, small and round onions, garlike, and some other thinges not now remembred, amongst vvhich the cochos, nuts and plantens are very pleasant fruicts, the said cochos hauing a hard shell and a greene huske ouer it, as hath our vvalnut, but it farre exceedeth in greatnesse, for this cochos in his greene huske is bigger then any mans two fistes, of the hard shell many drinking cups are made here in England, and set in siluer as I haue often seene. Next within this hard shell is a vvhite rine resembling in shew verie much euen as any thing may do, to the vvhite of an egge vvhen it is hard boyled. And vvithin this vvhite of the nut lyeth a vvater, vvhich is vvhitish and very cleere, to the quantitie of halfe a pint or there abouts, vvhich vvater and white rine before spoken of, are both of a very coole fresh tast, and as pleasing as any thing may be. I haue heard some hold opinion, that it is very restoratiue. The Planten grovveth in cods, somewhat like to beanes, but is bigger and longer, and much more thicke together on the stalke, and vvhen it waxeth ripe, the meate vvhich filleth the rine of the cod becommeth yellovv, and is exceeding sweet and pleasant. In this time of our being there, hapned to come a Portingall to the Westermost fort, vvith a flag of truce, to vvhom Captaine Sampson was sent vvith Captaine Goring, vvho comming to the said Messenger, he first asked them vvhat nation they vvere, they aunswered Englishmen, he then required to knovv if warres vvere betweene England and Spaine, to vvhich they aunsvvered that they knew not, but if he would go to their Generall he could best resolue him of such particulars, and for his assurance of passage and repassage, these Captaines made offer to ingage their credits, which he refused for that he vvas not sent from his Gouernor. Then they told him, if his Gouernor did desire to take a course for the common benefite of the people and countrie, his best way vvere to come and present him selfe vnto our Noble and mercifull Gouernor Sir Frances Drake; vvhereby he might be assured to finde fauor, both for him selfe and the inhabitantes. Othervvise within three dayes vve should march ouer the land, and consume vvith fire all inhabited places, and put to the svvord all such liuing soules as vve should chaunce vpon: so thus much he tooke for the conclusion of his answere, and departing, he promised to returne the next day, but vve neuer heard more of him. Vpon the foure and twentieth of Nouember, the Generall accompanied vvith the Lieutenant generall and sixe hundred men, marched foorth to a village tvvelue miles vvithin the lande, called S. DOMINGO, vvhere the Gouernor and the Bishop vvith all the better sort vvere lodged, and by eight of the clocke vve came to it, finding the place abandoned, and the people fled into the mountaines: so vve made stand a vvhile to ease ourselues, and partly to see if any vvould come to speake to vs. After vve had vvell rested our selues, the Generall commaunded the troupes to march away homewardes, in vvhich retreat the enemie shewed them selues, both horse and foote, though not such force as durst encounter vs: and so in passing some time at the gase vvith them, it vvaxed late and towards night, before vve could recouer home to Saint IAGO. On Monday the six and twentieth of Nouember, the Generall commaunded all the Pinnaces vvith the boates, to vse all diligence to imbarke the Armie into such ships as euery man belonged. The Lieutenant generall in like sort commaunded Captaine Goring and Lieutenant Tucker, with one hundred shot to make a stand in the market place, vntill our forces were wholly imbarked, the Vize-Admiral making stay vvith his Pinnace and certaine boats in the harbour, to bring the said last companie aboord the ships. Also the Generall willed forthwith the Gallie with two Pinnaces to take into them the companie of Captaine Barton, and the companie of Captaine Bigs, vnder the leading of Captaine Sampson, to seeke out such munition as vvas hidden in the ground, at the towne of PRAY or PLAY, hauing beene promised to be shewed it by a prisoner, vvhich was taken the day before. The Captaines aforesaid comming to the PLAY, landed their men, and hauing placed the troupe in their best strength, Captaine Sampson tooke the prisoner, and willed him to shevve that he had promised, the vvhich he could not, or at least vvould not: but they searching all suspected places, found two peeces of ordinance, one of yron, an other of brasse. In the after noone the Generall anckered the rest of the Fleete before the PLAIE comming him selfe a shore, vvilling vs to burne the Tovvne and make all hast a boorde, the which was done by sixe of the clocke the same day, and our selues imbarked againe the same night, and so we put off to sea Southwest. But before our departurre from the towne of Saint IAGO, we established orders for the better gouernment of the Armie, euery man mustered to his Captaine, and othes ministred to acknowledge her Maiestie supreame Gouernour, as also euery man to doe his vttermost endeuour to aduaunce the seruice of the action, and to yeeld due obedience vnto the directions of the General and his officers. By this prouident counsell, and laying downe this good foundation before hand, all thinges went forward in a due course, to the achieuing of our happie enterprise. In all the time of our being here, neither the Gouernour for the King of Spaine, (which is a Portugall) neither the Bishop, whose authoritie is great, neither any of the inhabitantes of the towne, or Island euer came at vs (which we expected they should have done) to intreate vs to leaue them some part of their needfull prouisions, or at the least, to spare the ruining of their towne at our going away. The cause of this their vnreasonable distrust (as I doe take it) vvas the fresh remembrance of the great wronges they had done to olde Maister William Havvkins of Plimmouth, in the voyage he made foure or fiue yeares before, when as they did both breake their promise, and murthered many of his men, whereof I iudge you haue vnderstood, and therfore needlesse to be repeated. But since they came not at vs, vve left written in sundrie places, as also in the Spitle house, (vhich building was onely appointed to be spared) the great discontentment and scorne we tooke at this their refraining to come vnto vs, as also at the rude maner of killing, and sauage kinde of handling the dead body of one of our boyes found, by them stragling all alone, from whome they had taken his head and heart, and had stragled the other bowels about the place, in a most brutish and beastly maner. In reuenge vvhereof at our departing vve consumed vvith fire all the houses, asvvell in the countrey vvhich vve savv, as in the tovvne of S. IAGO. From hence putting ouer to the West Indies, we vvere not many dayes at sea, but there beganne amongst our people such mortalitie, as in fevv dayes there vvere dead aboue tvvo or three hundred men. And vntill some seuen or eight dayes after out comming from S. IAGO, there had not died any one man of sicknesse in all the Fleete: the sicknesse shevved not his infection vvherevvith so many vvere stroken, vntill vve vvere departed thence, and then seazed our people vvith extreme hote burning and continuall ague, vvhereof some very fevv escaped vvith life, and yet those for the most part not vvith out great alteration and decay of their vvittes and strength for a long time after. In some that died vvere plainly shevved the small spottes, vvhich are often found vpon those that be infected vvith the plague, vve vvere not aboue eighteene daies in passage betvvene the sight of Sainct IAGO aforesaid, and the Island of DOMINICA, being the first Islande of the West Indies that vve fell vvithall, the same being inhabited vvith sauage people, vvhich goe all naked, their skin coloured vvith some painting of a reddish tavvney, very personable and handsome strong men, vvho doe admit little conuersation vvith the Spaniardes: for as some of our people might vnnderstand them, they had a Spaniard or tvvaine prisoners vvith them, neither do I thinke that there is any safetie for any of our nation, or any other to be vvithin the limits of their commaundement, albeit they vsed vs very kindly for those fevve houres of time vvhich vve spent vvith them, helping our folkes to fill and carie on their bare shoulders fresh vvater from the riuer to our ships boates, and fetching from their houses, great store of Tobacco, as also a kinde of bread vvhich they fed on, called Cassado, verie white and sauerie, made of the rootes of Cassania. In recompence whereof, wee bestovved liberall revvardes of glasse, coloured beades, and other things, which we had found at Sainct IAGO, vvherewith (as it seemed) they rested verie greatlie satisfied, and shevving some sorrowfull countenance vvhen they perceaued that vve vvoulde depart. From hence vve vvent to another Island Westward of it, called Sainct CHRISTOPHERs Island, wherein vvee spent some daies of Christmas, to refresh our sicke people, and to cleanse and ayre our ships. In vvhich island vvere not any people at all that vve could heare off. In vvhich time by the Generall it vvas aduised and resolued, vvith the consent of the Lieftenant generall, the Vice-Admirall, and all the rest of the Captaines to proceed to the great Island of HISPANIOLA, as vvel for that we knevve our selues then to bee in our best strength, as also the rather allured thereunto, by the glorious fame of the Citie of S. DOMINGO, being the ancientest and chiefe inhabited place in al the tract of countrey ther aboutes. And so proceeding in this determination, by the vvay vvee met a small Frigot, bound for the same place, the vvhich the Vice-Admirall tooke, and hauing duelie examined the men that vvere in her, there vvas one founde by vvhome vve vvere aduertised, the hauen to be a barred hauen, and the shore or land thereof to be vvell fortified, hauing a Castle thereupon furnished vvith greate store of Artillerie, vvithout the danger vvhereof, vvas no conuenient landing place vvithin ten English miles of the Citie, to vvhich the saide Pilote tooke vpon him to conduct vs. All thinges being thus considered on, the vvhole forces vvere commaunded in the euening to embarke themselues into Pinnaces, boates, & other small barkes appointed for this seruice. Our souldiers being thus imbarked the Generall put himselfe into the barke Francis as Admirall, and all this night we lay on the sea, bearing small saile vntill our arriuall to the landing place, which vvas about the breaking of the day, and so we landed, being Newyears day, nine or ten miles to the Westwardes of that braue Citie of S. DOMINGO: for at that time nor yet is knowen to vs, any landing place, vvher the sea surge doth not threaten to ouerset a Pinnace or boat. Our General hauing seene vs all landed in safetie, returned to his Fleete, bequeathing vs to God, and the good conduct of Maister Carliell our Lieuetenant Generall: at which time, being about eight of the clocke, we began to march, and about noone time, or towards one of the clocke we approched the towne, where the Gentlemen and those of the better sort, being some hundred and fiftie braue horses or rather more, began to present themselues, but our small shot plaied vpon them, which were so sustained with good proportion of pikes in all partes, as they finding no part of our troope vnprepared to receiue them (for you must vnderstande they viewed all round about) they were thus driuen to giue vs leaue to proceed towardes the tvvo gates of the tovvne, vvhich vvere the next to the seavvard. They had manned them both, and planted their ordinance for that present, and sudden alarum vvithout the gate, and also some troopes of small shot in Ambuscado vpon the hievvay side. We deuided our vvhole force, being some thousand or tvvelue hundred men into tvvo partes, to enterprise both the gates at one instant, the Lieftenant Generall hauing openly vovved to Captaine Povvell (vvho led the troope that entered the other gate) that vvith Gods good fauour he vvould not rest vntill our meeting in the market place. Their ordinance had no sooner discharged vpon our near approch, & made some execution amongst vs, though not much, but the Lieftenant generall began foorthvvith to aduaunce both his voice of encouragement, and pace of marching, the first man that vvas slaine vvith the ordinance being verie neere vnto himselfe, and thereupon hasted all that he might to keepe them from the recharging of the ordinance. And notvvithstanding their Ambuscadoes, vve marched or rather ranne so roundly into them as pell mell vve entered the gates, and gaue them more care euery man to saue himselfe by flight, then reason to stand any longer to their broken fight, we foorthwith repaired to the market place, but to be more truely vnderstood a place of verye faire spatious square grounde before the great Church, vvhether also came as had bene agreed Captaine Povvell with the other troope, which place vvith some part next vnto it, we strengthened with Barricados, and there as the most conuenient place assured our selues, the Citie being farre to spacious for so small and weary a troope to vndertake to garde. Somevvhat after midnight they vvho had the garde of the Castle, hearing vs busie about the gates of the saide Castle, abandoned the same: some being taken prisoners, and some flying away by the help of boates, to the other side of the hauen, & so into the country. The next day vve quartered a little more at large, but not into the halfe part of the tovvne, and so making substantiall trenches, and planting all the ordinance that ech part vvas correspondent to other, we held this towne the space of one moneth. In the vvhich time happened some accidents more then are vvell remembred for the present, but amongst other thinges it chanced that the Generall sent on his message to the Spaniardes a negro boy with a flagge of vvhite, signifiing truce, as is the Spaniardes ordinarie manner to doe there, vvhen they approch to speak to vs, vvhich boy vnhappily vvas first met withall, by some of those who had bene belonging as officers for the King in the Spanish Galley, vvhich vvith the Tovvne vvas lately fallen into our hands, vvho vvithout all order or reason, and contrary to that good vsage vvherevvith vvee had entertained their messengers, furiouslie stroke the poore boy through the bodie vvith one of their horsemens staues, with vvich vvound the boy returned to the Generall, and after he had declared the maner of this wrongfull crueltie, died forthvvith in his presence, vvherewith the Generall beeing greatly passioned, commaunded the Prouost martiall, to cause a couple of Friers, then prisoners, to be caried to the same place where the boy was stroken, accompanied with sufficient gard of our soldiers, and there presently to be hanged, dispatching at the same instant another poore prisoner, vvith this reason wherefore this execution vvas done, and vvith this message further, that vntill the partie vvho had thus murthered the Generals messenger, vvere deliuered into our handes, to receaue condigne punishment, there should no day passe, vvherein there should not two prisoners be hanged, vntill they were all consumed vvich vvere in our handes. Whereupon the day following, he that had bene Captaine of the kinges galley, brought the offendor to the townes ende, offring to deliuer him into our hands, but it was thought a more honourable reuenge, to make them there in our sight, to performe the execution themselues, vvhich vvas done accordingly. During our being in this towne, as formerly also at S. IAGO there had passed iustice vpon the life of one of our owne companie for an odious matter: so here likewise was there an Irish man hanged, for the murthering of his Corporall. In this time also passed manie treaties betweene their Commissioners and vs, for ransome of their Citie, but vpon disagreements, we still spent the early mornings in firing the outmost houses; but they being built verie magnificently of stone, vvith high loftes, gaue vs no small trauell to ruine them. And albeit for diuers daies together, we ordained eche morning by day breake, vntill the heat began at nine of the clocke, that two hundred Mariners did nought else but labour to fier and burne the said houses vvithout our trenches, vvhilest the souldiers in a like proportion stood foorth for their gard: yet did we not or could not in this time consume so much as one third part of the towne, vvhich Towne is here plainly described and set forth in this Map. And so in the end, what wearied with firing, and vvhat hastened by some other respects, we were contented to accept of fiue and twentie thousand Duckets, of fiue shillings sixe pence the peece, for the ransome of the rest of the towne. Amongst other things which happened and were found at S. DOMINGO, I may not omit to let the world know one very notable marke and token, of the vnsatiable ambition of the Spanish king & his nation, vvich was found in the kings house, vvherein the chiefe Gouernor of that Citie and countrey is appointed alwaies to lodge, vvhich vvas this: In the comming to the hall or other romes of this house, you must first ascend vp by a faire large paire of staires, at the head of vvhich staires is a handsome spatious place to vvalke in, somewhat like vnto a gallerie, vvherein vpon one of the vvals, right ouer against you as you enter the said place, so as your eye can not escape the sight of it, there is described and painted in a very large Scutchion, the armes of the king of Spaine, and in the lower part of the said Scutchion, there is likewise described a globe, containing in it the whole circuite of the sea and the earth, vvhereupon is a horse standing on his hinder part vvithin the globe, and the other fore part vvithout the globe, lifted vp as it vvere to leape, vvith a scroll painted in his mouth, vvherein vvas written these vvordes in Latin _Non sufficit orbis_: which is as much to say, as the world suffiseth not, vvhereof the meaning vvas required to be knowen of some of those of the better sort, that came in commission to treat vpon the ransome of the tovvne, who would shake their heades, and turne aside their countenance in some smyling sort, without answering any thing, as greatly ashamed thereof. For by some of our companie it vvas told them, that if the Queene of England vvould resolutely prosecute the warres against the Kinge of Spaine, he should be forced to lay aside that proude and vnreasonable reaching vaine of his, for he should finde more then inough to do, to keepe that vvhich he had alreadie, as by the present example of their lost towne they might for a beginning perceaue vvell inough. Now to the satisfying of some men, who maruel greatly that such a famous and goodly builded Citie so vvell inhabited of gallant people, very brauely apparelled (vvhereof our souldiers found good store for their reliefe) should afoord no greater riches then vvas found there, vvherein it is to be vnderstood that the Indian people, which were the naturals of this vvhole Island of HISPANIOLA (the same being neare hand as great as England) were many yeares since cleane consumed by the tyrannie of the Spaniards, vvhich vvas cause, that for lacke of people to vvorke in the Mines, the gold and siluer Mines of this Island are vvholy giuen ouer, and thereby they are faine in this Island to vse copper money, whereof vvas found verie great quantitie. The chiefe trade of this place consisteth of Suger and Ginger, which groweth in the Island, and of hides of oxen and kine, vvhich in this wast countrey of the Island are bred in infinite numbers, the soile being verie fertile: and the said beasts are fed vp to a verie large growth, and so killed for nothing so much, as for their hides aforesaid. Wee found here great store of strong wine, sweete oyle, vineger, oliues, and other such like prouisions, as excellent vvheate meale packed vp in wine pipes and other caske, and other commodities likewise, as vvollen and linnen cloth, and some silkes, all which prouisions are brought out of Spaine & serued vs for great releese. There vvas but a little plate or vessell of Siluer, in comparison of the great pride in other thinges of thys towne, because in these hote countreyes they vse much of these erthen dishes finely painted or varnished, vvich they call Parsellina, and is had out of the East India, and for their drinking, they vse glasses altogether, whereof they make excellent good and faire in the same place. But yet some plate we founde, and many other good thinges, as theyr hosholde garniture very gallant and rich, vvhich had cost them deere, although vnto vs they vvere of small importance. From S. DOMINGO we put ouer to the maine or firme land, and going all alongest the coast, vve came at the last in sight of CARTAGENA, standing vpon the sea side so neare as some of our barks in passing alongst, approched vvithin the reach of their Culuerin shot, vvhich they had planted vpon certaine platformes. The harbour mouth lay some three miles tovvard the Westvvard of the town, vvhereinto we entered about three or foure of the clocke in the afternoone vvithout any resistance, of ordinance, or other impeachment planted vpon the same. In the euening vve put our selues on land tovvardes the harbour mouth, vnder the leading of Maister Carleill our Lieftenant generall, vvho after he had digested vs to march forvvard about the midnight, as easily as foote might fall, expresselye commaunding to keepe close by the sea vvash of the shore for our best and surest vvay, whereby we vvere like to goe through, and not to misse anye more of the vvay, vvhich once vve had lost within an hower after our first beginning to march, through the slender knowledge of him that tooke vpon him to be our guide, whereby the night spent on, which otherwise must haue bene done by resting. But as we came vvithin some tvvo miles of the towne, their horsemen which vvere some hundred, met vs, and taking the alarum, retired to their townevvard again vpon the first volley of our shot that vvas giuen them: for the place where vve encountred being vvoody and bushie euen to the water side, was vnmeet for their seruice. At this instant vve might heare some peeces of artillerie discharged, with diuers small shot tovvardes the harbour, vvhich gaue vs to vnderstand, according to the order set downe in the euening before by our Generall, that the Vice-Admirall accompanied with Captaine Venner, Captaine White, and Captaine Crosse, vvith other sea captaines, and vvith diuers Pinnaces and boates should giue some attempt vnto the litle fort standing on the entrie of the inner hauen, neere adioining to the tovvne, though to small purpose, for that the place vvas stronge, and the entrye verie narrovve vvas chained ouer: so as there coulde be nothing gotten by the attempt, more then the giuing of them an Alarum on that other side of the hauen being a mile and a halfe from the place where vve novve vvere. In which attempt the Vice-Admirall had the rudder of his Skiffe stroken through with a Saker shot, and litle or no harme receaued else where. The troopes being novve in their march, half a myle behither the tovvne or lesse, the ground we were on grew to be straight, and not aboue fiftie paces ouer, hauing the maine sea on the side of it, and the harbour water or inner sea (as you may tearme it) on the other side, vvhich in this plot is plainely shewed. This straight was fortified cleane ouer with a stone vvall and a ditch without it, the saide wall being as orderly built vvith flanking in euery part, as can be set dovvne. There vvas onely so much of this straight vnvvalled, as might serue for the issuing of the horsemen, or the passing of carriage in time of neede: but this vnvvalled part vvas not vvithout a very good Barricado of vvine buts or pipes, filled vvith earth, ful and thick as they might stand on end one by another, some part of of them standing euen vvithin the maine sea. This place of strength vvas furnished of sixe great peeces, demi-Culuerins, and Sakers, vvhich shot directlie in front vpon vs as vve approched. Novve vvithout this vval vpon the inner side of the streight, they had brought likevvise tvvo great Gallies vvith their provvesse to the shore, hauing planted in them eleuen peeces of ordinance vvhich did beate all crosse the straight, and flanked our comming on. In these tvvo Gallies vvere planted three or foure hundred small shot, and on the land in the garde onely of thys place, three hundred shot and pikes. They in this their full readinesse to receiue vs, spared not their shot both great and small. But our Lieftenant generall, taking the aduantage of the darke (the day light as yet not broken out) approched by the lovvest ground, according to the expresse direction vvhich himselfe hadde formerlie giuen, the same being the sea vvash shore, vvhere the vvater vvas somevvhat fallen, so as most of all their shot vvas in vaine. Our Lieftenant generall commaunded our shot to forbeare shooting vntill vve vvere come to the vvall side, and so vvith pikes roundlie together vve approched the place, vvhere vve soone found out the Barricadoes of pipes or buts, to be the meetest place for our assault, vvhich notvvithstaning it vvas vvell tempted by vs: dovvne vvent the buts of earth, and pell mell came our svvordes and pikes together, after out shot had first giuen their volley, euen at the enemies nose. Our pikes vvere somevvhat longer then theirs, and our bodies better armed, for very fevve of them vvere armed, vvith vvhich aduantage out svvordes and pikes grevv to hard for them, and they driuen to giue place. In this furious entrie, the Lieutenant generall slue vvith his ovvne hands, the chiefe Ensigne bearer of the Spaniards, vvho fought verie manfullie to his liues end. We follovved into the towne vvith them, and giuing them no leasure to breath, vve vvanne the Market place, albeit they made head, and fought a while before vve got it, and so vve being once seazed and assured of that, they were content to suffer vs to lodge vvithin their towne, and themselues to goe to their vviues, vvhome they had caried into other places of the countrey before our comming thither. At euerie streetes end they had raised verie fine Barricadoes of earth workes, vvith trenches without them, as well made as euer vve savve any vvorke done: at the entring whereof vvas some litle resistance, but soone ouercome, it vvas vvith fewe slaine or hurt. They had ioyned vvith them many Indians, vvhome they had placed in corners of aduantage, all bovve men, vvith their Arrovves most villanously empoisoned, so as if they did but breake the skinne, the partie so touched died vvithout great marueill: some they slevve of our people with their arrowes, some they likevvise mischieued to death vvith certaine prickes of small stickes sharply pointed, of a foot and a halfe long, the one end put into the ground, the other empoisoned, sticking fast vp, right against our comming in the vvay, as we should approch from our landing tovvardes the towne, vvhereof they had planted a vvonderfull number in the ordinarie way, but our keeping the sea vvash shore, missed the greatest part of them verie happilie. To ouerpasse many particular matters, as the hurting of Captaine Sampson at svvord blovves in the first entring, vnto vvhom was committed the charge of the pikes of the Vantgard by his lot and turne, as also of the taking of Alonso Brauo the chiefe commaunder of that place by Captaine Goring, after the said Captaine had first hurt him vvith his sword, vnto vvhich Captaine vvas committed the charge of the shot of the said Vantgard. Captain Winter vvas likewise by his turne of the Vantgard in this attempt, vvhere also the Liefetenant generall marched himselfe, the saide Captaine Winter through a great desire to serue by land, hauing nowe exchanged his charge by sea with Captaine Cecill for his band of footemen. Captaine Povvell the Sergeant maior hadde by hys turne, the charge of the foure companies vvhich made the battaile. Captaine Morgan, who at S. DOMINGO was of the Vantgard, had now by turne his charge vpon the companies of the Riergard. Euerie man asvvell of one part as of another, came so vvillinglie on to the seruice, as the enemie vvas not able to endure the furie of such hote assault. We staied here sixe weekes, and the sicknesse with mortalitie before spoken off, still continuing among vs, though not vvith the same fury as at the first, and such as were touched vvith the said sicknesse, escaping death, very fevv or almost none could recouer their strength, yea many of them vvere much decayed in their memorie: insomuch that it vvas growen and ordinarie iudgement, when one was heard to speake foolishlie, to say he had bene sicke of the Calentour, vvhich is the Spanish name of their burning Ague: for as I tolde you before, it is a very burning and pestilent ague. The originall cause thereof, is imputed to the euening or first night aire, which they tearme _La serena_, vvherein they say and holde very firme opinion, that who so is then obroad in the open aire, shall certainly be infected to the death, not being of the Indian or naturall race of those countrey people: by holding their watch, vvere thus subiected to the infectious ayre, vvhich at Sainct IAGO vvas most dangerous and deadly of al other places. With the inconuenience of continuall mortalitie, vve vvere forced to giue ouer our entended enterprise, to goe with NOMBRE DE DIOS, and so ouerland to PANNAMA, vvhere vve shoulde haue stroken the stroke for the treasure, and full recompence of our tedious trauailes. And thus at CARTAGENA vve tooke our first resolution to returne homewards. But vvhile vve vvere yet there, it happened one day, that our vvatch called the Sentinell, vpon the Church steeple, had discouered in the sea a couple of small barkes or boates, making in with the harbour of CARTAGENA, whereupon Captaine Moone and Captaine Varney, vvith Iohn Grant the Maister of the Tyger, and some other sea men, embarqued themselues in a couple of small Pinnaces, to take them before they should come nigh the shore, at the mouth of the harbour, least by some stragling Spaniardes from the land, they might be vvarned by signes from comming in, which fel out accordingly, notvvithstanding all the diligence that our men coulde vse: for the Spanish boates, vpon the sight of our Pinnaces comming tovvardes them, ran themselues a shore, and so their men presently hid them selues in bushes hard by the sea side, amongst some others that had called them by signes thyther. Our men presently vvithout any due regard had to the qualitie of the place, and seeing no man of the Spaniardes to shew themselues, aboorded the Spanish barkes or boates, and so standing all open in them, were suddenly shot at by a troope of Spaniards out of the bushes, by vvhich volley of shot there vvere slaine Captaine Varney, vvhich died presently, and Captaine Moone, vvho died some fevve dayes after, besides some foure fiue others that vvere hurt: and so our folkes returned without their purpose, not hauing any sufficient number of souldiers, vvith them to fight on shore. For those men they carried were all marriners to rowe, fevve of them armed, because they made account with their ordinance to haue taken the barkes vvell enough at sea, which they might ful easily haue done, without any losse at all, if they had come in time to the harbour mouth, before the Spaniards boats had gotten so neare the shore. During our abode in this place, as also at S. DOMINGO, there passed diuerse curtesies betvveene vs and the Spaniardes, as feasting, and vsing them with all kindnes, and fauour: so as amongst others there came to see the Generall, the Gouernor of _Cartagena_, vvith the Bishop of the same, and diuerse of other Gentlemen of the better sort. This towne of _Cartagena_ wee touched in the out parts, and consumed much vvith fire, as we had done Sainct DOMINGO vpon discontentmentes, and for want of agreeing with vs in their first treaties touching their ransome, which at the last vvas concluded betvvene vs, should be a hundred and ten thousand Duckettes for that which vvas yet standing, the Ducket valued at fiue shillings sixe pence sterling. This towne though not halfe so big as S. DOMINGO, giues as you see, a farre greater ransome, being in verye deede of farre more importance, by reason of the excellencie of the harbour, and the situation thereof, to serue the trade of NOMBRE DE DIOS and other places, and is inhabited with farre more richer merchantes. The other is chiefly inhabited with Lawyers & braue Gentlemen, being the chiefe or highest appeale of their suites in lawe of all the Islandes about it, and of the maine lande coast next vnto it. And it is of no such accompt as CARTAGENA, for these and some other like reasons, which I could giue you, ouer long to be novv vvritten. The vvarning which this tovvne receaued of our coming tovvardes them, from S. DOMINGO, by the space of twentie daies before our arriuall hither, was cause that they had both fortified and euery vvay prepared for their best defence. As also that they had caried and conuayed away all their treasure and principall substance. The ransome of an hundred and tenne thousand Duckets thus concluded on, as is aforesaid, the same being written, and expressing for nothing more then the tovvne of CARTAGENA, vpon the payment of the said ransome, we left the said tovvne, and drevv some part of our souldiers into the Priorie or Abbey, standing a quarter of an English mile belovv the tovvne vpon the harbour water side, the same being vvalled vvith a wall of stone, vvhich vve told the Spaniards vvas yet ours, and not redeemed by their composition: vvhereupon they finding the defect of their contract, vvere contented to enter into another ransome for all places, but specially for the said house, as also the blocke house or Castle, vvhich is vpon the mouth of the inner harbour. And vvhen vve asked as much for the one as for the other, they yelded to giue a thousand Crownes for the Abbey, leauing vs to take our pleasure vpon the blocke house, vvhich they said they vvere not able to ransome, hauing stretched them selues to the vttermost of their powers: and therefore the said blocke house vvas by vs vndermined, and so vvith gunne powder blowen vp in peeces. While this latter contract vvas in making, our whole Fleete of ships fell dovvne towardes the harbour mouth, vvhere they ankered the third time, and employed their men in fetching of fresh vvater aboord the ships for our voiage homevvardes, which vvater vvas had in a great vvell, that is in the Island by the harbour mouth, which Island is a verie pleasant place as hath bene seene, hauing in it many sortes of goodly and verie pleasant fruicts, as the orenge trees and others, being set orderly in walkes of great length together. Insomuch as the vvhole Island being some two or three miles about, is cast into groundes of gardening and orchards. After sixe vveeks abode in this place, vve put to sea the last of March, where after tvvo or three dayes a great ship vvhich vve had taken at S. DOMINGO, and thereupon vvas called the New yeares gift, fell into a great leake, being laden with ordinance, hides, and other spoiles, and in the night shee lost the companie of our Fleete, vvhich being missed the next morning by the Generall, he cast about vvith the whole Fleete, fearing some great mischance to be happened vnto her, as in verie deede it so fell out, for her leake vvas so great, and her men were all tyred vvith pomping. But at the last hauing found her and the Barke Talbot in her companie, vvhich staied by great hap vvith her, vvas readie to take their men out of her, for the sauing of them. And so the Generall being fully aduertised of their great extremitie, made saile directlie back againe to CARTAGENA with the vvhole Fleete, where hauing staied eight or tenne daies more, about the vnlading of this ship, and the bestovving thereof and her men, into other ships, vve departed once againe to sea, directing our course towards the Cape S. ANTHONIE, being the Eastermost part of CVBA, vvhether vve arriued the seuen and twentieth of Aprill. But because fresh vvater could not presently be found, we weyed anker and departed, thinking in few daies to recouer the MATTANCES, a place to the Eastward of HAVANA. After we had sailed some fourteene dayes, we vvere brought to Cape S. ANTHONIE againe, thorough lacke of fauorable winde: but then our scarcity vvas growen such, as neede made vs looke a little better for vvater, vvhich vve found in sufficient quantitie, being in deede as I iudge, none other then raine vvater nevvly fallen, and gathered vp by making pittes in a plot of marrish ground, some three hundred pases from the sea side. I do vvrong if I should forget the good example of the Generall at this place, vvho to encourage others, and to hasten the getting of fresh vvater aboord the ships, tooke no lesse paine him selfe then the meanest, as also at S. DOMINGO, CARTAGENA, and all other places, hauing alvvaies so vigilant a care and foresight in the good ordering of his Fleete, accompanying them, as it is said, with such vvonderfull trauell of bodie, as doubtlesse had he bene the meanest person, as he vvas the chiefest, he had yet deserued the first place of honour: and no lesse happie do we accompt him, for being associated with Maister Carleill his Lieutenant generall, by whose experiences, prudent counsell, and gallant performance, he atchiued so many and happie enterprises of the warre, by vvhom also he was verie greatly assisted, in setting downe the needefull orders, lawes, and course of iustice, and for the due administration of the same vpon all occasions. After three daies spent in watering our ships, vve departed now the second time from the Cape of S. ANTHONIE the thirteenth of May, and proceeding about the Cape of FLORIDA, we neuer touched anie where, but coasting alongst FLORIDA, and keeping the shore still in sight, the eight and twentieth of May early in the morning, vve descried on the shore a place built like a Beacon, vvhich vvas in deede a scaffold vpon fowre long mastes, raised on ende for men to discouer to the seaward, being in the latitude of thirtie degrees, or verie neare thereunto. Our Pinnaces manned, and comming to the shore, we marched vp alongst the riuer side, to see vvhat place the enemie held there: for none amongst vs had any knowledge thereof at all. Here the Generall tooke occasion to march vvith the companies him selfe in person, the Lieutenant generall hauing the Vantgard, and going a mile vp or somewhat more by the riuer side, vve might discerne on the other side of the riuer ouer against vs, a fort, which newly had bene built by the Spaniards, and some mile or there about aboue the fort, vvas a litle towne or village without walls, built of vvoodden houses, as this Plot here doth plainlie shevv: we forthwith prepared to haue ordinance for the batterie, and one peece vvas a litle before the euening planted, and the first shot being made by the Lieutenant generall him selfe at their Ensigne, strake through the Ensigne, as vve afterwardes vnderstood by a French man, vvhich came vnto vs from them. One shot more vvas then made, which strake the foote of the fort vvall, which vvas all massiue timber of great trees like Mastes. The Lieutenant generall vvas determined to passe the riuer this night vvith fovvre companies, and there to lodge him selfe intrenched as neare the fort, as that he might play vvith his muskets and smallest shot vpon any that should appeare: and so afterwards to bring and plant the batterie vvith him, but the helpe of marriners for that sudden to make trenches could not be had, vvhich vvas the cause that this determination vvas remitted vntill the next night. In the night the Lieutenant generall tooke a litle rowing Skiffe, and halfe a dozen vvell armed, as Captaine Morgan, and Captaine Sampson, vvith some others besides the rowers, and went to view vvhat gard the enemie kept, as also to take knowledge of the ground. And albeit he went as couertly as might be, yet the enemie taking the _Alarum_, grevv fearefull that the whole Force was approching to the assault, and therefore vvith all speede abandoned the place after the shooting of some of their peeces. They thus gone, and he being returned vnto vs againe, but nothing knowing of their flight from their fort, forthwith came a French man being a Phipher (who had bene prisoner vvith them) in a litle boate, playing on his phiph the tune of the Prince of Orenge his song, and beeing called vnto by the gard, he tolde them before he put foote out of the boate, vvhat he vvas him selfe, and hovv the Spaniardes were gone from the fort, offering either to remaine in handes there, or els to returne to the place with them that vvould goe. Vpon this intelligence the Generall, the Lieftenant generall, vvith some of the Captaines in one Skiffe, and the Vice-Admirall vvith some others in his Skiffe, and tvvo or three Pinnaces furnished of souldiours vvith them, put presently ouer tovvardes the fort, giuing order for the rest of the Pinnaces to follovve. And in our approch, some of the enemie bolder then the rest, hauing stayed behinde their companie, shot off tvvo peeces of ordinance at vs: but on shore we vvent, and entered the place without finding any man there. When the day appeared, we found it built all of timber, the walles being none other but whole mastes or bodies of trees set vppe right and close together in manner of a pale, vvithout any ditch as yet made, but who intended with some more time, for they had not as yet finished all their worke, hauing begun the same some three or foure monethes before: so as to say the trueth, they had no reason to keepe it, being subiect both to fire and easie assault. The platforme vvhereon the ordinance lay, vvas whole bodies of long Pine trees, whereof there is great plentie, layed a crosse one on another, and some litle earth amongst. There vvas in it thirteene or fourteene greate peeces of brasse ordinance, and a chest vnbroken vp, hauing in it the value of some two thousande poundes sterling, by estimation of the kinges treasure, to pay the souldiers of that place vvho vvere a hundred and fiftie men. The fort thus vvonne, vvhich they called S. Iohn fort, and the day opened, vve assayed to go to the tovvne, but could not by reason of some ryuers and broken ground vvhich was betweene the tvvo places: and therefore enforced to imbarke againe into our Pinnaces, vve vvent thither vpon the great maine riuer, which is called as also the Tovvne by the name of S. AVGVSTINE. At our approching to land, there vvas some that began to shevve themselues, and to bestovve some fevv shot vpon vs, but presently vvithdrevv themselues. And in their running thus avvay, the Sergeant Maior finding one of their horses readie sadled and bridled, tooke the same to follovv the chase, and so ouergoing all his companie, vvas (by one laied behind a bush) shot through the head, and falling dovvne therevvith, vvas by the same and tvvo or three more, stabbed in three or foure places of his bodie with swords and daggers, before any could come neer to his reskue. His death vvas much lamented, being in very deed an honest vvise Gentleman and a souldier of good experience, and of as great courage as any man might be. In this place called S. AVGVSTINE, vve vnderstoode the King did keepe as is before saide, one hundred and fifty souldiers, and at another place some dozen leagues beyond to the Northvvards, called S. HELENA, he did there likevvise keepe an hundred and fifty more, seruing there for no other purpose, then to keepe all other nations from inhabiting any part of al that coast, the gouernement vvherof vvas committed to one Pedro Melendez Marquesse, Nephevv to that Melendez the Admirall, vvho had ouerthrovven Maister Iohn Havvkins in the Bay of MEXICO some fifteene or sixteene yeares agoe. This Gouernour had charge of both places, but vvas at this time in this place, and one of the first that left the same. Here it vvas resolued in full assembly of Captaines, to vndertake the enterprise of S HELENA, and from thence to seeke out the inhabitation of our English countreymen in VIRGINIA, distant from thence some sixe degrees Northvvard. When we came thvvart of Sainct _Helena_ the shols appearing dangerous, and we hauing no Pilot to vndertake the entrie, it was thought meetest to goe hence alongst. For the Admiral had bene the same night in foure fadome and a halfe three leagues from the shore: and yet we vnderstood by the help of a knowne Pilot, there may and doeth goe in ships of greater burthen and draught then any wee had in our Fleete. Wee passed thus alongest the coast harde aboorde the shore, which is shallowe for a league or tvvo from the shore, and the same is lovve and broken land for the most part. The ninth of Iune vpon sight of one speciall great fire (which are very ordinarie all alongst this coast, euen from the Cape FLORIDA hither) the Generall sent his Skiffe to the shore, where they found some of our English countrey men (that had bene sent thither the yeare before by Sir Walter Raleigh) and brought on aboord, by vvhose direction wee proceeded along to the place, vvhich they make their Port. But some of our shippes beeing of great draught vnable to enter, we anckered all without the harbour in a vvilde road at sea, about two miles from shore. From whence the Generall wrote letters to Maister Ralfe Lane, being Gouernour of those English in VIRGINIA, and then at his fort about six leagues from the rode in an Island, which they call ROANOAC, wherein is specially he shewed how ready he was to supply his necessities and wants, which he vnderstood of, by those he had first talked withall. The morrowe after Maister Lane himselfe and some of his companie comming vnto him, with the consent of his Captaines he gaue them the choice of tvvo offers, that is to say: Either he woulde leaue a ship, a pinnace, and certaine boates with sufficient Maisters and Mariners, together furnished vvith a monethes victuall to stay and make farther discouerie of the countrey and coastes, and so much victuall likevvise that might bee sufficient for the bringing of them all (being an hundred and three persons) into England if they thought good after such time, with any other thing they vvould desire, and that he might be able to spare. Or else if they thought they had made sufficient discouerie alreadie, and did desire to returne into England, he would giue them passage. But they as it seemed, being desirous to stay, accepted verie thankfully, and with great gladnesse that which vvas offred first. Whereupon the ship being appointed and receaued into charge, by some of their ovvne companie sent into her by Maister Lane, before they had receaued from the rest of the Fleete, the prouision appointed them, there arose a great storme (vvhich they said vvas extraordinarie and verie strange) that lasted three daies together, and put all our Fleete in great danger, to be driuen from their ankering vpon the coast. For vve brake many Cables, and lost manie Ankers. And some of our Fleete which had lost all (of vvhich number was the ship appointed for Maister Lane and his companie) vvas driuen to put to sea in great danger, in auoyding the coast, and could neuer see vs againe vntill we met in England. Manie also of our small Pinnaces and boates vvere lost in this storme. Notwithstanding after all this, the Generall offered them (with consent of his Captaines) another ship with some prouision, although not such a one for their turnes, as might haue bene spared them before, this being vnable to be brought into their harbour. Or else if they vvould, to giue them passage into England, although he knevv he should performe it vvith greater difficultie then he might haue done before. But Maister Lane vvith those of the chiefest of his companie he had then with him, considering vvhat should be best for them to doe, made request vnto the Generall vnder their handes, that they might haue passage for England: the vvhich being graunted, and the rest sent for out of the countrey and shipped, we departed from that coast the eighteenth of Iune. And so God be thanked, both they and we in good safetie arriued at Portesmouth the eight and twentieth of Iuly 1586, to the great glorie of God, and to no small honour to our Prince, our Countrey, and our selues. The totall value of that which was gotten in this voyage, is estimated at three score thousand pounds, vvhereof the companies vvhich haue trauelled in the voyage were to haue twentie thousand pounds, the aduenturers the other fortie. Of which twentie thousand pounds (as I can iudge) will redound some sixe pound to the single share. We lost some seuen hundred and fiftie men in the voiage. The men of name that died and were slaine in this voiage as I can presently call to my remembrance, are these. Captaine Powell. Captaine Varney. Captaine Moone. Captaine Fortescute. Captaine Bigges. Captaine Cecill. Captaine Hannam. Captaine Greenefield. Thomas Tucker a Lieutenant. Alexander Starkey a Lieutenant. Maister Escot a Lieutenant. Maister Waterhouse a Lieutenant. Maister Nicholas Winter. Maister Alexander Carleill. Maister Robert Alexander. Maister Scroope. Maister Iames Dier. Maister Peter Duke. With some other, vvho for hast I can not so suddenly thinke on. The ordinance gotten of all sortes brasse and Iron were about two hundred and fortie, whereof the two hundred and some more were brasse, and were thus founde and gotten. In S. IAGO some two or three and fiftie peeces. In S. DOMINGO about foure score, whereof was verie much great ordinance, as vvhole Cannon, Dimi-Cannon, Culuerins, and such like. In CARTAGENA some sixtie and three peeces, and good stoore likewise of the greater sort. In the fort of S. AVGVSTINE vvere fourteene peeces. The rest vvas Iron ordinance, of vvhich the most part vvas gotten at S. DOMINGO, the rest at CARTAGENA. _Pag. 17. Lin. 3. recharging._ _Pag. 21. lin. 21. of ordinance._ _Pag. 26. lin. 3. Pannama._ {Transcriber's notes: The corrections indicated by the three errata notes have been made: 'keepe them from the reaching of the ordinance' corrected to 'keepe them from the recharging of the ordinance' on page 17. 'vvithout any resistance, or ordinaunce,' corrected to 'vvithout any resistance, of ordinance,' on page 21. 'and so ouerland to PANNANIA' corrected to 'and so ouerland to PANNAMA' on page 26. The following corrections to obvious typographical errors have also been made: 'nnd therefore doe onely commend the trueth' changed to 'and therefore doe onely commend the trueth' in the Dedication. 'slacked for a time of some better leasure,' changed to 'slacked for a time of some better leasure.' after the Dedication. 'Captaine in the Elizabeth Bonaduentnre' changed to 'Captaine in the Elizabeth Bonaduenture' on page 2. 'willed him to goe to to the Gouernour of the Citie' changed to 'willed him to goe to the Gouernour of the Citie' on page 4. 'Maister Carleill our Lieuteuant generall' changed to 'Maister Carleill our Lieutenant generall' on page 6. 'On Mnnday the six and twentieth of Nouember' changed to 'On Monday the six and twentieth of Nouember' on page 12. 'being some hun dred and fiftie braue horses' changed to 'being some hundred and fiftie braue horses' on page 16. The word 'hundred' was split over a line break without a hyphen. 'vwich was found in the kings house' changed to 'vvich was found in the kings house' on page 19. 'the gronnd we were on grew to be straight' changed to 'the ground we were on grew to be straight' on page 22. 'Our Lieftenant generall com maunded our shot' changed to 'Our Lieftenant generall commaunded our shot' on page 22. The word 'commaunded' was split over a line break without a hyphen. 'fought a while beforevv egot it' changed to 'fought a while before vve got it' on page 24. 'when onewas heard to speake foolishlie' changed to 'when one was heard to speake foolishlie' on page 25. 'full recompence of our tedious tranailes' changed to 'full recompence of our tedious trauailes' on page 26. 'raken the barkes vvell enough at sea' changed to 'taken the barkes vvell enough at sea' on page 27, by reference to the catchword on the previous page. 'built of vvoodden houses,,' changed to 'built of vvoodden houses,' on page 31. 'then any wee had in our Fleete,' changed to 'then any wee had in our Fleete.' on page 34. One contraction has been expanded: in 'to the number of fiue and twentie saile of ships' on page 1, the 'm' in 'number' was represented by a horizontal line over the 'u' in the original. } 
3334	----	DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA by Captain Walter Biggs PREPARER'S NOTE This text was prepared from a 1910 edition, published by P. F. Collier & Son Company, New York. INTRODUCTION Nearly five years elapsed between Drake's return from his Famous Voyage and the despatch of the formidable armament commemorated in the following pages. During the last of these years the march of events had been remarkably rapid. Gilbert, who had been empowered by Elizabeth, in the year of Frobisher's last expedition, to found colonies in America, had sailed for that purpose to Newfoundland (1583), and had perished at sea on his way homeward. Raleigh, who had succeeded to his half-brother's enterprises, had despatched his exploring expedition to 'Virginia,' under Amadas and Barlow, in 1584, and had followed it up in the next year (1585) by an actual colony. In April Sir Richard Greenville sailed from Plymouth, and at Raleigh's expense established above a hundred colonists on the island of Roanoak. Drake's Great Armada left Plymouth in September of the same year. It marked a turning-point in the relations between the English and Spanish monarchs. Elizabeth, knowing that the suppression of the insurrection in the Netherlands would be followed by an attack upon England, was treating with the insurgents. Philip deemed it prudent to lay an embargo on all her subjects, together with their ships and goods, that might be found in his dominions. Elizabeth at once authorized general reprisals on the ships and goods of Spaniards. A company of adventurers was quickly formed for taking advantage of this permission on a scale commensurate with the national resources. They equipped an armada of twenty-five vessels, manned by 2,300 men, and despatched it under the command of Drake to plunder Spanish America. Frobisher was second in command. Two-thirds of the booty were to belong to the adventurers; the remaining third was to be divided among the men employed in the expedition. Drake's armament of 1585 was the greatest that had ever crossed the Atlantic. After plundering some vessels at the Vigo river, he sailed for the West Indies by way of the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, hoisted the English flag over Santiago and burnt the town, crossed the Atlantic in eighteen days, and arrived at Dominica. At daybreak, on New Year's Day, 1586, Drake's soldiers landed in Espanola, a few miles to the west of the capital, and before evening Carlile and Powell had entered the city, which the colonists only saved from destruction by the payment of a heavy ransom. Drake's plan was to do exactly the same at Carthagena and Nombre de Dios, and thence to strike across the isthmus and secure the treasure that lay waiting for transport at Panama. Drake held St. Domingo for a month, and Carthagena for six weeks. He was compelled to forego the further prosecution of his enterprise. A deadly fever, which had attacked the men during the sojourn at Santiago, still continued its ravages. In existing circumstances, even had Nombre de Dios been successfully attacked, the march to Panama was out of the question; and after consultation with the military commanders, Drake resolved on sailing home at once by way of Florida. He brought back with him all the colonists who had been left by Sir Richard Greenville in 'Virginia.' Drake had offered either to furnish them with stores, and to leave them a ship, or to take them home. The former was accepted: but a furious storm which ensued caused them to change their minds. They recognized in it the hand of God, whose will it evidently was that they should no longer be sojourners in the American wilderness; and the first English settlement of 'Virginia' was abandoned accordingly. Ten years afterwards (1595) Drake was again at the head of a similar expedition. The second command was given to his old associate Hawkins, Frobisher, his Vice-Admiral in 1585, having recently died of the wound received at Crozon. This time Nombre de Dios was taken and burnt, and 750 soldiers set out under Sir Thomas Baskerville to march to Panama: but at the first of the three forts which the Spaniards had by this time constructed, the march had to be abandoned. Drake did not long survive this second failure of his favourite scheme. He was attacked by dysentery a fortnight afterwards, and in a month he died. When he felt the hand of death upon him, he rose, dressed himself, and endeavoured to make a farewell speech to those around him. Exhausted by the effort, he was lifted to his berth, and within an hour breathed his last. Hawkins had died off Puerto Rico six weeks previously. The following narrative is in the main the composition of Walter Biggs, who commanded a company of musketeers under Carlile. Biggs was one of the five hundred and odd men who succumbed to the fever. He died shortly after the fleet sailed from Carthagena; and the narrative was completed by some comrade. The story of this expedition, which had inflicted such damaging blows on the Spaniards in America, was eminently calculated to inspire courage among those who were resisting them in Europe. Cates, one of Carlile's lieutenants, obtained the manuscript and prepared it for the press, accompanied by illustrative maps and plans. The publication was delayed by the Spanish Armada; but a copy found its way to Holland, where it was translated into Latin, and appeared at Leyden, in a slightly abridged form, in 1588. The original English narrative duly appeared in London in the next year. The document called the 'Resolution of the Land-Captains' was inserted by Hakluyt when he reprinted the narrative in 1600. DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA NARRATIVE MAINLY BY CAPTAIN WALTER BIGGS _A Summary and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake's West Indian Voyage, begun in the year 1585. Wherein were taken the cities of Santiago, Santo Domingo, Carthagena, and the town of St. Augustine, in Florida. Published by Master Thomas Cates._ This worthy knight, for the service of his prince and country, having prepared his whole fleet, and gotten them down to Plymouth, in Devonshire, to the number of five and twenty sail of ships and pinnaces, and having assembled of soldiers and mariners to the number of 2,300 in the whole, embarked them and himself at Plymouth aforesaid, the 12th day of September, 1585, being accompanied with these men of name and charge which hereafter follow: Master Christopher Carlile, Lieutenant-General, a man of long experience in the wars as well by sea as land, who had formerly carried high offices in both kinds in many fights, which he discharged always very happily, and with great good reputation; Anthony Powell, Sergeant-Major; Captain Matthew Morgan, and Captain John Sampson, Corporals of the Field. These officers had commandment over the rest of the land-captains, whose names hereafter follow: Captain Anthony Platt, Captain Edward Winter, Captain John Goring, Captain Robert Pew, Captain George Barton, Captain John Merchant, Captain William Cecil, Captain Walter Biggs [The writer of the first part of the narrative.], Captain John Hannam, Captain Richard Stanton. Captain Martin Frobisher, Vice-Admiral, a man of great experience in seafaring actions, who had carried the chief charge of many ships himself, in sundry voyages before, being now shipped in the Primrose; Captain Francis Knolles, Rear-Admiral in the galleon Leicester; Master Thomas Venner, captain in the Elizabeth Bonadventure, under the General; Master Edward Winter, captain in the Aid; Master Christopher Carlile, the Lieutenant-General, captain of the Tiger; Henry White, captain of the Sea-Dragon; Thomas Drake [Francis Drake's brother.], captain of the Thomas; Thomas Seeley, captain of the Minion; Baily, captain of the Talbot; Robert Cross, captain of the bark Bond; George Fortescue, captain of the bark Bonner; Edward Careless, captain of the Hope; James Erizo, captain of the White Lion; Thomas Moon, captain of the Francis; John Rivers, captain of the Vantage; John Vaughan, captain of the Drake; John Varney, captain of the George; John Martin, captain of the Benjamin; Edward Gilman, captain of the Scout; Richard Hawkins, captain of the galliot called the Duck; Bitfield, captain of the Swallow. After our going hence, which was the 14th of September, in the year of our Lord 1585, and taking our course towards Spain, we had the wind for a few days somewhat scant, and sometimes calm. And being arrived near that part of Spain which is called the Moors [Muros, S. of Cape Finisterre.], we happened to espy divers sails, which kept their course close by the shore, the weather being fair and calm. The General caused the Vice-Admiral to go with the pinnaces well manned to see what they were; who upon sight of the said pinnaces approaching near unto them, abandoned for the most part all their ships, being Frenchmen, laden all with salt, and bound homewards into France. Amongst which ships, being all of small burthen, there was one so well liked, which also had no man in her, as being brought unto the General, he thought good to make stay of her for the service, meaning to pay for her, as also accordingly he performed at our return; which bark was called the Drake. The rest of these ships, being eight or nine, were dismissed without anything at all taken from them. Who being afterwards put somewhat farther off from the shore, by the contrariety of the wind, we happened to meet with some other French ships, full laden with Newland fish, being upon their return homeward from the said Newfoundland; whom the General after some speech had with them, and seeing plainly that they were Frenchmen, dismissed, without once suffering any man to go aboard of them. The day following, standing in with the shore again, we decried another tall ship of twelve score tons or thereabouts, upon whom Master Carlile, the Lieutenant-General, being in the Tiger, undertook the chase; whom also anon after the Admiral followed. And the Tiger having caused the said strange ship to strike her sails, kept her there without suffering anybody to go aboard until the Admiral was come up; who forthwith sending for the master, and divers others of their principal men, and causing them to be severally examined, found the ship and goods to be belonging to the inhabitants of St. Sebastian, in Spain, but the mariners to be for the most part belonging to St. John de Luz, and the Passage. In this ship was great store of dry Newland fish, commonly called with us Poor John; whereof afterwards, being thus found a lawful prize, there was distribution made into all the ships of the fleet, the same being so new and good, as it did very greatly bestead us in the whole course of our voyage. A day or two after the taking of this ship we put in within the Isles of Bayon [The Cies Islets, at the mouth of the Vigo River.], for lack of favourable wind. Where we had no sooner anchored some part of the fleet, but the General commanded all the pinnaces with the shipboats to be manned, and every man to be furnished with such arms as were needful for that present service; which being done, the General put himself into his galley, which was also well furnished, and rowing towards the city of Bayon, with intent, and the favour of the Almighty, to surprise it. Before we had advanced one half-league of our way there came a messenger, being an English merchant, from the governor, to see what strange fleet we were; who came to our General, conferred a while with him, and after a small time spent, our General called for Captain Sampson, and willed him to go to the governor of the city, to resolve him of two points. The first to know if there were any wars between Spain and England; the second, why our merchants with their goods were embarged or arrested? Thus departed Captain Sampson with the said messenger to the city, where he found the governor and people much amazed of such a sudden accident. The General, with the advice and counsel of Master Carlile, his Lieutenant-General, who was in the galley with him, thought not good to make any stand, till such time as they were within the shot of the city, where they might be ready upon the return of Captain Sampson, to make a sudden attempt, if cause did require, before it were dark. Captain Sampson returned with his message in this sort:--First, touching peace or wars, the governor said he knew of no wars and that it lay not in him to make any, he being so mean a subject as he was. And as for the stay of the merchants with their goods, it was the king's pleasure, but not with intent to endamage any man. And that the king's counter-commandment was (which had been received in that place some seven-night before) that English merchants with their goods should be discharged. For the more verifying whereof, he sent such merchants as were in the town of our nation, who trafficked those parts; which being at large declared to our General by them, counsel was taken what might best be done. And for that the night approached, it was thought needful to land our forces, which was done in the shutting up of the day; and having quartered ourselves to our most advantage, with sufficient guard upon every strait, we thought to rest ourselves for that night there. The Governor sent us some refreshing, as bread, wine, oil, apples, grapes, marmalade and such like. About midnight the weather began to overcast, insomuch that it was thought meeter to repair aboard, than to make any longer abode on land. And before we could recover the fleet a great tempest arose, which caused many of our ships to drive from their anchorhold, and some were forced to sea in great peril, as the bark Talbot, the bark Hawkins, and the Speedwell; which Speedwell only was driven into England, the others recovered us again. The extremity of the storm lasted three days; which no sooner began to assuage, but Master Carlile, our Lieutenant-General, was sent with his own ship and three others, as also with the galley and with divers pinnaces, to see what he might do above Vigo, where he took many boats and some carvels, diversely laden with things of small value, but chiefly with household stuff, running into the high country. And amongst the rest he found one boat laden with the principal church stuff of the high church of Vigo, where also was their great cross of silver, of very fair embossed work and double-gilt all over, having cost them a great mass of money. They complained to have lost in all kinds of goods above thirty thousand ducats in this place. The next day the General with his whole fleet went from up the Isles of Bayon to a very good harbour above Vigo, where Master Carlile stayed his coming, as well for the more quiet riding of his ships, as also for the good commodity of fresh watering which the place there did afford full well. In the meantime the governor of Galicia had reared such forces as he might (his numbers by estimate were some 2000 foot and 300 horse), and marched from Bayona to this part of the country, which lay in sight of our fleet; where, making a stand, he sent to parley with our General. Which was granted by our General, so it might be in boats upon the water; and for safety of their persons there were pledges delivered on both sides. Which done, the governor of Galicia put himself with two others into our Vice-Admiral's skiff, the same having been sent to the shore for him, and in like sort our General went in his own skiff. Where by them it was agreed we should furnish ourselves with fresh water, to be taken by our own people quietly on the land, and have all other such necessaries, paying for the same, as the place would afford. When all our business was ended we departed, and took our way by the Islands of Canaria, which are esteemed some 300 leagues from this part of Spain; and falling purposely with Palma, with intention to have taken our pleasure of that place, for the full digesting of many things into order, and the better furnishing our store with such several good things as it affordeth very abundantly, we were forced by the vile sea-gate, which at that present fell out, and by the naughtiness of the landing-place, being but one, and that under the favour of many platforms well furnished with great ordnance, to depart with the receipt of many of their cannon-shot, some into our ships and some besides, some of them being in very deed full cannon high. But the only or chief mischief was the dangerous sea-surge, which at shore all alongst plainly threatened the overthrow of as many pinnaces and boats as for that time should have attempted any landing at all. Now seeing the expectation of this attempt frustrated by the causes aforesaid, we thought it meeter to fall with the Isle Ferro, to see if we could find any better fortune; and coming to the island we landed a thousand men in a valley under a high mountain, where we stayed some two or three hours. In which time the inhabitants, accompanied with a young fellow born in England, who dwelt there with them, came unto us, shewing their state to be so poor that they were all ready to starve, which was not untrue; and therefore without anything gotten, we were all commanded presently to embark, so as that night we put off to sea south-south-east along towards the coast of Barbary. Upon Saturday in the morning, being the 13th of November, we fell with Cape Blank, which is a low land and shallow water, where we catched store of fish; and doubling the cape, we put into the bay, where we found certain French ships of war, whom we entertained with great courtesy, and there left them. This afternoon the whole fleet assembled, which was a little scattered about their fishing, and put from thence to the Isles of Cape Verde, sailing till the 16th of the same month in the morning; on which day we descried the Island of Santiago. And in the evening we anchored the fleet between the town called the Playa or Praya and Santiago; where we put on shore 1000 men or more, under the leading of Master Christopher Carlile, Lieutenant-General, who directed the service most like a wise commander. The place where we had first to march did afford no good order, for the ground was mountainous and full of dales, being a very stony and troublesome passage; but such was his industrious disposition, as he would never leave, until we had gotten up to a fair plain, where we made stand for the assembling of the army. And when we were all gathered together upon the plain, some two miles from the town, the Lieutenant-General thought good not to make attempt till daylight, because there was not one that could serve for guide or giving knowledge at all of the place. And therefore after having well rested, even half an hour before day, he commanded the army to be divided into three special parts, such as he appointed, whereas before we had marched by several companies, being thereunto forced by the badness of the way as is aforesaid. Now by the time we were thus ranged into a very brave order, daylight began to appear. And being advanced hard to the wall, we saw no enemy to resist. Whereupon the Lieutenant-General appointed Captain Sampson with thirty shot, and Captain Barton with other thirty, to go down into the town, which stood in the valley under us, and might very plainly be viewed all over from that place where the whole army was now arrived; and presently after these captains was sent the great ensign, which had nothing in it but the plain English cross, to be placed towards the sea, that our fleet might see St. George's cross flourish in the enemy's fortress. Order was given that all the ordnance throughout the town and upon all the platforms, which were about fifty pieces all ready charged, should be shot off in honour of the Queen's Majesty's coronation day, being the 17th of November, after the yearly custom of England, which was so answered again by the ordnance out of all the ships in the fleet, which now come near, as it was strange to hear such a thundering noise last so long together. In this mean while the Lieutenant-General held still the most part of his force on the hilltop, till such time as the town was quartered out for the lodging of the whole army. Which being done, every captain took his own quarter; and in the evening was placed such a sufficient guard upon every part of the town that we had no cause to fear any present enemy. Thus we continued in the city the space of fourteen days, taking such spoils as the place yielded, which were, for the most part, wine, oil, meal, and some other such like things for victual as vinegar, olives, and some other trash, as merchandise for their Indian trades. But there was not found any treasure at all, or anything else of worth besides. The situation of Santiago is somewhat strange; in form like a triangle, having on the east and west sides two mountains of rock and cliff, as it were hanging over it; upon the top of which two mountains were builded certain fortifications to preserve the town from any harm that might be offered, as in a plot is plainly shewed. From thence on the south side of the town is the main sea; and on the north side, the valley lying between the aforesaid mountains, wherein the town standeth. The said valley and town both do grow very narrow; insomuch that the space between the two cliffs of this end of the town is estimated not to be above ten or twelve score [yards] over. In the midst of the valley cometh down a riveret, rill, or brook of fresh water, which hard by the seaside maketh a pond or pool, whereout our ships were watered with very great ease and pleasure. Somewhat above the town on the north side, between the two mountains, the valley waxeth somewhat larger than at the town's end; which valley is wholly converted into gardens and orchards, well replenished with divers sorts of fruits, herbs, and trees, as lemons, oranges, sugar-canes, _cocars_ or cocos nuts, plantains, potato-roots, cucumbers, small and round onions, garlic, and some other things not now remembered. Amongst which the cocos nuts and plantains are very pleasant fruits; the said cocos hath a hard shell and a green husk over it as hath our walnut, but it far exceedeth in greatness, for this cocos in his green husk is bigger than any man's two fists. Of the hard shell many drinking cups are made here in England, and set in silver as I have often seen. Next within this hard shell is a white rind resembling in show very much, even as any thing may do, to the white of an egg when it is hard boiled. And within this white of the nut lieth a water, which is whitish and very clear, to the quantity of half a pint or thereabouts; which water and white rind before spoken of are both of a very cool fresh taste, and as pleasing as anything may be. I have heard some hold opinion that it is very restorative. The plantain groweth in cods, somewhat like to beans, but is bigger and longer, and much more thick together on the stalk; and when it waxeth ripe, the meat which filleth the rind of the cod becometh yellow, and is exceeding sweet and pleasant. In this time of our being there happened to come a Portugal to the western fort, with a flag of truce. To whom Captain Sampson was sent with Captain Goring; who coming to the said messenger, he first asked them, What nation they were? they answered Englishmen. He then required to know if wars were between England and Spain; to which they answered, that they knew not, but if he would go to their General he could best resolve him of such particulars. And for his assurance of passage and repassage these captains made offer to engage their credits, which he refused for that he was not sent from his governor. Then they told him if his governor did desire to take a course for the common benefit of the people and country his best way were to come and present himself unto our noble and merciful governor, Sir Francis Drake, whereby he might be assured to find favour, both for himself and the inhabitants. Otherwise within three days we should march over the land, and consume with fire all inhabited places, and put to the sword all such living souls as we should chance upon. So thus much he took for the conclusion of his answer. And departing, he promised to return the next day; but we never heard more of him. Upon the 24th of November, the General, accompanied with the Lieutenant-General and 600 men, marched forth to a village twelve miles within the land, called Saint Domingo, where the governor and the bishop, with all the better sort, were lodged; and by eight of the clock we came to it, finding the place abandoned, and the people fled into the mountains. So we made stand a while to ease ourselves, and partly to see if any would come to speak to us. After we had well rested ourselves, the General commanded the troops to march away homewards. In which retreat the enemy shewed themselves, both horse and foot, though not such force as durst encounter us; and so in passing some time at the gaze with them, it waxed late and towards night before we could recover home to Santiago. On Monday, the 26th of November, the General commanded all the pinnaces with the boats to use all diligence to embark the army into such ships as every man belonged. The Lieutenant-General in like sort commanded Captain Goring and Lieutenant Tucker, with one hundred shot, to make a stand in the marketplace until our forces were wholly embarked; the Vice-Admiral making stay with his pinnace and certain boats in the harbour, to bring the said last company abroad the ships. Also the General willed forthwith the galley with two pinnaces to take into them the company of Captain Barton, and the company of Captain Biggs, under the leading of Captain Sampson, to seek out such munition as was hidden in the ground, at the town of Praya, or Playa, having been promised to be shewed it by a prisoner which was taken the day before. The captains aforesaid coming to the Playa, landed their men; and having placed the troop in their best strength, Captain Sampson took the prisoner, and willed him to show that he had promised. The which he could not, or at least would not; but they searching all suspected places, found two pieces of ordnance, one of iron, another of brass. In the afternoon the General anchored with the rest of the fleet before the Playa, coming himself ashore, willing us to burn the town and make all haste aboard; the which was done by six of the clock the same day, and ourselves embarked again the same night. And so we put off to sea south-west. But before our departure from the town of Santiago, we established orders for the better government of the army. Every man mustered to his captain, and oaths were ministered, to acknowledge her Majesty supreme Governor, as also every man to do his utter-most endeavour to advance the service of the action, and to yield due obedience unto the directions of the General and his officers. By this provident counsel, and laying down this good foundation beforehand, all things went forward in a due course, to the achieving of our happy enterprise. In all the time of our being here, neither the governor for the said King of Spain, which is a Portugal, neither the bishop, whose authority is great, neither the inhabitants of the town, or island, ever came at us; which we expected they should have done, to entreat us to leave them some part of their needful provisions, or at the least to spare the ruining of their town at our going away. The cause of this their unreasonable distrust, as I do take it, was the fresh remembrance of the great wrongs that they had done to old Master William Hawkins, of Plymouth, in the voyage he made four or five years before, whenas they did both break their promise, and murdered many of his men; whereof I judge you have understood, and therefore it is needless to be repeated. But since they came not at us, we left written in sundry places, as also in the Spital House (which building was only appointed to be spared), the great discontentment and scorn we took at this their refraining to come unto us, as also at the rude manner of killing, and savage kind of handling the dead body of one of our boys found by them straggling all alone, from whom they had taken his head and heart, and had straggled the other bowels about the place, in a most brutish and beastly manner. In revenge whereof at our departing we consumed with fire all the houses, as well in the country which we saw, as in the town of Santiago. From hence putting off to the West Indies, we were not many days at sea but there began among our people such mortality as in a few days there were dead above two or three hundred men. And until some seven or eight days after our coming from Santiago, there had not died any one man of sickness in all the fleet. The sickness showed not his infection, wherewith so many were strucken, until we were departed thence; and then seized our people with extreme hot burning and continual agues, whereof very few escaped with life, and yet those for the most part not without great alteration and decay of their wits and strength for a long time after. In some that died were plainly shown the small spots which are often found upon those that be infected with the plague. We were not above eighteen days in passage between the sight of Santiago aforesaid, and the island of Dominica, being the first island of the West Indies that we fell withal; the same being inhabited with savage people, which go all naked, their skin coloured with some painting of a reddish tawny, very personable and handsome strong men, who do admit little conversation with the Spaniards; for, as some of our people might understand them, they had a Spaniard or twain prisoners with them. Neither do I think that there is any safety for any of our nation, or any other, to be within the limits of their commandment; albeit they used us very kindly for those few hours of time which we spent with them, helping our folks to fill and carry on their bare shoulders fresh water from the river to our ships' boats, and fetching from their houses great store of tobacco, as also a kind of bread which they fed on, called cassavi, very white and savoury, made of the roots of cassavi. In recompense whereof we bestowed liberal rewards of glass, coloured beads, and other things, which we had found at Santiago; wherewith, as it seemed, they rested very greatly satisfied, and shewed some sorrowful countenance when they perceived that we would depart. From hence we went to another island westward of it, called Saint Christopher's Island; wherein we spent some days of Christmas, to refresh our sick people, and to cleanse and air our ships. In which island were not any people at all that we could hear of. In which time by the General it was advised and resolved, with the consent of the Lieutenant-General, the Vice-Admiral, and all the rest of the captains, to proceed to the great island of Hispaniola, as well for that we knew ourselves then to be in our best strength, as also the rather allured thereunto by the glorious fame of the city of St. Domingo, being the ancientest and chief inhabited place in all the tract of country thereabouts. And so proceeding in this determination, by the way we met a small frigate, bound for the same place, the which the Vice-Admiral took; and having duly examined the men that were in her, there was one found by whom we were advertised the haven to be a barred haven, and the shore or land thereof to be well fortified, having a castle thereupon furnished with great store of artillery, without the danger whereof was no convenient landing-place within ten English miles of the city, to which the said pilot took upon him to conduct us. All things being thus considered on, the whole forces were commanded in the evening to embark themselves in pinnaces, boats, and other small barks appointed for this service. Our soldiers being thus embarked, the General put himself into the bark Francis as Admiral; and all this night we lay on the sea, bearing small sail until our arrival to the landing-place, which was about the breaking of the day. And so we landed, being New Year's Day, nine or ten miles to the westwards of that brave city of St. Domingo; for at that time nor yet is known to us any landing-place, where the sea-surge doth not threaten to overset a pinnace or boat. Our General having seen us all landed in safety, returned to his fleet, bequeathing us to God, and the good conduct of Master Carlile, our Lieutenant-General; at which time, being about eight of the clock, we began to march. And about noon-time, or towards one of the clock, we approached the town; where the gentleman and those of the better sort, being some hundred and fifty brave horses, or rather more, began to present themselves. But our small shot played upon them, which were so sustained with good proportion of pikes in all parts, as they finding no part of our troop unprepared to receive them (for you must understand they viewed all round about) they were thus driven to give us leave to proceed towards the two gates of the town which were the next to the seaward. They had manned them both, and planted their ordnance for that present and sudden alarm without the gate, and also some troops of small shot in _ambuscado_ upon the highway side. We divided our whole force, being some thousand or twelve hundred men, into two parts, to enterprise both the gates at one instant; the Lieutenant-General having openly vowed to Captain Powell, who led the troop that entered the other gate, that with God's good favour he would not rest until our meeting in the market-place. Their ordnance had no sooner discharged upon our near approach, and made some execution amongst us, though not much, but the Lieutenant-General began forthwith to advance both his voice of encouragement and pace of marching; the first man that was slain with the ordnance being very near unto himself; and thereupon hasted all that he might, to keep them from the recharging of the ordnance. And notwithstanding their _ambuscados_, we marched or rather ran so roundly into them, as pell-mell we entered the gates, and gave them more care every man to save himself by flight, than reason to stand any longer to their broken fight. We forthwith repaired to the market-place, but to be more truly understood, a place of very spacious square ground; whither also came, as had been agreed, Captain Powell with the other troop. Which place with some part next unto it, we strengthened with _barricados_, and there as the most convenient place assured ourselves, the city being far too spacious for so small and weary a troop to undertake to guard. Somewhat after midnight, they who had the guard of the castle, hearing us busy about the gates of the said castle, abandoned the same; some being taken prisoners, and some fleeing away by the help of boats to the other side of the haven, and so into the country. The next day we quartered a little more at large, but not into the half part of the town; and so making substantial trenches, and planting all the ordnance, that each part was correspondent to other, we held this town the space of one month. In the which time happened some accidents, more than are well remembered for the present. But amongst other things, it chanced that the General sent on his message to the Spaniards a negro boy with a flag of white, signifying truce, as is the Spanish ordinary manner to do there, when they approach to speak to us; which boy unhappily was first met withal by some of those who had been belonging as officers for the king in the Spanish galley, which with the town was lately fallen into our hands. Who, without all order or reason, and contrary to that good usage wherewith we had entertained their messengers, furiously struck the poor boy through the body with one of their horsemen's staves; with which wound the boy returned to the General, and after he had declared the manner of this wrongful cruelty, died forthwith in his presence. Wherewith the General being greatly passioned, commanded the provost-marshal to cause a couple of friars, then prisoners, to be carried to the same place where the boy was strucken, accompanied with sufficient guard of our soldiers, and there presently to be hanged, despatching at the same instant another poor prisoner, with this reason wherefore this execution was done, and with this message further, that until the party who had thus murdered the General's messenger were delivered into our hands to receive condign punishment, there should no day pass wherein there should not two prisoners be hanged, until they were all consumed which were in our hands. Whereupon the day following, he that had been captain of the king's galley brought the offender to the town's end, offering to deliver him into our hands. But it was thought to be a more honourable revenge to make them there, in our sight, to perform the execution themselves; which was done accordingly. During our being in this town, as formerly also at Santiago there had passed justice upon the life of one of our own company for an odious matter, so here likewise was there an Irishman hanged for the murdering of his corporal. In this time also passed many treaties between their commissioners and us, for ransom of their city; but upon disagreements we still spent the early mornings in firing the outmost houses; but they being built very magnificently of stone, with high lofts, gave us no small travail to ruin them. And albeit for divers days together we ordained each morning by daybreak, until the heat began at nine of the clock, that two hundred mariners did naught else but labour to fire and burn the said houses without our trenches, whilst the soldiers in a like proportion stood forth for their guard; yet did we not, or could not in this time consume so much as one-third part of the town, which town is plainly described and set forth in a certain map. And so in the end, what wearied with firing, and what hastened by some other respects, we were contended to accept of 25,000 ducats of five shillings six-pence the piece, for the ransom of the rest of the town. Amongst other things which happened and were found at St. Domingo, I may not omit to let the world know one very notable mark and token of the unsatiable ambition of the Spanish king and his nation, which was found in the king's house, wherein the chief governor of that city and country is appointed always to lodge, which was this. In the coming to the hall or other rooms of this house, you must first ascend up by a fair large pair of stairs, at the head of which stairs is a handsome spacious place to walk in, somewhat like unto a gallery. Wherein, upon one of the walls, right over against you as you enter the said place, so as your eye cannot escape the sight of it, there is described and painted in a very large scutcheon the arms of the King of Spain; and in the lower part of the said scutcheon there is likewise described a globe, containing in it the whole circuit of the sea and the earth, whereupon is a horse standing on his hinder part within the globe, and the other forepart without the globe, lifted up as it were to leap, with a scroll painted in his mouth, wherein was written these words in Latin, _NON SUFFICIT ORBIS_, which is as much to say as, _The world sufficeth not_. Whereof the meaning was required to be known of some of those of the better sort that came in commission to treat upon the ransom of the town; who would shake their heads and turn aside their countenance, in some smiling sort, without answering anything, as greatly ashamed thereof. For by some of our company it was told them, that if the Queen of England would resolutely prosecute the wars against the King of Spain, he should be forced to lay aside that proud and unreasonable reaching vein of his; for he should find more than enough to do to keep that which he had already, as by the present example of their lost town they might for a beginning perceive well enough. Now to the satisfying of some men, who marvel greatly that such a famous and goodly-builded city, so well inhabited of gallant people, very brave in their apparel (whereof our soldiers found good store for their relief), should afford no greater riches than was found there. Herein it is to be understood that the Indian people, which were the natives of this whole island of Hispaniola (the same being near hand as great as England), were many years since clean consumed by the tyranny of the Spaniards; which was the cause that, for lack of people to work in the mines, the gold and silver mines of this island are wholly given over. And thereby they are fain in this island to use copper money, whereof was found very great quantity. The chief trade of this place consisteth of sugar and ginger, which groweth in the island, and of hides of oxen and kine, which in this waste country of the island are bred in infinite numbers, the soil being very fertile. And the said beasts are fed up to a very large growth, and so killed for nothing so much as for their hides aforesaid. We found here great store of strong wine, sweet oil, vinegar, olives, and other such-like provisions, as excellent wheat-meal packed up in wine-pipes and other cask, and other commodities likewise, as woollen and linen cloth and some silks; all which provisions are brought out of Spain, and served us for great relief. There was but a little plate or vessel of silver, in comparison of the great pride in other things of this town, because in these hot countries they use much of those earthen dishes finely painted or varnished, which they call _porcellana_, which is had out of the East India; and for their drinking they use glasses altogether, whereof they make excellent good and fair in the same place. But yet some plate we found, and many other good things, as their household garniture, very gallant and rich, which had cost them dear, although unto us they were of small importance. From St. Domingo we put over to the main or firm land, and, going all along the coast, we came at last in sight of Carthagena, standing upon the seaside, so near as some of our barks in passing alongst approached within the reach of their culverin shot, which they had planted upon certain platforms. The harbour-mouth lay some three miles toward the westward of the town, whereinto we entered at about three or four of the clock in the afternoon without any resistance of ordnance or other impeachment planted upon the same. In the evening we put ourselves on land towards the harbour-mouth, under the leading of Master Carlile, our Lieutenant-General. Who, after he had digested us to march forward about midnight, as easily as foot might fall, expressly commanded us to keep close by the sea-wash of the shore for our best and surest way; whereby we were like to go through, and not to miss any more of the way, which once we had lost within an hour after our first beginning to march, through the slender knowledge of him that took upon him to be our guide, whereby the night spent on, which otherwise must have been done by resting. But as we came within some two miles of the town, their horsemen, which were some hundred, met us, and, taking the alarm, retired to their townward again upon the first volley of our shot that was given them; for the place where we encountered being woody and bushy, even to the waterside, was unmeet for their service. At this instant we might hear some pieces of artillery discharged, with divers small shot, towards the harbour; which gave us to understand, according to the order set down in the evening before by our General, that the Vice-Admiral, accompanied with Captain Venner, Captain White, and Captain Cross, with other sea captains, and with divers pinnaces and boats, should give some attempt unto the little fort standing on the entry of the inner haven, near adjoining to the town, though to small purpose, for that the place was strong, and the entry, very narrow, was chained over; so as there could be nothing gotten by the attempt more than the giving of them an alarm on that other side of the haven, being a mile and a-half from the place we now were at. In which attempt the Vice-Admiral had the rudder of his skiff strucken through with a saker shot, and a little or no harm received elsewhere. The troops being now in their march, half-a-mile behither the town or less, the ground we were on grew to be strait, and not above fifty paces over, having the main sea on the one side of it and the harbour-water or inner sea (as you may term it) on the other side, which in the plot is plainly shewed. This strait was fortified clean over with a stone wall and a ditch without it, the said wall being as orderly built, with flanking in every part, as can be set down. There was only so much of this strait unwalled as might serve for the issuing of the horsemen or the passing of carriage in time of need. But this unwalled part was not without a very good _barricado_ of wine-butts or pipes, filled with earth, full and thick as they might stand on end one by another, some part of them standing even within the main sea. This place of strength was furnished with six great pieces, demiculverins and sakers, which shot directly in front upon us as we approached. Now without this wall, upon the inner side of the strait, they had brought likewise two great galleys with their prows to the shore, having planted in them eleven pieces of ordnance, which did beat all cross the strait, and flanked our coming on. In these two galleys were planted three or four hundred small shot, and on the land, in the guard only of this place, three hundred shot and pikes. They, in this their full readiness to receive us, spared not their shot both great and small. But our Lieutenant-General, taking the advantage of the dark (the daylight as yet not broken out) approached by the lowest ground, according to the express direction which himself had formerly given, the same being the sea-wash shore, where the water was somewhat fallen, so as most of all their shot was in vain. Our Lieutenant-General commanded our shot to forbear shooting until we were come to the wall-side. And so with pikes roundly together we approached the place, where we soon found out the _barricados_ of pipes or butts to be the meetest place for our assault; which, notwithstanding it was well furnished with pikes and shots, was without staying attempted by us. Down went the butts of earth, and pell-mell came our swords and pikes together, after our shot had first given their volley, even at the enemy's nose. Our pikes were somewhat longer than theirs, and our bodies better armed; for very few of them were armed. With which advantage our swords and pikes grew too hard for them, and they driven to give place. In this furious entry the Lieutenant-General slew with his own hands the chief ensign-bearer of the Spaniards, who fought very manfully to his life's end. We followed into the town with them, and, giving them no leisure to breathe, we won the market-place, albeit they made head and fought awhile before we got it. And so we being once seized and assured of that, they were content to suffer us to lodge within their town, and themselves to go to their wives, whom they had carried into other places of the country before our coming thither. At every street's end they had raised very fine _barricados_ of earthworks, with trenches without them, as well made as ever we saw any work done; at the entering whereof was some little resistance, but soon overcome it was, with few slain or hurt. They had joined with them many Indians, whom they had placed in corners of advantage, all bowmen, with their arrows most villainously empoisoned, so as if they did but break the skin, the party so touched died without great marvel. Some they slew of our people with their arrows; some they likewise mischiefed to death with certain pricks of small sticks sharply pointed, of a foot and a-half long, the one end put into the ground, the other empoisoned, sticking fast up, right against our coming in the way as we should approach from our landing towards the town, whereof they had planted a wonderful number in the ordinary way; but our keeping the sea-wash shore missed the greatest part of them very happily. I overpass many particular matters, as the hurting of Captain Sampson at sword blows in the first entering, unto whom was committed the charge of the pikes of the vant-guard by his lot and turn; as also of the taking of Alonzo Bravo, the chief commander of that place, by Captain Goring, after the said captain had first hurt him with his sword; unto which captain was committed the charge of the shot of the said vant-guard. Captain Winter was likewise by his turn of the vant-guard in this attempt, where also the Lieutenant-General marched himself; the said Captain Winter, through a great desire to serve by land, having now exchanged his charge at sea with Captain Cecil for his band of footmen. Captain Powell, the Sergeant-Major, had by his turn the charge of the four companies which made the battle. Captain Morgan, who at St. Domingo was of the vant-guard, had now by turn his charge upon the companies of the rearward. Every man, as well of one part as of another, came so willingly on to the service, as the enemy was not able to endure the fury of such hot assault. We stayed here six weeks, and the sickness with mortality before spoken of still continued among us, though not with the same fury as at the first; and such as were touched with the said sickness, escaping death, very few or almost none could recover their strength. Yea, many of them were much decayed in their memory, insomuch that it was grown an ordinary judgment, when one was heard to speak foolishly, to say he had been sick of the _calentura_, which is the Spanish name of their burning ague; for, as I told you before, it is a very burning and pestilent ague. The original cause thereof is imputed to the evening or first night air, which they term _la serena_; wherein they say and hold very firm opinion that whoso is then abroad in the open air shall certainly be infected to the death, not being of the Indian or natural race of those country people. By holding their watch our men were thus subjected to the infectious air, which at Santiago was most dangerous and deadly of all other places. With the inconvenience of continual mortality we were forced to give over our intended enterprise to go with Nombre de Dios, and so overland to Panama, where we should have strucken the stroke for the treasure, and full recompense of our tedious travails. And thus at Carthagena we took our first resolution to return homewards, the form of which resolution I thought good here to put down under the principal captains' hands as followeth:-- A Resolution of the Land-Captains, what course they think most expedient to be taken. Given at Carthagena, the 27th of February, 1585. WHEREAS it hath pleased the General to demand the opinions of his captains what course they think most expedient to be now undertaken, the land-captains being assembled by themselves together, and having advised hereupon, do in three points deliver the same. THE FIRST, touching the keeping of the town against the force of the enemy, either that which is present, or that which may come out of Spain, is answered thus:-- 'We hold opinion, that with this troop of men which we have presently with us in land service, being victualled and munitioned, we may well keep the town, albeit that of men able to answer present service we have not above 700. The residue, being some 150 men, by reason of their hurts and sickness, are altogether unable to stand us in any stead: wherefore hereupon the sea-captains are likewise to give their resolution, how they will undertake the safety and service of the ships upon the arrival of any Spanish fleet.' THE SECOND point we make to be this, whether it be meet to go presently homeward, or else to continue further trial of our fortune in undertaking such like enterprises as we have done already, and thereby to seek after that bountiful mass of treasure for recompense of our travails, which was generally expected at our coming forth of England: wherein we answer:-- 'That it is well known how both we and the soldiers are entered into this action as voluntary men, without any impress or gage from her Majesty or anybody else. And forasmuch as we have hitherto discharged the parts of honest men, so that now by the great blessing and favour of our good God there have been taken three such notable towns, wherein by the estimation of all men would have been found some very great treasures, knowing that Santiago was the chief city of all the islands and traffics thereabouts, St. Domingo the chief city of Hispaniola, and the head government not only of that island, but also of Cuba, and of all the islands about it, as also of such inhabitations of the firm land, as were next unto it, and a place that is both magnificently built and entertaineth great trades of merchandise; and now lastly the city of Carthagena, which cannot be denied to be one of the chief places of most especial importance to the Spaniard of all the cities which be on this side of the West India: we do therefore consider, that since all these cities, with their goods and prisoners taken in them, and the ransoms of the said cities, being all put together, are found far short to satisfy that expectation which by the generality of the enterprisers was first conceived; and being further advised of the slenderness of our strength, whereunto we be now reduced, as well in respect of the small number of able bodies, as also not a little in regard of the slack disposition of the greater part of those which remain, very many of the better minds and men being either consumed by death or weakened by sickness and hurts; and lastly, since that as yet there is not laid down to our knowledge any such enterprise as may seem convenient to be undertaken with such few as we are presently able to make, and withal of such certain likelihood, as with God's good success which it may please him to bestow upon us, the same may promise to yield us any sufficient contentment: we do therefore conclude hereupon, that it is better to hold sure as we may the honour already gotten, and with the same to return towards our gracious sovereign and country, from whence, if it shall please her Majesty to set us forth again with her orderly means and entertainment, we are most ready and willing to go through with anything that the uttermost of our strength and endeavour shall be able to reach unto. But therewithal we do advise and protest that it is far from our thoughts, either to refuse, or so much as to seem to be weary of anything which for the present shall be further required or directed to be done by us from our General.' THE THIRD and last point is concerning the ransom of this city of Carthagena, for the which, before it was touched with any fire, there was made an offer of some 27,000 or 28,000 pounds sterling:-- 'Thus much we utter herein as our opinions, agreeing, so it be done in good sort, to accept this offer aforesaid, rather than to break off by standing still upon our demands of 100,000 pounds; which seems a matter impossible to be performed for the present by them. And to say truth, we may now with much honour and reputation better be satisfied with that sum offered by them at the first, if they will now be contented to give it, than we might at that time with a great deal more; inasmuch as we have taken our full pleasure, both in the uttermost sacking and spoiling of all their household goods and merchandise, as also in that we have consumed and ruined a great part of their town with fire. And thus much further is considered herein by us; that as there be in the voyage a great many poor men, who have willingly adventured their lives and travails, and divers amongst them having spent their apparel and such other little provisions as their small means might have given them leave to prepare, which being done upon such good and allowable intention as this action hath always carried with it (meaning, against the Spaniard, our greatest and most dangerous enemy), so surely we cannot but have an inward regard, so far as may lie in us, to help them in all good sort towards the satisfaction of this their expectation; and by procuring them some little benefit to encourage them, and to nourish this ready and willing disposition of theirs, both in them and in others by their example, against any other time of like occasion. But because it may be supposed that herein we forget not the private benefit of ourselves, and are thereby the rather moved to incline ourselves to this composition, we do therefore think good for the clearing ourselves of all such suspicion, to declare hereby, that what part or portion soever it be of this ransom or composition for Carthagena which should come unto us, we do freely give and bestow the same wholly upon the poor men who have remained with us in the voyage (meaning as well the sailor as the soldier), wishing with all our hearts it were such or so much as might see a sufficient reward for their painful endeavour. And for the firm confirmation thereof, we have thought meet to subsign these presents with our own hands in the place and time aforesaid. 'Captain Christopher Charlie, Lieutenant-General; Captain Goring, Captain Sampson, Captain Powell, etc.' But while we were yet there, it happened one day that our watch called the sentinel, upon the church-steeple, had discovered in the sea a couple of small barks or boats, making in with the harbour of Carthagena. Whereupon Captain Moon and Captain Varney, with John Grant, the master of the Tiger, and some other seamen, embarked themselves in a couple of small pinnaces, to take them before they should come nigh the shore, at the mouth of the harbour, lest by some straggling Spaniards from the land, they might be warned by signs from coming in. Which fell out accordingly, notwithstanding all the diligence that our men could use: for the Spanish boats, upon the sight of our pinnaces coming towards them, ran themselves ashore, and so their men presently hid themselves in bushes hard by the sea-side, amongst some others that had called them by signs thither. Our men presently without any due regard had to the quality of the place, and seeing no man of the Spaniards to shew themselves, boarded the Spanish barks or boats, and so standing all open in them, were suddenly shot at by a troop of Spaniards out of the bushes; by which volley of shot there were slain Captain Varney, which died presently, and Captain Moon, who died some few days after, besides some four or five others that were hurt: and so our folks returned without their purpose, not having any sufficient number of soldiers with them to fight on shore. For those men they carried were all mariners to row, few of them armed, because they made account with their ordnance to have taken the barks well enough at sea; which they might full easily have done, without any loss at all, if they had come in time to the harbour mouth, before the Spaniards' boats had gotten so near the shore. During our abode in this place, as also at St. Domingo, there passed divers courtesies between us and the Spaniards, as feasting, and using them with all kindness and favour; so as amongst others there came to see the General the governor of Carthagena, with the bishop of the same, and divers other gentlemen of the better sort. This town of Carthagena we touched in the out parts, and consumed much with fire, as we had done St. Domingo, upon discontentments, and for want of agreeing with us in their first treaties touching their ransom; which at the last was concluded between us should be 110,000 ducats for that which was yet standing, the ducat valued at five shillings sixpence sterling. This town, though not half so big as St. Domingo, gives, as you see, a far greater ransom, being in very deed of far more importance, by reason of the excellency of the harbour, and the situation thereof to serve the trade of Nombre de Dios and other places, and is inhabited with far more richer merchants. The other is chiefly inhabited with lawyers and brave gentlemen, being the chief or highest appeal of their suits in law of all the islands about it and of the mainland coast next unto it. And it is of no such account as Carthagena, for these and some like reasons which I could give you, over long to be now written. The warning which this town received of our coming towards them from St. Domingo, by the space of 20 days before our arrival here, was cause that they had both fortified and every way prepared for their best defence. As also that they had carried and conveyed away all their treasure and principal substance. The ransom of 110,000 ducats thus concluded on, as is aforesaid, the same being written, and expressing for nothing more than the town of Carthagena, upon the payment of the said ransom we left the said town and drew some part of our soldiers into the priory or abbey, standing a quarter of an English mile below the town upon the harbour water-side, the same being walled with a wall of stone; which we told the Spaniards was yet ours, and not redeemed by their composition. Whereupon they, finding the defect of their contract, were contented to enter into another ransom for all places, but specially for the said house, as also the blockhouse or castle, which is upon the mouth of the inner harbour. And when we asked as much for the one as for the other, they yielded to give a thousand crowns for the abbey, leaving us to take our pleasure upon the blockhouse, which they said they were not able to ransom, having stretched themselves to the uttermost of their powers; and therefore the said blockhouse was by us undermined, and so with gunpowder blown up in pieces. While this latter contract was in making, our whole fleet of ships fell down towards the harbour-mouth, where they anchored the third time and employed their men in fetching of fresh water aboard the ships for our voyage homewards, which water was had in a great well that is in the island by the harbour-mouth. Which island is a very pleasant place as hath been seen, having in it many sorts of goodly and very pleasant fruits, as the orange-trees and others, being set orderly in walks of great length together. Insomuch as the whole island, being some two or three miles about, is cast into grounds of gardening and orchards. After six weeks' abode in this place, we put to sea the last of March; where, after two or three days, a great Ship which we had taken at St. Domingo, and thereupon was called The New Year's Gift, fell into a great leak, being laden with ordnance, hides, and other spoils, and in the night she lost the company of our fleet. Which being missed the next morning by the General, he cast about with the whole fleet, fearing some great mischance to be happened unto her, as in very deed it so fell out; for her leak was so great that her men were all tired with pumping. But at the last, having found her, and the bark Talbot in her company, which stayed by great hap with her, they were ready to take their men out of her for the saving of them. And so the General, being fully advertised of their great extremity, made sail directly back again to Carthagena with the whole fleet; where, having staid eight or ten days more about the unlading of this ship and the bestowing thereof and her men into other ships, we departed once again to sea, directing our course toward the Cape St. Anthony, being the westermost part of Cuba, where we arrived the 27th of April. But because fresh water could not presently be found, we weighed anchor and departed, thinking in few days to recover the Matanzas, a place to the eastward of Havana. After we had sailed some fourteen days we were brought to Cape St. Anthony again through lack of favourable wind; but then our scarcity was grown such as need make us look a little better for water, which we found in sufficient quantity, being indeed, as I judge, none other than rain-water newly fallen and gathered up by making pits in a plot of marish ground some three hundred paces from the seaside. I do wrong if I should forget the good example of the General at this place, who, to encourage others, and to hasten the getting of fresh water aboard the ships, took no less pain himself than the meanest; as also at St. Domingo, Carthagena, and all other places, having always so vigilant a care and foresight in the good ordering of his fleet, accompanying them, as it is said, with such wonderful travail of body, as doubtless had he been the meanest person, as he was the chiefest, he had yet deserved the first place of honour; and no less happy do we account him for being associated with Master Carlile, his Lieutenant-General, by whose experience, prudent counsel, and gallant performance he achieved so many and happy enterprises of the war, by whom also he was very greatly assisted in setting down the needful orders, laws, and course of justice, and the due administration of the same upon all occasions. After three days spent in watering our ships, we departed now the second time from this Cape of St. Anthony the 13th of May. And proceeding about the Cape of Florida, we never touched anywhere; but coasting alongst Florida, and keeping the shore still in sight, the 28th of May, early in the morning, we descried on the shore a place built like a beacon, which was indeed a scaffold upon four long masts raised on end for men to discover to the seaward, being in the latitude of thirty degrees, or very near thereunto. Our pinnaces manned and coming to the shore, we marched up alongst the river-side to see what place the enemy held there; for none amongst us had any knowledge thereof at all. Here the General took occasion to march with the companies himself in person, the Lieutenant-General having the vant-guard; and, going a mile up, or somewhat more, by the river-side, we might discern on the other side of the river over against us a fort which newly had been built by the Spaniards; and some mile, or thereabout, above the fort was a little town or village without walls, built of wooden houses, as the plot doth plainly shew. We forthwith prepared to have ordnance for the battery; and one piece was a little before the evening planted, and the first shot being made by the Lieutenant-General himself at their ensign, strake through the ensign, as we afterwards understood by a Frenchman which came unto us from them. One shot more was then made, which struck the foot of the fort wall, which was all massive timber of great trees like masts. The Lieutenant-General was determined to pass the river this night with four companies, and there to lodge himself entrenched as near the fort as that he might play with his muskets and smallest shot upon any that should appear, and so afterwards to bring and plant the battery with him; but the help of mariners for that sudden to make trenches could not be had, which was the cause that this determination was remitted until the next night. In the night the Lieutenant-General took a little rowing skiff and half a dozen well armed, as Captain Morgan and Captain Sampson, with some others, beside the rowers, and went to view what guard the enemy kept, as also to take knowledge of the ground. And albeit he went as covertly as might be, yet the enemy, taking the alarm, grew fearful that the whole force was approaching to the assault, and therefore with all speed abandoned the place after the shooting of some of their pieces. They thus gone, and he being returned unto us again, but nothing knowing of their flight from their fort, forthwith came a Frenchman, [Nicolas Borgoignon] being a fifer (who had been prisoner with them) in a little boat, playing on his fife the tune of the Prince of Orange his song. And being called unto by the guard, he told them before he put foot out of the boat what he was himself, and how the Spaniards were gone from the fort; offering either to remain in hands there, or else to return to the place with them that would go. [The 'Prince of Orange's Song' was a popular ditty in praise of William Prince of Orange (assassinated 1584), the leader of the Dutch Protestant insurgents.] Upon this intelligence the General, the Lieutenant-General, with some of the captains in one skiff and the Vice-Admiral with some others in his skiff, and two or three pinnaces furnished of soldiers with them, put presently over towards the fort, giving order for the rest of the pinnaces to follow. And in our approach some of the enemy, bolder than the rest, having stayed behind their company, shot off two pieces of ordnance at us; but on shore we went, and entered the place without finding any man there. When the day appeared, we found it built all of timber, the walls being none other than whole masts or bodies of trees set upright and close together in manner of a pale, without any ditch as yet made, but wholly intended with some more time. For they had not as yet finished all their work, having begun the same some three or four months before; so as, to say the truth, they had no reason to keep it, being subject both to fire and easy assault. The platform whereon the ordnance lay was whole bodies of long pine-trees, whereof there is great plenty, laid across one on another and some little earth amongst. There were in it thirteen or fourteen great pieces of brass ordnance and a chest unbroken up, having in it the value of some two thousand pounds sterling, by estimation, of the king's treasure, to pay the soldiers of that place, who were a hundred and fifty men. The fort thus won, which they called St. John's Fort, and the day opened, we assayed to go to the town, but could not by reason of some rivers and broken ground which was between the two places. And therefore being enforced to embark again into our pinnaces, we went thither upon the great main river, which is called, as also the town, by the name of St. Augustine. At our approaching to land, there were some that began to shew themselves, and to bestow some few shot upon us, but presently withdrew themselves. And in their running thus away, the Sergeant-Major finding one of their horses ready saddled and bridled, took the same to follow the chase; and so overgoing all his company, was by one laid behind a bush shot through the head; and falling down therewith, was by the same and two or three more, stabbed in three or four places of his body with swords and daggers, before any could come near to his rescue. His death was much lamented, being in very deed an honest wise gentleman, and soldier of good experience, and of as great courage as any man might be. In this place called St. Augustine we understood the king did keep, as is before said, 150 soldiers, and at another place some dozen leagues beyond to the northwards, called St. Helena, he did there likewise keep 150 more, serving there for no other purpose than to keep all other nations from inhabiting any part of all that coast; the government whereof was committed to one Pedro Melendez, marquis, nephew to that Melendez the Admiral, who had overthrown Master John Hawkins in the Bay of Mexico some 17 or 18 years ago. This governor had charge of both places, but was at this time in this place, and one of the first that left the same. Here it was resolved in full assembly of captains, to undertake the enterprise of St. Helena, and from thence to seek out the inhabitation of our English countrymen in Virginia, distant from thence some six degrees northward. When we came thwart of St. Helena, the shoals appearing dangerous, and we having no pilot to undertake the entry, it was thought meetest to go hence alongst. For the Admiral had been the same night in four fathom and a half, three leagues from the shore; and yet we understood, by the help of a known pilot, there may and do go in ships of greater burden and draught than any we had in our fleet. We passed thus along the coast hard aboard the shore, which is shallow for a league or two from the shore, and the same is low and broken land for the most part. The ninth of June upon sight of one special great fire (which are very ordinary all alongst this coast, even from the Cape of Florida hither) the General sent his skiff to the shore, where they found some of our English countrymen that had been sent thither the year before by Sir Walter Raleigh, and brought them aboard; by whose direction we proceeded along to the place which they make their port. But some of our ships being of great draught, unable to enter, anchored without the harbour in a wild road at sea, about two miles from shore. From whence the General wrote letters to Master Ralph Lane, being governor of those English in Virginia, and then at his fort about six leagues from the road in an island which they called Roanoac; wherein especially he shewed how ready he was to supply his necessities and wants, which he understood of by those he had first talked withal. The morrow after, Master Lane himself and some of his company coming unto him, with the consent of his captains he gave them the choice of two offers, that is to say: either he would leave a ship, a pinnace, and certain boats with sufficient masters and mariners, together furnished with a month's victual, to stay and make further discovery of the country and coasts, and so much victual likewise as might be sufficient for the bringing of them all (being an hundred and three persons) into England, if they thought good after such time, with any other thing they would desire, and that he might be able to spare: or else, if they thought they had made sufficient discovery already, and did desire to return into England, he would give them passage. But they, as it seemed, being desirous to stay, accepted very thankfully and with great gladness that which was offered first. Whereupon the ship being appointed and received into charge by some of their own company sent into her by Master Lane, before they had received from the rest of the fleet the provision appointed them, there arose a great storm (which they said was extraordinary and very strange) that lasted three days together, and put all our fleet in great danger to be driven from their anchoring upon the coast; for we brake many cables, and lost many anchors; and some of our fleet which had lost all, of which number was the ship appointed for Master Lane and his company, were driven to put to sea in great danger, in avoiding the coast, and could never see us again until we met in England. Many also of our small pinnaces and boats were lost in this storm. Notwithstanding, after all this, the General offered them, with consent of his captains, another ship with some provisions, although not such a one for their turns as might have been spared them before, this being unable to be brought into their harbour: or else, if they would, to give them passage into England, although he knew he should perform it with greater difficulty than he might have done before. But Master Lane, with those of the chiefest of his company which he had then with him, considering what should be best for them to do, made request unto the General under their hands, that they might have passage for England: the which being granted, and the rest sent for out of the country and shipped, we departed from that coast the 18th of June. And so, God be thanked, both they and we in good safety arrived at Portsmouth the 28th of July, 1586, to the great glory of God, and to no small honour to our Prince, our country, and ourselves. The total value of that which was got in this voyage is esteemed at three score thousand pounds, whereof the companies which have travailed in the voyage were to have twenty thousand pounds, the adventurers the other forty. Of which twenty thousand pounds (as I can judge) will redound some six pounds to the single share. We lost some 750 men in the voyage; above three parts of them only by sickness. The men of name that died and were slain in this voyage, which I can presently call to remembrance, are these:--Captain Powell, Captain Varney, Captain Moon, Captain Fortescue, Captain Biggs, Captain Cecil, Captain Hannam, Captain Greenfield; Thomas Tucker, a lieutenant; Alexander Starkey, a lieutenant; Master Escot, a lieutenant; Master Waterhouse, a lieutenant; Master George Candish, Master Nicholas Winter, Master Alexander Carlile, Master Robert Alexander, Master Scroope, Master James Dyer, Master Peter Duke. With some other, whom for haste I cannot suddenly think on. The ordnance gotten of all sorts, brass and iron, were about two hundred and forty pieces, whereof the two hundred and some more were brass, and were thus found and gotten:--At Santiago some two or three and fifty pieces. In St. Domingo about four score, whereof was very much great ordnance, as whole cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, and such like. In Carthagena some sixty and three pieces, and good store likewise of the greater sort. In the Fort of St. Augustine were fourteen pieces. The rest was iron ordnance, of which the most part was gotten at St. Domingo, the rest at Carthagena. 
36201	----	[Illustration: Francis Drake being "crowned" by the natives of New Albion (California) in June, 1579. (From Arnoldus Montanus, _Die unbekante neue Welt_; the Dapper issue, Amsterdam, 1673.)] FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS, 1579 BY ROBERT F. HEIZER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1947 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY EDITORS (LOS ANGELES): RALPH L. BEALS, FRANKLIN FEARING, HARRY HOIJER Volume 42, No. 3, pp. 251-302, plates 18-21, 1 figure in text, 2 illus. Submitted by editors February 27, 1946 Issued March 20, 1947 Price, cloth, $2.00; paper, $1.25 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS PAGE General Background 251 The Trinidad Bay Landfall Theory 255 The Arguments for the Bodega Bay or Drake's Bay Landfall 258 Analysis of the _World Encompassed_ Account 259 Additional Ethnographic Items in the Richard Madox and John Drake Accounts 273 Supposed Indian Traditions of Drake's Visit 276 Recapitulation and Conclusion 277 APPENDIX I. The Sources 280 II. Excerpt from _The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ 283 Plates 293 FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS, 1579 BY ROBERT F. HEIZER GENERAL BACKGROUND For nearly a century, historians, geographers, and anthropologists have attempted to solve the problem of locating Francis Drake's anchorage in California, but the opinion of no one investigator has been universally accepted. Indeed, it seems likely that the problem will forever remain insoluble in detail, although it may well be reduced to the possibility that one of two bays, either Drake's or Bodega, was the scene of Drake's stay in California. Historically and ethnographically, Drake's California visit is exceedingly important. He was the first Englishman to see and describe the Indians of Upper California, and the third Caucasian to mention them. The account of the voyage given in _The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ (London, 1628) (of uncertain authorship but usually attributed to Francis Fletcher) gives the earliest detailed description of California Indian life, including such particulars of native culture as ceremonial behavior and linguistic terms. This account is reproduced in Appendix II, below. Historians and geographers have long since stated their reasons and qualifications for presenting certain conclusions about the location of Drake's anchorage, but anthropologists have never insisted vigorously enough that their contribution might be the most decisive of all in solving the problem. If it can be shown that the Indian language and culture described in the accounts of Drake's voyage to California are clearly those of one or another of the coastal Indian tribes, there will then be definite and unequivocal reasons for believing that in 1579 Drake landed on a part of the California coast inhabited by that tribe. Preliminary attempts at this type of solution have already been made, first by the greatest authority on the California Indians, Professor A. L. Kroeber,[1] and more recently by William W. Elmendorf and myself.[2] In order to establish the background for the present study, it will be advisable to recapitulate the various opinions and claims. They may be listed under the headings: geographical, historical, and anthropological. _Geographical._--George C. Davidson, eminent and versatile scientist, first approached the problem of the location of Drake's California anchorage in 1858.[3] In the following years, as his familiarity with literary and cartographical sources expanded, he published other works,[4] and in 1908[5] he made his final statement. Davidson first thought that Drake's landfall had been in San Francisco Bay, but after more careful study he concluded that Drake's Bay was the anchorage (see pl. 20). Davidson's views have been carefully and critically reviewed by Henry R. Wagner[6] and J. W. Robertson.[7] Among other contributions relating to the problem of Drake's anchorage should be mentioned the works of Hubert Howe Bancroft[8] and the studies of Edward E. Hale,[9] as well as the searching analysis of Alexander G. McAdie and a more recent but similar paper by R. P. Bishop.[10] _Historical._--Although the trail was blazed by Davidson, it is Wagner who first claims our attention. He has concluded, after an exhaustive study of all available evidence, that Drake anchored first in Trinidad Bay and later in Bodega Bay. The harbor now called Drake's Bay was not, according to Wagner, the site of Drake's landfall in 1579. Robertson, next mentioned above, is the author of a critical review of previous "arguments advanced by certain historians in their selection of 'The Harbor of St. Francis.'" _Anthropological._--Wagner's major work on Drake bears abundant evidence that this historian, at least, is cognizant of the value of the ethnographic check method. However, he has not utilized all available documentary or ethnographic data to the fullest extent--a procedure of the utmost importance. Davidson used the ethnographic method of solving the problem when he identified the Limantour Estero shellmound site with the Indian village depicted on the border map _Portus Novae Albionis_ of the Jodocus Hondius map _Vera totius expeditionis nauticae_ (Amsterdam, 1590?)[11] and cited as evidence a tradition of the Nicasio Indians. In his day, many Coast Miwok Indians from Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay must have been still living. If at that time he had obtained from them the information which can no longer be found, owing to the extinction of the tribe, he would have performed an inestimable service. In 1908, S. A. Barrett published his important work on Pomo ethnogeography in which he reproduced the California data on the voyage of Drake and made a brief evaluation.[12] After attempting a linguistic check with the word _Hioh_ and directing attention to the feather-decorated baskets as Pomo-like, Barrett concludes that "these facts therefore point further to the tenability of the belief that Drake's landing was somewhere north of San Francisco bay, possibly even north of Point Reyes, though Pomo of the Southern and Southwestern dialectic area may have journeyed down to Drake's bay bringing their boat-shaped and ornamented baskets...."[13] In Professor Kroeber's _Handbook of the Indians of California_ there is an ethnographical analysis of a paraphrased version of _The World Encompassed_, together with an inquiry (more searching than that of Barrett's in 1908) into the identification of the words, such as _Hioh_, _Patah_, _Tobah_, and _Gnaah_, which appear in the Fletcher account.[14] Kroeber summarizes: "The ethnologist thus can only conclude that Drake summered on some piece of the coast not many miles north of San Francisco, and probably in the lagoon to which his name now attaches. He is assured that the recent native culture in this stretch existed in substantially the same form more than 300 years ago, and he has tolerable reason to believe that the Indians with whom the great explorer mingled were direct ancestors of the Coast Miwok."[15] A verification of Kroeber's view has recently been presented in a short paper written by Heizer and Elmendorf[16] on the identification of the Indian words in the sixteenth-century accounts of Francis Fletcher and Richard Madox.[17] (Madox's account is reproduced in App. I, below.) In this paper it is shown that Drake must have landed in territory occupied by the Coast Miwok-speaking natives (fig. 1), but the exact location of his landing is not positively indicated since there are four bays along Coast Miwok territory in which Drake might conceivably have anchored.[18] Of these four bays, Bolinas, Drake's, Tomales, and Bodega, only two, Drake's and Bodega, can be considered seriously. [Illustration: Fig. 1. Location of west-central California Indian linguistic groups. A, Bodega Bay; B, Tomales Bay; C, Drake's Bay; D, Bolinas Bay; E, San Francisco Bay.] A final piece of evidence, this time archaeological, has recently come to light in the plate of brass left by Drake in 1579. This plate was originally found at Laguna Ranch (pl. 21) on Drake's Bay in 1934 (?),[19] was moved elsewhere, and was rediscovered in 1936.[20] Although some skeptics have questioned the genuineness of the plate of brass,[21] they have not altered the facts establishing the plate's authenticity as shown by the investigations of such scholars as Allen Chickering,[22] Professor Herbert E. Bolton,[23] and Drs. Fink and Polushkin.[24] Consequently, the problem of Drake's anchorage is nearer solution. Although the plate is a portable object, it was probably not carried far. It could have been carried to Drake's Bay from Bodega Bay; but, on the other hand, it could always have been at Drake's Bay. In the absence of evidence that it was moved early in its history, it may not be claiming overmuch to assume that the post with the plate of brass was originally erected in Drake's Bay. So much, then, for an abbreviated review of the opinions on the location of Francis Drake's California anchorage. Arguments have been advanced, by other students, that Drake anchored in Trinidad, Bodega, or Drake's Bay. It is my purpose here to analyze, as carefully as possible, the ethnographic data contained in Francis Fletcher's account in _The World Encompassed_, with the hope of determining in which of these bays Drake actually stayed in June, 1579. The Trinidad Bay landfall theory will first be investigated, in an attempt to determine whether the Indians mentioned in Fletcher's account are identifiable with the Yurok tribe which, in historic times, occupied this territory. THE TRINIDAD BAY LANDFALL THEORY Henry R. Wagner is the chief proponent of the Trinidad Bay theory, and bases his conclusion upon two lines of evidence, (1) cartographical and (2) ethnographical.[25] The Jodocus Hondius map, with a small inset of the _Portus Novae Albionis_, does resemble Trinidad Harbor, but since all admit that the Hondius "Portus" is imperfectly drawn, and only generally impressionistic, it can hardly be maintained that it resembles less the outline of Bodega Bay or Drake's Bay. Wagner points out that there was a Yurok village near the spot indicated on the Hondius map as occupied by an Indian town.[26] But in Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay, the outlines of which also resemble that of the _Portus Novae Albionis_, there are also Indian shellmounds in about the same relative position as the village shown on the Hondius map. Fletcher's reference to a "canow" has led Wagner to identify this with the Yurok dugout log canoe. If Fletcher's "canow" were described in any detail, it would settle the problem of whether it meant a Yurok dugout log canoe or a Coast Miwok tule _balsa_ such as was used in Drake's or Bodega Bay. Kroeber has also commented upon this unenlightening word, saying, "Either custom changed after Drake's day, or his canoe is a loose term for the tule _balsa_ which was often boat-shaped, with raised sides, especially when intended for navigation." Wagner says in answer, "To this it may be objected that ... tule _balsas_ were in use in Drake's Bay in 1595 and were so recognized without difficulty." They were recognized indeed, _but by a Spanish sailor already familiar with the type_. Fletcher in his offhand manner dismissed the native boat with a word which _he_ was familiar with. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of identifying Fletcher's "canow" as a tule _balsa_ lies in the fact that he states that a single person came out to the _Golden Hinde_. If it had been a Yurok dugout, and particularly in the open bay of Trinidad, one man could not have managed the canoe. For example, the Bruno de Hezeta account of Trinidad Bay in 1775 states: "Before they [the Spaniards] drew near the land to drop anchor four canoes carrying twenty-four men came out to receive them. They drew near the ships and were given food and beads, with which they went away without fear...."[27] It might also be worth noting that Fletcher states that the person in the canoe remained "at a reasonable distance staying himself," and would accept only a hat, "refusing vtterly to meddle with any other thing...." One other account may be cited to support the identification of the "canow" with the _balsa_. Sebastián Cermeño, in 1595 at Drake's Bay, wrote, "... many Indians appeared on the beach and soon _one of them_ got into a small craft which they employ, like a çacate of the lake of Mexico."[28] By inference, the native house described by Fletcher has been identified as a Yurok house. I do not think this claim will hold, since the house in Fletcher's account is described as semisubterranean, circular, conical-roofed, covered with earth, and with a roof entrance, whereas the Yurok dwelling (_not_ the sweathouse), built wholly of planks, is rectangular, is a surface structure except for an interior rectangular pit, has a round door entering just above the ground and through the side wall, and bears a double-ridged roof with two slopes.[29] Thus, the house described by Fletcher cannot be a Yurok house of Trinidad Bay. On the other hand, as will be shown in detail later, the house described by Fletcher is the central California earth-covered dwelling, typical of the Coast Miwok of Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay. Wagner, in his attempt to show that Drake landed at Trinidad Bay, makes a further point. He says: "An additional indication that Drake was in this bay [Trinidad] may be gleaned from the finding there of knives in 1775 by Bruno Heceta.... It seems probable, then, that the knives found at Trinidad by Heceta were relics of Drake's expedition."[30] It is scarcely credible that numbers of iron knives, sword blades, and such implements could have been preserved through two centuries of use. Since the wooden-sheathed knives were expressly stated to be ill-made, and in view of Fray Miguel de la Campa's statement in 1775 that "one of them [i.e., one of the Indians] made his [knife] from a nail which he had found in a piece of wreckage and had beaten out with a stone,"[31] it is more than likely that the Trinidad Indians' knives were pounded out of pieces of iron found imbedded in local sea-borne wreckage.[32] Logic and probability lead inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing in the fact that knives were found at Trinidad Bay in 1775 from which to suspect or to postulate Drake's presence in that place two centuries earlier. Now for a brief comparison of some specific Indian culture elements and examples of the language, as reported in _The World Encompassed_ and in Richard Madox's narrative, with those of Yurok Indian culture. Madox was chaplain on Edward Fenton's expedition of 1582, and in his diary are some notes on California which he jotted down after conversation with some members of the crew which had sailed with Drake two years earlier. The flat shell disk beads of the account are not an element of Yurok material culture. The standard Yurok shell bead is the hollow tusk shell (_Dentalia indianorum_), which is long, cylindrical, and of small diameter. The feathered net caps may possibly find cognates in the flicker headbands of the Yurok, though these bands were known over the whole of interior and coastal California (cf. pl. 18, _a_). The feathered baskets, however, cannot possibly be Yurok, since their manufacture and use is restricted to the Pomo-Miwok-Wappo tribes which lived far to the south of the Yurok. The "canow" of Fletcher, as had been pointed out, can hardly be equated with the heavy Yurok river- and ocean-going dugout canoe. This brief comparison should be convincing evidence that Drake's chronicler did not describe the Trinidad Bay Yurok; but there is added evidence in the word forms of the Madox vocabulary. Madox gives "bread" as _Cheepe_, which the Yurok render _pop-sho_. "Sing" is given as _Gnaah_ in _The World Encompassed_, the Yurok word being _wer-o-rur_. "Chief" is given by Fletcher and Madox as _Hioh_ or _Hioghe_, the Yurok word being _si-at-lau_. The decision of whether or not Drake entered Trinidad Bay, which is not convenient as a port, and is, moreover, rock-studded,[33] must rest in part upon a study of the Hondius _Portus Novae Albionis_, of which, Wagner says, "... perhaps a very close approximation to the actual configuration of the bay [in which Drake anchored] cannot be expected." Certainly the native customs, houses, and language do not offer the slightest support to the theory that Drake observed the Yurok Indians.[34] THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BODEGA BAY OR DRAKE'S BAY LANDFALL Wagner, then, has attempted to prove that Drake landed in Bodega Bay; Davidson and McAdie, that he anchored in Drake's Bay; whereas Kroeber, Heizer and Elmendorf, Barrett, and Bancroft failed to reach a decision on which bay gave anchorage to the _Golden Hinde_. In the following pages I shall analyze by comparative ethnographic technique the cultural data relating to the California Indians as given in the several accounts of the Drake visit in 1579. These sources are: 1. The _World Encompassed_ account, which I judge to be the fullest and most reliable.[35] 2. The _Famous Voyage_ account, which is abbreviated and therefore less complete in detail.[36] 3. The second declaration of John Drake (1582), a brief independent account of the occurrences in California (see below, App. I).[37] 4. Richard Madox's notes on "Ships Land" (New Albion), which contain a revealing vocabulary of the Indian language.[38] An exhaustive ethnography of the Coast Miwok has never been published. The main sources of Coast Miwok ethnography used in this paper may be enumerated as follows: 1. Data contained in various historical accounts. These are, for the most part, incidental data and are not, even in total amount, extensive. The accounts will be cited at the appropriate places below. 2. Published ethnographic notes such as are given in S. A. Barrett's _The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians_, A. L. Kroeber's _Handbook of the Indians of California_, and many others which likewise will be cited below. 3. The extensive manuscript notes on the Coast Miwok in the possession of Dr. Isabel Kelly. Dr. Kelly has kindly lent her material for the purpose of checking ethnographic items. ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED ACCOUNT On June 17 (Old Style), Drake's ship entered "a conuenient and fit harborough." The next day, "the people of the countrey shewed themselues; sending off a man with great expedition to vs in a canow." On the 21st, the ship was brought near shore, her goods were landed, and defense works were erected. Numbers of natives made their appearance for a brief time, then returned to their homes in a near-by village. At the end of two days (June 23), during which no natives had been seen, there appeared "a great assembly of men, women, and children." As the narrator says, the local people seen on the 23d had probably "dispersed themselues into the country, to make knowne the newes...." There follows in the narrative a long and detailed account of the activities of the natives who remained assembled near the camp of the English. Finally, after three more days (the account says June 26), word of the strange newcomers had spread even further, and there "were assembled the greatest number of people, which wee could reasonably imagine, to dwell within any conuenient distance round about." Among these were the "king," the _Hioh_ of the Indians, and "his guard, of about 100 tall and warlike men." This sequence of visits is of some interest. If Drake landed at Drake's Bay, the natives seen by him on June 18 and 21 were certainly local Coast Miwok living close at hand around the bay. The influx of people on the 23d probably means that they were drawn from relatively near-by Coast Miwok villages--from near Olema, or from both shores of Tomales Bay. But even larger crowds of natives came on the 26th, and among them were the _Hioh_ and his retinue. The group arriving on the 26th probably came from some distance. If this crowd gathered at Drake's Bay, they could well have been recruited from Bodega Bay, and possibly included a number of Southern Pomo neighbors. The elapsed time (i.e., between June 21 and June 26) can be readily accounted for by two factors: (1) time for communication to be established from Drake's to Bodega Bay and for the return of the Bodega people, and (2) time for convocation of the group, decision on a plan of action, and preparation for the elaborate ceremony performed at the English camp on the 26th. If, however, Drake landed in Bodega Bay, the situation would be somewhat different. The visitors of the 18th and 21st would be Bodega Coast Miwok. Those arriving on the 23d could have been Tomales Bay or Olema Coast Miwok, and the arrival on the 26th of the _Hioh_ with his retinue and followers might mark the presence of Southern Pomo, or, less probably, Central Pomo who were concentrated in the interior some fifty miles north of Bodega Bay. It is credible, then, that Drake landed in either Drake's Bay or Bodega Bay, since the native words listed by Fletcher and Madox all belong to the Coast Miwok language and not to any Pomo dialect.[39] It is improbable that the ceremonies, customs, and material culture forms described by Fletcher can be _specifically_ attributed to the Pomo, as intimated by Wagner,[40] for at least three reasons: (1) Northern Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo cultures are practically indistinguishable; (2) the words _Hioh_ and _Gnaah_ seem to be Coast Miwok words rather than words of Pomo attribution; and (3) if Drake landed in Coast Miwok territory it is unlikely that the Pomo would be permitted to enter the territory of their southern neighbors and to perform a ceremony which the Coast Miwok themselves were as well able to do. Following is an examination of the day-by-day account of Fletcher. _June 18._--A single man in a "canow" (probably a tule _balsa_) came out to the ship and delivered an oration. The canoeman also brought with him, and threw into the ship, a bunch of black feathers tied in a round bundle, and a small basket filled with an herb ("Tobah"), both of which were tied to a short stick. In 1595, Sebastián Cermeño noted almost exactly the same thing in Drake's Bay,[41] and something very similar was observed by Francisco Mourelle in Bodega Bay in 1775.[42] Cermeño says: "On the day on which the ship anchored in the bay, about four o'clock in the afternoon, many Indians appeared on the beach and soon one of them got into a small craft which they employ like a çacate of the lake of Mexico. He came off to the ship, where he remained quite a time talking in his language, no one understanding what he said." Mourelle's statement is similar: there is no mention of a speech by the Indians in "tule canoes," but they presented the Spanish with plumes of feathers, "bone rosaries" (shell bead necklaces?), garlands of feathers which they wore around their heads, and a canister of seeds which tasted like walnuts. The feather bundle cannot be specifically identified, but it may be the ceremonial black feather bundle (pl. 18, _b_) most often associated with the central California Kuksu cult. Some of these have been illustrated by Professor Kroeber[43] and R. B. Dixon.[44] The small basket filled with the herb called _Tobah_ or _Tabah_ has led some students to identify this herb as tobacco (_Nicotiana_ sp.) John P. Harrington quotes the sections from _The World Encompassed_ which contain mention of _Tabah_ or _Tobah_, and assumes that the word has reference to tobacco (_Nicotiana bigelovii_).[45] Upon what grounds he identifies the herb mentioned by Fletcher as tobacco is not stated, since the local words for tobacco are different,[46] nor is it stated in the account that the herb was smoked. Wagner doubts that the herb called _Tobah_ was tobacco, and in this he and I are in agreement. It cannot be determined whether or not a Nicotiana was referred to by Fletcher, nor is it likely that this question will ever be settled. What does seem clear is that "Tobah" is not an Indian word, but the name applied to the herb by the English narrator.[47] This supposition is enhanced by the fact that _The Famous Voyage_ mentions the herb by the name "tabacco," a word already known in England before Drake started on his voyage around the world.[48] It may be concluded that Fletcher's word "Tobah" or "Tabah" comes from the English word "tabacco," "tobacco," "tabaco," and is not a California Indian word. In this conclusion I am in agreement with Professor Kroeber.[49] _June 18-21._--There is no mention of Indians between the 18th and the 21st of June. After referring to the man in the "canow," Fletcher continues, "After which time, our boate could row no way, but wondring at vs as at gods, they would follow the same with admiration." This would indicate that June 19 and 20 were spent exploring the bay in a small boat to discover a proper spot for careening the treasure-laden ship, which had sprung a leak at sea. _June 21._--On this day the ship was brought near shore and anchored. Goods were landed, and some sort of stone fortification was erected for defense. The Indians made their appearance in increasing numbers until there was a "great number both of men and women." It is clearly apparent that the natives were not simply curious, but acted, as Fletcher points out, "as men rauished in their mindes" and "their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship vs as Gods, then to haue any warre with vs as with mortall men." It would seem that the natives demonstrated clearly their fear and wonderment at the English, and it is certain that they behaved as no other natives had done in the experience of the chronicler. The English gave their visitors shirts and linen cloth, in return for which (as Fletcher thought) the Indians presented to Drake and some of the English such things as feathers, net caps, quivers for arrows, and animal skins which the women wore. Then, having visited for a time, the natives left for their homes about three-quarters of a mile away. As soon as they were home, the Indians began to lament, "extending their voices, in a most miserable and dolefull manner of shreeking." Inserted between the passages dealing with the departure of the Indians to their homes and their lamenting is a description of their houses and dress. The houses are described as "digged round within the earth, and haue from the vppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of wood set vp, and ioyned close together at the top, like our spires on the steeple of a church: which being couered with earth, suffer no water to enter, and are very warme, the doore in the most part of them, performes the office of a chimney, to let out the smoake: its made in bignesse and fashion, like to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing slopewise: their beds are the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed vpon it, and lying round about the house, haue their fire in the middest...." The men for the most part were naked, and the women wore a shredded bulrush (tule? _Scirpus_ sp.) skirt which hung around the hips. Women also wore a shoulder cape of deerskin with the hair upon it. [Illustration: Another representation of the "crowning" of Francis Drake. (From an old engraving; provenience not known.)] From the foregoing facts some important conclusions can be drawn. First, the wonderment of the natives is but an extension of attitudes they had daily shown from the 17th to the 20th; and similar manifestations continued throughout the long stay of the English.[50] The English were looked upon as unusual, perhaps supernatural, visitors, since nothing is more clear than the fact that they were not treated as ordinary mortals. Kroeber has suggested that the Indians regarded the English as the returned dead, and there is much to be said for this view, as will be shown later. The doleful shrieking, weeping, and crying are evidence _sui generis_ that the presence of the English was in some way associated with ghosts or the dead.[51] The circular semisubterranean house, roofed over with poles and earth-covered, is also characteristic of a wide area of central California. The Coast Miwok of Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay[52] used these houses, as did the Pomo.[53] It is clearly not a temporary brush-covered house like those seen in the Bodega-Tomales Bay region.[54] The "caules of network" undoubtedly refer to the well-known net caps of central California,[55] a type so widespread that exact localization or provenience is impossible. The Fletcher account is fairly specific on particulars of dress--women wore shredded bulrush skirts and deerskin shoulder capes, and men were ordinarily naked. The bulrush or tule-fiber clothing is attested for Bodega Bay[56] and Drake's Bay,[57] but it is also found generally throughout central California. Men were generally naked in California, so Fletcher does not note here a distinctive cultural trait. The wearing of deerskin capes by the women is not strictly substantiated by the observations of later explorers, although Cermeño (1595) said that the women in Drake's Bay "covered their private parts with straw and skins of animals."[58] Archibald Menzies noted that the women in Tomales Bay wore a deerskin wrapped around their middle and reaching to the knees,[59] and Francisco Eliza said that near Bodega Bay "the women cover themselves from the waist down with deer skins."[60] Colnett mentions the Indian dress of deerskins in Bodega Bay.[61] _June 23._--On this day, after a two-day absence, "a great assembly of men, women, and children" appeared at the camp of the English. The Indians stopped at the top of the hill at the bottom of which Drake's camp was pitched, and one man made "a long and tedious oration: deliuered with strange and violent gestures, his voice being extended to the vttermost strength of nature...." At the conclusion of the speech or oration, all the other Indians reverently bowed their bodies "in a dreaming manner" (?) and cried "_Oh_" in approbation. Then the men, leaving their bows, women, and children behind them, came down to the English with presents and gifts. While the men were gift giving, the women cried and shrieked piteously, tore their cheeks with their fingernails until the blood flowed, tore off the single covering from the upper parts of the body, and, holding their hands high, cast themselves on the ground with great violence, regardless of consequences. The English, grieved at this spectacle of sacrifice, attempted to dissuade the Indians by praying and indicating by signs that their God lived above. During this "performance" (prayers, singing Psalms, and reading chapters of the Bible), the Indians "sate very attentiuely: and obseruing the end of euery pause, with one voice still cryed, Oh, greatly reioycing in our exercises." The natives were watching with great interest what seemed to them a ceremonial performance (which it actually was, but not in the sense in which the Indians understood it). The singing of Psalms interested the Indians most, and whenever the natives came, says Fletcher, their first request was _Gnaah_, an entreaty that the English should sing. After the Indians and English had exchanged ceremonial performances of a religious nature, the Indians again departed, giving back to the English everything they had received. The oration by the man at the top of the hill may perhaps be likened to a speech that Cermeño made note of, when, in 1595, he was at Drake's Bay: "... Indians from near by kept coming and the chief talked a long time."[62] It is not improbable that the speaker mentioned by Fletcher was a messenger dispatched to announce the later coming of the big chief.[63] Or, the orator may simply have been a local village chief who delivered a long address or salutation to the English. The existence, at least, of such orators is known.[64] The signal of approbation, "Oh," has already been remarked upon by S. A. Barrett: "The expressions of assent and pleasure which are here noted are those commonly used not only by the Moqueluman Coast Miwok peoples of this region but by the Pomo to the north where such expressions as _o_, _yo_, _iyo_, varying with the locality, are heard, as evidences of approval of the sentiment expressed by the speaker, or of satisfaction with the performance of a dance."[65] When the preliminaries were over, the men came down the hill, and the women remained behind, lamenting, and lacerating their flesh. Crying and tearing the cheeks with the fingernails, as an ethnographic practice in connection with mourning, is documented for the Coast Miwok[66] and Pomo.[67] The word _Gnaah_, by which (so Fletcher states) the Indians asked the English to sing, can possibly be likened to the Coast Miwok _koyá_, "sing."[68] If it is granted that _Gnaah_ is equivalent to _koyá_, there is good reason to believe that Coast Miwok were the main frequenters of Drake's camp, since Fletcher says, "... whensoever they resorted to vs, their first request was _Gnaah_, by which they intreated that we would sing." The words for "sing" in neighboring Indian tongues are so unlike _Gnaah_ that no idea of connection can be entertained. _June 26._--After three days, there "were assembled the greatest number of people which wee could reasonably imagine to dwell within any conuenient distance round about." Included in the crowd were the "king" and his "guard" of about one hundred men. Before the king showed himself, two "Embassadors or messengers" appeared, to announce his coming and to ask for a present "as a token that his comming might be in peace." Drake complied, and soon the "king with all his traine came forward." The king and his retinue "cryed continually after a singing manner" as they came, but as they approached nearer they strove to "behaue themselues with a certaine comelinesse and grauity in all their actions." In the front of the procession came a man bearing the "Septer or royall mace," a black stick about four and a half feet long, to which were tied long, looped strings of shell disk beads, and two "crownes," a larger and a smaller, made of knitwork and covered with a pattern of colored feathers. Only a few men were seen to wear the disk bead necklaces ("chaines"). Fletcher observes that in proportion to the number of "chaines" a man wears, "as some ten, some twelve, some twentie, and as they exceed in number of chaines, so are they thereby knowne to be the more honorable personages." Next to the scepter bearer was the king (_Hioh_), surrounded by his guard. On his head he wore a net cap ("cawle") decorated with feathers in the same manner as the "crownes" described above, "but differing much both in fashion and perfectness of work." From the king's shoulders hung a waist-length coat of the skins of "conies." Members of his guard each wore a coat of similar cut, but of different skins. Some of the guard wore net caps "stuck with feathers," or covered with a light, downy substance, probably milkweed down. Only those persons who were close to the king wore the down-filled or down-covered net caps and feather plumes on their heads. Following the procession of the king and his guard came the "naked sort of common people." Their long hair was gathered behind into a bunch in which were stuck plumes of feathers, but in the front were only single feathers which looked "like hornes." Every Indian had his face painted in black or white or other colors, and every man brought some sort of gift. The procession was brought up behind by the women and children. Each woman carried against her breast a round basket or so, filled with a number of articles such as bags of _Tobah_; a root called _Petah_, which was made into meal and either baked into bread or eaten raw; broiled pilchard-like fishes; and the seed and down of milkweed (?). The baskets are carefully described by Fletcher as "made in fashion like a deep boale ... [and] about the brimmes they were hanged with peeces of shels of pearles, and in some places with two or three linkes at a place, of the chaines aforenamed: thereby signifying, that they were vessels wholly dedicated to the only vse of the gods they worshipped: and besides this, they were wrought vpon with the matted downe of red feathers, distinguished into diuers workes and formes." As the crowd of people came near, they gave a general salutation and were then silent. The scepter bearer, prompted by another man who whispered, delivered in a loud voice an oration which lasted half an hour. When the oration was ended, "there was a common _Amen_, in signe of approbation giuen by euery person...." Then the company, leaving the little children behind, came down to the foot of the hill where the English had their camp. Here the scepter bearer began to sing and danced in time to the song. The king, his guard, and all the others joined in the singing and dancing, except the women, who danced but did not sing. The women had torn faces, their bodies showed bruises and other lacerations which had been self-inflicted before the Indians had arrived. After the assembly of natives had concluded their dance, they indicated by signs that Drake should be seated. This done, the king and several others delivered orations to Drake, and, concluding with a song, placed the crown upon his head and hung all the shell disk bead necklaces around his neck. Many other gifts were tendered to Drake, and the name _Hioh_ was bestowed upon him. Fletcher interpreted this ceremony as the giving up of the kingdom to Drake, a thought hardly ascribable to the Indians. It is quite clear, however, that Drake was individually and specially honored by the leader of the California natives, and was invested with a name, _Hioh_. After the "crowning" was concluded, the common people, both men and women, dispersed among the English, "taking a diligent view and survey of every man." When a native found an Englishman who pleased his fancy, and the youthful Englishmen were preferred, a personal "sacrifice" in the form of weeping, moaning, shrieking, and tearing of the face with the fingernails was offered. As might be expected, such a scene was embarrassing and uncomfortable to the English, and the strongest efforts were of no avail in disabusing the Indians of their "idolatry." After a time the Indians quieted down and began to show to the English "their griefes and diseases which they carried about with them, some of them hauing old aches, some shruncke sinewes, some old soares and canckred vlcers, some wounds more lately receiued, and the like, in most lamentable manner crauing helpe and cure thereof from vs: making signes that if we did but blowe vpon their griefes, or but touched the diseased places, they would be whole." The English applied various unguents to the affected places, continuing the treatment as the natives resorted to the camp from time to time. Now to analyze the happenings of June 26. The "Embassadors or messengers" of Fletcher are probably correctly identified, since the custom of having messengers who announce the coming of a chief and his party is known to have existed at least among the Pomo[69] and probably among the Coast Miwok, although there is no specific mention of such a practice among the latter. Even the custom that messengers should ask for a present for the "king" (i.e., chief) is known to have been observed by the Pomo.[70] It is impossible to identify the man who bore the "scepter" or "mace," a black stick about four and a half feet long, but the scepter itself seems identifiable with the staff known ethnographically to have been used in the central California Kuksu or ghost ceremony.[71] The assemblage of the black stick with pendant "feathered crowns" and clamshell disk beads has not been noted by any modern ethnographer, but the flat, circular, centrally drilled white beads of clamshell are familiar (pl. 18, _c_). They were made from clamshells dug at Bodega Bay, the source of these beads for most of the Indians of central California.[72] It is of some interest to note that in later times the beads have been very abundant, and that in the last 350 years the manufacture and use of clamshell disk beads have been much increased. The net "crownes" covered with a pattern of colored feathers are described by Fletcher in terms so general that exact identification is difficult. They may have resembled some of those illustrated by Dixon, who collected them from the Northern Maidu.[73] At least, net caps with feather decorations were commonly used in Coast Miwok[74] and Pomo[75] ceremonies. The king's guard was probably composed of a number of male initiates of a secret society who naturally would separate themselves from the women and children when engaged in ceremonial duties.[76] The net cap of the king or _Hioh_ was different from that of the others, and it is not improbable that it was one of the flicker-quill headbands so well known for the area (pl. 18, _a_).[77] This identification is at best tentative, however, since there was in this area a bewildering array of types of feather-decorated ceremonial headgear. The king's coat of conyskins seems to have been distinguished from those of his guard. The guards' coats may have been made of pocket gopher or mountain beaver skins, and the king's coat was possibly of woven rabbitskin blankets, common to both the Pomo and the Coast Miwok.[78] What seems unusual is that there is no mention in Fletcher's account of the feather cloaks or skirts used in later times on ceremonial occasions. I have been unable to find any ethnographic data on a special skin coat for chiefs or ceremonial leaders. The down-filled head net undoubtedly refers to the central Californian net cap.[79] The feather plumes mentioned by Fletcher as worn on the head by persons close to the king may have been of several of the numerous types used in central California. Examples are illustrated by Dixon[80] and Kroeber.[81] The repeated mention by Fletcher of the use of feathers indicates clearly that their ceremonial use was highly developed at this period. The single feathers resembling "horns" are an ethnographic feature of the costume of the ghost dancer among the Pomo,[82] and although there is no documentary evidence that the Coast Miwok wore feathers in such a manner, it seems likely, in view of the very close correspondence between Pomo and Coast Miwok ceremonial features, that they did so. The practice of painting the body is an almost invariable feature of Coast Miwok[83] and Pomo[84] ceremonies. The gifts brought by the women in round baskets included bags of _Tobah_ (already discussed), broiled fish, the seed and down of some plant (milkweed?),[85] and a root called _Petah_ or _Patah_. Neither the Pomo nor the Coast Miwok remember today any root or bulb with a name resembling _Petah_ or _Patah_. Elmendorf and I have agreed with Kroeber that _Petah_ is probably to be linked with the word "potato" in one or another of its various forms. Kroeber thinks that the description indicates the wild onion (_Brodiaea_), called _putcu_ in Coast Miwok, and this is not improbable. However, soaproot (_Chlorogalum_), which was sometimes baked into a bread, would also fill the description. It is called _haka_ by the Coast Miwok, and it is barely possible, though hardly probable, that _haka_ could have been heard and recorded as _Patah_ or _Petah_. Since Fletcher speaks of _Petah_ as a root, it seems improbable that he was describing acorns (called _ümba_ in Coast Miwok); yet even this remote possibility may be entertained, since Madox recorded _cheepe_ as bread, and Coast Miwok _tcipa_ means acorn bread. The word _Petah_, and botanical identification, must remain in limbo until further data are at hand. The feather-decorated baskets offer evidence, as Barrett and Kroeber have indicated, that Drake landed on the coast immediately north of San Francisco Bay. The baskets (pl. 19) are described as shaped like a deep bowl, covered with a matted down of red feathers worked into various patterns, and further embellished with pendant drops of pearl shell (_Haliotis_) and two or three disk beads in various places. Such baskets were made only by the Coast Miwok,[86] Pomo,[87] Lake Miwok, and Wappo. Kroeber states that these baskets "served as gifts and treasures; and above all they were destroyed in honor of the dead."[88] It is clear that, in 1579, feathered baskets similar in manufacture and use to the native baskets of today were known in this Coast Miwok area. The scepter bearer, prompted in a low voice by another man, delivered a long oration. The Coast Miwok have such orators; among those Indians the office of speechmaker is a special one.[89] The Pomo have orators,[90] as do most other central Californians. The _Amen_, or sign of general approbation, following the oration has already been commented upon. Then the natives performed a dance to the accompaniment of a song led by the scepter bearer (or orator)[91] and joined in by the men, while the women danced but remained silent. Among the Pomo and Coast Miwok each ceremony has a song in connection with its observance.[92] The episode of the crowning has no parallel in native custom or ceremonial behavior, probably because "crowning" was a unique experience for the Indians as well as the English. This fact should be kept in mind in judging and estimating the natives' actions and reactions--they were as puzzled as the English. Drake was specifically honored by the Indians, and there is no reason to doubt Fletcher when he states that the name _Hioh_ was given to him. It has been suggested that _Hioh_ was a term of salutation or an interjection,[93] but there is no reason to believe that this was so. The word finds possible equivalents in Coast Miwok for chief, _hoipu_, _hoipa_, or friend, _oiya_.[94] Since the Interior Miwok word for chief is _haiapo_, there is a bare possibility that the _hoi_ of today may have been rendered _hai_ in 1579, though there is no direct evidence to support this suggestion. It should be mentioned here that the Madox account independently verifies Fletcher's remarks on the episode of the crowning, as well as the word for "king" (chief?), which Madox renders as _Hioghe_.[95] The close scrutiny of the English by the Indians following the "crowning" ceremony indicates that the main business of the day (i.e., the ceremonial crowning by secret society initiates) was over, and that the general public could now take part in the festivities. Of great interest are Fletcher's statements to the effect that the most youthful Englishmen were repeatedly selected as recipients of personal sacrifice and adoration which took the form of lamenting, moaning, weeping, wailing, and self-lacerating. Only one conclusion can be drawn: the Indians supposed that they were looking upon relatives returned from the dead, and hence performed the usual mourning observances. After all these ceremonies were concluded, the Indians showed the English their infirmities, aches, sores, and wounds, and it was made clear that if the English would but blow upon them they would be made well. This accords fairly well with the curing aspect of certain local ceremonies. For example, the Kuksu doctor of the Pomo might cure by blowing "his whistle over the various parts of his body, particularly those recognized by the patients as the seats of pain."[96] There is no mention of the use of whistles in connection with the ceremony enacted by the Indians. Whistles are so commonly used in local ceremonies that their omission is noteworthy. The detailed nature of the account indicates that this feature was not so strongly developed in 1579 as it is today in local native custom. _General observations, and occurrences from June 27 to July 23._--The natives were almost constant visitors, and it is noted that ordinarily every third day they brought their "sacrifices" (?). From this and other indications it seems possible that the ceremonial number of the Indians was three. The ceremonial number of the adjoining Pomo is four.[97] The Coast Miwok ceremonial number was probably four, though there is no direct evidence to support this supposition. The Indian bow is spoken of as weak and "more fit for children than for men," a remark to be expected from the English, who were even then employing the famous longbow. The English were impressed with the strength of the natives, but, for Indians accustomed to transporting everything on their backs, their feats of strength seem not surprising. It is also noted that the natives were good at running and that this was the ordinary means of travel. The English admired the native surf fishing. Kroeber has interpreted the passage, "if at any time, they chanced to see a fish, so neere the shoare, that they might reach the place without swimming, they would neuer, or very seldome misse to take it," as signifying diving for fish in the surf. Since this unusual practice is not otherwise recorded ethnographically for any coastal Californian tribe, some other explanation may be in order, and I suggest that Fletcher may have had reference to surf fishing with a round hand net, a practice known to have been followed by the Coast Miwok.[98] One gets the impression that the English found much to admire in their native friends. Drake, his gentlemen, and others of the ship's company made an expedition into the interior to see the native villages and the country round about. The houses were all of the semisubterranean, circular type discussed previously. Two animals were seen, as also herds of deer and great numbers of "conies," a name which, as used by Fletcher, seems to fit no known animal living today in this coastal area.[99] The country was named _Albion_ "in respect of the white bancks and cliffes, which lie toward the sea ...," and a post was set up with an engraved brass plate nailed to it. The white cliffs are one of the most conspicuous features of Drake's Bay.[100] That the plate of brass has been found at Drake's Bay is a fact of the greatest significance. Upon the departure of the English, the Indians were sorrowful, and they burned a "sacrifice" of a string of disk beads and a bunch of feathers. The burning of shell beads in memory and honor of the dead, a custom which Fletcher may have described, is known for the Coast Miwok,[101] Pomo,[102] and neighboring groups.[103] Aside from those actions of the natives which are usually associated with their attitudes toward the dead (weeping, moaning, self-laceration, use of feathered baskets, sacrifice of shell beads and feathers in the fire), there are other evidences that the English were regarded as the returned spirits of the dead. First is Fletcher's observation that the Indians were "standing when they drew neere, as men rauished in their mindes, with the sight of such things as they neuer had seene, or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship vs as Gods, then to haue any warre with vs as with mortall men. Which thing as it did partly shew it selfe at that instant, so did it more and more manifest it selfe afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them." Except for the sole occasion, at the conclusion of the ceremony on June 26, when the Indians embraced the youthful Englishmen, the natives seem to have avoided touching the whites. This is most understandable if it is believed that they looked upon the English as the dead returned,[104] for bodily contact with a dead person or spirit was certain, in their minds, to have disastrous results. Further evidence of this may be contained in the statement: "Our General hauing now bestowed vpon them diuers things, at their departure they restored them all againe; none carrying with him any thing of whatsoeuer hee had receiued...." There is one more bit of inferential evidence along this line which comes from the Madox account. This is the phrase _Nocharo mu_, "touch me not" (i.e., _notcáto mu_, "keep away"). It may be asked why Madox recorded this particular phrase out of the many his informant must have heard. The answer is perhaps to be found in the simple fact that the English heard this phrase uttered a great many times, and it stuck in their memory. In view of the fact that the natives held the English in fear as dead people, the phrase "touch me not" might often have been used toward amorous sailors, or against any form of bodily contact. ADDITIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC ITEMS IN THE RICHARD MADOX AND JOHN DRAKE ACCOUNTS In the second deposition of John Drake, cousin to Francis Drake (see below, App. I), there is no new information. There is, however, independent corroboration of the weeping and self-laceration referred to repeatedly in the _World Encompassed_ account. The natives are mentioned as having bows and arrows and as being naked, both of which items are mentioned by Fletcher. The Indians' sadness at the departure of the English, as remarked by John Drake, is a further verification of Fletcher's observations as presented in some detail in _The World Encompassed_. The brief Madox account is of particular interest since a number of words in the Indian language, a song, and the episode of the crowning are mentioned. The linguistic items are given as follows: _Cheepe_ bread _Nocharo mu_ tuch me not _Huchee kecharoh_ sit downe _Hioghe_ a king As Elmendorf and I have already pointed out, the vocabulary may be assigned conclusively to the Coast Miwok language.[105] _Cheepe_, "bread," is equivalent to modern Coast Miwok _tcipa_, "acorn bread." This word alone is the clearest possible evidence that Drake's Indian acquaintances were Coast Miwok. _Huchee kecharoh_, "sit down," probably is an incorrect translation of the phrase. The closest approximation in modern Coast Miwok is _atci kotcáto_, "step into the house," and _hoki kotcádo_, "go into the house" (_tc_ is phonetically equivalent to the sound _ch_ as in chin). It is possible to explain these differently stated meanings of these phonetically similar phrases as owing to incorrect inductions of meaning under specific circumstances. Kelly's Coast Miwok ethnographic informants stated that, according to old custom, whenever people came to a house they were asked to walk in and were offered a seat in the rear of the house, and food was placed before them. In some such situation, particularly if the English had occasion to be often in the Indian village, they may have repeatedly heard the invitation, "step into the house." Likewise, the phrase _Nocharo mu_, "touch me not," may have been translated by Madox (or his informant) only vaguely, since it represents a situation rather than a concrete object, which would be less liable to misinterpretation. Modern Coast Miwok offers a close parallel in the form of _notcáto mu_, which may be literally translated "stay over there," or "stay away" (_notca_, "farther," "yonder"). Madox's word for king, _Hioghe_, is similar to that given by Fletcher (_Hioh_ or _Hyoh_), except that the _ghe_ ending is unusual. From the words of the Indian song given by Madox (see below), in which _heigh_ (i.e., _hai_) appears, it might be suspected that the _gh_ is silent; yet why is the terminal _e_ present? It may be that if _Hioghe_ were exactly similar phonetically to _Hioh_, there would not be a terminal _e_ in _Hioghe_. Thus Madox's' _Hioghe_ may indicate a terminal sound (short or weak _e_?) and therefore be close to modern Coast Miwok _hoipa_ (and Sierra Miwok _haiapo_). That the _gh_ might be an indication of the _p_ sound is possible, or, again, it could represent Madox's attempt to render a weak or indefinite labial sound which was imperfectly remembered by his informant. Too close a phonetic transcription of an Indian language by Elizabethan Englishmen should not be expected--there was little standardization in English spelling[106] at that time. The foregoing is not advanced as an argument to show that the terminal "e" was sounded, but is merely presented as a possibility. Elizabethan English commonly used an unpronounced terminal "e." The song of the Indians "when they worship god" is given by Madox as _Hodeli oh heigh oh heigh ho hodali oh_. No Coast Miwok or Pomo song on record accords exactly with that given by Madox, although some are quite similar. For example, a Coast Miwok _Suya_ song transcribed by Kelly is a repetitive line _Yo ya he yo he o_. Other examples from the Coast Miwok are not available, but some Pomo ceremonial songs may be cited. Stephen Powers[107] gives a Sanel Pomo song: _Hel-lel-li-ley Hel-lel-lo Hel-lel-lu_ E. M. Loeb[108] gives several Pomo songs which are associated with the Kuksu or ghost ceremony: 1. _He yo he yo he yo He yoha eheya ye To ya he yo ho ho_ 2. _Tali, tali, yo yo weya yo, weya yo, ha hi he ya he hotsaii ya hi ho._ 3. _He ha le me, le lu hi ma humane, hu ..._ Other Pomo songs used in ceremonies are given by Loeb:[109] 1. _=U =u hulai leli ha ha._ 2. _He he la le ha hi hi hi, ya ya ya, hu wa!_ 3. _Yo yo hale e he na gagoyá =o he he!_ 4. _Ho yu ko, he he, a ha a a. Hi ye ko, lai ye ko, He tsi ye._ 5. _Yo ho yo ho yaho, he yo ho waha._ These examples show how generally similar are the Coast Miwok[110] and Pomo ceremonial songs of today to the song of 1579 given by Madox. Here again an exact correspondence should not be expected, since it is not known whether the song given by Madox was one associated with a particular ceremonial occurrence, nor is it known how changeable these songs are. And again, in the time that has passed and in the changing course of circumstances since 1579, some exactness has almost inevitably been sacrificed. Madox's statement that the natives sang "one dauncing first wh his handes up, and al ye rest after lyke ye prest and people" verifies Fletcher's description of the singing and dancing at the time of the great ceremony of June 26. SUPPOSED INDIAN TRADITIONS OF DRAKE'S VISIT Professor George Davidson was the second investigator to use an Indian tradition as evidence of the Drake's Bay location of the 1579 visit.[111] The source of the tradition is in J. P. Munro-Fraser's _History of Marin County_,[112] and is stated as follows: First of all comes an old Indian legend which comes down through the Nicasios to the effect that Drake did land at this place [Drake's Bay]. Although they have been an interior tribe ever since the occupation by the Spaniards and doubtless were at that time, it still stands to reason that they would know all about the matter. If the ship remained in the bay thirty-six days it is reasonable to suppose that a knowledge of its presence reached every tribe within an area of one hundred miles and that the major portion of them paid a visit to the bay to see the "envoys of the Great Spirit," as they regarded the white seamen. One of these Indians named Theognis who is reputed to have been one hundred and thirty years old when he made the statement, says that Drake presented the Indians with a dog, some young pigs, and seeds of several species of grain.... The Indians also state that some of Drake's men deserted him here, and, making their way into the country, became amalgamated with the aboriginals to such an extent that all traces of them were lost, except possibly a few names [Nicasio, Novato] which are to be found among the Indians. Wagner feels that there is no reason or evidence to indicate that the Nicasio Indian tradition refers to Drake,[113] a conclusion with which I agree. If any early expedition did leave pigs with the Coast Miwok, it could have been the Spanish one of 1793, which attempted unsuccessfully to form a settlement at Bodega Bay. Felipe Goycoechea, in 1793 specifically mentions seeing some pigs and chickens which the Spanish had left earlier in the year with the Indians at that place.[114] With Wagner's statement that, if any credit can be given to the pig episode, Cermeño may have been the donor,[115] I cannot agree, mainly for the reason that Cermeño's crew were hungry and would not have given the Indians any pigs if they had had them. The story of the dog is interesting since neither the Pomo nor Coast Miwok had dogs in pre-Spanish times, and the evidence indicates that dogs were introduced shortly after 1800.[116] Aside from these facts, the supposed Nicasio tradition does not have a true ring--it is not the type of story that Indians are accustomed to tell. A belief among the Coast Miwok[117] and some Pomo[118] tribes that the home of the dead is associated with Point Reyes should perhaps be taken into account. The belief is that this seaward projection is associated with the dead, who follow a string leading out through the surf to the land of the dead. It is barely possible that this belief, which is quite clearly of Coast Miwok origin, is a legendary reminiscence of Drake's visit which seems to have been, in part at least, interpreted by the Indians as the return of the dead. It may be superfluous to mention that no Indian has ever stated his idea of the origin of this legend,[119] or of its association with the visit of Drake's party; yet there remains the possibility that the occurrence made an impression so deep that Point Reyes became in this way associated with the home of the dead in the west, from which the English were supposed to have come and gone. If this tradition were associated with Drake, it would, of course, signify that his anchorage was behind Point Reyes in Drake's Bay. On the other hand, this remarkable point which juts far out into the ocean is a prominent feature of Coast Miwok territory, and by reason of its unique topography might have been associated with local ceremonial beliefs.[120] I may conclude this discussion by saying that no direct evidence of Drake's visit in 1579 is to be found in recorded local Indian traditions. In view of the long time that has intervened, no native legendary evidence is to be expected. Euhemerism is ordinarily rather an unproductive and hazardous approach for the historian. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION The results of this survey can now be weighed and a solution to the problem of the location of Drake's California anchorage suggested. It has been shown that there is not a scrap of ethnographic evidence to suggest that Drake landed in Trinidad Bay and saw the Yurok Indians. The Hondius _Portus Novae Albionis_ might apply equally to Bodega Bay or Drake's Bay, and by itself can only rise to the level of supporting, rather than primary, evidence. Thus, in reference to the Trinidad Bay theory, the map cannot alone and unaided prove the point against the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The ethnographic evidence indicates strongly, indeed almost conclusively, that Drake landed in territory occupied by Coast Miwok Indians.[121] Since Pomo culture and Coast Miwok Indian culture were so similar as to be almost indistinguishable, the culture described by Fletcher might refer to either Coast Miwok or Pomo, and no solution would be forthcoming were it not for the additional fact that _all_ the unquestionably native words (_Hioh_, _Gnaah_, _Huchee kecharo_, _Nocharo mu_, _Cheepe_) are of Coast Miwok derivation. It may therefore be concluded that Drake had contact mainly with the Coast Miwok. Any effort to prove that the customs described point expressly to the Pomo as Drake's visitors would have to deny the linguistic proofs and rest upon the unlikely assumption that Pomo and Coast Miwok culture were markedly divergent in 1579.[122] The Pomo ethnographic data cited here are therefore to be looked upon not as unique Pomo cultural traits, but as supplementary, comparative material which is at a premium for the Coast Miwok. But there are two bays in Coast Miwok territory to which Drake might have brought his ship. These are Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay. No internal evidence points specifically to either Drake's or Bodega Bay--the accounts lack geographical detail,[123] the ethnographic Coast Miwok culture was in operation in both bays, and contemporary maps are so inaccurate and open to variable interpretation that nothing definite can be ascertained from their inspection. What is needed, therefore, is some hint or lead which will break this stalemate. There are two such leads. The first is the plate of brass left by Drake and recently found at Drake's Bay. Granted the authenticity of the Drake plate, it now does not rank as an isolated find, however spectacular, but rather as good supporting evidence of the conclusion based upon my ethnographic analysis. The second point of evidence is Fletcher's statement that "this country our generall named _Albion_, and that for two causes; the one in respect of the white bancks and cliffes, which lie toward the sea: the other, that it might have some affinity, euen in name also, with our owne country, which was sometime so called." The _Famous Voyage_ version says almost the same, except that the country was named _Nova Albion_, which agrees more closely with the wording of the Drake plate. Wagner has discussed the white cliffs,[124] but his argument is unconvincing. There is no good reason to doubt that the cliffs mentioned were at the bay, since Fletcher implies that the naming took place before the departure.[125] And it must be remembered that white cliffs which face toward the sea[126] are at Drake's Bay and _not at Bodega_. In June, 1579, then, Drake probably landed in what is now known as Drake's Bay. He remained there for five weeks repairing his ship, and found the Indians the most remarkable objects of interest with which he came in contact. From a comparative analysis of the detailed descriptions of the native ceremonies, artifacts, and language I conclude that in the fullest authentic account, _The World Encompassed_, it is the Coast Miwok Indians that are referred to. FOOTNOTES: [1] Alfred L. Kroeber, _Handbook of the Indians of California_, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78 (Washington, D.C., 1925). [2] Robert F. Heizer and William W. Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage in the Light of the Indian Language Spoken There," _Pacific Historical Review_, XI (1942), 213-217. [3] George C. Davidson, "Directory for the Pacific Coast of the United States," _Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey ... 1858_ (Washington, D.C., 1859). App. 44, pp. 297-458. [4] George C. Davidson, "An Examination of Some of the Early Voyages of Discovery and Exploration on the Northwest Coast of America from 1539 to 1603," _Report of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey ... June, 1886_ (Washington, D.C., 1887), App. 7, pp. 155-253; and _Identification of Sir Francis Drake's Anchorage on the Coast of California in the Year 1579_, California Historical Society Publications (San Francisco, 1890). [5] George C. Davidson, "Francis Drake on the Northwest Coast of America in the Year 1579. The Golden Hinde Did Not Anchor in the Bay of San Francisco," _Transactions and Proceedings of the Geographical Society of the Pacific_, ser. 2, Bull. 5. [6] Henry R. Wagner, "George Davidson, Geographer of the Northwest Coast of America," _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XI (1932), 299-320. The idea that Drake entered San Francisco Bay was held by others than Davidson. See, for example, J. D. B. Stillman, "Did Drake Discover San Francisco Bay?" _Overland Monthly_, I (1868), 332-337. See also Henry R. Wagner, _Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the World_ (San Francisco, 1926), chaps. vii and viii, and notes on pp. 488-499, esp. pp. 495-496. [7] J. W. Robertson, _The Harbor of St. Francis_ (San Francisco, 1926). [8] Hubert Howe Bancroft, _History of California_, Vol. I: _1542-1800_ (San Francisco, 1884), pp. 81-94. [9] Edward Everett Hale, in Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of the United States_, Vol. III, pp. 74-78. [10] Alexander G. McAdie, "Nova Albion--1579," _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_, n. s., XXVIII (1918), 189-198. R. P. Bishop, "Drake's Course in the North Pacific," _British Columbia Historical Quarterly_, III (1939), 151-182. [11] F. P. Sprent, _Sir Francis Drake's Voyage round the World, 1577-1580, Two Contemporary Maps_ (London, 1927), pp. 10-11, map 2. [12] Samuel A. Barrett, _The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. 6, No. 1 (Berkeley, 1908), pp. 28-37. [13] _Ibid._, n. 7, pp. 36-37. [14] Kroeber, _Handbook_, pp. 275-278. [15] J. W. Robertson (_Francis Drake and Other Early Explorers along the Pacific Coast_, San Francisco, 1927), in discussing Kroeber's analysis of the Fletcher account (_op. cit._, p. 177), says: "There seems to be no proof either that Drake landed at any particular harbor, or that anything can be adduced so specific as to establish his residence on this coast." The latter part of this statement cannot be maintained seriously in the face of Kroeber's presentation of direct evidence to the contrary. [16] Heizer and Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage." [17] The words recorded by Fletcher are in _The World Encompassed_. The Madox vocabulary was printed by E. G. R. Taylor, "Francis Drake and the Pacific," _Pacific Historical Review_, I (1932), 360-369. Madox's account has been further discussed by Wagner in the _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XI (1932), 309-311. [18] See Barrett, _Ethno-Geography_, map facing p. 332, and Kroeber, _Handbook_, fig. 22, p. 274, for the area held by the Coast Miwok. [19] For details see _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XVI (1937), 192. [20] For particulars see _Drake's Plate of Brass: Evidence of His Visit to California in 1579_, California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 13 (San Francisco, 1937). [21] See R. B. Haselden, "Is the Drake Plate of Brass Genuine?" _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XVI (1937), 271-274. Haselden's queries have been answered already. W. Hume-Rotherby (review of _Drake's Plate of Brass Authenticated_, in _Geographical Journal_, CXIV [1939], 54-55) points out that the letters engraved on the plate (B, N, M) are not paralleled by other sixteenth-century inscriptions, and that the form of the numeral 5 is suspect. These and other problems which he poses have the effect of creating a smokescreen of doubt without contributing anything new. Wagner is skeptical of the date on the plate (June 17) and of the fact that the plate is of brass rather than lead ("Creation of Rights of Sovereignty through Symbolic Acts," _Pacific Historical Review_, VII [1938], 297-326). [22] Allen L. Chickering, "Some Notes with Regard to Drake's Plate of Brass," _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XVI (1937), 275-281, and "Further Notes on the Drake Plate," _ibid._, XVIII (1939), 251-253. [23] Herbert E. Bolton, "Francis Drake's Plate of Brass," in _Drake's Plate of Brass_, California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 13 (San Francisco, 1937). [24] C. G. Fink and E. P. Polushkin, _Drake's Plate of Brass Authenticated_ ... California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 14 (San Francisco, 1938). [25] Wagner's theory is not stated explicitly in any one place, hence specific reference is impossible. See his _Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the World_ (San Francisco, 1926), pp. 156-158, 169. [26] This is shown even more clearly on the Hezeta map of 1775 reproduced by Herbert E. Bolton, _Historical Memoirs of New California by Fray Francisco Palóu_, 4 vols. (Berkeley, 1926), Vol. IV, facing p. 16. George C. Davidson in his _Identification_ (pp. 17-18, 34, 39) made a similar identification of the Indian village site at the Limantour Estero in Drake's Bay. [27] Bolton, _op. cit._, n. 19. See also L. L. Loud, _Ethnogeography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. 14, No. 3 (Berkeley, 1918), p. 243. [28] H. R. Wagner, _Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America_, California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 4 (San Francisco, 1929), p. 158. [29] For details see Kroeber, _Handbook_, pp. 78-79, pl. 9; and Loud, _Ethnogeography_, pp. 243, 244. [30] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 157, 158. [31] "Fray Benito de la Sierra's Account of the Hezeta Expedition to the Northwest Coast in 1775," trans. by A. J. Baker, introd. and notes by H. R. Wagner, _California Historical Society Quarterly_, IX (1930), 218. [32] See T. A. Rickard, "The Use of Iron and Copper by the Indians of British Columbia," _British Columbia Historical Quarterly_, III (1939), 26-27, where the Hezeta finds are expressly discussed. Rickard's opinion also differs from Wagner's. [33] Francisco Eliza in 1793 said: "The Puerto de Trinidad is quite small; no vessel can be moored so as to turn with the wind or tide. The bottom for the most part is rock. The land consists of quite high and extended hills full of pines and oaks" (H. R. Wagner, "The Last Spanish Exploration of the Northwest Coast and the Attempt to Colonize Bodega Bay," _California Historical Society Quarterly_, X [1931], 335). For photographic views of Trinidad Bay see Thomas T. Waterman, _Yurok Geography_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XVI, No. 5 (Berkeley, 1920), pls. 1, 16. [34] Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 278, inferentially concurs with this conclusion. [35] Reprinted in _Drake's Plate of Brass_, pp. 32-46. [36] Reprinted in _Drake's Plate of Brass_, pp. 27-30, and by Wagner in _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 274-277. [37] Printed in Zelia Nuttall, _New Light on Drake_, Hakluyt Society, ser. 2, Vol. 34 (London, 1914), pp. 50-51. [38] As Barrett (_Ethno-Geography_, map at end), Kroeber (_Handbook_, pp. 272-275), and C. H. Merriam ("Distribution and Classification of the Mewan Stock in California," _American Anthropologist_, IX [1907], 338-357), show, the Coast Miwok inhabited both Bodega Bay and Drake's Bay territory. Thus the language (except for minor dialectic differentiation) and culture are undoubtedly very similar at both bays. This makes the problem of exclusive selection somewhat difficult. The Madox vocabulary (see below, p. 282) was first presented in E. G. R. Taylor, "Francis Drake and the Pacific: Two Fragments," _Pacific Historical Review_, I (1932), 360-369. [39] The Fletcher-Madox vocabulary list does not resemble the Yurok words for the same items or phrases. [40] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 147. B. Aginsky ("Psychopathic Trends in Culture," _Character and Personality_, VII [1939], 331-343) quotes Fletcher's description of Indian weeping and self-laceration, and calls them Pomo, asserting that Drake landed in their territory and that the ceremonies given in honor of the English exemplify the "Dionysian" phase of Pomo culture. [41] Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, p. 158. [42] Don Francisco Mourelle, "Journal of a Voyage in 1775 to explore the Coast of America, Northward of California ...," in _Miscellanies of the Honorable Daines Barrington_ (London, 1781), pp. 471*-534*. See also Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 158. [43] Kroeber. _Handbook_, fig. 21. [44] Roland B. Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," _Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History_, Vol. XVII, Pt. III (1905), fig. 19. [45] John P. Harrington, "Tobacco among the Karuk Indians," Bureau of American Ethnology, Bull. 94 (1932), 17-18, 40. [46] The Coast Miwok word for tobacco is _kaiyau_. For the North, Central, Eastern, and Northeastern Pomo it is _saxa_, _saka_, _sako_: for the Southern, Southwestern, and Southeastern Pomo it is _kawa_, _tom-kawa_ (Roland B. Dixon, "Words for Tobacco in American Indian Languages," _American Anthropologist_, XXIII [1921], 30). [47] See discussion in Heizer and Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage." [48] Berthold Laufer, "Introduction of Tobacco into Europe," Field Museum of Natural History Anthropological Leaflet No. 19 (1924), pp. 6 ff. [49] _Handbook_, p. 277. [50] Compare Fletcher's statements of the attitude of the Indians with that of Cermeño, who was in Drake's Bay in 1595 and said, "... the other Indians approached in an humble manner and as if terrorized, and yielded peacefully" (Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, p. 159). [51] This custom is a general central Californian cultural feature. See E. M. Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XIX, No. 2 (Berkeley, 1926), pp. 286, 287, 291; R. B. Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," pp. 242, 252; A. L. Kroeber, _The Patwin and their Neighbors_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XXIX, No. 4 (Berkeley, 1932) p. 272; C. Purdy, "The Pomo Indian Baskets and Their Makers," _Overland Monthly_, XV (1901), 449. See also below, notes 56 and 57. [52] Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," fig. 33. [53] Fritz Krause, _Die Kultur der Kalifornischen Indianer_ (Leipzig, 1921), map 4. [54] A rather lengthy digression must be made here since the details are involved. S. A. Barrett ("Pomo Buildings," _Holmes Anniversary Volume_, Washington, D.C., 1916, p. 7) states that semisubterranean, earth-covered houses were used about 1900 by men of means (chiefs, good hunters, lucky gamblers, and medicine men). This house was a small edition of the larger dance house (described by Barrett, _Ethno-Geography_, p. 10). Fletcher's description says that in the majority of houses the combined roof entrance and smoke hole was present. This qualification does not exclude the possibility that some houses had the ground-level tunnel entrance which should be expected in the area. In historic times the Pomo seem, in large part, to have given up making these permanent dwellings in favor of less permanent mat- or grass-covered houses, which were inexpensive and more convenient to erect. The same process of loss seems to have occurred among the Coast Miwok, since Dr. Kelly's informants did not remember such houses. Archaeological sites in the Point Reyes-Drake's Bay region show numerous circular depressions which are clearly the remains of such houses. A further indication of their presence at an earlier time can be gained from "linguistic archaeology." The Sierra (Interior) Miwok use the word _kotca_ for the earth-covered, underground house with combined roof entrance and smoke hole (S. A. Barrett and E. W. Gifford, "Miwok Material Culture," _Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee_, Vol. II, No. 4 [1933], p. 198). The same word for house (i.e., dwelling) is present among the Coast Miwok (Barrett, _Ethno-Geography_, word no. 64, p. 71), who once had a similar house, as is shown by archaeological remains, but abandoned it in ethnographic times. It is not unreasonable on these grounds to assume the presence in Coast Miwok territory of the type of house described by Fletcher. [55] Wagner, "The Last Spanish Exploration of the Northwest Coast and the Attempt to Colonize Bodega Bay," _California Historical Society Quarterly_, X (1931), 331. [56] Bolton, _Historical Memoirs of New California by Fray Francisco Palóu_, Vol. IV, p. 48. [57] I. T. Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." (MS). [58] Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, p. 158. J. Broughton, in his _Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean ... in the Years 1795 ... 1798_ (London, 1804), said that the Drake's Bay Indian men whom he saw were naked, but that the women were clothed "in some degree." [59] "Menzies' California Journal," ed. by Alice Eastwood, _California Historical Society Quarterly_, II (1924), 302-303. [60] Wagner, "The Last Spanish Exploration," p. 331. [61] James Colnett, _The Journal of Captain James Colnett aboard the "Argonaut" from April 26, 1789 to November 3, 1791_, ed. by F. N. Howay, Champlain Society, Publ. No. 26 (Toronto, 1940), p. 175. [62] Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, p. 159. [63] Exact documentation is impossible here, but such an explanation would fit the facts, and the custom of sending a messenger to announce a visit was a feature of the whole area (Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 49). [64] See E. W. Gifford and A. L. Kroeber. _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XXXVII, No. 4 (Berkeley, 1937), elements nos. 805-807, p. 154. [65] Barrett, _Ethno-Geography_, p. 415. [66] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [67] Stephen Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, D.C., 1877), pp. 165, 169, 170, 181; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, pp. 286, 287; Barrett, "Pomo Buildings," p. 11. See also above, p. 261, n. 42. I can see no possible relationship between the clear account by Fletcher of self-laceration and Wagner's discussion of tattooing (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 494, n. 49). As the comparative notes cited clearly show, the tearing of the flesh by the California Indians is no "story" which needs an involved, roundabout, and improbable explanation. [68] For the Coast Miwok and Pomo words for "sing" see Barrett, _Ethno-Geography_, word no. 265, pp. 67, 79. The Pomo words are totally unlike _Gnaah_ or _koyá_. See also Heizer and Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage," pp. 214, 216. There is a logical possibility of a copying error in _Gnaah_ from Fletcher's manuscript notes. If it had originally been written _Guaah_ or _Gyaah_, it would be very close indeed to _koyá_. [69] E. M. Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 (Berkeley, 1932), p. 49, and _Pomo Folkways_, p. 192; S. A. Barrett, _Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch, and Ethn., Vol. XII, No. 10 (Berkeley, 1917), p. 402, and "Pomo Buildings," p. 11. [70] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 403. [71] Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, pp. 207-208; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 366; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 425. The Kuksu staff was feathered on the end, whereas that of Calnis was somewhat shorter and did not have the feather tuft. Kroeber, _Handbook_, pp. 261-262; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, pp. 110, 128. [72] They were manufactured chiefly by the Pomo and Northern Coast Miwok. See E. W. Gifford, _Clear Lake Pomo Society_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (Berkeley, 1926), pp. 377-388; Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 248; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography"; Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, (pp. 186-187). [73] Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," figs. 29, 30, Pl. XLIX. [74] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [75] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 433; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 178. [76] Cf. Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 405, 438-439. [77] Illustrated in Kroeber, _Handbook_, fig. 20. See also Gifford and Kroeber, elements 88, 89; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 432; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." And see Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," Pl. XLVIII, fig. 25. [78] Gifford and Kroeber, element no. 4. Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [79] Illustrated and described by Kroeber, _Handbook_, pl. 55, _a_, and pp. 264, 269, 388, and illustrated by Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," fig. 33. See also Gifford and Kroeber, elements nos. 81 ff.; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 407, 432; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 200. The down-filled net cap was used by the Coast Miwok in the Kuksu and other ceremonial performances. [80] Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," figs. 19-21. [81] Kroeber, _Handbook_, fig. 21. [82] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 407, n. 12. [83] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography"; Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, pp. 158, 159 (Drake's Bay). [84] Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 158; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 407, 433; Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions: IV, Pomo_, element no. 96, pp. 207-208. [85] I can find no record that the down of milkweed (or of any other plant) was used. Most ethnographic accounts (see n. 79) above list the use of eagle down. That Fletcher was probably correct in attributing the source of the downy substance to a plant is shown by his reference to the seeds of the same plant. There is also the probability that he saw the plant itself on the journey into the interior. From my own observation I know that at least three different plants producing such down grow on Point Reyes. [86] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." Dr. Kelly's informants at Bodega in describing just such baskets said, "They were just for show"--i.e., had no practical or utilitarian use. Her San Rafael informant also knew of such baskets. [87] For illustrations and description see J. W. Hudson, "Pomo Basket Makers," _Overland Monthly_, ser. 2, XXI (1893), 571, and C. Purdy, "The Pomo Indian Baskets and Their Makers," _ibid._, XV (1901), 438, 446. O. M. Dalton ("Notes on an Ethnographical Collection from the West Coast of North America ... Formed during the Voyage of Captain Vancouver, 1790-1795," _Internationale Archiv für Ethnographie_, Vol. X [Leiden, 1897]), shows (fig. f, p. 232; Pl. XV, fig. 4) several Pomo baskets which might as well have been the ones described by Fletcher. It seems possible that these were collected at Bodega Bay, since some of the Vancouver party visited there, but this is not certain. In Mission times many Coast Miwok and even some Pomo were brought to San Francisco and San Jose as neophytes. These individuals might well account for the Pomo-Coast Miwok type of feathered baskets collected there in the early nineteenth century by von Langsdorff or Chamisso, both of whom illustrate such pieces in their published accounts. Barrett, _Pomo Indian Basketry_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. VII, No. 3 (Berkeley, 1908), discusses at length (pp. 141-145, 168) feather and shell materials used in the manufacture of these decorated baskets. A number of examples are shown in Barrett's plate 21. The same anthropologist ("Pomo Buildings," pp. 1-17) mentions the use of feather-decorated baskets among the Pomo as sacrifices to the dead. [88] Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 245. [89] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [90] Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, element no. 807, p. 197, n. [91] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 400, mentions a principal singer who started and led the air of the songs, but does not indicate whether he might be identifiable with the "scepter bearer." [92] See Barrett, _Ceremonies_, _passim_; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_ and _Pomo Folkways_, _passim_; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography" _passim_. [93] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 492, n. 37. Wagner says that this word "sounds" to him like an exclamation. To Elmendorf and me it "sounds" like the Coast Miwok word for chief or friend. The latter proposal rests upon both phonetic and semantic resemblances. [94] For the Coast Miwok words for "chief" and "friend" see Barrett, _The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo Indians_, words nos. 62, 64, pp. 70, 71. The Pomo words (p. 58) are totally unlike those of the Coast Miwok. Barrett, _Ceremonies_, mentions a Kuksu curing call, _hyo_, which was repeated four times. Although the call is phonetically similar, the context is so unlike, that a correspondence with Fletcher's word for chief or king is improbable. [95] Taylor, _loc. cit._, p. 369. [96] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 412, 431; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, p. 118. [97] Kroeber, _Handbook_, table 10, p. 876. [98] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [99] The ground squirrel and Point Reyes mountain beaver have been variously identified as Fletcher's "conies." See Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 492-493, n. 42. [100] See photograph in McAdie, "Nova Albion--1579," fig. 1. [101] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [102] Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 277. [103] These "burnt offerings" are ascribed to the Trinidad Bay Yurok by Wagner (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 157), but there is no need to look so far afield for parallels when the Coast Miwok-Pomo area fits the case so well. [104] Memorial ceremonies for the dead are a characteristic feature of central California culture; see Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, p. 117 (Coast Miwok). [105] Heizer and Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage." [106] For evidence of this, using the words on Drake's plate of brass, see Allen Chickering, "Some Notes with Regard to Drake's Plate of Brass" and "Further Notes on the Drake Plate." [107] Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 171. Cf. the Huchnom song facing p. 144. [108] Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, pp. 103, 127, 128. [109] Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, pp. 374, 392, 393. See also Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 409, 413. [110] Because of the high degree of similarity between all phases of Pomo and Coast Miwok ceremonies, a close correspondence, or even identity, in the songs connected with these ceremonies may safely be assumed. [111] Davidson, "Identification of Sir Francis Drake's Anchorage," p. 35. [112] J. P. Munro-Fraser, _History of Marin County_ (San Francisco, 1880), pp. 96-97. [113] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 148, 167, 494. [114] Wagner, "The Last Spanish Exploration," p. 334. [115] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 167. [116] A. L. Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, XV: Salt, Dogs, Tobacco_, Univ. Calif. Anthro. Rec., Vol. VI, No. 1 (Berkeley, 1941), pp. 6 ff., map 5. [117] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." [118] Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 200. [119] Kelly's informant did say that "before steamers used to travel along the coast" certain occurrences in connection with this belief in the land of the dead took place. This may be a memory of an incident which once was more specifically remembered. At best, however, it is improbable that there would be any tradition of Drake's visit per se. [120] Such incidents are not uncommon in California. Note, for example, the legendary significance of Mount Diablo to the Indian tribes of central California. [121] I disagree with Wagner's statement (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 169): "The truth probably is that Drake stopped at two or three different places on the coast [Trinidad Bay, Bodega Bay] and the writer of the original narrative or the compilers who worked on it embodied in one description those of all the Indians he met." The part of the _World Encompassed_ account treated here has shown itself to be a homogeneous description, interspersed with some naïve interpretation of west-central California coast Indian culture, and cannot be looked upon as a composite description. To believe otherwise would seriously distort the facts. This conclusion I submit as one of the most important results of the present inquiry. [122] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 492-495, does select the Pomo as having the customs and manners described by Fletcher. In this he was inevitably guided by the more abundant Pomo data. Kroeber's selection of Drake's Bay as the site of the anchorage (_Handbook_, p. 278) rests upon the same grounds as my conclusion. Wagner (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 497, n. 10) takes issue with Kroeber and raises several objections without answering them satisfactorily. [123] Wagner is concerned over this fact. He says (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 498, n. 24) that a reference to Drake's Estero should have been included in the narrative "since the Indian villages were almost entirely located upon it." In answer it may be observed that the Indian villages of Drake's time were situated sporadically around the shore of Drake's Bay as well as on the estero. One might as well ask at the same time why Fletcher did not mention Tomales Bay if Drake were at Bodega? [124] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 151. [125] And, significantly, the Drake plate of brass uses the words "Nova Albion." This is independently attested by John Drake in his first declaration. [126] See Francisco de Bolaños' explicit mention of the white cliffs in Drake's Bay as prominent landmarks (Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 498, n. 19). See also Davidson, "Identification of Sir Francis Drake's Anchorage," p. 31. Richard Madox refers to the California anchorage as "Ships Land," perhaps the name given to the place by the sailors themselves. APPENDIX I THE SOURCES There are in existence at least three useful independent accounts of Sir Francis Drake's California visit in 1579. These are: (1) the _World Encompassed_ and the similar _Famous Voyage_ accounts; (2) the second deposition of John Drake, and (3) the valuable notes of Richard Madox. _The Famous Voyage and The World Encompassed._--The _Famous Voyage_, first printed in 1589, was compiled by Richard Hakluyt from three sources--John Cooke's manuscript, the _Anonymous Narrative_, and the Francis Fletcher manuscript.[A-1] _The World Encompassed_, which probably was in manuscript form a few years after Drake's return to England, did not appear in print until 1628. The sources of this account are the Fletcher manuscript, the Edward Cliffe account, and the relations of Nuño da Silva and López de Vaz.[A-2] It is obvious to any reader that the _Famous Voyage_ and _World Encompassed_ accounts of the California Indians are closely similar in wording, the chief difference between the two being that the latter account is fuller than the former.[A-3] The richer detail does not indicate literary padding, since the additional information is ethnographically sound. One gets the impression that the _Famous Voyage_ version is an abridgement of _The World Encompassed_ account itself, or perhaps its source, though if this is so in fact only the bibliographers can tell. Henry R. Wagner has carefully analyzed the various accounts of the Drake voyage,[A-4] and is inclined, no doubt with good reason, to treat the _World Encompassed_ version as "untrustworthy"; yet this characterization hardly holds for what it tells of the California Indians, which, within limits of interpretation, is a straightforward, detailed ethnographic record, of convincing authenticity. It is fairly certain that Francis Fletcher's "Notes" was the source of the description of California Indian manners and customs, since, as Wagner points out, the descriptions of the Patagonians and Fuegians in the first half of the Fletcher manuscript (the second half is now lost) agree very closely in wording with the descriptions of the California coast Indians.[A-5] Of Francis Fletcher, chaplain and diarist of the Drake expedition, O. M. Dalton says: ... it may ... be suggested that Fletcher was not such a romancer as has sometimes been supposed. There is really a large amount of information condensed in his few pages,--as much, or perhaps more, than is to be found in many chapters of later and more diffuse historians or travellers. That he should have seen strange and unprecedented occurrences in the light of his own limited knowledge and of the narrow experience of his time, was after all a psychological necessity. His narrative, like the sea-god Glaucus in Plato's Republic, is obscured by strange incrustations; nevertheless with a little patience the fictitious shell may be removed and the solid fact discovered intact beneath it.... It is apparent that the whole passage describing Drake's interview with the "King," on which some ridicule has been cast, is chiefly absurd because the narrator inevitably reads into the social conditions of an uncultured tribe something of the European etiquette of the day.... It was only natural that a difficulty should have been experienced by minds, not scientifically trained, in finding an appropriate terminology by which to describe unfamiliar objects.... Other instances might be quoted, but the above are sufficient to show that Fletcher described scenes that actually passed before his eyes, while the inferences he drew from them were erroneous. It is only fair, if small things may be compared with great, that the humble chronicler of a later day should be accorded the same liberal method of interpretation which has long been granted to classical authors.[A-6] _John Drake's Second Declaration._--John Drake was the orphan son of Robert Drake, who was the uncle of Francis Drake. John Drake accompanied his cousin on the voyage round the world, and subsequently went along on the Edward Fenton expedition, was shipwrecked in the River Plate (1582), taken captive by the Indians, and escaped only to fall into the hands of the Spanish. John Drake was questioned by the authorities, and in his second deposition there is a brief account of the occurrences in California, 1579.[A-7] There he [Francis Drake] landed and built huts and remained a month and a half, caulking his vessel. The victuals they found were mussels and sea-lions. During that time many Indians came there and when they saw the Englishmen they wept and scratched their faces with their nails until they drew blood, as though this were an act of homage or adoration. By signs Captain Francis told them not to do that, for the Englishmen were not God. These people were peaceful and did no harm to the English, but gave them no food. They are of the colour of the Indians here [Peru] and are comely. They carry bows and arrows and go naked. The climate is temperate, more cold than hot. To all appearance it is a very good country. Here he caulked his large ship and left the ship he had taken in Nicaragua. He departed, leaving the Indians, to all appearances, sad.[A-8] _Richard Madox's Account of California._--In 1932, Miss E. G. R. Taylor discovered in the diary of Richard Madox, Chaplain aboard Edward Fenton's ship in 1582, some remarks on Drake's visit on the California coast in 1579.[A-9] Madox was not a member of the Drake expedition, and it is safe to assume that his notes consist of information received in conversation with some of Fenton's crew who had accompanied Drake. These could have been William Hawkins, John Drake, Thomas Hood, and Thomas Blackcollar.[A-10] Miss Taylor notes Madox's categorical statement that "Syr Frances Drake graved and bremd his ship at 48 degrees to ye north" together with evidence from other sources, and concludes that "it would appear that Drake's anchorage must be sought in Oregon rather than in California, perhaps in Gray's Bay, or at the mouth of the Raft River." Miss Taylor had hoped to get a clue from the Madox vocabulary, but was unsuccessful. Henry Wagner has answered Miss Taylor's Oregon claim effectively,[A-11] and the identification of the Madox vocabulary as Coast Miwok is further proof that the statement "at 48 degrees" is an error. The log raft depicted by Madox and discussed by Miss Taylor and Mr. Wagner is a typical Peruvian sailing raft, as reference to S. K. Lothrop's detailed paper will demonstrate;[A-12] it has no relation whatsoever to California. The relevant portion of Madox's account is as follows: In ships land wh is ye back syde of Labradore and as Mr. Haul [Christopher Hall] supposeth nye thereunto Syr Frances Drake graved and bremd his ship at 48 degrees to ye north. Ye people ar for feature color apparel diet and holo speach lyke to those of Labradore and is thowght kyngles for they crowned Syr Frances Drake. Ther language is thus. _Cheepe_ bread _Huchee kecharoh_ sit downe _Nocharo mu_ tuch me not _Hioghe_ a king Ther song when they worship god is thus--one dauncing first wh his handes up, and al ye rest after lyke ye prest and people _Hodeli oh heigh oh heigh ho hodali oh_ Yt is thowght yt they of Labradore [do] worship ye son and ye moon but [whether they] do of calphurnia I kno not....[A-13] FOOTNOTES: [A-1] Henry R. Wagner, _Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the World_ (San Francisco, 1926), p. 241. [A-2] _Ibid._, pp. 287, 289. [A-3] _The World Encompassed_ account of Drake in California is reprinted in Appendix II, below. It is printed in full in Volume XVI of the Hakluyt Society publications (ed. W. S. Vaux; London, 1854). The _Famous Voyage_ is easily accessible in _Drake's Plate of Brass_, California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 13 (San Francisco, 1937), pp. 27-30. [A-4] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 229 ff., n. 1. [A-5] _Ibid._, pp. 61, 147, 245, 290. [A-6] O. M. Dalton, "Notes on an Ethnographical Collection ... Formed during the Voyage of Captain Vancouver, 1790-1795," _Internationale Archiv für Ethnographie_, Vol. X. (Leiden, 1897), p. 235. A. L. Kroeber says, "The passage is a somewhat prolix mixture of narration and depiction...." (_Handbook of the Indians of California_, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bull. 78 [Washington, D. C., 1925], pp. 275-276). [A-7] For details see Zelia Nuttall, _New Light on Drake_, Hakluyt Society, ser. 2, Vol. 34 (London, 1914), pp. 18-23. See also Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 328-334. [A-8] Nuttall, _New Light on Drake_, pp. 50-51. [A-9] For details see E. G. R. Taylor, "Francis Drake and the Pacific: Two Fragments," _Pacific Historical Review_, I (1932), 360-369. [A-10] For details see _ibid._, pp. 363-365; Henry R. Wagner, "George Davidson, Geographer of the Northwest Coast," _California Historical Society Quarterly_, XI (1932), 309-311; and Nuttall, _New Light on Drake_, pp. 19-20. [A-11] Wagner, "George Davidson," pp. 310-311. [A-12] S. K. Lothrop, "Aboriginal Navigation off the West Coast of South America," _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, LXII (1932), 235-238, figs. 9_a_, 9_b_, 10. [A-13] Reprinted from Taylor, _loc. cit._, p. 369. APPENDIX II EXTRACT FROM "THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED BY SIR FRANCIS DRAKE" London: Printed for Nicholas Bovrne, 1628. "Carefully collected out of the Notes of Master Francis Fletcher _Preacher in this employment, and diuers others his followers in the same_." (Pp. 64-81.)[B-1] In 38 deg. 30 min. we fell with a conuenient and fit harborough, and Iune 17. came to anchor therein: where we continued till the 23. day of Iuly following. During all which time, notwithstanding it was in the height of Summer, and so neere the Sunne; yet were wee continually visited with like nipping colds, as we had felt before; insomuch that if violent exercises of our bodies, and busie imployment about our necessarie labours, had not sometimes compeld vs to the contrary, we could very well haue beene contented to haue kept about vs still our Winter clothes; yea (had not necessities suffered vs) to haue kept our beds; neither could we at any time in whole fourteene dayes together, find the aire so cleare as to be able to take the height of Sunne or starre.... [Omitted here is a lengthy discourse on the weather.] The next day after our comming to anchor in the aforesaid harbour, the people of the countrey shewed themselues; sending off a man with great expedition to vs in a canow. Who being yet but a little from the shoare, and a great way from our ship, spake to vs continually as he came rowing on. And at last at a reasonable distance staying himselfe, he began more solemnely a long and tedious oration, after his manner: vsing in the deliuerie thereof, many gestures and signes, mouing his hands, turning his head and body many wayes; and after his oration ended, with great shew of reuerence and submission, returned back to shoare againe. He shortly came againe the second time in like manner, and so the third time: When he brought with him (as a present from the rest) a bunch of feathers, much like the feathers of a blacke crow, very neatly and artificially gathered vpon a string, and drawne together into a round bundle; being verie cleane and finely cut, and bearing in length an equall proportion one with another; a speciall cognizance (as wee afterwards obserued) which they that guard their kings person, weare on their heads. With this also he brought a little basket made of rushes, and filled with an herb which they called _Tabah_. Both which being tyed to a short rodde, he cast into our boate. Our Generall intended to haue recompenced him immediately with many good things, he would haue bestowed vpon him: but entring into the boate to deliuer the same, he could not be drawne to receiue them by any means: saue one hat, which being cast into the water out of the ship, he tooke vp (refusing vtterly to meddle with any other thing, though it were vpon a board put off vnto him) and so presently made his returne. After which time, our boate could row no way, but wondring at vs as at gods, they would follow the same with admiration. The 3. day following, viz. the 21. our ship hauing receiued a leake at sea, was brought to anchor neerer the shoare, that her goods being landed, she might be repaired: but for that we were to preuent any danger, that might chance against our safety, our generall first of all landed his men, with all necessary prouision, to build tents and make a fort for the defence of our selues and goods: and that wee might vnder the shelter of it, with more safety (what euer should befall) end our businesse; which when the people of the country perceiued vs doing, as men set on fire to war, in defence of their countrie, in great hast and companies, with such weapons as they had, they came downe vnto vs; and yet with no hostile meaning, or intent to hurt vs: standing when they drew neare, as men rauished in their mindes, with the sight of such things as they neuer had seene, or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship vs as Gods, then to haue any warre with vs as with mortall men. Which thing is it did partly shew it selfe at that instant, so did it more and more manifest it selfe afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them. At this time, being willed by signes to lay from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were directed, and so did all the rest, as they came more and more by companies vnto them, growing in a little while, to a great number both of men and women. To the intent therefore, that this peace which they themselues so willingly sought, might without any cause of breach thereof, on our part giuen, be continued; and that wee might with more safety and expedition, end our businesses in quiet; our Generall with all his company, vsed all meanes possible, gently to intreate them, bestowing vpon each of them liberally, good and necessary things to couer their nakednesse, withall signifying vnto them, we were no Gods but men, and had neede of such things to couer our owne shame; teaching them to vse them to the same ends: for which cause also wee did eate and drinke in their presence, giuing them to vnderstand, that without that wee could not liue, and therefore were but men as well as they. Notwithstanding nothing could perswade them, nor remoue that opinion, which they had conceiued of vs, that wee should be Gods. In recompence of those things which they had receiued of vs, as shirts linnen cloth, &c. they betsowed vpon our generall, and diuerse of our company, diuerse things, as feathers, cawles of networke, the quiuers of their arrowes, made of fawne-skins, and the very skins of beasts that their women wore vpon their bodies. Hauing thus had their fill of this times visiting and beholding of vs, they departed with ioy to their houses, which houses are digged round within the earth, and haue from the vppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of wood set vp, and ioyned close together at the top, like our spires on the steeple of a church: which being couered with earth, suffer no water to enter, and are very warme, the doore in the most part of them, performes the office of a chimney, to let out the smoake: its made in bignesse and fashion, like to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing slopewise: their beds are the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed vpon it, and lying round about the house, haue their fire in the middest, which by reason that the house is but low vaulted, round and close, giueth a maruelous reflexion to their bodies to heate the same. Their men for the most part goe naked, the women take a kinde of bulrushes, and kembing it after the manner of hempe, make themselues thereof a loose garment, which being knitte about their middles, hanges downe about their hippes, and so affordes to them a couering of that, which nature teaches should be hidden: about their shoulders, they weare also the skin of a deere, with the haire vpon it. They are very obedient to their husbands, and exceeding ready in all seruices: yet of themselues offring to do nothing, without the consents, or being called of the men. As soone as they were returned to their houses, they began amongst themselues a kind of most lamentable weeping & crying out; which they continued also a great while together, in such sort, that in the place where they left vs (being neere about 3-quarters of an English mile distant from them) we very plainely, with wonder and admiration did heare the same; the women especially, extending their voices, in a most miserable and dolefull manner of shreeking. Notwithstanding this humble manner of presenting themselues, and awfull demeanour vsed towards vs, we thought it no wisedome too farre to trust them (our experience of former Infidels dealing with vs before, made vs carefull to prouide against an alteration of their affections, or breach of peace if it should happen) and therefore with all expedition we set vp our tents, and entrenched ourselues with walls of stone: that so being fortified within ourselues, we might be able to keepe off the enemie (if they should so proue) from comming amongst vs without our good wills: this being quickly finished we went the more cheerefully and securely afterward, about our other businesse. Against the end of two daies (during which time they had not againe beene with vs) there was gathered together a great assembly of men, women, and children (inuited by the report of them which first saw vs, who as it seemes, had in that time, of purpose dispersed themselues into the country, to make knowne the newes) who came now the second time vnto vs, bringing with them as before had beene done, feathers and bagges of _Tobah_ for presents, or rather indeed for sacrifices, vpon this perswasion that we were Gods. When they came to the top of the hill, at the bottome whereof wee had built our fort, they made a stand; where one (appointed as their cheife speaker) wearied both vs his hearers, and himselfe too, with a long and tedious oration: deliuered with strange and violent gestures, his voice being extended to the vttermost strength of nature, and his words falling so thicke one in the neck of another, that he could hardly fetch his breath againe: so soone as he had concluded, all the rest, with a reuerend bowing of their bodies (in a dreaming manner, and long producing of the same) cryed _Oh_: thereby giuing their consents, that all was very true which he had spoken, and that they had vttered their minde by his mouth vnto vs; which done, the men laying downe their bowes vpon the hill, and leauing their women and children behinde them, came downe with their presents; in such sort, as if they had appeared before a God indeed: thinking themselues happy, that they might haue accesse vnto our generall, but much more happy, when they sawe that he would receiue at their hands, those things which they so willingly had presented: and no doubt, they thought themselues neerest vnto God, when they sate or stood next to him: In the meane time the women, as if they had been desperate, vsed vnnaturall violence against themselues, crying and shreeking piteously, tearing their flesh with their nailes from their cheekes, in a monstrous manner, the bloode streaming downe along their brests; besides despoiling the vpper parts of their bodies, of those single couerings they formerly had, and holding their hands aboue their heads, that they might not rescue their brests from harme, they would with furie cast themselues vpon the ground, neuer respecting whether it were cleane or soft, but dashed themselues in this manner on hard stones, knobby, hillocks, stocks of wood, and pricking bushes, or whateuer else lay in their way, itterating the same course againe and againe: yea women great with child, some nine or ten times each, and others holding out till 15. or 16. times (till their strengths failed them) exercised this cruelty against themselues: A thing more grieuous for vs to see, or suffer could we haue holpe it, then trouble to them (as it seemed) to do it. This bloudie sacrifice (against our wils) beeing thus performed, our Generall with his companie in the presence of those strangers fell to prayers: and by signes in lifting vp our eyes and hands to heauen, signified vnto them, that that God whom we did serue, and whom they ought to worship, was aboue: beseeching God if it were his good pleasure to open by some meanes their blinded eyes; that they might in due time be called to the knowledge of him the true and euerliuing God, and of Iesus Christ whom he hath sent, the salutation of the Gentiles. In the time of such prayers, singing of Psalmes, and reading of certaine Chapters in the Bible, they sate very attentiuely: and obseruing the end at euery pause, with one voice still cryed, Oh, greatly reioycing in our exercises. Yea they tooke such pleasure in our singing of Psalmes, that whensoeuer they resorted to vs, their first request was _Gnaah_, by which they intreated that we would sing. Our General hauing now bestowed vpon them diuers things, at their departure they restored them all againe; none carrying with him any thing of whatsoeuer hee had receiued, thinking themselues sufficiently enriched and happie, that they had found so free accesse to see vs. Against the end of three daies more (the newes hauing the while spread it selfe farther, and as it seemed a great way vp into the countrie) were assembled the greatest number of people, which wee could reasonably imagine, to dwell within any conuenient distance round about. Amongst the rest, the king himselfe, a man of goodly stature and comely personage, attended with his guard, of about 100. tall and warlike men, this day, viz. Iune 26. came downe to see vs. Before his coming, were sent two Embassadors or messengers to our Generall, to signifie that their _Hioh_, that is, their king was comming and at hand. They in the deliuery of their message the one spake with a soft and low voice, prompting his fellow; the other pronounced the same word by words after him, with a voice more audible: continuing their proclamation (for such it was) about halfe an houre. Which being ended, they by signes made request to our Generall, to send something by their hands to their _Hioh_, or king, as a token that his comming might be in peace. Our Generall willingly satisfied their desire; and they, glad men, made speedy returne to their _Hioh_: Neither was it long before their king (making as princely a shew as possibly he could) with all his traine came forward. In their comming forwards they cryed continually after a singing manner with a lustie courage. And as they drew neerer and neerer towards vs, so did they more and more striue to behaue themselues with a certaine comelinesse and grauity in all their actions. In the forefront came a man of a large body and goodly aspect, bearing the Septer or royall mace (made of a certaine kind of blacke wood, and in length about a yard and a halfe) before the king. Whereupon hanged two crownes, a bigger and a lesse, with three chaines of a maruellous length, and often doubled; besides a bagge of the herbe _Tabah_. The crownes were made of knitworke, wrought vpon most curiously with feathers of diuers colours, very artificially placed, and of a formall fashion: The chaines seemed of a bony substance: every linke or part thereof being very little, thinne, most finely burnished, with a hole pierced through the middest. The number of linkes going to make one chaine, is in a manner infinite: but of such estimation it is amongst them, that few be the persons that are admitted to weare the same: and euen they to whom its lawfull to vse them, yet are stinted what number they shall vse; as some ten, some twelue, some twentie, and as they exceed in number of chaines, so are they thereby knowne to be the more honorable personages. Next vnto him that bare this Scepter, was the king himselfe with his guard about him: His attire vpon his head was a cawle of knitworke, wrought vpon somewhat like the crownes, but differing much both in fashion and perfectnesse of worke; vpon his shoulders he had on a coate of the skins of conies, reaching to his wast: His guard also had each coats of the same shape, but of other skins: some hauing cawles likewise stucke with feathers, or couered ouer with a certaine downe, which groweth vp in the country vpon an herbe, much like our lectuce; which exceeds any other downe in the world for finenesse, and beeing layed vpon their cawles by no winds can be remoued: Of such estimation is this herbe amongst them, that the downe thereof is not lawfull to be worne, but of such persons as are about the king (to whom it is permitted to weare a plume of feathers on their heads, in signe of honour) and the seeds are not vsed but onely in sacrifice to their gods. After these in their order, did follow the naked sort of common people; whose haire being long, was gathered into a bunch behind, in which stuck plumes of feathers, but in the forepart onely single feathers like hornes, euery one pleasing himselfe in his owne deuice. This one thing was obserued to bee generall amongst them all; that euery one had his face painted, some with white, some with blacke, and some with other colours, euery man also bringing in his hand one thing or another for a gift or present: Their traine or last part of their company consisted of women and children, each woman bearing against her breast a round basket or two, hauing within them diuers things, as bagges of _Tobah_, a roote which they call _Petah_, whereof they make a kind of meale, and either bake it into bread, or eate it raw, broyled fishes like a pilchard; the seed and downe aforenamed, with such like: Their baskets were made in fashion like a deepe boale, and though the matter were rushes, or such other kind of stuffe, yet was it so cunningly handled, that the most part of them would hold water; about the brimmes they were hanged with peeces of the shels of pearles, and in some places with two or three linkes at a place, of the chaines aforenamed: thereby signifying, that they were vessels wholly dedicated to the onely vse of the gods they worshipped: and besides this, they were wrought vpon with the matted downe of red feathers, distinguished into diuers workes and formes. In the meane time our Generall hauing assembled his men together (as forecasting the danger, and worst that might fall out) prepared himselfe to stand vpon sure ground, that wee might at all times be ready in our owne defence, if anything should chance otherwise than was looked for or expected. Wherefore euery man being in a warlike readinesse, he marched within his fenced place, making against their approach a most warlike shew (as he did also at all other times of their resort) whereby if they had beene desperate enemies, they could not haue chosen but haue conceiued terrour and feare, with discouragement to attempt anything against vs, in beholding of the same. When they were come somewhat neere vnto vs, trooping together, they gaue vs a common or a generall salutation: obseruing in the meane time a generall silence. Whereupon he who bare the Scepter before the king, being prompted by another whom the king assigned to that office, pronounced with an audible and manly voice, what the other spake to him in secret: continuing, whether it were his oration or proclamation, at the least halfe an houre. At the close whereof, there was a common _Amen_, in signe of approbation giuen by euery person: And the king himself with the whole number of men and women (the little children onely remaining behind) came further downe the hill, and as they came set themselues againe in their former order. And being now come to the foot of the hill and neere our fort, the Scepter bearer with a composed countenance and stately carriage began a song, and answerable thereunto, obserued a kind of measures in a dance: whom the king with his guard and euery other sort of person following, did in like manner sing and daunce, sauing onely the women who danced but kept silence. As they danced they still came on: and our Generall perceiuing their plaine and simple meaning, gaue order that they might freely enter without interruption within our bulwarke: Where after they had entred they yet continued their song and dance a reasonable time: their women also following them with their wassaile boales in their hands, their bodies bruised, their faces torne, their dugges, breasts, and other parts bespotted with bloud, trickling downe from the wounds, which with their nailes they had made before their comming. After that they had satisfied or rather tired themselues in this manner, they made signes to our Generall to haue him sit down; Vnto whom both the king and diuers others made seuerall orations, or rather indeed if wee had vnderstood them, supplications, that hee would take the Prouince and kingdome into his hand, and become their king and patron: making signes that they would resigne vnto him their right and title in the whole land and become his vassals in themselues and their posterities: Which that they might make vs indeed beleeue that it was their true meaning and intent; the king himselfe with all the rest with one consent, and with great reueuerence, ioyfully singing a song, set the crowne vpon his head; inriched his necke with all their chaines; and offering vnto him many other things, honoured him by the name of _Hyoh_. Adding thereunto (as it might seeme) a song and dance of triumph; because they were not onely visited of the gods (for so they still iudged vs to be) but the great and chiefe god was now become their god, their king and patron, and themselues were become the onely happie and blessed people in all the world. These things being so freely offered, our Generall thought not meet to reiect or refuse the same: both for that he would not giue them any cause of mistrust, or disliking of him (that being the onely place, wherein at this present, we were of necessitie inforced to seeke reliefe of many things) and chiefely, for that he knew not to what good end God had brought this to passe, or what honour and profit it might bring to our countrie in time to come. Wherefore in the name and to the vse of her most excellent majesty, he tooke the scepter crowne and dignity, of the sayd countrie into his hand; wishing nothing more, than that it had layen so fitly for her maiesty to enioy, as it was now her proper owne, and that the riches and treasures thereof (wherewith in the vpland countries it abounds) might with as great conueniency be transported, to the enriching of her kingdome here at home, as it is in plenty to be attained there: and especially, that so tractable and louing a people, as they shewed themselues to be, might haue meanes to haue manifested their most willing obedience the more vnto her, and by her meanes, as a mother and nurse of the Church of _Christ_, might by the preaching of the Gospell, be brought to the right knowledge, and obedience of the true and euerliuing God. The ceremonies of this resigning, and receiuing of the kingdome being thus performed, the common sort both of men and women, leauing the king and his guard about him, with our generall, dispersed themselues among our people, taking a diligent view or suruey of euery man; and finding such as pleased their fancies (which commonly were the youngest of vs) they presently enclosing them about, offred their sacrifices vnto them, crying out with lamentable shreekes and moanes, weeping, and scratching, and tearing their very flesh off their faces with their nailes, neither were it the women alone which did this, but euen old men, roaring and crying out, were as violent as the women were. We groaned in spirit to see the power of Sathan so farre preuaile, in seducing these so harmelesse soules, and laboured by all means, both by shewing our great dislike, and when that serued not, by violent with-holding of their hands from that madnesse, directing them (by our eyes and hands lift vp towards heauen) to the liuing God whom they ought to serue; but so mad were they vpon their Idolatry, that forcible with-holding them would not preuaile (for as soone as they could get liberty to their hands againe, they would be as violent as they were before) till such time, as they whom they worshipped, were conueyed from them into the tents, whom yet as men besides themselues, they would with fury and outrage seeke to haue againe. After that time had a little qualified their madnes, they then began to shew and make knowne vnto vs their griefes and diseases which they carried about them, some of them hauing old aches, some shruncke sinewes, some old soares and canckred vlcers, some wounds more lately receiued, and the like, in most lamentable manner crauing helpe and cure thereof from vs: making signes, that if we did but blow vpon their griefes, or but touched the diseased places, they would be whole. Their griefes we could not but take pitty on them, and to our power desire to helpe them: but that (if it pleased God to open their eyes) they might vnderstand we were but men and no gods, we vsed ordinary meanes, as, lotions, emplaisters, and vnguents most fitly (as farre as our skills could guesse) agreeing to the natures of their griefes, beseeching God, if it made for his glory, to giue cure to their diseases by these meanes. The like we did from time to time as they resorted to vs. Few were the dayes, wherein they were absent from vs, during the whole time of our abode in that place: and ordinarily euery third day, they brought their sacrifices, till such time, as they certainely vnderstood our meaning, that we tooke no pleasure, but were displeased with them: whereupon their zeale abated, and their sacrificing, for a season, to our good liking ceased; notwithstanding they continued still to make their resort vnto vs in great abunddance, and in such sort, that they oft-times forgate, to prouide meate for their owne sustenance: so that our generall (of whom they made account as of a father) was faine to performe the office of a father to them, relieuing them with such victualls, as we had prouided for our selues, as, Muscels, Seales, and such like, wherein they tooke exceeding much content; and seeing that their sacrifices were displeasing to vs, yet (hating ingratitude) they sought to recompence vs, with such things as they had, which they willingly inforced vpon vs, though it were neuer so necessarie or needfull for themselues to keepe. They are a people of a tractable, free, and louing nature, without guile or treachery; their bowes and arrowes (their only weapons, and almost all their wealth) they vse very skillfully, but yet not to do any great harme with them, being by reason of their weakenesse, more fit for children then for men, sending the arrow neither farre off, nor with any great force: and yet are the men commonly so strong of body, that that, which 2. or 3. of our men could hardly beare, one of them would take vpon his backe, and without grudging carrie it easily away, vp hill and downe hill an English mile together: they are also exceeding swift in running, and of long continuance; the vse whereof is so familiar with them, that they seldom goe, but for the most part runne. One thing we obserued in them with admiration: that if at any time, they chanced to see a fish, so neere the shoare, that they might reach the place without swimming, they would neuer, or very seldome misse to take it. After that our necessary businesses were well dispatched, our generall with his gentlemen, and many of his company, made a journy vp into the land, to see the manner of their dwelling, and to be the better acquainted, with the nature and commodities of the country. Their houses were all such as wee haue formerly described, and being many of them in one place, made seuerall villages here and there. The inland we found to be farre different from the shoare, a goodly country, and fruitful soyle, stored with many blessings fit for the vse of man: infinite was the company of very large and fat Deere, which there we sawe by thousands, as we supposed, in a heard: besides a multitude of a strange kind of Conies, by farre exceeding them in number: their heads and bodies, in which they resemble other Conies, are but small; his tayle like the tayle of a Rat, exceeding long; and his feet like the pawes of a Want or Moale; vnder his chinne, on either side, he hath a bagge, into which he gathereth his meate, when he hath filled his belly abroade, that he may with it, either feed his young, or feed himselfe, when he lifts not to trauaile from his burrough: the people eate their bodies, and make great account of their skinnes, for their kings holidaies coate was made of them. This country our generall named _Albion_, and that for two causes; the one in respect of the white bancks and cliffes, which lie toward the sea: the other, that it might haue some affinity, euen in name also, with our owne country, which was sometime so called. Before we went from thence, our generall caused to be set vp, a monument of our being there; as also of her maiesties, and successors right and title to that kingdome, namely; a plate of brasse, fast nailed to a great and firme post; whereon is engrauen her graces name, and the day and yeare of our arriuall there, and of the free giuing vp, of the prouince and kingdome, both by the king and people, into her maiesties hands: together with her highnesse picture, and armes in a piece of sixpence currant English monie, shewing it selfe by a hole made of purpose through the plate: vnderneath was likewise engrauen the name of our generall &c. The Spaniards neuer had any dealing, or so much as set a foote in this country; the vtmost of their discoueries, reaching onely to many degrees Southward of this place. And now, as the time of our departure was perceiued by them to draw nigh, so did the sorrowes and miseries of this people, seeme to themselues to increase vpon them; and the more certaine they were of our going away, the more doubtfull they shewed themselues, what they might doe; so that we might easily iudge that that ioy (being exceeding great) wherewith they receiued vs at our first arriuall, was cleane drowned in their excessiue sorrow for our departing: For they did not onely loose on a sudden all mirth, ioy, glad countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, familiar reioycing one with another, and all pleasure what euer flesh and bloud might bee delighted in, but with sighes and sorrowings, with heauy hearts and grieued minds, they powred out wofull complaints and moanes, with bitter teares and wringing of their hands, tormenting themselues. And as men refusing all comfort, they onely accounted themselues as cast-awayes, and those whom the gods were about to forsake: So that nothing we could say or do, was able to ease them of their so heauy a burthen, or to deliuer them from so desperate a straite, as our leauing of them did seeme to them that it would cast them into. Howbeit seeing they could not still enjoy our presence, they (supposing vs to be gods indeed) thought it their duties to intreate vs that being absent, we would yet be mindfull of them, and making signes of their desires, that in time to come wee would see them againe, they stole vpon vs a sacrifice, and set it on fire erre we were aware; burning therein a chaine and a bunch of feathers. We laboured by all meanes possible to withhold or withdraw them but could not preuaile, till at last we fell to prayers and singing of Psalmes, whereby they were allured immediately to forget their folly, and leaue their sacrifice vnconsumed, suffering the fire to go out, and imitating vs in all our actions; they fell a lifting vp their eyes and hands to heauen as they saw vs do. The 23. of Iuly they tooke a sorrowfull farewell of vs, but being loath to leaue vs, they presently ranne to the tops of the hils to keepe vs in their sight as long as they could, making fires before and behind, and on each side of them, burning therein (as is to be supposed) sacrifices at our departure. Not farre without this harborough did lye certain Ilands (we called them the Ilands of Saint Iames) hauing on them plentifull and great store of Seales and birds, with one of which wee fell Iuly 24. whereon we found such prousion as might serue our turne for a while. FOOTNOTES: [B-1] As printed in _Drake's Plate of Brass_, California Historical Society, Special Publication No. 13 (San Francisco, 1937) pp. 32-46. PLATES PLATE 18 [Illustration _a_: Three California Indians from San Francisco pictured by Chamisso, 1822.] [Illustration _b_: "Feather bundle" of the Pomo Indians, similar to that described by Fletcher on June 17, 1579.] [Illustration _c_: Strings of clamshell disk beads identifiable as the "chaines" of Fletcher.] PLATE 19 [Illustration: Pomo Indian feathered baskets decorated with clamshell disk beads and abalone shell pendants.] PLATE 20 [Illustration: Air photo of the east cape of Point Reyes. The white dot marks the point selected by George Davidson as the spot where Drake careened the _Golden Hinde_. The shore line of the bay follows the course of the curved arrow.] PLATE 21 [Illustration: Air photo of the small valley at Drake's Bay, showing the location (marked near center by white dot) where the Drake plate was found by William Caldeira in 1934.] * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small caps have been replaced by ALL CAPS. Both "Bruno de Hezeta" and "Bruno Heceta" used in text. Both forms have been retained. Footnote numbers to the appendices are prefixed with "A-" for App. I or "B-" for App. II. Archaic spelling and punctuation retained in quoted texts, except for rejoining end-of-line hyphenations. Spelling of "betsowed" (page 284) and "cheife" (page 285) in quoted text retained as printed. Verso, "Mardh" changed to "March" (Issued March 20, 1947) Page 265 (footnote 67), a superfluous closing parenthesis was removed (169, 170, 181; Loeb,) Page 269 (footnote 84), a full stop has been changed to a comma (Pomo, element) Page 269 (footnote 85), "tto" changed to "to" (reference to the seeds) Page 270 (footnote 87), "Eth." changed to "Ethn." (and Ethn., Vol. VII) Page 270 (footnote 90), the note number is missing (element no. 807, p. 197, n.) Page 271, "native's" changed to "natives'" (the natives' actions) Page 273, a superfluous comma was removed (Miwok,[101] and) Page 275 (E. M. Loeb ... songs), a line break has been added to Line 2; the comma appears in the original Page 275 (Other Pomo songs...): Line 1, Both "U" and "u" at the beginning of the line have a macron over them. (U u hulai) Line 3, the word "o" has a macron above it. (gagoyá he he) 
2854	----	SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED By Philip Nichols Editor: Philip Nichols PREPARER'S NOTE This text was originally prepared from a 1910 edition, published by P F Collier & Son Company, New York. It included this note: Faithfully taken out of the report of Master Christopher Ceely, Ellis Hixom, and others, who were in the same Voyage with him By Philip Nichols, Preacher Reviewed by Sir Francis Drake himself Set forth by Sir Francis Drake, Baronet (his nephew) SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED INTRODUCTORY NOTE Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of the naval adventurers of England of the time of Elizabeth, was born in Devonshire about 1540. He went to sea early, was sailing to the Spanish Main by 1565, and commanded a ship under Hawkins in an expedition that was overwhelmed by the Spaniards in 1567. In order to recompense himself for the loss suffered in this disaster, he equipped the expedition against the Spanish treasure-house at Nombre de Dios in 1572, the fortunes of which are described in the first of the two following narratives. It was on this voyage that he was led by native guides to "that goodly and great high tree" on the isthmus of Darien, from which, first of Englishmen, he looked on the Pacific, and "besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea." The fulfilment of this prayer is described in the second of the voyages here printed, in which it is told how, in 1578, Drake passed through the Straits of Magellan into waters never before sailed by his countrymen, and with a single ship rifled the Spanish settlements on the west coast of South America and plundered the Spanish treasure-ships; how, considering it unsafe to go back the way he came lest the enemy should seek revenge, he went as far north as the Golden Gate, then passed across the Pacific and round by the Cape of Good Hope, and so home, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Only Magellan's ship had preceded him in the feat, and Magellan had died on the voyage. The Queen visited the ship, "The Golden Hind," as she lay at Deptford and knighted the commander on board. Drake's further adventures were of almost equal interest. Returning from a raid on the Spaniards in 1586, he brought home the despairing Virginian colony, and is said at the same time to have introduced from America tobacco and potatoes. Two years later he led the English fleet in the decisive engagement with the Great Armada. In 1595 he set out on another voyage to the Spanish Main; and in the January of the following year died off Porto Bello and was buried in the waters where he had made his name as the greatest seaman of his day and nation. TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY CHARLES THE FIRST, OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, and IRELAND, KING, all the blessings of this, and a better life. MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, That this brief Treatise is yours, both by right and by succession, will appear by the Author's and Actor's ensuing _Dedication_. To praise either the Mistress or the Servant, might justly incur the censure of _Quis eos unquam sanus vituperavit_; either's worth having sufficiently blazed their fame. This Present loseth nothing, by glancing on former actions; and the observation of passed adventures may probably advantage future employments. Caesar wrote his own Commentaries; and this Doer was partly the Indictor. Neither is there wanting living testimony to confirm its truth. For his sake, then, cherish what is good! and I shall willingly entertain check for what is amiss. Your favourable acceptance may encourage my collecting of more neglected notes! However, though Virtue, as Lands, be not inheritable; yet hath he left of his Name, one that resolves, and therein joys to approve himself. Your most humble and loyal subject, FRANCIS DRAKE [BART.] The Dedicatory Epistle, Intended To QUEEN ELIZABETH Written By SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, Deceased. To The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, my most dread Sovereign. Madam, Seeing divers have diversely reported and written of these Voyages and Actions which I have attempted and made, every one endeavouring to bring to light whatsoever inklings or conjectures they have had; whereby many untruths have been published, and the certain truth concealed: as [so] I have thought it necessary myself, as in a Card [chart] to prick the principal points of the counsels taken, attempts made, and success had, during the whole course of my employment in these services against the Spaniard. Not as setting sail for maintaining my reputation in men's judgment, but only as sitting at helm, if occasion shall be, for conducting the like actions hereafter. So I have accounted it my duty, to present this Discourse to Your Majesty, as of right; either for itself being the first fruits of your Servant's pen, or for the matter, being service done to Your Majesty by your poor vassal, against your great Enemy: at times, in such places, and after such sort as may seem strange to those that are not acquainted with the whole carriage thereof; but will be a pleasing remembrance to Your Highness, who take the apparent height of the Almighty's favour towards you, by these events, as truest instruments. Humbly submitting myself to Your gracious censure, both in writing and presenting; that Posterity be not deprived of such help as may happily be gained hereby, and our present Age, at least, may be satisfied, in the rightfulness of these actions, which hitherto have been silenced: and Your Servant's labour not seem altogether lost, not only in travels by sea and land, but also in writing the Report thereof (a work to him no less troublesome) yet made pleasant and sweet, in that it hath been, is, and shall be for Your Majesty's content; to whom I have devoted myself [and] live or die. FRANCIS DRAKE [Knight]. January 1, 1592 [i.e., 1593]. TO THE COURTEOUS READER HONEST READER, Without apology, I desire thee, in this ensuing Discourse, to observe, with me, the power and justice of the LORD of Hosts, Who could enable so mean a person to right himself upon so mighty a Prince; together with the goodness and providence of GOD very observable in that it pleased Him to raise this man, not only from a low condition, but even from the state of persecution. His father suffered in it, being forced to fly from his house, near South Tavistock in Devon, into Kent: and there to inhabit in the hull of a ship, wherein many of his younger sons were born. He had twelve in all: and as it pleased GOD to give most of them a being upon the water, so the greatest part of them died at sea. The youngest, who though he was [went] as far as any, yet died at home; whose posterity inherits that, which by himself and this noble Gentleman the eldest brother, was hardly, yet worthily gotten. I could more largely acquaint thee, that this voyage was his Third he made into the West Indies; after that [of] his excellent service, both by sea and land, in Ireland, under WALTER, Earl of ESSEX; his next, about the World; another, wherein he took St. Jago, Cartagena, St. Domingo, St. Augustino; his doings at Cadiz; besides the first Carrack taught by him to sail into England; his stirrings in Eighty-seven; his remarkable actions in Eighty-eight; his endeavours in the Portugal employment; his last enterprise, determined by death; and his filling Plymouth with a plentiful stream of fresh water: but I pass by all these. I had rather thou shouldest inquire of others! then to seem myself a vainglorious man. I intend not his praise! I strive only to set out the praise of his and our good GOD! that guided him in his truth! and protected him in his courses! My ends are to stir thee up to the worship of GOD, and service of our King and Country, by his example! If anything be worth thy consideration; conclude with me, that the LORD only, can do great things! FRANCIS DRAKE [Bart.] SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED Calling upon this dull or effeminate Age, to follow his noble steps for gold and silver. As there is a general Vengeance which secretly pursueth the doers of wrong, and suffereth them not to prosper, albeit no man of purpose empeach them: so is there a particular Indignation, engrafted in the bosom of all that are wronged, which ceaseth not seeking, by all means possible, to redress or remedy the wrong received. Insomuch as those great and mighty men, in whom their prosperous estate hath bred such an overweening of themselves, but they do not only wrong their inferiors, but despise them being injured, seem to take a very unfit course for their own safety, and far unfitter for their rest. For as ESOP teacheth, even the fly hath her spleen, and the emmet [ant] is not without her choler; and both together many times find means whereby, though the eagle lays her eggs in JUPITER'S lap, yet by one way or other, she escapeth not requital of her wrong done [to] the emmet. Among the manifold examples hereof, which former Ages have committed to memory, or our Time yielded to sight: I suppose, there hath not been any more notable then this in hand; either in respect of the greatness of the person in whom the first injury was offered, or the meanness of him who righted himself. The one being, in his own conceit, the mightiest Monarch of all the world! The other, an English Captain, a mean subject of her Majesty's! Who (besides the wrongs received at Rio de [la] Hacha with Captain JOHN LOVELL in the years 1565 and 1566) having been grievously endamaged at San Juan de Ulua in the Bay of Mexico, with captain JOHN HAWKINS, in the years 1567 and 1568, not only in the loss of his goods of some value, but also of his kinsmen and friends, and that by the falsehood of DON MARTIN HENRIQUEZ then the Viceroy of Mexico; and finding that no recompense could be recovered out of Spain, by any of his own means, or by Her Majesty's letters; he used such helps as he might, by two several voyages into the West Indies (the first with two ships, the one called the _Dragon_, the other the _Swan_, in the year 1570: the other in the _Swan_ alone in the year 1571, to gain such intelligences as might further him, to get some amends for his loss. On Whitsunday Eve, being the 24th of May, in the year 1572, Captain DRAKE in the _Pascha_ of Plymouth of 70 tons, his admiral [flag-ship]; with the _Swan_ of the same port, of 25 tons, his vice-admiral, in which his brother JOHN DRAKE was Captain (having in both of them, of men and boys seventy-three, all voluntarily assembled; of which the eldest was fifty, all the rest under thirty: so divided that there were forty-seven in the one ship, and twenty-six in the other. Both richly furnished with victuals and apparel for a whole year; and no less heedfully provided of all manner of munition, artillery, artificers, stuff and tools, that were requisite for such a Man-of-war in such an attempt: but especially having three dainty pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder in all pieces, and stowed aboard, to be set up as occasion served), set sail, from out of the Sound of Plymouth, with intent to land at Nombre de Dios. The wind continued prosperous and favourable at northeast, and gave us a very good passage, without any alteration or change: so that albeit we had sight (3rd June) of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras, and of the Canaries also within twelve days of our setting forth: yet we never struck sail nor came to anchor, nor made any stay for any cause, neither there nor elsewhere, until twenty-five days after; when (28th June) we had sight of the island Guadaloupe, one of the islands of the West Indies, goodly high land. The next morning (29th June), we entered between Dominica and Guadaloupe, where we descried two canoes coming from a rocky island, three leagues off Dominica; which usually repair thither to fish, by reason of the great plenty thereof, which is there continually to be found. We landed on the south side of it, remaining there three days to refresh our men; and to water our ships out of one of those goodly rivers, which fall down off the mountain. There we saw certain poor cottages; built with Palmito boughs and branches; but no inhabitants, at that time, civil or savage: the cottages it may be (for we could know no certain cause of the solitariness we found there) serving, not for continual inhabitation, but only for their uses, that came to that place at certain seasons to fish. The third day after (1st July), about three in the afternoon, we set sail from thence, toward the continent of _Terra firma_. And the fifth day after (6th July), we had sight of the high land of Santa Marta; but came not near the shore by ten leagues. But thence directed our course, for a place called by us, Port Pheasant; for that our Captain had so named it in his former voyage, by reason of the great store of those goodly fowls, which he and his company did then daily kill and feed on, in that place. In this course notwithstanding we had two days calm, yet within six days after we arrived (12th July) at Port Pheasant, which is a fine round bay, of very safe harbour for all winds, lying between two high points, not past half a cable's length over at the mouth, but within, eight or ten cables' length every way, having ten or twelve fathoms of water more or less, full of good fish; the soil also very fruitful, which may appear by this, that our Captain having been in this place, within a year and few days before [i. e., in July, 1571] and having rid the place with many alleys and paths made; yet now all was so overgrown again, as that we doubted, at first, whether this was the same place or not. At our entrance into this bay, our Captain having given order to his brother what to do, if any occasion should happen in his absence, was on his way, with intent to have gone aland with some few only in his company, because he knew there dwelt no Spaniards within thirty-five leagues of that place. [Santiago de] Tolou being the nearest to the eastwards, and Nombre de Dios to the westwards, where any of that nation dwelt. But as we were rowing ashore, we saw a smoke in the woods, even near the place where our Captain had aforetime frequented; therefore thinking it fit to take more strength with us, he caused his other boat also to be manned, with certain muskets and other weapons, suspecting some enemy had been ashore. When we landed, we found by evident marks, that there had been lately there, a certain Englishman of Plymouth, called JOHN GARRET, who had been conducted thither by certain English mariners which had been there with our Captain, in some of his former voyages. He had now left a plate of lead, nailed fast to a mighty great tree (greater than any four men joining hands could fathom about) on which were engraven these words, directed to our Captain. CAPTAIN DRAKE If you fortune to come to this Port, make haste away! For the Spaniards which you had with you here, the last year, have bewrayed this place, and taken away all that you left here. I depart from hence, this present 7th of July, 1572. Your very loving friend, John Garret. The smoke which we saw, was occasioned by a fire, which the said Garret and his company had made, before their departure, in a very great tree, not far from this which had the lead nailed on it, which had continued burning at least five days before our arrival. This advertisement notwithstanding, our Captain meant not to depart before he had built his pinnaces; which were yet aboard in pieces: for which purpose he knew this port to be a most convenient place. And therefore as soon as we had moored our ships, our Captain commanded his pinnaces to be brought ashore for the carpenters to set up; himself employing all his other company in fortifying a place (which he had chosen out, as a most fit plot) of three-quarters of an acre of ground, to make some strength or safety for the present, as sufficiently as the means he had would afford. Which was performed by felling of great trees; bowsing and hauling them together, with great pulleys and hawsers, until they were enclosed to the water; and then letting others fall upon them, until they had raised with trees and boughs thirty feet in height round about, leaving only one gate to issue at, near the water side; which every night, that we might sleep in more safety and security, was shut up, with a great tree drawn athwart it. The whole plot was built in pentagonal form, to wit, of five equal sides and angles, of which angles two were toward the sea, and that side between them was left open, for the easy launching of our pinnaces: the other four equal sides were wholly, excepting the gate before mentioned, firmly closed up. Without, instead of a trench, the ground was rid [laid bare] for fifty feet space, round about. The rest was very thick with trees, of which many were of those kinds which are never without green leaves, till they are dead at the root: excepting only one kind of tree amongst them, much like to our Ash, which when the sun cometh right over them, causing great rains, suddenly casteth all its leaves, viz., within three days, and yet within six days after becomes all green again. The leaves of the other trees do also in part fall away, but so as the trees continue still green notwithstanding: being of a marvellous height, and supported as it were with five or six natural buttresses growing out of their bodies so far, that three men may so be hidden in each of them, that they which shall stand in the very next buttress shall not be able to see them. One of them specially was marked to have had seven of those stays or buttresses, for the supporting of his greatness and height, which being measured with a line close by the bark and near to the ground, as it was indented or extant, was found to be above thirty-nine yards about. The wood of those trees is as heavy or heavier than Brazil or _Lignum vitae_; and is in colour white. The next day after we had arrived (13th July), there came also into that bay, an English bark of the Isle of Wight, of Sir EDWARD HORSEY'S; wherein JAMES RANSE was Captain and JOHN OVERY, Master, with thirty men: of which, some had been with our Captain in the same place, the year before. They brought in with them a Spanish caravel of Seville, which he had taken the day before, athwart of that place; being a Caravel of _Adviso_ [Despatch boat] bound for Nombre de Dios; and also one shallop with oars, which he had taken at Cape Blanc. This Captain RANSE understanding our Captain's purpose, was desirous to join in consort with him; and was received upon conditions agreed on between them. Within seven days after his coming, having set up our pinnaces, and despatched all our business, in providing all things necessary, out of our ships into our pinnaces: we departed (20th July) from that harbour, setting sail in the morning towards Nombre de Dios, continuing our course till we came to the Isles of Pinos: where, being within three days arrived, we found (22nd July) two frigates of Nombre de Dios lading plank and timber from thence. The Negroes which were in those frigates, gave us some particular understanding of the present state of the town; and besides, told us that they had heard a report, that certain soldiers should come thither shortly, and were daily looked for, from the Governor of Panama, and the country thereabout, to defend the town against the Cimaroons (a black people, which about eighty years past [i.e., 1512] fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since grown to a Nation, under two Kings of their own: the one inhabiteth to the West, and the other to the East of the Way from Nombre de Dios to Panama) which had nearly surprised it [i.e., Nombre de Dios], about six weeks before [i.e., about 10th June, 1572]. Our Captain willing to use those Negroes well (not hurting himself) set them ashore upon the Main, that they might perhaps join themselves to their countrymen the Cimaroons, and gain their liberty, if they would; or if they would not, yet by reason of the length and troublesomeness of the way by land to Nombre de Dios, he might prevent any notice of his coming, which they should be able to give. For he was loath to put the town to too much charge (which he knew they would willingly bestow) in providing beforehand for his entertainment; and therefore he hastened his going thither, with as much speed and secrecy as possibly he could. To this end, disposing of all his companies, according as they inclined most; he left the three ships and the caravel with Captain RANSE; and chose into his four pinnaces (Captain RANSE'S shallop made the fourth) beside fifty-three of our men, twenty more of Captain RANSE'S company; with which he seemed competently furnished, to achieve what he intended; especially having proportioned, according to his own purpose, and our men's disposition, their several arms, viz., six targets, six firepikes, twelve pikes, twenty-four muskets and calivers, sixteen bows, and six partisans, two drums, and two trumpets. Thus having parted (23rd July) from our company: we arrived at the island of Cativaas, being twenty-five leagues distant, about five days afterward (28th July). There we landed all in the morning betimes: and our Captain trained his men, delivering them their several weapons and arms which hitherto he had kept very fair and safe in good caske [casks]: and exhorting them after his manner, he declared "the greatness of the hope of good things that was there! the weakness of the town, being unwalled! and the hope he had of prevailing to recompense his wrongs! especially now that he should come with such a crew, who were like-minded with himself; and at such a time, as he should be utterly undiscovered." Therefore, even that afternoon, he causeth us to set sail for Nombre de Dios, so that before sunset we were as far as Rio Francisco. Thence, he led us hard aboard the shore, that we might not be descried of the Watch House, until that being come within two leagues of the point of the bay, he caused us to strike a hull, and cast our grappers [grappling irons], riding so until it was dark night. Then we weighed again, and set sail, rowing hard aboard the shore, with as much silence as we could, till we recovered the point of the harbour under the high land. There, we stayed, all silent; purposing to attempt the town in the dawning of the day: after that we had reposed ourselves, for a while. But our captain with some other of his best men, finding that our people were talking of the greatness of the town, and what their strength might be; especially by the report of the Negroes that we took at the Isle of Pinos: thought it best to put these conceits out of their heads, and therefore to take the opportunity of the rising of the moon that night, persuading them that "it was the day dawning." By this occasion we were at the town a large hour sooner than first was purposed. For we arrived there by three of the clock after midnight. At that time it fortuned that a ship of Spain, of 60 tons, laden with Canary wines and other commodities, which had but lately come into the bay; and had not yet furled her spirit-sail (espying our four pinnaces, being an extraordinary number, and those rowing with many oars) sent away her gundeloe [? gondola] towards the town, to give warning. But our Captain perceiving it, cut betwixt her and the town, forcing her to go to the other side of the bay: whereby we landed without impeachment, although we found one gunner upon the Platform [battery] in the very place where we landed; being a sandy place and no key [quay] at all, not past twenty yards from the houses. There we found six great pieces of brass ordinance, mounted upon their carriages, some Demy, some Whole-Culvering. We presently dismounted them. The gunner fled. The town took alarm (being very ready thereto, by reason of their often disquieting by their near neighbours the Cimaroons); as we perceived, not only by the noise and cries of the people, but by the bell ringing out, and drums running up and down the town. Our captain, according to the directions which he had given over night, to such as he had made choice of for the purpose, left twelve to keep the pinnaces; that we might be sure of a safe retreat, if the worst befell. And having made sure work of the Platform before he would enter the town, he thought best, first to view the Mount on the east side of the town: where he was informed, by sundry intelligences the year before, they had an intent to plant ordnance, which might scour round about the town. Therefore, leaving one half of his company to make a stand at the foot of the Mount, he marched up presently unto the top of it, with all speed to try the truth of the report, for the more safety. There we found no piece of ordnance, but only a very fit place prepared for such use, and therefore we left it without any of our men, and with all celerity returned now down the Mount. Then our Captain appointed his brother, with JOHN OXNAM [or OXENHAM] and sixteen other of his men, to go about, behind the King's Treasure House, and enter near the eastern end of the Market Place: himself with the rest, would pass up the broad street into the Market Place, with sound of drum and trumpet. The Firepikes, divided half to the one, and half to the other company, served no less for fright to the enemy than light of our men, who by this means might discern every place very well, as if it were near day: whereas the inhabitants stood amazed at so strange a sight, marvelling what the matter might be, and imagining, by reason of our drums and trumpets sounding in so sundry places, that we had been a far greater number then we were. Yet, by means of the soldiers of which were in the town, and by reason of the time which we spent in marching up and down the Mount, the soldiers and inhabitants had put themselves in arms, and brought their companies in some order, at the south-east end of the Market Place, near the Governor's House, and not far from the gate of the town, which is the only one, leading towards Panama: having (as it seems) gathered themselves thither, either that in the Governor's sight they might shew their valour, if it might prevail; or else, that by the gate they might best take their _Vale_, and escape readiest. And to make a shew of far greater numbers of shot, or else of a custom they had, by the like device to terrify the Cimaroons; they had hung lines with matches lighted, overthwart the western end of the Market Place, between the Church and the Cross; as though there had been in a readiness some company of shot, whereas indeed there were not past two or three that taught these lines to dance, till they themselves ran away, as soon as they perceived they were discovered. But the soldiers and such as were joined with them, presented us with a jolly hot volley of shot, beating full upon the full egress of that street, in which we marched; and levelling very low, so as their bullets ofttimes grazed on the sand. We stood not to answer them in like terms; but having discharged our first volley of shot, and feathered them with our arrows (which our Captain had caused to be made of purpose in England; not great sheaf arrows, but fine roving shafts, very carefully reserved for the service) we came to the push of pike, so that our firepikes being well armed and made of purpose, did us very great service. For our men with their pikes and short weapons, in short time took such order among these gallants (some using the butt-end of their pieces instead of other weapons), that partly by reason of our arrows which did us there notable service, partly by occasion of this strange and sudden closing with them in this manner unlooked for, and the rather for that at the very instant, our Captain's brother, with the other company, with their firepikes, entered the Market Place by the eastern street: they casting down their weapons, fled all out of the town by the gate aforesaid, which had been built for a bar to keep out of the town the Cimaroons, who had often assailed it; but now served for a gap for the Spaniards to fly at. In following, and returning; divers of our men were hurt with the weapons which the enemy had let fall as he fled; somewhat, for that we marched with such speed, but more for that they lay so thick and cross one on the other. Being returned, we made our stand near the midst of the Market Place, where a tree groweth hard by the Cross; whence our Captain sent some of our men to stay the ringing of the alarm bell, which had continued all this while: but the church being very strongly built and fast shut, they could not without firing (which our Captain forbade) get into the steeple where the bell rung. In the meantime, our Captain having taken two or three Spaniards in their flight, commanded them to shew him the Governor's House, where he understood was the ordinary place of unlading the moiles [mules] of all the treasure which came from Panama by the King's appointment. Although the silver only was kept there; the gold, pearl, and jewels (being there once entered by the King's officer) was carried from thence to the King's Treasure House not far off, being a house very strongly built of lime and alone, for the safe keeping thereof. At our coming to the Governor's House we found the great door where the mules do usually unlade, even then opened, a candle lighted upon the top of the stairs; and a fair gennet ready saddled, either for the Governor himself, or some other of his household to carry it after him. By means of this light we saw a huge heap of silver in that nether [lower] room; being a pile of bars of silver of, as near as we could guess, seventy feet in length, of ten feet in breadth, and twelve feet in height, piled up against the wall, each bar was between thirty-five and forty pounds in weight. At sight hereof, our Captain commanded straightly that none of us should touch a bar of silver; but stand upon our weapons, because the town was full of people, and there was in the King's Treasure House near the water side, more gold and jewels than all our four pinnaces could carry: which we should presently set some in hand to break open, notwithstanding the Spaniards report the strength of it. We were no sooner returned to our strength, but there was a report brought by some of our men that our pinnaces were in danger to be taken; and that if we ourselves got not aboard before day, we should be oppressed with multitude both of soldiers and towns-people. This report had his ground from one DIEGO a Negro, who, in the time of the first conflict, came and called to our pinnaces, to know "whether they were Captain DRAKE'S?" And upon answer received, continued entreating to be taken aboard, though he had first three or four shot made at him, until at length they fetched him; and learned by him, that, not past eight days before our arrival, the King had sent thither some 150 soldiers to guard the town against the Cimaroons, and the town at this time was full of people beside: which all the rather believed, because it agreed with the report of the Negroes, which we took before at the Isle of Pinos. And therefore our Captain sent his brother and JOHN OXNAM to understand the truth thereof. They found our men which we left in our pinnaces much frightened, by reason that they saw great troops and companies running up and down, with matches lighted, some with other weapons, crying _Que gente? Que gente?_ which not having been at the first conflict, but coming from the utter ends of the town (being at least as big as Plymouth), came many times near us; and understanding that we were English, discharged their pieces and ran away. Presently after this, a mighty shower of rain, with a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, fell, which poured down so vehemently (as it usually doth in those countries) that before we could recover the shelter of a certain shade or penthouse at the western end of the King's Treasure House, (which seemeth to have been built there of purpose to avoid sun and rain) some of our bow-strings were wet, and some of our match and powder hurt! Which while we were careful of, to refurnish and supply; divers of our men harping on the reports lately brought us, were muttering of the forces of the town, which our Captain perceiving, told them, that "He had brought them to the mouth of the Treasure of the World, if they would want it, they might henceforth blame nobody but themselves!" And therefore as soon as the storm began to assuage of his fury (which was a long half hour) willing to give his men no longer leisure to demur of those doubts, nor yet allow the enemy farther respite to gather themselves together, he stept forward commanding his brother, with JOHN OXNAM and the company appointed them, to break the King's Treasure House: the rest to follow him to keep the strength of the Market Place, till they had despatched the business for which they came. But as he stepped forward, his strength and sight and speech failed him, and he began to faint for want of blood, which, as then we perceived, had, in great quantity, issued upon the sand, out of a wound received in his leg in the first encounter, whereby though he felt some pain, yet (for that he perceived divers of the company, having already gotten many good things, to be very ready to take all occasions, of winding themselves out of that conceited danger) would he not have it known to any, till this his fainting, against his will, bewrayed it: the blood having first filled the very prints which our footsteps made, to the great dismay of all our company, who thought it not credible that one man should be able to spare so much blood and live. And therefore even they, which were willing to have ventured the most for so fair a booty, would in no case hazard their Captain's life; but (having given him somewhat to drink wherewith he recovered himself, and having bound his scarf about his leg, for the stopping of the blood) entreated him to be content to go with them aboard, there to have his wound searched and dressed, and then to return on shore again if he thought good. This when they could not persuade him unto (as who knew it to be utterly impossible, at least very unlikely, that ever they should, for that time, return again, to recover the state in which they now were: and was of opinion, that it were more honourable for himself, to jeopard his life for so great a benefit, than to leave off so high an enterprise unperformed), they joined altogether and with force mingled with fair entreaty, they bare him aboard his pinnace, and so abandoned a most rich spoil for the present, only to preserve their Captain's life: and being resolved of him, that while they enjoyed his presence, and had him to command them, they might recover wealth sufficient; but if once they lost him, they should hardly be able to recover home. No, not with that which they had gotten already. Thus we embarked by break of day (29th July), having besides our Captain, many of our men wounded, though none slain but one Trumpeter: whereupon though our surgeons were busily employed, in providing remedies and salves for their wounds: yet the main care of our Captain was respected by all the rest; so that before we departed out of the harbour for the more comfort of our company, we took the aforesaid ship of wines without great resistance. But before we had her free of the haven, they of the town had made means to bring one of their culverins, which we had dismounted, so as they made a shot at us, but hindered us not from carrying forth the prize to the Isle of _Bastimentos_, or the Isle of Victuals: which is an island that lieth without the bay to the westward, about a league off the town, where we stayed the two next days, to cure our wounded men, and refresh ourselves, in the goodly gardens which we there found abounding with great store of all dainty roots and fruits; besides great plenty of poultry and other fowls, no less strange then delicate. Shortly upon our first arrival in this island, the Governor and the rest of his Assistants in the town, as we afterwards understood, sent unto our Captain, a proper gentleman, of mean stature, good complexion, and a fair spoken, a principal soldier of the late sent garrison, to view in what state we were. At his coming he protested "He came to us, of mere good will, for that we had attempted so great and incredible a matter with so few men: and that, at the first, they feared that we had been French, at whose hands they knew they should find no mercy: but after they perceived by our arrows, that we were Englishmen, their fears were the less, for that they knew, that though we took the treasure of the place, yet we would not use cruelty toward their persons. But albeit this his affection gave him cause enough, to come aboard such, whose virtue he so honoured: yet the Governor also had not only consented to his coming, but directly sent him, upon occasion that divers of the town affirmed, said he, 'that they knew our Captain, who the last two years had been often on our coast, and had always used their persons very well.' And therefore desired to know, first, Whether our Captain was the same Captain DRAKE or not? and next, Because many of their men were wounded with our arrows, whether they were poisoned or not? and how their wounds might best be cured? lastly, What victuals we wanted, or other necessaries? of which the Governor promised by him to supply and furnish us, as largely as he durst." Our Captain, although he thought this soldier but a spy: yet used him very courteously, and answered him to his Governor's demands: that "He was the same DRAKE whom they meant! It was never his manner to poison his arrows! They might cure their wounded by ordinary surgery! As for wants, he knew the Island of _Bastimentos_ has sufficient, and could furnish him if he listed! But he wanted nothing but some of that special commodity which that country yielded, to content himself and his company." And therefore he advised the Governor "to hold open his eyes! for before he departed, if GOD lent him life and leave, he meant to reap some of their harvest, which they get out of the earth, and sent into Spain to trouble all the earth!" To this answer unlooked for, this gentleman replied, "If he might, without offence, move such a question, what should then be the cause of our departing from that town at this time, where was above 360 tons of silver ready for the Fleet, and much more gold in value, resting in iron chests in the King's Treasure House?" But when our Captain had shewed him the true cause of his unwilling retreat aboard, he acknowledged that "we had no less reason in departing, than courage in attempting:" and no doubt did easily see, that it was not for the town to seek revenge of us, by manning forth such frigates or other vessels as they had; but better to content themselves and provide for their own defence. Thus, with great favour and courteous entertainment, besides such gifts from our Captain as most contented him, after dinner, he was in such sort dismissed, to make report of what he had seen, that he protested, "he was never so much honoured of any in his life." After his departure, the Negro formentioned, being examined more fully, confirmed this report of the gold and the silver; with many other intelligences of importance: especially how we might have gold and silver enough, if we would by means of the Cimaroons, whom though he had betrayed divers times (being used thereto by his Masters) so that he knew they would kill him, if they got him: yet if our Captain would undertake his protection, he durst adventure his life, because he knew our Captain's name was most precious and highly honoured by them. This report ministered occasion to further consultation: for which, because this place seemed not the safest; as being neither the healthiest nor quietest; the next day, in the morning, we all set our course for the Isle of _Pinos_ or Port Plenty, where we had left our ships, continuing all that day, and the next till towards night, before we recovered it. We were the longer in this course, for that our Captain sent away his brother and ELLIS HIXOM to the westward, in search of the River of Chagres, where himself had been the year before, and yet was careful to gain more notice of; it being a river which trendeth to the southward, within six leagues of Panama, where is a little town called Venta Cruz [Venta de Cruzes], whence all the treasure, that was usually brought thither from Panama by mules, was embarked in frigates [sailing] down that river into the North sea, and so to Nombre de Dios. It ebbeth and floweth not far into the land, and therefore it asketh three days' rowing with a fine pinnace to pass [up] from the mouth to Venta Cruz; but one day and a night serveth to return down the river. At our return to our ships (1st August), in our consultation, Captain RANSE (forecasting divers doubts of our safe continuance upon that coast, being now discovered) was willing to depart; and our Captain no less willing to dismiss him: and therefore as soon as our pinnaces returned from Chagres (7th August) with such advertisement as they were sent for, about eight days before; Captain RANSE took his leave, leaving us at the isle aforesaid, where we had remained five or six days. In which meantime, having put all things in a readiness, our captain resolved, with his two ships and three pinnaces to go to Cartagena; whither in sailing, we spent some six days by reason of the calms which came often upon us: but all this time we attempted nothing that we might have done by the way, neither at [Santiago de] Tolou nor otherwhere, because we would not be discovered. We came to anchor with our two ships in the evening [13th August], in seven fathom water, between the island of Charesha and St. Bernards [San Bernardo]. Our Captain led the three pinnaces about the island, into the harbour of Cartagena; where at the very entry, he found a frigate at anchor, aboard which was only one old man; who being demanded, "Where the rest of his company was?" answered, "That they were gone ashore in their gundeloe [? gondola or ship's boat], that evening, to fight about a mistress:" and voluntarily related to our Captain that, "two hours before night, there past by them a pinnace, with sail and oars, as fast as ever they could row, calling to him 'Whether there had not been any English or Frenchmen there lately?' and upon answer that, 'There had been none!' they bid them 'look to themselves!' That, within an hour that this pinnace was come to the utterside [outside] of Cartagena, there were many great pieces shot off, whereupon one going to top, to descry what might be the cause? espied, over the land, divers frigates and small shipping bringing themselves within the Castle." This report our Captain credited, the rather for that himself had heard the report of the ordnance at sea; and perceived sufficiently, that he was now descried. Notwithstanding in farther examination of this old mariner, having understood, that there was, within the next point, a great ship of Seville, which had here discharged her loading, and rid now with her yards across, being bound the next morning for Santo Domingo: our Captain took this old man into his pinnace to verify that which he had informed, and rowed towards this ship, which as we came near it, hailed us, asking, "Whence our shallops were?" We answered, "From Nombre de Dios!" Straightway they railed and reviled! We gave no heed to their words, but every pinnace, according to our Captain's order, one on the starboard bow, the other on the starboard quarter, and the Captain in the midship on the larboard side, forthwith boarded her; though we had some difficulty to enter by reason of her height, being of 240 tons. But as soon as we entered upon the decks, we threw down the grates and spardecks, to prevent the Spaniards form annoying us with their close fights: who then perceiving that we were possessed of their ship, stowed themselves all in hold with their weapons, except two or three yonkers, which were found afore the beetes: when having light out of our pinnaces, we found no danger of the enemy remaining, we cut their cables at halse, and with our three pinnaces, towed her without the island into the sound right afore the down, without [beyond the] danger of their great shot. Meanwhile, the town, having intelligence hereof, or by their watch, took the alarm, rang out their bells, shot off about thirty pieces of great ordnance, put all their men in a readiness, horse and foot, came down to the very point of the wood, and discharged their calivers, to impeach us if they might, in going forth. The next morning (14th August) our ships took two frigates, in which there were two, who called themselves King's _Scrivanos_, the one of Cartagena, the other of Veragua, with seven mariners and two Negroes; who had been at Nombre de Dios and were now bound for Cartagena with double [? duplicate] letters of advice, to certify them that Captain DRAKE had been at Nombre de Dios, had taken it; and had it not been that he was hurt with some blessed shot, by all likelihood he had sacked it. He was yet still upon the coast; they should therefore carefully prepare for him! After that our Captain had brought out all his fleet together, at the _Scrivanos'_ entreaties, he was content to do them all favour, in setting them and all their companies on shore; and so bare thence with the islands of St. Bernards, about three leagues of the town: where we found great store of fish for our refreshing. Here, our Captain considering that he was now discovered upon the chieftest places of all the coast, and yet not meaning to leave it till he had found the Cimaroons, and "made" his voyage, as he had conceived; which would require some length of time, and sure manning of his pinnaces: he determined with himself, to burn one of the ships, and make the other a Storehouse; that his pinnaces (which could not otherwise) might be thoroughly manned, and so he might be able to abide any time. But knowing the affection of his company, how loath they were to leave either of their ships, being both so good sailers and so well furnished; he purposed in himself by some policy, to make them most willing to effect that he intended. And therefore sent for one THOMAS MOONE, who was Carpenter in the _Swan_, and asking him into his cabin, chargeth him to conceal for a time, a piece of service, which he must in any case consent to do aboard his own ship: that was, in the middle of the second watch, to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet, to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it, that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered by a boiling up. THOMAS MOONE at the hearing hereof, being utterly dismayed, desired to know "What cause there might be, to move him to sink so good a bark of his own, new and strong; and that, by _his_ means, who had been in two so rich and gainful voyages in her with himself heretofore: If his brother, the Master, and the rest of the company [numbering 26] should know of such his fact, he thought verily they would kill him." But when our Captain had imparted to him his cause, and had persuaded him with promise that it should not be known, till all of them should be glad of it: he understood it, and did it accordingly. The next morning [15th August] our Captain took his pinnace very early, purposing to go a fishing, for that there is very great store on the coast; and falling aboard the _Swan_, calleth for his brother to go with him, who rising suddenly, answereth that "He would follow presently, or if it would please him to stay a very little, he would attend him." Our Captain perceiving the feat wrought, would not hasten him; but in rowing away, demanded of them, "Why their bark was so deep?" as making no great account of it. But, by occasion of this demand, his brother sent one down to the Steward, to know "Whether there were any water in the ship? Or what other cause might be?" The Steward, hastily stepping down at his usual scuttle, was wet up to his waist, and shifting with more haste to come up again as if the water had followed him, cried out that "The ship was full of water!" There was no need to hasten the company, some to the pump, others to search for the leak, which the Captain of the bark seeing they did, on all hands, very willingly; he followed his brother, and certified him of "the strange chance befallen them that night; that whereas they had not pumped twice in six weeks before, now they had six feet of water in hold: and therefore he desireth leave from attending him in fishing, to intend the search and remedy of the leak." And when our Captain with his company preferred [offered] to go to help them; he answered, "They had men enough aboard, and prayed him to continue his fishing, that they might have some part of it for their dinner." Thus returning, he found his company had taken great pain, but had freed the water very little: yet such was their love to the bark, as our Captain well knew, that they ceased not, but to the utmost of their strength, laboured all that they might till three in the afternoon; by which time, the company perceiving, that (though they had been relieved by our Captain himself and many of his company) yet they were not able to free above a foot and a half of water, and could have no likelihood of finding the leak, had now a less liking of her than before, and greater content to hear of some means for remedy. Whereupon our Captain (consulting them what they thought best to be done) found that they had more desire to have all as he thought fit, than judgement to conceive any means of remedy. And therefore he propounded, that himself would go in the pinnace, till he could provide him some handsome frigate; and that his brother should be Captain in the admiral [flag-ship] and the Master should also be there placed with him, instead of this: which seeing they could not save, he would have fired that the enemy might never recover her: but first all the pinnaces should be brought aboard her, that every one might take out of her whatever they lacked or liked. This, though the company at first marvelled at; yet presently it was put in execution and performed that night. Our Captain had his desire, and men enough for his pinnaces. The next morning (16th August) we resolved to seek out some fit place, in the Sound of Darien, where we might safely leave our ship at anchor, not discoverable by the enemy, who thereby might imagine us quite departed from the coast, and we the meantime better follow our purposes with our pinnaces; of which our Captain would himself take two to Rio Grande [Magdalena], and the third leave with his brother to seek the Cimaroons. Upon this resolution, we set sail presently for the said Sound; which within five days [21st August], we recovered: abstaining of purpose from all such occasion, as might hinder our determination, or bewray [betray] our being upon the coast. As soon as we arrived where our Captain intended, and had chosen a fit and convenient road out of all trade [to or from any Mart] for our purpose; we reposed ourselves there, for some fifteen days, keeping ourselves close, that the bruit of our being upon the coast might cease. But in the meantime, we were not idle: for beside such ordinary works, as our Captain, every month did usually inure us to, about the trimming and setting of his pinnaces, for their better sailing and rowing: he caused us to rid a large plot of ground, both of trees and brakes, and to build us houses sufficient for all our lodging, and one especially for all our public meetings; wherein the Negro which fled to us before, did us great service, as being well acquainted with the country, and their means of building. Our archers made themselves butts to shoot at, because we had many that delighted in that exercise, and wanted not a fletcher to keep our bows and arrows in order. The rest of the company, every one as he liked best, made his disport at bowls, quoits, keiles, etc. For our Captain allowed one half of the company to pass their time thus, every other day interchangeable; the other half being enjoined to the necessary works, about our ship and pinnaces, and the providing of fresh victuals, fish, fowl, hogs, deer, conies, etc., whereof there is great plenty. Here our smiths set up their forge, as they used, being furnished out of England, with anvil, iron, coals, and all manner of necessaries, which stood us in great stead. At the end of these fifteen days (5th September), our Captain leaving his ship in his brother's charge, to keep all things in order; himself took with him, according to his former determination, two pinnaces for Rio Grande, and passing by Cartagena but out of sight, when we were within two leagues of the river, we landed (8th September), to the westward on the Main, where we saw great store of cattle. There we found some Indians, who asking us in friendly sort, in broken Spanish, "What we would have?" and understanding that we desired fresh victuals in traffic; they took such cattle for us as we needed, with ease and so readily, as if they had a special commandment over them, whereas they would not abide us to come near them. And this also they did willingly, because our Captain, according to his custom, contented them for their pains, with such things as they account greatly of; in such sort that they promised, we should have there, of them at any time what we would. The same day, we departed thence to Rio Grande [Magdalena], where we entered about three of the clock in the afternoon. There are two entries into this river, of which we entered the western most called _Boca Chica_. The freshet [current] is so great, that we being half a league from the mouth of it, filled fresh water for our beverage. From three o'clock till dark at night, we rowed up the stream; but the current was so strong downwards, that we got but two leagues, all that time. We moored our pinnaces to a tree that night: for that presently, with the closing of the evening, there fell a monstrous shower of rain, with such strange and terrible claps of thunder, and flashes of lightning, as made us not a little to marvel at, although our Captain had been acquainted with such like in that country, and told us that they continue seldom longer than three-quarters of an hour. This storm was no sooner ceast, but it became very calm, and therewith there came such an innumerable multitude of a kind of flies of that country, called mosquitoes, like our gnats, which bit so spitefully, that we could not rest all that night, nor find means to defend ourselves from them, by reason of the heat of the country. The best remedy we then found against them, was the juice of lemons. At the break of day (9th September), we departed, rowing in the eddy, and hauling up by the trees where the eddy failed, with great labour, by spells, without ceasing, each company their half-hour glass: without meeting any, till about three o'clock in the afternoon, by which time we could get but five leagues ahead. Then we espied a canoe, with two Indians fishing in the river; but we spake not to them, lest so we might be descried: nor they to us, as taking us to be Spaniards. But within an hour after, we espied certain houses, on the other side of the river, whose channel is twenty-five fathom deep, and its breadth so great, that a man can scantly be discerned from side to side. Yet a Spaniard which kept those houses, had espied our pinnaces; and thinking we had been his countrymen, made a smoke, for a signal to turn that way, as being desirous to speak with us. After that, we espying this smoke, had made with it, and were half the river over, he wheaved [waved] to us, with his hat and his long hanging sleeves, to come ashore. But as we drew nearer to him, and he discerned that we were not those he looked for: he took his heels, and fled from his houses, which we found to be, five in number, all full of white rusk, dried bacon, that country cheese (like Holland cheese in fashion, but far more delicate in taste, of which they send into Spain as special presents) many sorts of sweetmeats, and conserves; with great store of sugar: being provided to serve the Fleet returning to Spain. With this store of victuals, we loaded our pinnaces; by the shutting in of the day, we were ready to depart; for that we hastened the rather, by reason of an intelligence given us by certain Indian women which we found in those houses: that the frigates (these are ordinarily thirty, or upwards, which usually transport the merchandise, sent out of Spain to Cartagena from thence to these houses, and so in great canoes up hence into Nuevo Reyno, for which the river running many hundred of leagues within the land serveth very fitly: and return in exchange, the gold and treasure, silver, victuals, and commodities, which that kingdom yields abundantly) were not yet returned from Cartagena, since the first alarm they took of our being there. As we were going aboard our pinnaces from these Storehouses (10th September), the Indians of a great town called Villa del Rey, some two miles distant from the water's side where we landed, were brought down by the Spaniards into the bushes, and shot arrows; but we rowed down the stream with the current (for that the wind was against us) only one league; and because it was night, anchored till the morning, when we rowed down to the mouth of the river, where we unloaded all our provisions, and cleansed our pinnaces, according to our Captain's custom, and took it in again, and the same day went to the Westward. In this return, we descried a ship, a barque, and a frigate, of which the ship and frigate went for Cartagena, but for the Barque was bound to the Northwards, with the wind easterly, so that we imagined she had some gold or treasure going for Spain: therefore we gave her chase, but taking her, and finding nothing of importance in her, understanding that she was bound for sugar and hides, we let her go; and having a good gale of wind, continued our former course to our ship and company. In the way between Cartagena and Tolou, we took [11th September] five or six frigates, which were laden from Tolou, with live hogs, hens, and maize which we call Guinea wheat. Of these, having gotten what intelligence they could give, of their preparations for us, and divers opinions of us, we dismissed all the men; only staying two frigates with us, because they were so well stored with good victuals. Within three days after, we arrived at the place which our Captain chose, at first, to leave his ship in, which was called by our Captain, Port Plenty; by reason we brought to thither continually all manner store of good victuals, which we took, going that way by sea, for the victualling of Cartagena and Nombre de Dios as also the Fleets going and coming out of Spain. So that if we had been two thousand, yea three thousand persons, we might with our pinnaces easily have provided them sufficient victuals of wine, meal, rusk; _cassavi_ (a kind of bread made of a root called Yucca, whose juice is poison, but the substance good and wholesome), dried beef, dried fish, live sheep, live hogs, abundance of hens, besides the infinite store of dainty fresh fish, very easily to be taken every day: insomuch that we were forced to build four several magazines or storehouses, some ten, some twenty leagues asunder; some in islands, some in the Main, providing ourselves in divers places, that though the enemy should, with force, surprise any one, yet we might be sufficiently furnished, till we had "made" our voyage as we did hope. In building of these, our Negro's help was very much, as having a special skill, in the speedy erection of such houses. This our store was much, as thereby we relieved not only ourselves and the Cimaroons while they were with us; but also two French ships in extreme want. For in our absence, Captain JOHN DRAKE, having one of our pinnaces, as was appointed, went in with the Main, and as he rowed aloof the shore, where he was directed by DIEGO the Negro aforesaid, which willingly came unto us at Nombre de Dios, he espied certain of the Cimaroons; with whom he dealt so effectually, that in conclusion he left two of our men with their leader, and brought aboard two of theirs: agreeing that they should meet him again the next day, at a river midway between the Cabecas [Cabeza is Spanish for Headland] and our ships; which they named Rio Diego. These two being very sensible men, chosen out by their commander [chief], did, with all reverence and respect, declare unto our Captain, that their nation conceited great joy of his arrival, because they knew him to be an enemy to the Spaniards, not only by his late being in Nombre de Dios, but also by his former voyages; and therefore were ready to assist and favour his enterprises against his and their enemies to the uttermost: and to that end their captain and company did stay at this present near the mouth of Rio Diego, to attend what answer and order should be given them; that they would have marched by land, even to this place, but that the way is very long, and more troublesome, by reason of many steep mountains, deep rivers, and thick brakes: desiring therefore, that it might please our Captain to take some order, as he thought best, with all convenient speed in this behalf. Our Captain considering the speech of these persons, and weighing it with his former intelligences had not only Negroes, but Spaniards also, whereof he was always very careful: as also conferring it with his brother's informations of the great kindness that they shewed him, being lately with them: after he had heard the opinions of those of best service with him, "what were fittest to be done presently?" resolved himself with his brother, and the two Cimaroons, in his two pinnaces, to go toward this river. As he did the same evening, giving order, that the ship and the rest of his fleet should the next morning follow him, because there was a place of as great safety and sufficiency, which his brother had found out near the river. The safety of it consisted, not only in that which is common all along that coast from Tolou to Nombre de Dios, being above sixty leagues, that it is a most goodly and plentiful country, and yet inhabited not with one Spaniard, or any for the Spaniards: but especially in that it lieth among a great many of goodly islands full of trees. Where, though there be channels, yet there are such rocks and shoals, that no man can enter by night without great danger; nor by day without discovery, whereas our ships might be hidden within the trees. The next day (14th September) we arrived at this river appointed, where we found the Cimaroons according to promise: the rest of their number were a mile up, in a wood by the river's side. There after we had given them entertainment, and received good testimonies of their joy and good will towards us, we took two more of them into our pinnace, leaving our two men with the rest of theirs, to march by land, to another river called Rio Guana, with intent there to meet with another company of Cimaroons which were now in the mountains. So we departed that day from Rio Diego, with our pinnaces, towards our ship, as marvelling that she followed us not as was appointed. But two days after (16th September), we found her in the place where we left her; but in far other state, being much spoiled and in great danger, by reason of a tempest she had in our absence. As soon as we could trim our ship, being some two days, our Captain sent away (18th September) one of his pinnaces, towards the bottom of the bay, amongst the shoals and sandy islands, to sound out the channel, for the bringing in of our ship nearer the Main. The next day (19th September) we followed, and were with wary pilotage, directed safely into the best channel, with much ado to recover the road, among so many flats and shoals. It was near about five leagues from the Cativaas, betwixt an island and the Main, where we moored our ship. The island was not above four cables in length from the Main, being in quantity some three acres of ground, flat and very full of trees and bushes. We were forced to spend the best part of three days, after our departure from our Port Plenty, before we were quiet in this new found road, which we had but newly entered, when our two men and the former troop of Cimaroons, with twelve others whom they had met in the mountains, came (23rd September) in sight over against our ship, on the Main. Whence we fetched them all aboard, to their great comfort and our content: they rejoicing that they should have some fit opportunity to wreak their wrongs on the Spaniards; we hoping that now our voyage should be bettered. At our first meeting, when our Captain had moved them, to shew him the means which they had to furnish him with gold and silver; they answered plainly, that "had they known gold had been his desire; they would have satisfied him with store, which, for the present, they could not do: because the rivers, in which they sunk great store (which they had taken from the Spaniards, rather to despite them than for love of gold) were now so high, that they could not get it out of such depths for him; and because the Spaniards, in these rainy months, do not use [are not accustomed] to carry their treasure by land." This answer although it were somewhat unlooked for, yet nothing discontented us, but rather persuaded us farther of their honest and faithful meaning toward us. Therefore our Captain to entertain these five months, commanded all our ordnance and artillery ashore, with all our other provisions: sending his pinnaces to the Main, to bring over great trees, to make a fort upon the same island, for the planting of all our ordnance therein, and for our safeguard, if the enemy, in all this time, should chance to come. Our Cimaroons (24th September) cut down Palmito boughs and branches, and with wonderful speed raised up two large houses for all our company. Our fort was then made, by reason of the place, triangle-wise, with main timber, and earth of which the trench yielded us good store, so that we made it thirteen feet in height. [Fort Diego.] But after we had continued upon this island fourteen days, our Captain having determined, with three pinnaces, to go for Cartagena left (7th October), his brother, JOHN DRAKE, to govern these who remained behind with the Cimaroons to finish the fort which he had begun: for which he appointed him to fetch boards and planks, as many as his pinnaces would carry, from the prize we took at Rio Grande, and left at the Cativaas, where she drove ashore and wrecked in our absence: but now she might serve commodiously, to supply our use, in making platforms for our ordnance. Thus our Captain and his brother took their leave; the one to the Eastward, and the other to the Cativaas. That night, we came to an isle, which he called Spur-kite land, because we found there great store of such a kind of bird in shape, but very delicate, of which we killed and roasted many; staying there till the next day midnoon (8th October), when we departed thence. And about four o'clock recovered a big island in our way, where we stayed all night, by reason that there was great store of fish, and especially of a great kind of shell-fish of a foot long. We called them whelks. The next morning (9th October), we were clear of these islands and shoals, and hauled off into the sea. About four days after (13th October), near the island of St. Bernards, we chased two frigates ashore; and recovering one of these islands, made our abode there some two days (14th-15th October) to wash our pinnaces and to take of the fish. Thence we went towards Tolou, and that day (16th October) landed near the town in a garden, where we found certain Indians, who delivered us their bows and arrows, and gathered for us such fruit as the garden did yield, being many sorts of dainty fruits and roots, [we] still contenting them for what we received. Our Captain's principal intent in taking this and other places by the way, not being for any other cause, but only to learn true intelligence of the state of the country and of the Fleets. Hence we departed presently, and rowed towards Charesha, the island of Cartagena; and entered in at Bocha Chica, and having the wind large, we sailed in towards the city, and let fall our grappers betwixt the island and the Main, right over against the goodly Garden Island. In which, our Captain would not suffer us to land, notwithstanding our importunate desire, because he knew, it might be dangerous: for that they are wont to send soldiers thither, when they know of any Men-of-war on the coast; which we found accordingly. For within three hours after, passing by the point of the island, we had a volley of a hundred shot from them, and yet there was but one of our men hurt. This evening (16th October) we departed to sea; and the day following (17th October), being some two leagues off the harbour, we took a bark, and found that the Captain and his wife with the better sort of passengers, had forsaken her, and were gone ashore in the Gundeloe: by occasion whereof we boarded without resistance, though they were well provided with swords and targets and some small shot, besides four iron bases. She was 50 tons, having ten mariners, five or six Negroes, great store of soap and sweet meat, bound from St. Domingo to Cartagena. This Captain left behind him a silk ancient [flag] with his arms; as might be thought, in hasty departing. The next day (18th October), we sent all the company ashore to seek their masters, saving a young Negro two or three years old, which we brought away; but kept the bark, and in her, bore into the mouth of Cartagena harbour, where we anchored. That afternoon, certain horsemen came down to the point by the wood side, and with the _Scrivano_ fore-mentioned, came towards our bark with a flag of truce, desiring of our Captain's safe conduct for his coming and going; the which being granted, he came aboard us, giving our Captain "great thanks for his manifold favours, etc., promising that night before daybreak, to bring as much victuals as they would desire, what shift so ever he made, or what danger so ever incurred of law and punishment." But this fell out to be nothing but a device of the Governor forced upon the _Scrivano_, to delay time, till they might provide themselves of sufficient strength to entrap us: for which this fellow, by his smooth speech, was thought a fit means. So by sun rising, (19th October), when we perceived his words but words, we put to sea to the westward of the island, some three leagues off, where we lay at hull the rest of all that day and night. The next day (20th October), in the afternoon, there came out of Cartagena, two frigates bound for St. Domingo, the one of 58, the other of 12 tons, having nothing in them but ballast. We took them within a league of the town, and came to anchor with them within sacre shot of the east Bulwark. There were in those frigates some twelve or thirteen common mariners, which entreated to be set ashore. To them our Captain gave the greater frigate's gundeloe, and dismissed them. The next morning (21st October) when they came down to the western point with a flag of truce, our Captain manned one of his pinnaces and rowed ashore. When we were within a cable's length of the shore, the Spaniards fled, hiding themselves in the woods, as being afraid of our ordnance; but indeed to draw us on to land confidently, and to presume of our strength. Our Captain commanding the grapnell to be cast out of the stern, veered the pinnace ashore, and as soon as she touched the sand, he alone leapt ashore in their sight, to declare that he durst set his foot aland: but stayed not among them, to let them know, that though he had not sufficient forces to conquer them, yet he had sufficient judgment to take heed of them. And therefore perceiving their intent, as soon as our Captain was aboard, we hauled off upon our grapner and rid awhile. They presently came forth upon the sand, and sent a youth, as with a message from the Governor, to know, "What our intent was, to stay upon the coast?" Our Captain answered: "He meant to traffic with them; for he had tin, pewter, cloth, and other merchandise that they needed." The youth swam back again with this answer, and was presently returned, with another message: that, "The King had forbidden to traffic with any foreign nation for any commodities, except powder and shot; of which, if he had any store, they would be his merchants." He answered, that "He was come from his country, to exchange his commodities for gold and silver, and is not purposed to return without his errand. They are like, in his opinion, to have little rest, if that, by fair means, they would not traffic with him." He gave this messenger a fair shirt for a reward, and so returned him: who rolled his shirt about his head and swam very speedily. We heard no answer all that day; and therefore toward night we went aboard our frigates and reposed ourselves, setting and keeping very orderly all that night our watch, with great and small shot. The next morning (22nd October) the wind, which had been westerly in the evening, altered to the Eastward. About the dawning of the day, we espied two sails turning towards us, whereupon our Captain weighed with his pinnaces, leaving the two frigates unmanned. But when we were come somewhat nigh them, the wind calmed, and we were fain to row towards them, till that approaching very nigh, we saw many heads peering over board. For, as we perceived, these two frigates were manned and set forth out of Cartagena, to fight with us, and, at least, to impeach or busy us; whilst by some means or other they might recover the frigates from us. But our Captain prevented both their drifts. For commanding JOHN OXNAM to stay with the one pinnace, to entertain these two Men-of-war; himself in the other made much speed, that he got to his frigates which he had left at anchor; and caused the Spaniards, (who in the meantime had gotten aboard in a small canoe, thinking to have towed them within the danger of their shot) to make the greater haste thence, than they did thither. For he found that in shifting thence, some of them were fain to swim aland (the canoe not being able to receive them) and had left their apparel, some their rapiers and targets, some their flasks and calivers behind them; although they were towing away of one of them. Therefore considering that we could not man them, we sunk the one, and burnt the other, giving them to understand by this, that we perceived their secret practices. This being done, he returned to JOHN OXNAM; who all this while lay by the Men-of-war without proffering to fight. And as soon as our Captain was come up to these frigates, the wind blew much for the sea, so that, we being betwixt the shore and them, were to a manner forced to bear room into the harbour before them, to the great joy of the Spaniards; who beheld it; in supposing, that we would still have fled before them. But as soon as we were in the harbour, and felt smooth water, our pinnaces, as we were assured of, getting the wind, we sought, with them upon the advantage, so that after a few shot exchanged, and a storm rising, they were contented to press no nearer. Therefore as they let fall their anchors, we presently let drop our grapner in the wind of them; which the Spanish soldiers seeing, considering the disadvantage of the wind, the likelihood of the storm to continue, and small hope of doing any good, they were glad to retire themselves to the town. But by reason of the foul and tempestuous weather, we rode therein four days, feeling great cold, by reason we had such sore rains with westerly wind, and so little succour in our pinnaces. The fifth day (27th October) there came in a frigate from the sea, which seeing us make towards her, ran herself ashore, unhanging her rudder and taking away her sails, that she might not easily be carried away. But when we were come up to her, we perceived about a hundred horse and foot, with their furniture, come down to the point of the Main, where we interchanged some shot with them. One of our great shot passed so near a brave cavalier of theirs, that thereby they were occasioned to advise themselves, and retreat into the woods: where they might sufficiently defend and rescue the frigate from us, and annoy us also, if we stayed long about her. Therefore we concluded to go to sea again, putting forth through _Boca Chica_, with intent to take down our masts, upon hope of fair weather, and to ride under the rocks called _Las Serenas_, which are two leagues off at sea, as we had usually done aforetime, so that they could not discern us from the rocks. But, there, the sea was mightily grown, that we were forced to take the harbour again; where we remained six days, notwithstanding the Spaniards grieved greatly at our abode there so long. They put (2nd November) another device in practice to endanger us. For they sent forth a great shallop, a fine gundeloe, and a great canoe, with certain Spaniards with shot, and many Indians with poisoned arrows, as it seemed, with intent to begin some fight, and then to fly. For as soon as we rowed toward them and interchanged shot, they presently retired and went ashore into the woods, where an ambush of some sixty shot were laid for us: besides two pinnaces and a frigate warping towards us, which were manned as the rest. They attempted us very boldly, being assisted by those others, which from out of the wood, had gotten aboard the gundeloe and canoe, and seeing us bearing from them (which we did in respect of the _ambuscado_), they encouraged themselves and assured their fellows of the day. But our Captain weighing this their attempt, and being out of danger of their shot from the land, commanding his other pinnace to be brought ahead of him, and to let fall their grapners each ahead of the other, environed both the pinnaces with bonnets, as for a close fight, and then wheaved [waved] them aboard him. They kept themselves upon their oars at caliver-shot distance, spending powder apace; as we did some two or three hours. We had only one of our men wounded in that fight. What they had is unknown to us, but we saw their pinnaces shot through in divers places, and the powder of one of them took fire; whereupon we weighed, intending to bear room to overrun them: which they perceiving, and thinking that we would have boarded them, rowed away amain to the defence they had in the wood, the rather because they were disappointed of their help that they expected from the frigate; which was warping towards us, but by reason of the much wind that blew, could not come to offend us or succour them. Thus seeing that we were still molested, and no hope remained of any purchase to be had in this place any longer; because we were now so notably made known in those parts, and because our victuals grew scant: as soon as the weather waxed somewhat better (the wind continuing always westerly, so that we could not return to our ships) our Captain thought best to go (3rd November) to the Eastward, towards _Rio Grande_ [Magdalena] long the coast, where we had been before, and found great store of victuals. But when after two days' sailing, we were arrived (5th November) at the villages of store, where before we had furnished ourselves with abundance of hens, sheep, calves, hogs, etc.; now we found bare nothing, not so much as any people left: for that they, by the Spaniards' commandments, had fled to the mountains, and had driven away all their cattle, that we might not be relieved by them. Herewith being very sorry, because much of our victuals in our pinnaces was spoilt by the foul weather at sea and rains in harbour. A frigate being descried at sea revived us, and put us in some hope for the time, that in her we should find sufficient; and thereupon it may easily be guessed, how much we laboured to recover her: but when we had boarded her, and understood that she had neither meat nor money, but that she was bound for _Rio Grande_ to take in provision upon bills, our great hope converted into grief. We endured with our allowance seven or eight days more, proceeding to the Eastward, and bearing room for Santa Marta, upon hope to find some shipping in the road, or limpets on the rocks, or succour against the storm in that good harbour. Being arrived; and seeing no shipping; we anchored under the western point, where is high land, and, as we thought, free in safety from the town, which is in the bottom of the bay: not intending to land there, because we knew that it was fortified, and that they had intelligence of us. But the Spaniards (knowing us to be Men-of-war, and misliking that we should shroud under their rocks without their leave) had conveyed some thirty or forty shot among the cliffs, which annoyed us so spitefully and so unrevengedly, for that they lay hidden behind the rocks, but we lay open to them, that we were soon weary of our harbour, and enforced (for all the storm without and want within) to put to sea. Which though these enemies of ours were well contented withal, yet for a farewell, as we came open of the town, they sent us a culverin shot; which made a near escape, for it fell between our pinnaces, as we were upon conference of what was best to be done. The company advised that if it pleased him, they might put themselves aland, some place to the Eastward to get victuals, and rather hope for courtesy from the country-people, than continue at sea, in so long cold, and great a storm in so leaky a pinnace. But our Captain would in no wise like of that advice; he thought it better to bear up towards Rio de [la] Hacha, or Coricao [Curacao], with hope to have plenty without great resistance: because he knew, either of the islands were not very populous, or else it would be very likely that these would be found ships of victual in a readiness. The company of the other pinnace answered, that "They would willingly follow him through the world; but in this they could not see how either their pinnaces should live in that sea, without being eaten up in that storm, or they themselves able to endure so long time, with so slender provision as they had, viz., only one gammon of bacon and thirty pounds of biscuit for eighteen men." Our Captain replied, that "They were better provided than himself was, who had but one gammon of bacon, and forty pounds of biscuit for his twenty-four men; and therefore he doubted not but they would take such part as he did, and willingly depend upon God's Almighty providence, which never faileth them that trust in Him." With that he hoisted his foresail, and set his course for Coricao; which the rest perceiving with sorrowful hearts in respect of the weak pinnace, yet desirous to follow their Captain, consented to take the same course. We had not sailed past three leagues, but we had espied a sail plying to the Westward, with her two courses, to our great joy: who vowed together, that we would have her, or else it should cost us dear. Bearing with her, we found her to be a Spanish ship of above 90 tons, which being wheaved [waved] amain by us, despised our summons, and shot off her ordnance at us. The sea went very high, so that it was not for us to attempt to board her, and therefore we made fit small sail to attend upon her, and keep her company to her small content, till fairer weather might lay the sea. We spent not past two hours in our attendance, till it pleased God, after a great shower, to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our pieces [i. e., bases] and approach her at pleasure, in such sort that in short time we had taken her; finding her laden with victuals well powdered [salted] and dried: which at that present we received as sent us of God's great mercy. After all things were set in order, and that the wind increased towards night, we plied off and on, till day (13th November), at what time our Captain sent in ELLIS HIXOM, who had then charge of his pinnace, to search out some harbour along the coast; who having found out a little one, some ten or twelve leagues to the east of Santa Marta, where in sounding he had good ground and sufficient water, presently returned, and our Captain brought in his new prize. Then by promising liberty, and all the apparel to the Spaniards which we had taken if they would bring us to water and fresh victuals; the rather by their means, we obtained of the inhabitants (Indians) what they had, which was plentiful. These Indians were clothed and governed by a Spaniard, which dwelt in the next town, not past a league off. We stayed there all day, watering and wooding, and providing things necessary, by giving content and satisfaction of the Indians. But towards night our Captain called all of us aboard (only leaving the Spaniards lately taken in the prize ashore, according to our promise made them, to their great content; who acknowledged that our Captain did them a far greater favour in setting them freely at liberty, than he had done them displeasure in taking their ship), and so set sail. The sickness which had begun to kindle among us, two or three days before, did this day shew itself, in CHARLES GLUB, one of our Quarter-Masters, a very tall man, and a right good mariner; taken away, to the great grief both of Captain and company. What the cause of this malady was, we knew not of certainty, we imputed it to the cold which our men had taken, lying without succour in the pinnaces. But however it was, thus it pleased GOD to visit us, and yet in favour to restore unto health all the rest of our company, that were touched with this disease; which were not a few. The next morning (15th November) being fair weather, though the wind continued contrary, our Captain commanded the _Minion_, his lesser pinnace, to hasten away before him towards his ships at Fort Diego within the Cabecas [Headlands] to carry news of his coming, and to put all things in a readiness for our land journey, if they heard anything of the Fleet's arrival by the Cimaroons; giving the _Minion_ charge if they wanted wine, to take St. Bernards in their way, and there take in some such portion as they thought good, of the wines which we had there hidden in the sand. We plied to windwards, as near as we could, so that within seven-night after the _Minion_ departed from us, we came (22nd November) to St. Bernards, finding but twelve _botijos_ of wine of all the store we left, which had escaped the curious search of the enemy, who had been there; for they were deep in the ground. Within four or five days after, we came (27th November) to our ship, where we found all other things in good order; but received very heavy news of the death of JOHN DRAKE, our Captain's brother, and another young man called RICHARD ALLEN, which were both slain at one time (9th October), as they attempted the boarding of a frigate, within two days after our departing from them. The manner of it, as we learned by examination of the company, was this. When they saw this frigate at sea, as they were going towards their fort with planks to make the platforms, the company were very importunate on him, to give chase and set upon this frigate, which they deemed had been a fit booty for them. But he told them, that they "wanted weapons to assail; they knew not how the frigate was provided, they had their boats loaded with planks, to finish that his brother had commanded." But when this would not satisfy them, but that still they urged him with words and supposals: "If you will needs," said he, "adventure! It shall never be said that I will be hindmost, neither shall you report to my brother, that you lost your voyage by any cowardice you found in me!" Thereupon every man shifted as they might for the time: and heaving their planks overboard, took them such poor weapons as they had: viz., a broken pointed rapier, one old visgee, and a rusty caliver: JOHN DRAKE took the rapier, and made a gauntlet of his pillow, RICHARD ALLEN the visgee, both standing at the head of the pinnace, called _Eion_. ROBERT took the caliver and so boarded. But they found the frigate armed round about with a close fight of hides, full of pikes and calivers, which were discharged in their faces, and deadly wounded those that were in the fore-ship, JOHN DRAKE in the belly, and RICHARD ALLEN in the head. But notwithstanding their wounds, they with oars shifted off the pinnace, got clear of the frigate, and with all haste recovered their ship: where within an hour after, this young man of great hope, ended his days, greatly lamented of all the company. Thus having moored our ships fast, our Captain resolved to keep himself close without being descried, until he might hear of the coming of the Spanish Fleet; and therefore set no more to sea; but supplied his wants, both for his own company and the Cimaroons, out of his aforesaid magazine, beside daily out of the woods, with wild hogs, pheasants, and guanas: continuing in health (GOD be praised) all the meantime, which was a month at least; till at length about the beginning of January, half a score of our company fell down sick together (3rd January, 1573), and the most of them died within two or three days. So long that we had thirty at a time sick of this _calenture_, which attacked our men, either by reason of the sudden change from cold to heat, or by reason of brackish water which had been taken in by our pinnace, through the sloth of their men in the mouth of the river, not rowing further in where the water was good. Among the rest, JOSEPH DRAKE, another of his brethren, died in our Captain's arms, of the same disease: of which, that the cause might be the better discerned, and consequently remedied, to the relief of others, by our Captain's appointment he was ripped open by the surgeon, who found his liver swollen, his heart as it were sodden, and his guts all fair. This was the first and last experiment that our Captain made of anatomy in this voyage. The Surgeon that cut him open, over-lived him not past four days, although he was not touched with that sickness, of which he had been recovered about a month before: but only of an over-bold practice which he would needs make upon himself, by receiving an over-strong purgation of his own device, after which taken, he never spake; nor his Boy recovered the health which he lost by tasting it, till he saw England. The Cimaroons, who, as is before said, had been entertained by our Captain in September last, and usually repaired to our ship, during all the time of our absence, ranged the country up and down, between Nombre de Dios and us, to learn what they might for us; whereof they gave our Captain advertisement, from time to time; as now particularly certain of them let him understand, that the Fleet had certainly arrived in Nombre de Dios. Therefore he sent (30th January) the _Lion_, to the seamost islands of the Cativaas, to descry the truth of the report: by reason it must needs be, that if the Fleet were in Nombre de Dios, all frigates of the country would repair thitherward with victuals. The _Lion_, within a few days descried that she was sent for, espying a frigate, which she presently boarded and took, laden with maize, hens, and pompions from Tolou; who assured us of the whole truth of the arrival of the Fleet: in this frigate were taken one woman and twelve men, of whom one was the _Scrivano_ of Tolou. These we used very courteously, keeping them diligently guarded form the deadly hatred of the Cimaroons; who sought daily by all means they could, to get them of our Captain, that they might cut their throats, to revenge their wrongs and injuries which the Spanish nation had done them; but our Captain persuaded them not to touch them, or give them ill countenance, while they were in his charge; and took order for their safety, not only in his presence, but also in his absence. For when he had prepared to take his journey for Panama, by land; he gave ELLIS HIXOM charge of his own ship and company, and especially of those Spaniards whom he had put into the great prize, which was hauled ashore to the island, which we termed Slaughter Island (because so many of our men died there), and used as a storehouse for ourselves, and a prison for our enemies. All things thus ordered, our Captain conferring with his company, and the chiefest of the Cimaroons, what provisions were to be prepared for this great and long journey, what kind of weapons, what store of victuals, and what manner of apparel: was especially advised, to carry as great store of shoes as possible he might, by reason of so many rivers with stone and gravel as they were to pass. Which, accordingly providing, prepared his company for that journey, entering it upon Shrove-Tuesday (3rd February). At what time, there had died twenty-eight of our men, and a few whole men were left aboard with ELLIS HIXOM to keep the ship, and attend the sick, and guard the prisoners. At his departure our Captain gave this Master straight charge, in any case not to trust any messenger, that should come in his name with any tokens, unless he brought his handwriting: which he knew could not be counterfeited by the Cimaroons or Spaniards. We were in all forty-eight, of which eighteen only were English; the rest were Cimaroons, which beside their arms, bare every one of them, a great quantity of victuals and provision, supplying our want of carriage in so long a march, so that we were not troubled with anything but our furniture. And because they could not carry enough to suffice us altogether; therefore (as they promised before) so by the way with their arrows, they provided for us competent store from time to time. They have every one of them two sorts of arrows: the one to defend himself and offend the enemy, the other to kill his victuals. These for fight are somewhat like the Scottish arrow; only somewhat longer, and headed with iron, wood, or fish bones. But the arrows for provision are of three sorts, the first serveth to kill any great beast near at hand, as ox, stag, or wild boar: this hath a head of iron of a pound and a half weight, shaped in form like the head of a javelin or boar-spear, as sharp as any knife, making so large and deep a wound as can hardly be believed of him that hath not seen it. The second serveth for lesser beasts, and hath a head of three-quarters of a pound: this he most usually shooteth. The third serveth for all manner of birds: it hath a head of an ounce weight. And these heads though they be of iron only, yet are they so cunningly tempered, that they will continue a very good edge a long time: and though they be turned sometimes, yet they will never or seldom break. The necessity in which they stand hereof continually causeth them to have iron in far greater account than gold: and no man among them is of greater estimation, than he that can most perfectly give this temper unto it. Every day we were marching by sun-rising. We continued till ten in the forenoon: then resting (ever near some river) till past twelve, we marched till four, and then by some river's side, we reposed ourselves in such houses, as either we found prepared heretofore by them, when they travelled through these woods, or they daily built very readily for us in this manner. As soon as we came to the place where we intended to lodge, the Cimaroons, presently laying down their burdens, fell to cutting of forks or posts, and poles or rafters, and palmito boughs, or plantain leaves; and with great speed set up the number of six houses. For every of which, they first fastened deep into the ground, three or four great posts with forks: upon them, they laid one transom, which was commonly about twenty feet, and made the sides, in the manner of the roofs of our country houses, thatching it close with those aforesaid leaves, which keep out water a long time: observing always that in the lower ground, where greater heat was, they left some three or four feet open unthatched below, and made the houses, or rather roofs, so many feet the higher. But in the hills, where the air was more piercing and the nights cold, they made our rooms always lower, and thatched them close to the ground, leaving only one door to enter in, and a louvre hole for a vent, in the midst of the roof. In every of these, they made four several lodgings, and three fires, one in the midst, and one at each end of every house: so that the room was most temperately warm, and nothing annoyed with smoke, partly by reason of the nature of the wood which they use to burn, yielding very little smoke, partly by reason of their artificial making of it: as firing the wood cut in length like our billets at the ends, and joining them together so close, that though no flame or fire did appear, yet the heat continued without intermission. Near many of the rivers where we stayed or lodged, we found sundry sorts of fruits, which we might use with great pleasure and safety temperately: Mammeas, Guayvas, Palmitos, Pinos, Oranges, Lemons, and divers other; from eating of which they dissuaded us in any case, unless we eat very few of them, and those first dry roasted, as Plantains, Potatoes, and such like. In journeying, as oft as by chance they found any wild swine, of which those hills and valleys have store, they would ordinarily, six at a time, deliver their burdens to the rest of their fellows, pursue, kill and bring away after us, as much as they could carry, and time permitted. One day as we travelled, the Cimaroons found an otter, and prepared it to be drest: our Captain marvelling at it, PEDRO, our chief Cimaroon, asked him, "Are you a man of war, and in want; and yet doubt whether this be meat, that hath blood?" Herewithal our Captain rebuked himself secretly, that he had so slightly considered of it before. The third day of our journey (6th February), they brought us to a town of their own, seated near a fair river, on the side of a hill, environed with a dyke of eight feet broad, and a thick mud wall of ten feet high, sufficient to stop a sudden surpriser. It had one long and broad street, lying east and west, and two other cross streets of less breadth and length: there were in it some five or six and fifty households; which were kept so clean and sweet, that not only the houses, but the very streets were very pleasant to behold. In this town we saw they lived very civilly and cleanly. For as soon as we came thither, they washed themselves in the river; and changed their apparel, as also their women do wear, which was very fine and fitly made somewhat after the Spanish fashion, though nothing so costly. This town is distant thirty-five leagues from Nombre de Dios and forty-five from Panama. It is plentifully stored with many sorts of beasts and fowl, with plenty of maize and sundry fruits. Touching their affection in religion, they have no kind of priests, only they held the Cross in great reputation. But at our Captain's persuasion, they were contented to leave their crosses, and to learn the _Lord's Prayer_, and to be instructed in some measure concerning GOD's true worship. They kept a continual watch in four parts, three miles off their town, to prevent the mischiefs, which the Spaniards intend against them, by the conducting of some of their own coats [i.e., Cimaroons], which having been taken by the Spaniards have been enforced thereunto: wherein, as we learned, sometimes the Spaniards have prevailed over them, especially when they lived less careful; but since, they [watch] against the Spaniards, whom they killed like beasts, as often as they take them in the woods; having aforehand understood of their coming. We stayed with them that night, and the next day (7th February) till noon; during which time, they related unto us diverse very strange accidents, that had fallen out between them and the Spaniards, namely one. A gallant gentleman entertained by the Governor of the country, undertook, the year last past (1572), with 150 soldiers, to put this town to the sword, men, women, and children. Being conducted to it by one of them, that had been taken prisoner, and won by great gifts; he surprised it half an hour before day, by which occasion most of the men escaped, but many of their women and children were slaughtered, or taken: but the same morning by sun rising (after that their guide was slain, in following another man's wife, and that the Cimaroons had assembled themselves in their strength) they behaved themselves in such sort, and drove the Spaniards to such extremity, that what with the disadvantage of the woods (having lost their guide and thereby their way), what with famine and want, there escaped not past thirty of them, to return answer to those which sent them. Their king [chief] dwelt in a city within sixteen leagues southeast of Panama; which is able to make 1,700 fighting men. They all intreated our Captain very earnestly, to make his abode with them some two or three days; promising that by that time, they would double his strength if he thought good. But he thanking them for their offer, told them, that "He could stay no longer! It was more than time to prosecute his purposed voyage. As for strength, he would wish no more than he had, although he might have presently twenty times as much!" Which they took as proceeding not only from kindness, but also from magnanimity; and therefore, they marched forth, that afternoon, with great good will. This was the order of our march. Four of those Cimaroons that best knew the ways, went about a mile distance before us, breaking boughs as they went, to be a direction to those that followed; but with great silence, which they also required us to keep. Then twelve of them were as it were our Vanguard, other twelve, our Rearward. We with their two Captains in the midst. All the way was through woods very cool and pleasant, by reason of those goodly and high trees, that grow there so thick, that it is cooler travelling there under them in that hot region, than it is in the most parts of England in the summer time. This gave a special encouragement unto us all, that we understood there was a great Tree about the midway, from which, we might at once discern the North Sea from whence we came, and the South Sea whither we were going. The fourth day following (11th February) we came to the height of the desired hill, a very high hill, lying East and West, like a ridge between the two seas, about ten of the clock: where [PEDRO] the chiefest of these Cimaroons took our Captain by the hand, and prayed him to follow him, if he was desirous to see at once the two seas, which he had so long longed for. Here was that goodly and great high Tree, in which they had cut and made divers steps, to ascend up near unto the top, where they had also made a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit: and from thence we might, without any difficulty, plainly see the Atlantic Ocean whence now we came, and the South Atlantic [i.e., Pacific Ocean] so much desired. South and north of this Tree, they had felled certain trees, that the prospect might be the clearer; and near about the Tree there were divers strong houses, that had been built long before, as well by other Cimaroons as by these, which usually pass that way, as being inhabited in divers places in those waste countries. After our Captain had ascended to this bower, with the chief Cimaroon, and having, as it pleased God, at that time, by reason of the brize [breeze], a very fair day, had seen that sea, of which he had heard such golden reports: he "besought Almighty God of His goodness, to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship, in that sea!" And then calling up all the rest of our [17 English] men, he acquainted JOHN OXNAM especially with this his petition and purpose, if it would please God to grant him that happiness. Who understanding it, presently protested, that "unless our Captain did beat him from his company, he would follow him, by God's grace!" Thus all, thoroughly satisfied with the sight of the seas, descended; and after our repast, continued our ordinary march through woods, yet two days more as before: without any great variety. But then (13th February) we came to march in a champion country, where the grass groweth, not only in great lengths as the knot grass groweth in many places, but to such height, that the inhabitants are fain to burn it thrice in the year, that it may be able to feed the cattle, of which they have thousands. For it is a kind of grass with a stalk, as big as a great wheaten reed, which hath a blade issuing from the top of it, on which though the cattle feed, yet it groweth every day higher, until the top be too high for an ox to reach. Then the inhabitants are wont to put fire to it, for the space of five or six miles together; which notwithstanding after it is thus burnt, within three days, springeth up fresh like green corn. Such is the great fruitfulness of the soil: by reason of the evenness of the day and night, and the rich dews which fall every morning. In these three last days' march in the champion, as we past over the hills, we might see Panama five or six times a day; and the last day (14th February) we saw the ships riding in the road. But after that we were come within a day's journey of Panama, our Captain (understanding by the Cimaroons that the Dames of Panama are wont to send forth hunters and fowlers for taking of sundry dainty fowl, which the land yieldeth; by whom if we marched not very heedfully, we might be descried) caused all his company to march out of all ordinary way, and that with as great heed, silence, and secrecy, as possibly they might, to the grove (which was agreed on four days before) lying within a league of Panama, where we might lie safely undiscovered near the highway, that leadeth from thence to Nombre de Dios. Thence we sent a chosen Cimaroon, one that had served a master in Panama before time, in such apparel as the Negroes of Panama do use to wear, to be our espial, to go into the town, to learn the certain night, and time of the night, when the carriers laded the Treasure from the King's Treasure House to Nombre de Dios. For they are wont to take their journey from Panama to Venta Cruz, which is six leagues, ever by night; because the country is all champion, and consequently by day very hot. But from Venta Cruz to Nombre de Dios as oft as they travel by land with their treasure, they travel always by day and not by night, because all that way is full of woods, and therefore very fresh and cool; unless the Cimaroons happily encounter them, and made them sweat with fear, as sometimes they have done: whereupon they are glad to guard their _Recoes_ [i.e., Recuas, the Spanish word for a drove of beasts of burden; meaning here, a mule train] with soldiers as they pass that way. This last day, our Captain did behold and view the most of all that fair city, discerning the large street which lieth directly from the sea into the land, South and North. By three of the clock, we came to this grove; passing for the more secrecy alongst a certain river, which at that time was almost dried up. Having disposed of ourselves in the grove, we despatched our spy an hour before night, so that by the closing in of the evening, he might be in the city; as he was. Whence presently he returned unto us, that which very happily he understood by companions of his. That the Treasurer of Lima intending to pass into Spain in the first _Adviso_ (which was a ship of 350 tons, a very good sailer), was ready that night to take his journey towards Nombre de Dios, with his daughter and family: having fourteen mules in company: of which eight were laden with gold, and one with jewels. And farther, that there were two other Recuas, of fifty mules in each, laden with victuals for the most part, with some little quantity of silver, to come forth that night after the other. There are twenty-eight of these Recuas; the greatest of them is of seventy mules, the less of fifty; unless some particular man hire for himself, ten, twenty, or thirty, as he hath need. Upon this notice, we forthwith marched four leagues, till we came within two leagues of Venta Cruz, in which march two of our Cimaroons which were sent before, by scent of his match, found and brought a Spaniard, whom they had found asleep by the way, by scent of the said match, and drawing near thereby, heard him taking his breath as he slept; and being but one, they fell upon him, stopped his mouth from crying, put out his match, and bound him so, that they well near strangled him by that time he was brought unto us. By examining him, we found all that to be true, which our spy had reported to us, and that he was a soldier entertained with others by the Treasurer, for guard and conduct of this treasure, from Venta Cruz to Nombre de Dios. This soldier having learned who our Captain was, took courage, and was bold to make two requests unto him. The one that "He would command his Cimaroons which hated the Spaniards, especially the soldiers extremely, to spare his life; which he doubted not but they would do at his charge." The other was, that "seeing he was a soldier, and assured him, that they should have that night more gold, besides jewels, and pearls of great price, then all they could carry (if not, then he was to be dealt with how they would); but if they all found it so, then it might please our Captain to give unto him, as much as might suffice for him and his mistress to live upon, as he had heard our Captain had done to divers others: for which he would make his name as famous as any of them which had received like favour." Being at the place appointed, our Captain with half his men [8 English and 15 Cimaroons], lay on one side of the way, about fifty paces off in the long grass; JOHN OXNAM with the Captain of the Cimaroons, and the other half, lay on the other side of the way, at the like distance: but so far behind, that as occasion served, the former company might take the foremost mules by the heads, and the hindmost because the mules tied together, are always driven one after another; and especially that if we should have need to use our weapons that night, we might be sure not to endamage our fellows. We had not lain thus in ambush much above an hour, but we heard the _Recuas_ coming both from the city to Venta Cruz, and from Venta Cruz to the city, which hath a very common and great trade, when the fleets are there. We heard them by reason they delight much to have deep-sounding bells, which, in a still night, are heard very far off. Now though there were as great charge given as might be, that none of our men should shew or stir themselves, but let all that came from Venta Cruz to pass quietly; yea, their _Recuas_ also, because we knew that they brought nothing but merchandise from thence: yet one of our men, called ROBERT PIKE, haven drunken too much _aqua vitae_ without water, forgot himself, and enticing a Cimaroon forth with him was gone hard to the way, with intent to have shown his forwardness on the foremost mules. And when a cavalier from Venta Cruz, well mounted, with his page running at his stirrup, passed by, unadvisedly he rose up to see what he was: but the Cimaroon of better discretion pulled him down, and lay upon him, that he might not discover them any more. Yet by this, the gentleman had taken notice by seeing one half all in white: for that we had all put our shirts over our other apparel, that we might be sure to know our own men in the pell mell in the night. By means of this sight, the cavalier putting spurs to his horse, rode a false gallop; as desirous not only himself to be free of this doubt which he imagined, but also to give advertisement to others that they might avoid it. Our Captain who had heard and observed by reason of the hardness of the ground and stillness of the night, the change of this gentleman's trot to a gallop, suspected that he was discovered, but could not imagine by whose fault, neither did the time give him leisure to search. And therefore considering that it might be, by reason of the danger of the place, well known to ordinary travellers: we lay still in expectation of the Treasurer's coming; and he had come forward to us, but that this horseman meeting him, and (as we afterwards learnt by the other Recuas) making report to him, what he had seen presently that night, what he heard of Captain DRAKE this long time, and what he conjectured to be most likely: viz., that the said Captain DRAKE, or some for him, disappointed of his expectation, of getting any great treasure, both at Nombre de Dios and other places, was by some means or other come by land, in covert through the woods, unto this place, to speed of his purpose: and thereupon persuaded him to turn his _Recua_ out of the way, and let the other _Recuas_ which were coming after to pass on. They were whole _Recuas_, and loaded but with victuals for the most part, so that the loss of them were far less if the worst befell, and yet they should serve to discover them as well as the best. Thus by the recklessness of one of our company, and by the carefulness of this traveller; we were disappointed of a most rich booty: which is to be thought GOD would not should be taken, for that, by all likelihood, it was well gotten by that Treasurer. The other two _Recuas_ were no sooner come up to us, but being stayed and seized on. One of the Chief Carriers, a very sensible fellow, told our Captain by what means we were discovered, and counselled us to shift for ourselves betimes, unless we were able to encounter the whole force of the city and country before day would be about us. It pleased us but little, that we were defeated of our golden _Recua_, and that in these we could find not past some two horse-loads of silver: but it grieved our Captain much more, that he was discovered, and that by one of his own men. But knowing it bootless to grieve at things past, and having learned by experience, that all safety in extremity, consisteth in taking of time [i. e., by the forelock, making an instant decision]; after no long consultation with PEDRO the chief of our Cimaroons, who declared that "there were but two ways for him: the one to travel back again the same secret way they came, for four leagues space into the woods, or else to march forward, by the highway to Venta Cruz, being two leagues, and make a way with his sword through the enemies." He resolved, considering the long and weary marches that we had taken, and chiefly that last evening and day before: to take now the shortest and readiest way: as choosing rather to encounter his enemies while he had strength remaining, than to be encountered or chased when we should be worn out with weariness: principally now having the mules to ease them that would, some part of the way. Therefore commanding all to refresh themselves moderately with such store of victuals as we had here in abundance: he signified his resolution and reason to them all; asking PEDRO by name, "Whether he would give his hand not to forsake him?" because he knew that the rest of the Cimaroons would also then stand fast and firm, so faithful are they to their captain. He being very glad of his resolution, gave our Captain his hand, and vowed that "He would rather die at his foot, than leave him to the enemies, if he held this course." So having strengthened ourselves for the time, we took our journey towards Venta Cruz, with help of the mules till we came within a mile of the town, where we turned away the _Recuas_, charging the conductors of them, not to follow us upon pain of their lives. There, the way is cut through the woods, above ten or twelve feet broad, so as two _Recuas_ may pass one by another. The fruitfulness of the soil, causeth that with often shredding and ridding the way, those woods grow as thick as our thickest hedges in England that are oftenest cut. To the midst of this wood, a company of soldiers, which continually lay in that town, to defend it against the Cimaroons, were come forth, to stop us if they might on the way; if not, to retreat to their strength, and there to expect us. A Convent [Monastery] of Friars, of whom one was become a Leader, joined with these soldiers, to take such part as they did. Our Captain understanding by our Cimaroons, which with great heedfulness and silence, marched now, but about half a flight-shot before us, that it was time for us to arm and take us to our weapons, for they knew the enemy was at hand, by smelling of their match and hearing of a noise: had given us charge, that no one of us should make any shot, until the Spaniards had first spent their volley: which he thought they would not do before they had spoken, as indeed fell out. For as soon as we were within hearing, a Spanish Captain cried out, "Hoo!" Our Captain answered him likewise, and being demanded "_Que gente?_" replied "Englishmen!" But when the said Commander charged him, "In the name of the King of Spain, his Master, that we should yield ourselves; promising in the word and faith of a Gentleman Soldier, that if we would so do, he would use us with all courtesy." Our Captain drawing somewhat near him said: "That for the honour of the Queen of England, his Mistress, he must have passage that way," and therewithal discharged his pistol towards him. Upon this, they presently shot off their whole volley; which, though it lightly wounded our Captain, and divers of our men, yet it caused death to one only of our company called JOHN HARRIS, who was so powdered with hail-shot, (which they all used for the most part as it seemed, or else "quartered," for that our men were hurt with that kind) that we could not recover his life, though he continued all that day afterwards with us. Presently as our Captain perceived their shot to come slacking, as the latter drops of a great shower of rain, with his whistle he gave us his usual signal, to answer them with our shot and arrows, and so march onwards upon the enemy, with intent to come to handy-strokes, and to have joined with them; whom when we found retired as to a place of some better strength, he increased his pace to prevent them if he might. Which the Cimaroons perceiving, although by terror of the shot continuing, they were for the time stept aside; yet as soon as they discerned by hearing that we marched onward, they all rushed forward one after another, traversing the way, with their arrows ready in their bows, and their manner of country dance or leap, very singing _Yo peho! Yo peho_ and so got before us, where they continued their leap and song, after the manner of their own country wars, till they and we overtook some of the enemy, who near the town's end, had conveyed themselves within the woods, to have taken their stand at us, as before. But our Cimaroons now thoroughly encouraged, when they saw our resolution, brake in through the thickets, on both sides of them, forcing them to fly, Friars and all! although divers of our men were wounded, and one Cimaroon especially was run through with one of their pikes, whose courage and mind served him so well notwithstanding, that he revenged his own death ere he died, by killing him that had given him that deadly wound. We, with all speed, following this chase, entered the town of Venta Cruz, being of about forty or fifty houses, which had both a Governor and other officers and some fair houses, with many storehouses large and strong for the wares, which brought thither from Nombre de Dios, by the river of Chagres, so to be transported by mules to Panama: beside the Monastery, where we found above a thousand bulls and pardons, newly sent from Rome. In those houses we found three gentlewomen, which had lately been delivered in Nombre de Dios; because it hath been observed of long time, as they reported to us, that no Spaniard or white woman could ever be delivered in Nombre de Dios with safety of their children but that within two or three days they died; notwithstanding that being born and brought up in this Venta Cruz or Panama five or six years, and then brought to Nombre de Dios, if they escaped sickness the first or second month, they commonly lived in it as healthily as in any other place: although no stranger (as they say) can endure there any long time, without great danger of death or extreme sickness. Though at our first coming into the town with arms so suddenly, these ladies were in great fear, yet because our Captain had given straight charge to all the Cimaroons (that while they were in his company, they should never hurt any woman nor man that had not a weapon in his hand to do them hurt; which they earnestly promised, and no less faithfully performed) they had no wrong offered them, nor any thing taken from them, to the worth of a garter; wherein, albeit they had indeed sufficient safety and security, by those of his company, which our Captain sent unto them, of purpose to comfort them: yet they never ceased most earnestly entreating, that our Captain would vouchsafe to come to them himself for their more safety; which when he did, in their presence reporting the charge he had first been given, and the assurance of his men, they were comforted. While the guards which we had, not without great need, set, as well on the bridge which we had to pass over, as at the town's end where we entered (they have no other entrance into the town by land: but from the water's side there is one other to carry up and down their merchandise from their frigates) gained us liberty and quiet to stay in this town some hour and half: we had not only refreshed ourselves, but our company and Cimaroons had gotten some good pillage, which our Captain allowed and gave them (being not the thing he looked for) so that it were not too cumbersome or heavy in respect of our travel, or defence of ourselves. A little before we departed, some ten or twelve horsemen came from Panama; by all likelihood, supposing that we were gone out of this town, for that all was so still and quiet, came to enter the town confidently: but finding their entertainment such as it was; they that could, rode faster back again for fear than they had ridden forward for hope. Thus we having ended our business in this town, and the day beginning to spring, we marched over the bridge, observing the same order that we did before. There we were all safe in our opinion, as if we had been environed with wall and trench, for that no Spaniard without his extreme danger could follow us. The rather now, for that our Cimaroons were grown very valiant. But our Captain considering that he had a long way to pass, and that he had been now well near a fortnight from his ship, where he had left his company but weak by reason of their sickness, hastened his journeys as much as he might, refusing to visit the other Cimaroon towns (which they earnestly desired him) and encouraging his own company with such example and speech, that the way seemed much shorter. For he marched most cheerfully, and assured us that he doubted not but ere he left that coast, we should all be bountifully paid and recompensed for all those pains taken: but by reason of this our Captain's haste, and leaving of their towns, we marched many days with hungry stomachs, much against the will of our Cimaroons: who if we would have stayed any day from this continual journeying, would have killed for us victuals sufficient. In our absence, the rest of the Cimaroons had built a little town within three leagues off the port where our ship lay. There our Captain was contented, upon their great and earnest entreaties to make some stay; for that they alleged, it was only built for his sake. And indeed he consented the rather, that the want of shoes might be supplied by means of the Cimaroons, who were a great help unto us: all our men complaining of the tenderness of their feet, whom our Captain would himself accompany in their complaint, some times without cause, but some times with cause indeed; which made the rest to bear the burden the more easily. These Cimaroons, during all the time that we were with burden, did us continually very good service, and in particular in this journey, being unto us instead of intelligencers, to advertise us; of guides in our way to direct us; of purveyors, to provide victuals for us; of house-wrights to build our lodgings; and had indeed able and strong bodies carrying all our necessaries: yea, many times when some of our company fainted with sickness of weariness, two Cimaroons would carry him with ease between them, two miles together, and at other times, when need was, they would shew themselves no less valiant than industrious, and of good judgment. From this town, at our first entrance in the evening, on Saturday (22nd February), our Captain despatched a Cimaroon with a token and certain order to the Master: who had, these three weeks, kept good watch against the enemy, and shifted in the woods for fresh victual, for the relief and recovery of our men left aboard. As soon as this messenger was come to the shore, calling to our ship, as bringing some news, he was quickly fet[ched] aboard by those which longed to hear of our Captain's speeding: but when he showed the toothpike of gold, which he said our Captain had sent for a token to ELLIS HIXOM, with charge to meet him at such a river though the Master knew well the Captain's toothpike: yet by reason of his admonition and caveat [warning] given him at parting, he (though he bewrayed no sign of distrusting the Cimaroon) yet stood as amazed, lest something had befallen our Captain otherwise than well. The Cimaroon perceiving this, told him, that it was night when he was sent away, so that our Captain could not send any letter, but yet with the point of his knife, he wrote something upon the toothpike, "which," he said, "should be sufficient to gain credit to the messenger." Thereupon, the Master looked upon it, and saw written, _By me, FRANCIS DRAKE_: wherefore he believed, and according to the message, prepared what provision he could, and repaired to the mouth of the river of Tortugos, as the Cimaroons that went with him then named it. That afternoon towards three a clock, we were come down to that river, not past half-an-hour before we saw our pinnace ready come to receive us: which was unto us all a double rejoicing: first that we saw them, and next, so soon. Our Captain with all our company praised GOD most heartily, for that we saw our pinnace and fellows again. We all seemed to these, who had lived at rest and plenty all this while aboard, as men strangely changed (our Captain yet not much changed) in countenance and plight: and indeed our long fasting and sore travail might somewhat forepine and waste us; but the grief we drew inwardly, for that we returned without that gold and treasure we hoped for did no doubt show her print and footsteps in our faces. The rest of our men which were then missed, could not travel so well as our Captain, and therefore were left at the Indian new town: and the next day (23rd February) we rowed to another river in the bottom of the bay and took them all aboard. Thus being returned from Panama, to the great rejoicing of our company, who were thoroughly revived with the report we brought from thence: especially understanding our Captain's purpose, that he meant not to leave off thus, but would once again attempt the same journey, whereof they also might be partakers. Our Captain would not, in the meantime, suffer this edge and forwardness of his men to be dulled or rebated, by lying still idly unemployed, as knowing right well by continual experience, that no sickness was more noisome to impeach any enterprise than delay and idleness. Therefore considering deeply the intelligences of other places of importance thereabouts, which he had gotten the former years; and particularly of Veragua, a rich town lying to the Westward; between Nombre de Dios and Nicaragua, where is the richest mine of fine gold that is on this North side: he consulted with his company touching their opinions, what was to be done in this meantime, and how they stood affected? Some thought, that "It was most necessary to seek supply of victuals, that we might the better be able to keep our men close and in health till our time came: and this way easy to be compassed, because the frigates with victuals went without great defence, whereas the frigates and barks with treasure, for the most part were wafted with great ships and store of soldiers." Others yet judged, "We might better bestow our time in intercepting the frigates of treasure; first, for that our magazines and storehouses of victuals were reasonably furnished, and the country itself was so plentiful, that every man might provide for himself if the worst befell: and victuals might hereafter be provided abundantly as well as now: whereas the treasure never floateth upon the sea, so ordinarily as at this time of the Fleets being there, which time in no wise may be neglected." The Cimaroons being demanded also their opinion (for that they were experienced in the particularities of all the towns thereabouts, as in which some or other of them had served), declared that "by Veragua, Signior PEZORO (some time their master from whom they fled) dwelt; not in the town for fear of some surprise, but yet not far off from the town, for his better relief; in a very strong house of stone, where he had dwelt nineteen years at least, never travelling from home; unless happily once a year to Cartagena, or Nombre de Dios when the Fleets were there. He keepeth a hundred slaves at least in the mines, each slave being bound to bring in daily, clear gain (all charges deducted) three Pesos of Gold for himself and two for his women (8s. 3d. the Peso), amounting in the whole, to above 200 pounds sterling each day: so that he hath heaped a mighty mass of treasure together, which he keepeth in certain great chests, of two feet deep, three broad, and four long: being (notwithstanding all his wealth) bad and cruel not only to his slaves, but unto all men, and therefore never going abroad but with a guard of five or six men to defend his person from danger, which he feareth extraordinarily from all creatures. "And as touching means of compassing this purpose, they would conduct him safely through the woods, by the same ways by which they fled, that he should not need to enter their havens with danger, but might come upon their backs altogether unlooked for. And though his house were of stone, so that it could not be burnt; yet if our Captain would undertake the attempt, they would undermine and overthrow, or otherwise break it open, in such sort, as we might have easy access to his greatest treasure." Our Captain having heard all their opinions, concluded so that by dividing his company, the two first different sentences were both reconciled, both to be practised and put in use. JOHN OXNAM appointed in the _Bear_, to be sent Eastward towards Tolou, to see what store of victuals would come athwart his half; and himself would to the Westward in the _Minion_, lie off and on the _Cabecas_, where was the greatest trade and most ordinary passage of those which transported treasure from Veragua and Nicaragua to the Fleet; so that no time might be lost, nor opportunity let slip either for victuals or treasure. As for the attempt of Veragua, or Signior PEZORO'S house by land, by marching through the woods; he liked not of, lest it might overweary his men by continual labour; whom he studied to refresh and strengthen for his next service forenamed. Therefore using our Cimaroons most courteously, dismissing those that were desirous to their wives, with such gifts and favours as were most pleasing, and entertaining those still aboard his ship, which were contented to abide with the company remaining; the pinnaces departed as we determined: the _Minion_ to the West, the _Bear_ to the East. The _Minion_ about the _Cabecas_, met with a frigate of Nicaragua, in which was some gold, and a Genoese Pilot (of which Nation there are many in those coasts), which had been at Veragua not past eight days before. He being very well entreated, certified our Captain of the state of the town, and of the harbour, and of a frigate that was there ready to come forth within few days, aboard which there was above a million of gold, offering to conduct him to it, if we would do him his right: for that he knew the channel very perfectly, so that he could enter by night safely without danger of the sands and shallows, though there be but little water, and utterly undescried; for that the town is five leagues within the harbour, and the way by land is so far about and difficult through the woods, that though we should by any casualty be discovered, about the point of the harbour, yet we might despatch our business and depart, before the town could have notice of our coming. At his being there, he perceived they had heard of DRAKE'S being on the coast, which had put them in great fear, as in all other places (PEZORO purposing to remove himself to the South Sea!): but there was nothing done to prevent him, their fear being so great, that, as it is accustomed in such cases, it excluded counsel and bred despair. Our Captain, conferring with his own knowledge and former intelligences, was purposed to have returned to his ship, to have taken some of those Cimaroons which had dwelt with Signior PEZORO, to be the more confirmed in this point. But when the Genoese Pilot was very earnest, to have the time gained, and warranted our Captain of good speed, if we delayed not; he dismissed the frigate, somewhat lighter to hasten her journey! And with this Pilot's advice, laboured with sail and oars to get this harbour and to enter it by night accordingly: considering that this frigate might now be gained, and PEZORO'S house attempted hereafter notwithstanding. But when we were come to the mouth of the harbour, we heard the report of two Chambers, and farther off about a league within the bay, two other as it were answering them: whereby the Genoese Pilot conjectured that we were discovered: for he assured us, that this order had been taken since his last being there, by reason of the advertisement and charge, which the Governor of Panama had sent to all the Coasts; which even in their beds lay in great and continual fear of our Captain, and therefore by all likelihood, maintained this kind of watch, at the charge of the rich Gnuffe PEZORO for their security. Thus being defeated of this expectation, we found it was not GOD'S will that we should enter at that time: the rather for that the wind, which had all this time been Easterly, came up to the Westward, and invited us to return again to our ship; where, on Sheere Thursday (19th March), we met, according to appointment, with our _Bear_, and found that she had bestowed her time to more profit than we had done. For she had taken a frigate in which there were ten men (whom they set ashore) great store of maize, twenty-eight fat hogs, and two hundred hens. Our Captain discharged (20th March) this frigate of her lading; and because she was new, strong, and of a good mould, the next day (21st March) he tallowed her to make her a Man-of-war; disposing all our ordnance and provisions that were fit for such use, in her. For we had heard by the Spaniards last taken, that there were two little galleys built in Nombre de Dios, to waft the Chagres Fleet to and fro, but were not yet both launched: wherefore he purposed now to adventure for that Fleet. And to hearten his company he feasted them that Easter Day (22nd March) with great cheer and cheerfulness, setting up his rest upon that attempt. The next day (23rd March) with the new tailored frigate of Tolou, and his _Bear_, we set sail towards the Cativaas, where about two days after we landed, and stayed till noon; at what time seeing a sail to the westward, as we deemed making to the island: we set sail and plied towards him, who descrying us, bare with us, till he perceived by our confidence, that we were no Spaniards, and conjectured we were those Englishmen, of whom he had heard long before. And being in great want, and desirous to be relieved by us: he bare up under our lee, and in token of amity, shot off his lee ordnance, which was not unanswered. We understood that he was TETU, a French Captain of Newhaven [Havre] a Man-of-war as we were, desirous to be relieved by us. For at our first meeting, the French Captain cast abroad his hands, and prayed our Captain to help him to some water, for that he had nothing but wine and cider aboard him, which had brought his men into great sickness. He had sought us ever since he first heard of our being upon the coast, about this five weeks. Our Captain sent one aboard him with some relief for the present, willing him to follow us to the next port, where he should have both water and victuals. At our coming to anchor, he sent our Captain a case of pistols, and a fair gift scimitar (which had been the late King's of France [HENRY II.], whom Monsieur MONTGOMERY hurt in the eye, and was given him by Monsieur STROZZE). Our Captain requited him with a chain of gold, and a tablet which he wore. This Captain reported unto us the first news of the Massacre of Paris, at the King of NAVARRE'S marriage on Saint Bartholomew's Day last, [24th August, 1572]; of the Admiral of France slain in his chamber, and divers other murders: so that he "thought those Frenchmen the happiest which were farthest from France, now no longer France but Frensy, even as if all Gaul were turned into wormwood and gall: Italian practices having over-mastered the French simplicity." He showed what famous and often reports he had heard of our great riches. He desired to know of our Captain which way he might "compass" his voyage also. Though we had seen him in some jealousy and distrust, for all his pretence; because we considered more the strength he had than the good-will he might bear us: yet upon consultation among ourselves, "Whether it were fit to receive him or not?" we resolved to take him and twenty of his men, to serve with our Captain for halves. In such sort as we needed not doubt of their forces, being but twenty; nor be hurt by their portions, being no greater than ours: and yet gratify them in their earnest suit, and serve our own purpose, which without more help we could very hardly have achieved. Indeed, he had 70 men, and we now but 31; his ship was above 80 tons, and our frigate not 20, or pinnace nothing near 10 tons. Yet our Captain thought this proportionable, in consideration that not numbers of men, but quality of their judgements and knowledge, were to be the principal actors herein: and the French ship could do not service, or stand in any stead to this enterprise which we intended, and had agreed upon before, both touching the time when it should take beginning, and the place where we should meet, namely, at Rio Francisco. Having thus agreed with Captain TETU, we sent for the Cimaroons as before was decreed. Two of them were brought aboard our ships, to give the French assurance of this agreement. And as soon as we could furnish ourselves and refresh the French company, which was within five or six days (by bringing them to the magazines which were the nearest, where they were supplied by us in such sort, as they protested they were beholding to us for all their lives) taking twenty of the French and fifteen of ours with our Cimaroons, leaving both our chips in safe road, we manned our frigate and two pinnaces (we had formerly sunk our _Lion_, shortly after our return from Panama, because we had not men sufficient to man her), and went towards Rio Francisco: which because it had not water enough for our frigate, caused us to leave her at the Cabecas, manned with English and French, in the charge of ROBERT DOBLE, to stay there without attempting any chase, until the return of our pinnaces. And then bore to Rio Francisco, where both Captains landed (31st March) with such force as aforesaid, and charged them that had the charge of the pinnaces to be there the fourth day next following without any fail. And thus knowing that the carriages [mule loads] went now daily from Panama to Nombre de Dios; we proceeded in covert through the woods, towards the highway that leadeth between them. It is five leagues accounted by sea, between Rio Francisco and Nombre de Dios; but that way which we march by land, we found it above seven leagues. We marched as in our former journey to Panama, both for order and silence; to the great wonder of the French Captain and company, who protested they knew not by any means how to recover the pinnaces, if the Cimaroons (to whom what our Captain commanded was a law; though they little regarded the French, as having no trust in them) should leave us: our Captain assured him, "There was no cause of doubt of them, of whom he had had such former trial." When we were come within an English mile of the way, we stayed all night, refreshing ourselves, in great stillness, in a most convenient place: where we heard the carpenters, being many in number, working upon their ships, as they usually do by reason of the great heat of the day in Nombre de Dios; and might hear the mules coming from Panama, by reason of the advantage of the ground. The next morning (1st April), upon hearing of that number of bells, the Cimaroons, rejoiced exceedingly, as though there could not have befallen them a more joyful accident chiefly having been disappointed before. Now they all assured us, "We should have more gold and silver than all of us could bear away:" as in truth it fell out. For there came three _Recuas_, one of 50 mules, the other two, of 70 each, every [one] of which carried 300 lbs. weight of silver; which in all amounted to near thirty tons. We putting ourselves in readiness, went down near the way to hear the bells; where we stayed not long, but we saw of what metal they were made; and took such hold on the heads of the foremost and hindmost mules, that all the rest stayed and lay down, as their manner is. These three _Recuas_ were guarded with forty-five soldiers or thereabouts, fifteen to each _Recua_, which caused some exchange of bullets and arrows for a time; in which conflict the French Captain was sore wounded with hail-shot in the belly, and one Cimaroon was slain: but in the end, these soldiers thought it the best way to leave their mules with us, and to seek for more help abroad. In which meantime we took some pain to ease some of the mules which were heaviest loaden of their carriage. And because we ourselves were somewhat weary, we were contented with a few bars and quoits of gold, as we could well carry: burying about fifteen tons of silver, partly in the burrows which the great land crabs had made in the earth, and partly under old trees which were fallen thereabout, and partly in the sand and gravel of a river, not very deep of water. Thus when about this business, we had spent some two hours, and had disposed of all our matters, and were ready to march back the very self-same way that we came, we heard both horse and foot coming as it seemed to the mules: for they never followed us, after we were once entered the woods, where the French Captain by reason of his wound, not able to travel farther, stayed, in hope that some rest would recover him better strength. But after we had marched some two leagues, upon the French soldiers' complaint, that they missed one of their men also, examination being made whether he were slain or not: it was found that he had drunk much wine, and over-lading himself with pillage, and hasting to go before us, had lost himself in the woods. And as we afterwards knew, he was taken by the Spaniards that evening: and upon torture, discovered unto them where we had hidden our treasure. We continued our march all that and the next day (2nd and 3rd April) towards Rio Francisco, in hope to meet with our pinnaces; but when we came thither, looking out to sea, we saw seven Spanish pinnaces, which had been searching all the coast thereabouts: whereupon we mightily suspected that they had taken or spoiled our pinnaces, for that our Captain had given so straight charge, that they should repair to this place this afternoon; from the Cabecas where they rode; whence to our sight these Spaniards' pinnaces did come. But the night before, there had fallen very much rain, with much westerly wind, which as it enforced the Spaniards to return home the sooner, by reason of the storm: so it kept our pinnaces, that they could not keep the appointment; because the wind was contrary, and blew so strong, that with their oars they could all that day get but half the way. Notwithstanding, if they had followed our Captain's direction in setting forth over night, while the wind served, they had arrived at the place appointed with far less labour, but with far more danger: because that very day at noon, the shallops manned out, of purpose, from Nombre de Dios, were come to this place to take our pinnaces: imagining where we were, after they had heard of our intercepting of the treasure. Our Captain seeing the shallops, feared lest having taken our pinnaces, they had compelled our men by torture to confess where his frigate and ships were. Therefore in this distress and perplexity, the company misdoubting that all means of return to their country were cut off, and that their treasure then served them to small purpose; our Captain comforted and encouraged us all, saying, "We should venture no farther than he did. It was no time now to fear: but rather to hasten to prevent that which was feared! If the enemy have prevailed against our pinnaces, which GOD forbid! Yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, time to execute their resolution after it is determined. Before all these times be taken, we may get to our ships, if ye will! though not possibly by land, because of the hills, thickets, and rivers, yet by water. Let us, therefore, make a raft with the trees that are here in readiness, as offering themselves, being brought down the river, happily this last storm, and put ourselves to sea! I will be one, who will be the other?" JOHN SMITH offered himself, and two Frenchmen that could swim very well, desired they might accompany our Captain, as did the Cimaroons likewise (who had been very earnest with our Captain to have marched by land, though it were sixteen days' journey, and in case the ship had been surprised, to have abode always with them), especially PEDRO, who yet was fain to be left behind, because he could not row. The raft was fitted and fast bound; a sail of a biscuit sack prepared; an oar was shaped out of a young tree to serve instead of a rudder, to direct their course before the wind. At his departure he comforted the company, by promising, that "If it pleased GOD, he should put his foot in safety aboard his frigate, he would, GOD willing, by one means or other get them all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies!" In this manner pulling off to the sea, he sailed some three leagues, sitting up to the waist continually in water, and at every surge of the wave to the arm-pits, for the space of six hours, upon this raft: what with the parching of the sun and what with the beating of the salt water, they had all of them their skins much fretted away. At length GOD gave them the sight of two pinnaces turning towards them with much wind; but with far greater joy to them than could easily conjecture, and did cheerfully declare to those three with him, that "they were our pinnaces! and that all was safe, so that there was no cause of fear!" But see, the pinnaces not seeing this raft, nor suspecting any such matter, by reason of the wind and night growing on, were forced to run into a cover behind the point, to take succour, for that night: which our Captain seeing, and gathering (because they came not forth again), that they would anchor there, put his raft ashore, and ran by land about the point, where he found them; who, upon sight of him, made as much haste as they could to take him and his company aboard. For our Captain (of purpose to try what haste they could and would make in extremity), himself ran in great haste, and so willed the other three with him; as if they had been chased by the enemy: which they the rather suspected, because they saw so few with him. And after his coming aboard, when they demanding "How all his company did?" he answered coldly, "Well!" They all doubted that all went scarce well. But he willing to rid all doubts, and fill them with joy, took out of his bosom a quoit of gold, thanking GOD that "our voyage was made!" And to the Frenchmen he declared, how their Captain with great pain of his company, rowed to Rio Francisco; where he took the rest in, and the treasure which we had brought with us: making such expedition, that by dawning of the day, we set sail back again to our frigate, and from thence directly to our ships: where, as soon as we arrived, our Captain divided by weight, the gold and silver into two even portions, between the French and the English. About a fortnight after, when we had set all things to order, and taking out of our ship [the _Pascha_] all such necessaries as we needed for our frigate, had left and given her to the Spaniards, whom we had all this time detained, we put out of that harbour together with the French ship, riding some few days among the Cabecas. In the meantime, our Captain made a secret composition with the Cimaroons, that twelve of our men and sixteen of theirs, should make another voyage, to get intelligence in what case the country stood; and if it might be, recover Monsieur TETU, the French Captain; at leastwise to bring away that which was hidden in our former surprise, and could not then be conveniently carried. JOHN OXNAM and THOMAS SHERWELL were put in trust for his service, to the great content of the whole company, who conceived greatest hope of them next our Captain; whom by no means they would condescend to suffer to adventure again, this time: yet he himself rowed to set them ashore at Rio Francisco; finding his labour well employed both otherwise, and also in saving one of those two Frenchmen that had remained willingly to accompany their wounded captain. For this gentleman, having escaped the rage of the Spaniards, was now coming towards our pinnace, where he fell down on his knees, blessing GOD for the time, "that ever our Captain was born; who now, beyond all his hopes, was become his deliverer." He being demanded, "What was become of his Captain and other fellow?" shewed that within half an hour after our departure, the Spaniards had overgotten them, and took his Captain and other fellow: he only escaped by flight, having cast away all his carriage, and among the rest one box of jewels, that he might fly the swifter from the pursuers: but his fellow took it up and burdened himself so sore, that he could make no speed; as easily as he might otherwise, if he would have cast down his pillage, and laid aside his covetous mind. As for the silver, which we had hidden thereabout in the earth and the sands, he thought that it was all gone: for that he thought there had been near two thousand Spaniards and Negroes there to dig and search for it. This report notwithstanding, our purpose held, and our men were sent to the said place, where they found that the earth, every way a mile distant had been digged and turned up in every place of any likelihood, to have anything hidden in it. And yet nevertheless, for all that narrow search, all our men's labour was not quite lost, but so considered, that the third day after their departure, they all returned safe and cheerful, with as much silver as they and all the Cimaroons could find (viz., thirteen bars of silver, and some few quoits of gold), with which they were presently embarked, without empeachment, repairing with no less speed than joy to our frigate. Now was it high time to think of homewards, having sped ourselves as we desired; and therefore our Captain concluded to visit Rio Grande [Magdalena] once again, to see if he could meet with any sufficient ship or bark, to carry victuals enough to serve our turn homewards, in which we might in safety and security embark ourselves. The Frenchmen having formerly gone from us, as soon as they had their shares, at our first return with the treasure; as being very desirous to return home into their country, and our Captain as desirous to dismiss them, as they were to be dismissed: for that he foresaw they could not in their ship avoid the danger of being taken by the Spaniards, if they should make out any Men-of-war for them, while they lingered on the coast; and having also been then again relieved with victuals by us.--Now at our meeting of them again, were very loath to leave us, and therefore accompanied us very kindly as far up as St. Bernards; and farther would, but that they durst not adventure so great danger; for that we had intelligence, that the Fleet was ready to set sail for Spain, riding at the entry of Cartagena. Thus we departed from them, passing hard by Cartagena, in the sight of all the Fleet, with a flag of St. GEORGE in the main top of our frigate, with silk streamers and ancients down to the water, sailing forward with a large wind, till we came within two leagues of the river [Magdalena], being all low land, and dark night: where to prevent the over shooting of the river in the night, we lay off and on bearing small sail, till that about midnight the wind veering to the eastward, by two of the clock in the morning, a frigate from Rio Grande [Magdalena] passed hard by us, bearing also but small sail. We saluted them with our shot and arrows, they answered us with bases; but we got aboard them, and took such order, that they were content against their wills to depart ashore and to leave us this frigate: which was of 25 tons, loaded with maize, hens, and hogs, and some honey, in very good time fit for our use; for the honey especially was notable reliever and preserver of crazed people. The next morning as soon as we set those Spaniards ashore on the Main, we set our course for the Cabecas without any stop, whither we came about five days after. And being at anchor, presently we hove out all the maize a land, saving three butts which we kept for our store: and carrying all our provisions ashore, we brought both our frigates on the careen, and new tallowed them. Here we stayed about seven nights, trimming and rigging our frigates, boarding and stowing our provision, tearing abroad and burning our pinnaces, that the Cimaroons might have the iron-work. About a day or two before our departure, our Captain willed PEDRO and three of the chiefest of the Cimaroons to go through both his frigates, to see what they liked; promising to give it them, whatsoever it were, so it were not so necessary as that he could not return into England without it. And for their wives he would himself seek out some silks or linen that might gratify them; which while he was choosing out of his trunks, the scimitar which CAPTAIN TETU had given to our Captain, chanced to be taken forth in PEDRO'S sight: which he seeing grew so much in liking thereof, that he accounted of nothing else in respect of it, and preferred it before all that could be given him. Yet imagining that it was no less esteemed of our Captain, durst not himself open his mouth to crave or commend it; but made one FRANCIS TUCKER to be his mean to break his mind, promising to give him a fine quoit of gold, which yet he had in store, if he would but move our Captain for it; and to our Captain himself, he would give four other great quoits which he had hidden, intending to have reserved them until another voyage. Our Captain being accordingly moved by FRANCES TUCKER, could have been content to have made no such exchange; but yet desirous to content him, that had deserved so well, he gave it him with many good words: who received it with no little joy, affirming that if he should give his wife and children which he loved dearly in lieu of it, he could not sufficient recompense it (for he would present his king with it, who he knew would make him a great man, even for this very gift's sake); yet in gratuity and stead of other requital of this jewel, he desired our Captain to accept these four pieces of gold, as a token of his thankfulness to him, and a pawn of his faithfulness during life. Our Captain received it in most kind sort, but took it not to his own benefit, but caused it to be cast into the whole Adventure, saying, "If he had not been set forth to take that place, he had not attained such a commodity, and therefore it was just that they which bare part with him of his burden in setting him to sea, should enjoy the proportion of his benefit whatsoever at his return." Thus with good love and liking we took our leave of that people, setting over to the islands of [ ? ], whence the next day after, we set sail towards Cape St. Antonio; by which we past with a large wind: but presently being to stand for the Havana, we were fain to ply to the windward some three or four days; in which plying we fortuned to take a small bark, in which were two or three hundred hides, and one most necessary thing, which stood us in great stead, viz., a pump! which we set in our frigate. Their bark because it was nothing fit for our service, our Captain gave them to carry them home. And so returning to Cape St. Antonio, and landing there, we refreshed ourselves, and besides great store of turtle eggs, found by day in the [sand], we took 250 turtles by night. We powdered [salted] and dried some of them, which did us good service. The rest continued but a small time. There were, at this time, belonging to Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Rio Grande, Santa Marta, Rio de la Hacha, Venta Cruz, Veragua, Nicaragua, the Honduras, Jamaica etc., above 200 frigates; some of a 120 tons, others but of 10 or 12 tons, but the most of 30 or 40 tons, which all had intercourse between Cartagena and Nombre de Dios. The most of which, during our abode in those parts, we took; and one of them, twice or thrice each: yet never burnt nor sunk any, unless they were made out Men-of-war against us, or laid as stales to entrap us. And of all the men taken in these several vessels, we never offered any kind of violence to any, after they were once come under our power; but either presently dismissed them in safety, or keeping them with us some longer time (as some of them we did), we always provided for their sustenance as for ourselves, and secured them from the rage of the Cimaroons against them: till at last, the danger of their discovering where our ships lay being over past, for which only cause we kept them prisoners, we set them also free. Many strange birds, beasts, and fishes, besides fruits, trees, plants, and the like, were seen and observed of us in this journey, which willingly we pretermit as hastening to the end of our voyage: which from this Cape of St. Antonio, we intended to finish by sailing the directest and speediest way homeward; and accordingly, even beyond our own expectation, most happily performed. For whereas our Captain had purposed to touch at Newfoundland, and there to have watered; which would have been some let unto us, though we stood in great want of water; yet GOD Almighty so provided for us, by giving us good store of rain water, that we were sufficiently furnished: and, within twenty-three days, we passed from the Cape of Florida, to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at Plymouth, on Sunday, about sermon time, August the 9th, 1573. At what time, the news of our Captain's return brought unto his, did so speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire and delight to see him, that very few or none remained with the Preacher. All hastened to see the evidence of GOD's love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and success. _Soli DEO Gloria._ FINIS. 
12855	----	Proofreaders ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS A CHRONICLE OF DRAKE AND HIS COMPANIONS BY WILLIAM WOOD _1918, Yale University Press_ Printed in the United States of America PREFATORY NOTE Citizen, colonist, pioneer! These three words carry the history of the United States back to its earliest form in 'the Newe Worlde called America.' But who prepared the way for the pioneers from the Old World and what ensured their safety in the New? The title of the present volume, _Elizabethan Sea-Dogs_, gives the only answer. It was during the reign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor sovereigns of England, that Englishmen won the command of the sea under the consummate leadership of Sir Francis Drake, the first of modern admirals. Drake and his companions are known to fame as Sea-Dogs. They won the English right of way into Spain's New World. And Anglo-American history begins with that century of maritime adventure and naval war in which English sailors blazed and secured the long sea-trail for the men of every other kind who found or sought their fortunes in America. CONTENTS I. ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK Page 1 II. HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA " 18 III. LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES " 33 IV. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND " 48 V. HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS " 71 VI. DRAKE'S BEGINNING " 95 VII. DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE' " 115 VIII. DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN " 149 IX. DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA " 172 X. 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE' " 192 XI. RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST " 205 XII. DRAKE'S END " 223 NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING " 231 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 241 INDEX " 247 ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS CHAPTER I ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK In the early spring of 1476 the Italian Giovanni Caboto, who, like Christopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa, transferred his allegiance to Venice. The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now held temporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak in armed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms, and principalities which lay north and south. But Papal Rome, as the head and heart of a spiritual empire, was still a world-power; and the disunited Italian states were first in the commercial enterprise of the age as well as in the glories of the Renaissance. North of the Papal domain, which cut the peninsula in two parts, stood three renowned Italian cities: Florence, the capital of Tuscany, leading the world in arts; Genoa, the home of Caboto and Columbus, teaching the world the science of navigation; and Venice, mistress of the great trade route between Europe and Asia, controlling the world's commerce. Thus, in becoming a citizen of Venice, Giovanni Caboto the Genoese was leaving the best home of scientific navigation for the best home of sea-borne trade. His very name was no bad credential. Surnames often come from nicknames; and for a Genoese to be called _Il Caboto_ was as much as for an Arab of the Desert to be known to his people as The Horseman. _Cabottággio_ now means no more than coasting trade. But before there was any real ocean commerce it referred to the regular sea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni Caboto must have either upheld an exceptional family tradition or struck out an exceptional line for himself to have been known as John the Skipper among the many other expert skippers hailing from the port of Genoa. There was nothing strange in his being naturalized in Venice. Patriotism of the kind that keeps the citizen under the flag of his own country was hardly known outside of England, France, and Spain. Though the Italian states used to fight each other, an individual Italian, especially when he was a sailor, always felt at liberty to seek his fortune in any one of them, or wherever he found his chance most tempting. So the Genoese Giovanni became the Venetian Zuan without any patriotic wrench. Nor was even the vastly greater change to plain John Cabot so very startling. Italian experts entered the service of a foreign monarch as easily as did the 'pay-fighting Swiss' or Hessian mercenaries. Columbus entered the Spanish service under Ferdinand and Isabella just as Cabot entered the English service under Henry VII. Giovanni--Zuan--John: it was all in a good day's work. Cabot settled in Bristol, where the still existing guild of Merchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus, writing of his visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, _especially those of Bristol_, go there with their merchandise.' Iceland was then what Newfoundland became, the best of distant fishing grounds. It marked one end of the line of English sea-borne commerce. The Levant marked the other. The Baltic formed an important branch. Thus English trade already stretched out over all the main lines. Long before Cabot's arrival a merchant prince of Bristol, named Canyng, who employed a hundred artificers and eight hundred seamen, was trading to Iceland, to the Baltic, and, most of all, to the Mediterranean. The trade with Italian ports stood in high favor among English merchants and was encouraged by the King; for in 1485, the first year of the Tudor dynasty, an English consul took office at Pisa and England made a treaty of reciprocity with Tuscany. Henry VII, first of the energetic Tudors and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth, was a thrifty and practical man. Some years before the event about to be recorded in these pages Columbus had sent him a trusted brother with maps, globes, and quotations from Plato to prove the existence of lands to the west. Henry had troubles of his own in England. So he turned a deaf ear and lost a New World. But after Columbus had found America, and the Pope had divided all heathen countries between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, Henry decided to see what he could do. * * * * * Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of March, 1496, when the Cabots, father and three sons, received the following patent from the King: _Henrie, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Irelande, to all, to whom these presentes shall come, Greeting--Be it knowen, that We have given and granted, and by these presentes do give and grant for Us and Our Heyres, to our well beloved John Gabote, citizen of Venice, to Lewes, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayde John, and to the heires of them and every of them, and their deputies, full and free authoritie, leave, and Power, to sayle to all Partes, Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with five shippes, of what burden or quantitie soever they bee: and as many mariners or men as they will have with them in the saide shippes, upon their owne proper costes and charges, to seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions, or Provinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles, whatsoever they bee, and in what part of the worlde soever they bee, whiche before this time have been unknowen to all Christians. We have granted to them also, and to every of them, the heires of them, and every of them, and their deputies, and have given them licence to set up Our banners and ensignes in every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine lande, of them newly founde. And that the aforesaide John and his sonnes, or their heires and assignes, may subdue, occupie, and possesse, all such townes, cities, castels, and yles, of them founde, which they can subdue, occupie, and possesse, as our vassailes and lieutenantes, getting unto Us the rule, title, and jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castels, and firme lande so founde._ The patent then goes on to provide for a royalty to His Majesty of one-fifth of the net profits, to exempt the patentees from custom duty, to exclude competition, and to exhort good subjects of the Crown to help the Cabots in every possible way. This first of all English documents connected with America ends with these words: _Witnesse our Selfe at Westminster, the Fifth day of March, in the XI yeere of our reigne. HENRY R._ * * * * * _To sayle to all Partes of the East, of the West, and of the North_. The pointed omission of the word South made it clear that Henry had no intention of infringing Spanish rights of discovery. Spanish claims, however, were based on the Pope's division of all the heathen world and were by no means bounded by any rights of discovery already acquired. Cabot left Bristol in the spring of 1497, a year after the date of his patent, not with the 'five shippes' the King had authorized, but in the little _Matthew_, with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly all Englishmen accustomed to the North Atlantic. The _Matthew_ made Cape Breton, the easternmost point of Nova Scotia, on the 24th of June, the anniversary of St. John the Baptist, now the racial fête-day of the French Canadians. Not a single human inhabitant was to be seen in this wild new land, shaggy with forests primeval, fronted with bold, scarped shores, and beautiful with romantic deep bays leading inland, league upon league, past rugged forelands and rocky battlements keeping guard at the frontiers of the continent. Over these mysterious wilds Cabot raised St. George's Cross for England and the banner of St. Mark in souvenir of Venice. Had he now reached the fabled islands of the West or discovered other islands off the eastern coast of Tartary? He did not know. But he hurried back to Bristol with the news and was welcomed by the King and people. A Venetian in London wrote home to say that 'this fellow-citizen of ours, who went from Bristol in quest of new islands, is Zuan Caboto, whom the English now call a great admiral. He dresses in silk; they pay him great honour; and everyone runs after him like mad.' The Spanish ambassador was full of suspicion, in spite of the fact that Cabot had not gone south. Had not His Holiness divided all Heathendom between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, to Spain the West and to Portugal the East; and was not this landfall within what the modern world would call the Spanish sphere of influence? The ambassador protested to Henry VII and reported home to Ferdinand and Isabella. Henry VII meanwhile sent a little present 'To Hym that founde the new Isle--£10.' It was not very much. But it was about as much as nearly a thousand dollars now; and it meant full recognition and approval. This was a good start for a man who couldn't pay the King any royalty of twenty per cent. because he hadn't made a penny on the way. Besides, it was followed up by a royal annuity of twice the amount and by renewed letters-patent for further voyages and discoveries in the west. So Cabot took good fortune at the flood and went again. This time there was the full authorized flotilla of five sail, of which one turned back and four sailed on. Somewhere on the way John Cabot disappeared from history and his second son, Sebastian, reigned in his stead. Sebastian, like John, apparently wrote nothing whatever. But he talked a great deal; and in after years he seems to have remembered a good many things that never happened at all. Nevertheless he was a very able man in several capacities and could teach a courtier or a demagogue, as well as a geographer or exploiter of new claims, the art of climbing over other people's backs, his father's and his brothers' backs included. He had his troubles; for King Henry had pressed upon him recruits from the gaols, which just then were full of rebels. But he had enough seamen to manage the ships and plenty of cargo for trade with the undiscovered natives. Sebastian perhaps left some of his three hundred men to explore Newfoundland. He knew they couldn't starve because, as he often used to tell his gaping listeners, the waters thereabouts were so thick with codfish that he had hard work to force his vessels through. This first of American fish stories, wildly improbable as it may seem, may yet have been founded on fact. When acres upon acres of the countless little capelin swim inshore to feed, and they themselves are preyed on by leaping acres of voracious cod, whose own rear ranks are being preyed on by hungry seals, sharks, herring-hogs, or dogfish, then indeed the troubled surface of a narrowing bay is literally thick with the silvery flash of capelin, the dark tumultuous backs of cod, and the swirling rushes of the greater beasts of prey behind. Nor were certain other fish stories, told by Sebastian and his successors about the land of cod, without some strange truths to build on. Cod have been caught as long as a man and weighing over a hundred pounds. A whole hare, a big guillemot with his beak and claws, a brace of duck so fresh that they must have been swallowed alive, a rubber wading boot, and a very learned treatise complete in three volumes--these are a few of the curiosities actually found in sundry stomachs of the all-devouring cod. The new-found cod banks were a mine of wealth for western Europe at a time when everyone ate fish on fast days. They have remained so ever since because the enormous increase of population has kept up a constantly increasing demand for natural supplies of food. Basques and English, Spaniards, French, and Portuguese, were presently fishing for cod all round the waters of northeastern North America and were even then beginning to raise questions of national rights that have only been settled in this twentieth century after four hundred years. Following the coast of Greenland past Cape Farewell, Sebastian Cabot turned north to look for the nearest course to India and Cathay, the lands of silks and spices, diamonds, rubies, pearls, and gold. John Cabot had once been as far as Mecca or its neighborhood, where he had seen the caravans that came across the Desert of Arabia from the fabled East. Believing the proof that the world was round, he, like Columbus and so many more, thought America was either the eastern limits of the Old World or an archipelago between the extremest east and west already known. Thus, in the early days before it was valued for itself, America was commonly regarded as a mere obstruction to navigation--the more solid the more exasperating. Now, in 1498, on his second voyage to America, John Cabot must have been particularly anxious to get through and show the King some better return for his money. But he simply disappears; and all we know is what various writers gleaned from his son Sebastian later on. Sebastian said he coasted Greenland, through vast quantities of midsummer ice, until he reached 67° 30' north, where there was hardly any night. Then he turned back and probably steered a southerly course for Newfoundland, as he appears to have completely missed what would have seemed to him the tempting way to Asia offered by Hudson Strait and Bay. Passing Newfoundland, he stood on south as far as the Virginia capes, perhaps down as far as Florida. A few natives were caught. But no real trade was done. And when the explorers had reported progress to the King the general opinion was that North America was nothing to boast of, after all. A generation later the French sent out several expeditions to sail through North America and make discoveries by the way. Jacques Cartier's second, made in 1535, was the greatest and most successful. He went up the St. Lawrence as high as the site of Montreal, the head of ocean navigation, where, a hundred and forty years later, the local wits called La Salle's seigneury 'La Chine' in derision of his unquenchable belief in a transcontinental connection with Cathay. But that was under the wholly new conditions of the seventeenth century, when both French and English expected to make something out of what are now the United States and Canada. The point of the witling joke against La Salle was a new version of the old adage: Go farther and fare worse. The point of European opinion about America throughout the wonderful sixteenth century was that those who did go farther north than Mexico were certain to fare worse. And--whatever the cause--they generally did. So there was yet a third reason why the fame of Columbus eclipsed the fame of the Cabots even among those English-speaking peoples whose New-World home the Cabots were the first to find. To begin with, Columbus was the first of moderns to discover any spot in all America. Secondly, while the Cabots gave no writings to the world, Columbus did. He wrote for a mighty monarch and his fame was spread abroad by what we should now call a monster publicity campaign. Thirdly, our present point: the southern lands associated with Columbus and with Spain yielded immense and most romantic profits during the most romantic period of the sixteenth century. The northern lands connected with the Cabots did nothing of the kind. Priority, publicity, and romantic wealth all favored Columbus and the south then as the memory of them does to-day. The four hundredth anniversary of his discovery of an island in the Bahamas excited the interest of the whole world and was celebrated with great enthusiasm in the United States. The four hundredth anniversary of the Cabots' discovery of North America excited no interest at all outside of Bristol and Cape Breton and a few learned societies. Even contemporary Spain did more for the Cabots than that. The Spanish ambassador in London carefully collected every scrap of information and sent it home to his king, who turned it over as material for Juan de la Cosa's famous map, the first dated map of America known. This map, made in 1500 on a bullock's hide, still occupies a place of honor in the Naval Museum at Madrid; and there it stands as a contemporary geographic record to show that St. George's Cross was the first flag ever raised over eastern North America, at all events north of Cape Hatteras. The Cabots did great things though they were not great men. John, as we have seen already, sailed out of the ken of man in 1498 during his second voyage. Sly Sebastian lived on and almost saw Elizabeth ascend the throne in 1558. He had made many voyages and served many masters in the meantime. In 1512 he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Spain as a 'Captain of the Sea' with a handsome salary attached. Six years later the Emperor Charles V made him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots.' Another six years and he is sitting as a nautical assessor to find out the longitude of the Moluccas in order that the Pope may know whether they fall within the Portuguese or Spanish hemisphere of exploitation. Presently he goes on a four years' journey to South America, is hindered by a mutiny, explores the River Plate (La Plata), and returns in 1530, about the time of the voyage to Brazil of 'Master William Haukins,' of which we shall hear later on. In 1544 Sebastian made an excellent and celebrated map of the world which gives a wonderfully good idea of the coasts of North America from Labrador to Florida. This map, long given up for lost, and only discovered three centuries after it had been finished, is now in the National Library in Paris.[1] [1: An excellent facsimile reproduction of it, together with a copy of the marginal text, is in the collections of the American Geographical Society of New York.] Sebastian had passed his threescore years and ten before this famous map appeared. But he was as active as ever twelve years later again. He had left Spain for England in 1548, to the rage of Charles V, who claimed him as a deserter, which he probably was. But the English boy-king, Edward VI, gave him a pension, which was renewed by Queen Mary; and his last ten years were spent in England, where he died in the odor of sanctity as Governor of the Muscovy Company and citizen of London. Whatever his faults, he was a hearty-good-fellow with his boon companions; and the following 'personal mention' about his octogenarian revels at Gravesend is well worth quoting exactly as the admiring diarist wrote it down on the 27th of April, 1556, when the pinnace _Serchthrift_ was on the point of sailing to Muscovy and the Directors were giving it a great send-off. After Master Cabota and divers gentlemen and gentlewomen had viewed our pinnace, and tasted of such cheer as we could make them aboard, they went on shore, giving to our mariners right liberal rewards; and the good old Gentleman, Master Cabota, gave to the poor most liberal alms, wishing them to pray for the good fortune and prosperous success of the _Serchthrift_, our pinnace. And then, at the sign of the Christopher, he and his friends banqueted, and made me and them that were in the company great cheer; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery he entered into the dance himself, amongst the rest of the young and lusty company--which being ended, he and his friends departed, most gently commending us to the governance of Almighty God. CHAPTER II HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA The leading pioneers in the Age of Discovery were sons of Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[2] Cabot, as we have seen, was an Italian, though he sailed for the English Crown and had an English crew. Columbus, too, was an Italian, though in the service of the Spanish Crown. It was the Portuguese Vasco da Gama who in the very year of John Cabot's second voyage (1498) found the great sea route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Two years later the Cortereals, also Portuguese, began exploring the coasts of America as far northwest as Labrador. Twenty years later again the Portuguese Magellan, sailing for the King of Spain, discovered the strait still known by his name, passed through it into the Pacific, and reached the Philippines. There he was killed. But one of his ships went on to make the first circumnavigation of the globe, a feat which redounded to the glory of both Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, in 1513, the Spaniard Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for his king. Then came the Spanish explorers--Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Coronado, and many more--and later on the conquerors and founders of New Spain--Cortes, Pizarro, and their successors. [2: Basque fishermen and whalers apparently forestalled Jacques Cartier's discovery of the St. Lawrence in 1535; perhaps they knew the mainland of America before John Cabot in 1497. But they left no written records; and neither founded an oversea dominion nor gave rights of discovery to their own or any other race.] During all this time neither France nor England made any lodgment in America, though both sent out a number of expeditions, both fished on the cod banks of Newfoundland, and each had already marked out her own 'sphere of influence.' The Portuguese were in Brazil; the Spaniards, in South and Central America. England, by right of the Bristol voyages, claimed the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada; France, in virtue of Cartier's discovery, the region of the St. Lawrence. But, while New Spain and New Portugal flourished in the sixteenth century, New France and New England were yet to rise. In the sixteenth century both France and England were occupied with momentous things at home. France was torn with religious wars. Tudor England had much work to do before any effective English colonies could be planted. Oversea dominions are nothing without sufficient sea power, naval and mercantile, to win, to hold, and foster them. But Tudor England was gradually forming those naval and merchant services without which there could have been neither British Empire nor United States. Henry VIII had faults which have been trumpeted about the world from his own day to ours. But of all English sovereigns he stands foremost as the monarch of the sea. Young, handsome, learned, exceedingly accomplished, gloriously strong in body and in mind, Henry mounted the throne in 1509 with the hearty good will of nearly all his subjects. Before England could become the mother country of an empire overseas, she had to shake off her medieval weaknesses, become a strongly unified modern state, and arm herself against any probable combination of hostile foreign states. Happily for herself and for her future colonists, Henry was richly endowed with strength and skill for his task. With one hand he welded England into political unity, crushing disruptive forces by the way. With the other he gradually built up a fleet the like of which the world had never seen. He had the advantage of being more independent of parliamentary supplies than any other sovereign. From his thrifty father he had inherited what was then an almost fabulous sum--nine million dollars in cash. From what his friends call the conversion, and his enemies the spoliation, of Church property in England he obtained many millions more. Moreover, the people as a whole always rallied to his call whenever he wanted other national resources for the national defence. Henry's unique distinction is that he effected the momentous change from an ancient to a modern fleet. This supreme achievement constitutes his real title to the lasting gratitude of English-speaking peoples. His first care when he came to the throne in 1509 was for the safety of the 'Broade Ditch,' as he called the English Channel. His last great act was to establish in 1546 'The Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs.' During the thirty-seven years between his accession and the creation of this Navy Board the pregnant change was made. 'King Henry loved a man.' He had an unerring eye for choosing the right leaders. He delighted in everything to do with ships and shipping. He mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailing ships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more on oars than on sails. Henry's maritime rivals were the two greatest monarchs of continental Europe, Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain. Henry, Francis, and Charles were all young, all ambitious, and all exceedingly capable men. Henry had the fewest subjects, Charles by far the most. Francis had a compact kingdom well situated for a great European land power. Henry had one equally well situated for a great European sea power. Charles ruled vast dominions scattered over both the New World and the Old. The destinies of mankind turned mostly on the rivalry between these three protagonists and their successors. Charles V was heir to several crowns. He ruled Spain, the Netherlands, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and important principalities in northern Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany. He owned enormous oversea dominions in Africa; and the two Americas soon became New Spain. He governed each part of his European dominions by a different title and under a different constitution. He had no fixed imperial capital, but moved about from place to place, a legitimate sovereign everywhere and, for the most part, a popular one as well. It was his son Philip II who, failing of election as Emperor, lived only in Spain, concentrated the machinery of government in Madrid, and became so unpopular elsewhere. Charles had been brought up in Flanders; he was genial in the Flemish way; and he understood his various states in the Netherlands, which furnished him with one of his main sources of revenue. Another and much larger source of revenue poured in its wealth to him later on, in rapidly increasing volume, from North and South America. Charles had inherited a long and bitter feud with France about the Burgundian dominions on the French side of the Rhine and about domains in Italy; besides which there were many points of violent rivalry between things French and Spanish. England also had hereditary feuds with France, which had come down from the Hundred Years' War, and which had ended in her almost final expulsion from France less than a century before. Scotland, nursing old feuds against England and always afraid of absorption, naturally sided with France. Portugal, small and open to Spanish invasion by land, was more or less bound to please Spain. During the many campaigns between Francis and Charles the English Channel swarmed with men-of-war, privateers, and downright pirates. Sometimes England took a hand officially against France. But, even when England was not officially at war, many Englishmen were privateers and not a few were pirates. Never was there a better training school of fighting seamanship than in and around the Narrow Seas. It was a continual struggle for an existence in which only the fittest survived. Quickness was essential. Consequently vessels that could not increase their speed were soon cleared off the sea. Spain suffered a good deal by this continuous raiding. So did the Netherlands. But such was the power of Charles that, although his navies were much weaker than his armies, he yet was able to fight by sea on two enormous fronts, first, in the Mediterranean against the Turks and other Moslems, secondly, in the Channel and along the coast, all the way from Antwerp to Cadiz. Nor did the left arm of his power stop there; for his fleets, his transports, and his merchantmen ranged the coasts of both Americas from one side of the present United States right round to the other. Such, in brief, was the position of maritime Europe when Henry found himself menaced by the three Roman Catholic powers of Scotland, France, and Spain. In 1533 he had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, thereby defying the Pope and giving offence to Spain. He had again defied the Pope by suppressing the monasteries and severing the Church of England from the Roman discipline. The Pope had struck back with a bull of excommunication designed to make Henry the common enemy of Catholic Europe. Henry had been steadily building ships for years. Now he redoubled his activity. He blooded the fathers of his daughter's sea-dogs by smashing up a pirate fleet and sinking a flotilla of Flemish privateers. The mouth of the Scheldt, in 1539, was full of vessels ready to take a hostile army into England. But such a fighting fleet prepared to meet them that Henry's enemies forbore to strike. In 1539, too, came the discovery of the art of tacking, by Fletcher of Rye, Henry's shipwright friend, a discovery forever memorable in the annals of seamanship. Never before had any kind of craft been sailed a single foot against the wind. The primitive dugout on which the prehistoric savage hoisted the first semblance of a sail, the ships of Tarshish, the Roman transport in which St. Paul was wrecked, and the Spanish caravels with which Columbus sailed to worlds unknown, were, in principle of navigation, all the same. But now Fletcher ran out his epoch-making vessel, with sails trimmed fore and aft, and dumbfounded all the shipping in the Channel by beating his way to windward against a good stiff breeze. This achievement marked the dawn of the modern sailing age. And so it happened that in 1545 Henry, with a new-born modern fleet, was able to turn defiantly on Francis. The English people rallied magnificently to his call. What was at that time an enormous army covered the lines of advance on London. But the fleet, though employing fewer men, was relatively a much more important force than the army; and with the fleet went Henry's own headquarters. His lifelong interest in his navy now bore the first-fruits of really scientific sea power on an oceanic scale. There was no great naval battle to fix general attention on one dramatic moment. Henry's strategy and tactics, however, were new and full of promise. He repeated his strategy of the previous war by sending out a strong squadron to attack the base at which the enemy's ships were then assembling; and he definitely committed the English navy, alone among all the navies in the world, to sailing-ship tactics, instead of continuing those founded on the rowing galley of immemorial fame. The change from a sort of floating army to a really naval fleet, from galleys moved by oars and depending on boarders who were soldiers, to ships moved by sails and depending on their broadside guns--this change was quite as important as the change in the nineteenth century from sails and smooth-bores to steam and rifled ordnance. It was, indeed, from at least one commanding point of view, much more important; for it meant that England was easily first in developing the only kind of navy which would count in any struggle for oversea dominion after the discovery of America had made sea power no longer a question of coasts and landlocked waters but of all the outer oceans of the world. The year that saw the birth of modern sea power is a date to be remembered in this history; for 1545 was also the year in which the mines of Potosi first aroused the Old World to the riches of the New; it was the year, too, in which Sir Francis Drake was born. Moreover, there was another significant birth in this same year. The parole aboard the Portsmouth fleet was _God save the King_! The answering countersign was _Long to reign over us_! These words formed the nucleus of the national anthem now sung round all the Seven Seas. The anthems of other countries were born on land. _God save the King_! sprang from the navy and the sea. * * * * * The Reformation quickened seafaring life in many ways. After Henry's excommunication every Roman Catholic crew had full Papal sanction for attacking every English crew that would not submit to Rome, no matter how Catholic its faith might be. Thus, in addition to danger from pirates, privateers, and men-of-war, an English merchantman had to risk attack by any one who was either passionately Roman or determined to use religion as a cloak. Raids and reprisals grew apace. The English were by no means always lambs in piteous contrast to the Papal wolves. Rather, it might be said, they took a motto from this true Russian proverb: 'Make yourself a sheep and you'll find no lack of wolves.' But, rightly or wrongly, the general English view was that the Papal attitude was one of attack while their own was one of defence. Papal Europe of course thought quite the reverse. Henry died in 1547, and the Lord Protector Somerset at once tried to make England as Protestant as possible during the minority of Edward VI, who was not yet ten years old. This brought every English seaman under suspicion in every Spanish port, where the Holy Office of the Inquisition was a great deal more vigilant and businesslike than the Custom House or Harbor Master. Inquisitors had seized Englishmen in Henry's time. But Charles had stayed their hand. Now that the ruler of England was an open heretic, who appeared to reject the accepted forms of Catholic belief as well as the Papal forms of Roman discipline, the hour had come to strike. War would have followed in ordinary times. But the Reformation had produced a cross-division among the subjects of all the Great Powers. If Charles went to war with a Protestant Lord Protector of England then some of his own subjects in the Netherlands would probably revolt. France had her Huguenots; England her ultra-Papists; Scotland some of both kinds. Every country had an unknown number of enemies at home and friends abroad. All feared war. Somerset neglected the navy. But the seafaring men among the Protestants, as among those Catholics who were anti-Roman, took to privateering more than ever. Nor was exploration forgotten. A group of merchant-adventurers sent Sir Hugh Willoughby to find the Northeast Passage to Cathay. Willoughby's three ships were towed down the Thames by oarsmen dressed in sky-blue jackets. As they passed the palace at Greenwich they dipped their colors in salute. But the poor young king was too weak to come to the window. Willoughby met his death in Lapland. But Chancellor, his second-in-command, got through to the White Sea, pushed on overland to Moscow, and returned safe in 1554, when Queen Mary was on the throne. Next year, strange to say, the charter of the new Muscovy Company was granted by Philip of Armada fame, now joint sovereign of England with his newly married wife, soon to be known as 'Bloody Mary.' One of the directors of the company was Lord Howard of Effingham, father of Drake's Lord Admiral, while the governor was our old friend Sebastian Cabot, now in his eightieth year. Philip was Crown Prince of the Spanish Empire, and his father, Charles V, was very anxious that he should please the stubborn English; for if he could only become both King of England and Emperor of Germany he would rule the world by sea as well as land. Philip did his ineffective best: drank English beer in public as if he liked it and made his stately Spanish courtiers drink it too and smile. He spent Spanish gold, brought over from America, and he got the convenient kind of Englishmen to take it as spy-money for many years to come. But with it he likewise sowed some dragon's teeth. The English sea-dogs never forgot the iron chests of Spanish New-World gold, and presently began to wonder whether there was no sure way in far America by which to get it for themselves. In the same year, 1555, the Marian attack on English heretics began and the sea became safer than the land for those who held strong anti-Papal views. The Royal Navy was neglected even more than it had been lately by the Lord Protector. But fighting traders, privateers, and pirates multiplied. The seaports were hotbeds of hatred against Mary, Philip, Papal Rome, and Spanish Inquisition. In 1556 Sebastian Cabot reappears, genial and prosperous as ever, and dances out of history at the sailing of the _Serchthrift_, bound northeast for Muscovy. In 1557 Philip came back to England for the last time and manoeuvred her into a war which cost her Calais, the last English foothold on the soil of France. During this war an English squadron joined Philip's vessels in a victory over the French off Gravelines, where Drake was to fight the Armada thirty years later. This first of the two battles fought at Gravelines brings us down to 1558, the year in which Mary died, Elizabeth succeeded her, and a very different English age began. CHAPTER III LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES Two stories from Hakluyt's _Voyages_ will illustrate what sort of work the English were attempting in America about 1530, near the middle of King Henry's reign. The success of 'Master Haukins' and the failure of 'Master Hore' are quite typical of several other adventures in the New World. 'Olde M. William Haukins of Plimmouth, a man for his wisdome, valure, experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed and beloved of King Henry the eight, and being one of the principall Sea Captaines in the West partes of England in his time, not contented with the short voyages commonly then made onely to the knowen coastes of Europe, armed out a tall and goodlie ship of his owne, of the burthen of 250 tunnes, called the Pole of Plimmouth, wherewith he made three long and famous voyages vnto the coast of Brasill, a thing in those days very rare, especially to our Nation.' Hawkins first went down the Guinea Coast of Africa, 'where he trafiqued with the Negroes, and tooke of them Oliphants' teeth, and other commodities which that place yeeldeth; and so arriving on the coast of Brasil, used there such discretion, and behaved himselfe so wisely with those savage people, that he grew into great familiaritie and friendship with them. Insomuch that in his 2 voyage one of the savage kings of the Countrey of Brasil was contented to take ship with him, and to be transported hither into England. This kinge was presented unto King Henry 8. The King and all the Nobilitie did not a little marvel; for in his cheeks were holes, and therein small bones planted, which in his Countrey was reputed for a great braverie.' The poor Brazilian monarch died on his voyage back, which made Hawkins fear for the life of Martin Cockeram, whom he had left in Brazil as a hostage. However, the Brazilians took Hawkins's word for it and released Cockeram, who lived another forty years in Plymouth. 'Olde M. William Haukins' was the father of Sir John Hawkins, Drake's companion in arms, whom we shall meet later. He was also the grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, another naval hero, and of the second William Hawkins, one of the founders of the greatest of all chartered companies, the Honourable East India Company. Hawkins knew what he was about. 'Master Hore' did not. Hore was a well-meaning, plausible fellow, good at taking up new-fangled ideas, bad at carrying them out, and the very cut of a wildcat company-promoter, except for his honesty. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers of the Innes of Court and Chancerie' to go to Newfoundland. A hundred and twenty men set off in this modern ship of fools, which ran into Newfoundland at night and was wrecked. There were no provisions; and none of the 'divers lawyers' seems to have known how to catch a fish. After trying to live on wild fruit they took to eating each other, in spite of Master Hore, who stood up boldly and warned them of the 'Fire to Come.' Just then a French fishing smack came in; whereupon the lawyers seized her, put her wretched crew ashore, and sailed away with all the food she had. The outraged Frenchmen found another vessel, chased the lawyers back to England, and laid their case before the King, who 'out of his Royall Bountie' reimbursed the Frenchmen and let the 'divers lawyers' go scot free. Hawkins and Hore, and others like them, were the heroes of travellers' tales. But what was the ordinary life of the sailor who went down to the sea in the ships of the Tudor age? There are very few quite authentic descriptions of life afloat before the end of the sixteenth century; and even then we rarely see the ship and crew about their ordinary work. Everybody was all agog for marvellous discoveries. Nobody, least of all a seaman, bothered his head about describing the daily routine on board. We know, however, that it was a lot of almost incredible hardship. Only the fittest could survive. Elizabethan landsmen may have been quite as prone to mistake comfort for civilization as most of the world is said to be now. Elizabethan sailors, when afloat, most certainly were not; and for the simple reason that there was no such thing as real comfort in a ship. Here are a few verses from the oldest genuine English sea-song known. They were written down in the fifteenth century, before the discovery of America, and were probably touched up a little by the scribe. The original manuscript is now in Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a true nautical composition--a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songs didn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when they did. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whose discomforts rather amuse the 'schippemenne.' Anon the master commandeth fast To his ship-men in all the hast[e], To dresse them [line up] soon about the mast Their takeling to make. With _Howe! Hissa!_ then they cry, 'What howe! mate thou standest too nigh, Thy fellow may not haul thee by:' Thus they begin to crake [shout]. A boy or twain anon up-steyn [go aloft] And overthwart the sayle-yerde leyn [lie] _Y-how! taylia!_ the remnant cryen [cry] And pull with all their might. Bestow the boat, boat-swain, anon, That our pylgrymms may play thereon; For some are like to cough and groan Ere it be full midnight. Haul the bowline! Now veer the sheet; Cook, make ready anon our meat! Our pylgrymms have no lust to eat: I pray God give them rest. Go to the helm! What ho! no neare[r]! Steward, fellow! a pot of beer! Ye shall have, Sir, with good cheer, Anon all of the best. _Y-howe! Trussa!_ Haul in the brailes! Thou haulest not! By God, thou failes[t] O see how well our good ship sails! And thus they say among. * * * * * Thys meane'whyle the pylgrymms lie, And have their bowls all fast them by, And cry after hot malvesy-- 'Their health for to restore.' * * * * * Some lay their bookys on their knee, And read so long they cannot see. 'Alas! mine head will split in three!' Thus sayeth one poor wight. * * * * * A sack of straw were there right good; For some must lay them in their hood: I had as lief be in the wood, Without or meat or drink! For when that we shall go to bed, The pump is nigh our beddës head: A man he were as good be dead As smell thereof the stynke! _Howe--hissa!_ is still used aboard deepwater-men as _Ho--hissa!_ instead of _Ho--hoist away!_ _What ho, mate!_ is also known afloat, though dying out. _Y-howe! taylia!_ is _Yo--ho! tally!_ or _Tally and belay!_ which means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail. _What ho! no nearer!_ is _What ho! no higher_ now. But old salts remember _no nearer!_ and it may be still extant. Seasickness seems to have been the same as ever--so was the desperate effort to pretend one was not really feeling it: And cry after hot malvesy-- 'Their health for to restore.' Here is another sea-song, one sung by the sea-dogs themselves. The doubt is whether the _Martial-men_ are Navy men, as distinguished from merchant-service men aboard a king's ship, or whether they are soldiers who want to take all sailors down a peg or two. This seems the more probable explanation. Soldiers 'ranked' sailors afloat in the sixteenth century; and Drake's was the first fleet in the world in which seamen-admirals were allowed to fight a purely naval action. We be three poor Mariners, newly come from the Seas, We spend our lives in jeopardy while others live at ease. We care not for those Martial-men that do our states disdain, But we care for those Merchant-men that do our states maintain. A third old sea-song gives voice to the universal complaint that landsmen cheat sailors who come home flush of gold. For Sailors they be honest men, And they do take great pains, But Land-men and ruffling lads Do rob them of their gains. Here, too, is some _Cordial Advice_ against the wiles of the sea, addressed _To all rash young Men, who think to Advance their decaying Fortunes by Navigation_, as most of the sea-dogs (and gentlemen-adventurers like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish) tried to do. You merchant men of Billingsgate, I wonder how you thrive. You bargain with men for six months And pay them but for five. This was an abuse that took a long time to die out. Even well on in the nineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers, victualling was only by the lunar month though service went by the calendar. A cursed cat with thrice three tails Doth much increase our woe is a poetical way of putting another seaman's grievance. People who regret that there is such a discrepancy between genuine sea-songs and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the _Mermaid_ is genuine, though the usual air to which it was sung afloat was harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore. This example of the old 'fore-bitters' (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts, a convenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate in the repetitions of its shore-going rival: _With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her hand_, etc. _Solo_. On Friday morn as we set sail It was not far from land, Oh, there I spied a fair pretty maid With a comb and a glass in her hand. _Chorus_. The stormy winds did blow, And the raging seas did roar, While we poor Sailors went to the tops And the land lubbers laid below. The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled _The Complaynt of Scotland_, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took more interest in the means than in the ends of seamanship. He was undoubtedly a landsman. But he loved the things of the sea; and his work is well worth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used on board a Tudor ship. When the seamen sang it sounded like 'an echo in a cave.' Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which the scientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of Oriental origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection between East and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for a commander-in-chief. _Amir-al-bahr_ means commander of the sea. Most of the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day as being quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would be readily understood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of such orders as these: _Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!_ Our modern sailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying to follow directions like the following: _Make ready your cannons, middle culverins, bastard culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, headsticks, murderers, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, crook arquebusses, calivers, and hail shot!_ Another look at life afloat in the sixteenth century brings us once more into touch with America; for the old sea-dog DIRECTIONS FOR THE TAKYNG OF A PRIZE were admirably summed up in _The Seaman's Grammar_, which was compiled by 'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Virginia and Admiral of New England'--'Pocahontas Smith,' in fact. 'A sail!' 'How bears she? To-windward or lee-ward? Set him by the compass!' 'Hee stands right a-head' (_or_ On the weather-bow, _or_ lee-bow). 'Let fly your colours!' (if you have a consort--else not). 'Out with all your sails! A steadie man at the helm! Give him chace!' 'Hee holds his owne--No, wee gather on him, Captaine!' _Out goes his flag and pendants, also his waist-cloths and top-armings, which is a long red cloth ... that goeth round about the shippe on the out-sides of all her upper works and fore and main-tops, as well for the countenance and grace of the shippe as to cover the men from being seen. He furls and slings his main-yard. In goes his sprit-sail. Thus they strip themselves into their fighting sails, which is, only the foresail, the main and fore topsails, because the rest should not be fired nor spoiled; besides, they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights and the using of our arms._ 'He makes ready his close-fights, fore and aft.' [Bulkheads set up to cover men under fire] ... 'Every man to his charge! Dowse your topsail to salute him for the sea! Hail him with a noise of trumpets!' 'Whence is your ship?' 'Of Spain--whence is yours?' 'Of England.' 'Are you merchants or men of war?' 'We are of the Sea!' _He waves us to leeward with his drawn sword,_ _calls out 'Amain' for the King of Spain, and springs his luff_[brings his vessel close by the wind]. 'Give him a chase-piece with your broadside, and run a good berth a-head of him!' 'Done, done!' 'We have the wind of him, and now he tacks about!' 'Tack about also and keep your luff! Be yare at the helm! Edge in with him! Give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as before, and keep your luff!' 'He pays us shot for shot!' 'Well, we shall requite him!' ... 'Edge in with him again! Begin with your bow pieces, proceed with your broadside, and let her fall off with the wind to give him also your full chase, your weather-broad-side, and bring her round so that the stern may also discharge, and your tacks close aboard again!' ... 'The wind veers, the sea goes too high to board her, and we are shot through and through, and between wind and water.' 'Try the pump! Bear up the helm! Sling a man overboard to stop the leaks, _that is_, truss him up around the middle in a piece of canvas and a rope, with his arms at liberty, with a mallet and plugs lapped in oakum and well tarred, and a tar-pauling clout, which he will quickly beat into the holes the bullets made.' 'What cheer, Mates, is all Well?' 'All's well!' 'Then make ready to bear up with him again!' 'With all your great and small shot charge him, board him thwart the hawse, on the bow, midships, or, rather than fail, on his quarter; or make fast your grapplings to his close-fights and sheer off' [which would tear his cover down]. 'Captain, we are foul of each other and the ship is on fire!' 'Cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet cloths!' _In such a case they will bee presentlie such friends as to help one the other all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn together and so sink: and, if they be generous, and the fire be quenched, they will drink kindly one to the other, heave their canns over-board, and begin again as before...._ 'Chirurgeon, look to the wounded, and wind up the slain, and give them three guns for their funerals! Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser, record their names! Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windward, that we lose him not, in the night! Gunners, spunge your ordnance! Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswain and the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe your directions against the morning watch!' ... 'Boy, hallo! is the kettle boiled?' 'Ay, ay, Sir!' 'Boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast!' ... _Always have as much care to their wounded as to your own; and if there be either young women or aged men, use them nobly ..._ 'Sound drums and trumpets: SAINT GEORGE FOR MERRIE ENGLAND!' CHAPTER IV ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND Elizabethan England is the motherland, the true historic home, of all the different peoples who speak the sea-borne English tongue. In the reign of Elizabeth there was only one English-speaking nation. This nation consisted of a bare five million people, fewer than there are to-day in London or New York. But hardly had the Great Queen died before Englishmen began that colonizing movement which has carried their language the whole world round and established their civilization in every quarter of the globe. Within three centuries after Elizabeth's day the use of English as a native speech had grown quite thirtyfold. Within the same three centuries the number of those living under laws and institutions derived from England had grown a hundredfold. The England of Elizabeth was an England of great deeds, but of greater dreams. Elizabethan literature, take it for all in all, has never been surpassed; myriad-minded Shakespeare remains unequalled still. Elizabethan England was indeed 'a nest of singing birds.' Prose was often far too pedestrian for the exultant life of such a mighty generation. As new worlds came into their expectant ken, the glowing Elizabethans wished to fly there on the soaring wings of verse. To them the tide of fortune was no ordinary stream but the 'white-maned, proud, neck-arching tide' that bore adventurers to sea 'with pomp of waters unwithstood.' The goodly heritage that England gave her offspring overseas included Shakespeare and the English Bible. The Authorized Version entered into the very substance of early American life. There was a marked difference between Episcopalian Virginia and Puritan New England. But both took their stand on this version of the English Bible, in which the springs of Holy Writ rejoiced to run through channels of Elizabethan prose. It is true that Elizabeth slept with her fathers before this book of books was printed, and that the first of the Stuarts reigned in her stead. Nevertheless the Authorized Version is pure Elizabethan. All its translators were Elizabethans, as their dedication to King James, still printed with every copy, gratefully acknowledges in its reference to 'the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory.' These words of the reverend scholars contain no empty compliment. Elizabeth was a great sovereign and in some essential particulars, a very great national leader. This daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn the debonair, was born a heretic in 1533. Her father was then defying both Spain and the Pope. Within three years after her birth her mother was beheaded; and by Act of Parliament Elizabeth herself was declared illegitimate. She was fourteen when her father died, leaving the kingdom to his three children in succession, Elizabeth being the third. Then followed the Protestant reign of the boy-king Edward VI, during which Elizabeth enjoyed security; then the Catholic reign of her Spanish half-sister, 'Bloody Mary,' during which her life hung by the merest thread. At first, however, Mary concealed her hostility to Elizabeth because she thought the two daughters of Henry VIII ought to appear together in her triumphal entry into London. From one point of view--and a feminine one at that--this was a fatal mistake on Mary's part: for never did Elizabeth show to more advantage. She was just under twenty, while Mary was nearly twice her age. Mary had, indeed, provided herself with one good foil in the person of Anne of Cleves, the 'Flemish mare' whose flat coarse face and lumbering body had disgusted King Henry thirteen years before, when Cromwell had foisted her upon him as his fourth wife. But with poor, fat, straw-colored Anne on one side, and black-and-sallow, foreign-looking, man-voiced Mary on the other, the thoroughly English Princess Elizabeth took London by storm on the spot. Tall and majestic, she was a magnificent example of the finest Anglo-Norman type. Always 'the glass of fashion' and then the very 'mould of form' her splendid figure looked equally well on horseback or on foot. A little full in the eye, and with a slightly aquiline nose, she appeared, as she really was, keenly observant and commanding. Though these two features just prevented her from being a beauty, the bright blue eyes and the finely chiselled nose were themselves quite beautiful enough. Nor was she less taking to the ear than to the eye; for, in marked contrast to gruff foreign Mary and wheezy foreign Anne, she had a rich, clear, though rather too loud, English voice. When the Court reined up and dismounted, Elizabeth became even more the centre of attraction. Mary marched stiffly on. Anne plodded after. But as for Elizabeth--perfect in dancing, riding, archery, and all the sports of chivalry--'she trod the ling like a buck in spring, and she looked like a lance in rest.' When Elizabeth succeeded Mary in the autumn of 1558 she had dire need of all she had learnt in her twenty-five years of adventurous life. Fortunately for herself and, on the whole, most fortunately for both England and America, she had a remarkable power of inspiring devotion to the service of their queen and country in men of both the cool and ardent types; and this long after her personal charms had gone. Government, religion, finance, defence, and foreign affairs were in a perilous state of flux, besides which they have never been more distractingly mixed up with one another. Henry VII had saved money for twenty-five years. His three successors had spent it lavishly for fifty. Henry VIII had kept the Church Catholic in ritual while making it purely national in government. The Lord Protector Somerset had made it as Protestant as possible under Edward VI. Mary had done her best to bring it back to the Pope. Home affairs were full of doubts and dangers, though the great mass of the people were ready to give their handsome young queen a fair chance and not a little favor. Foreign affairs were worse. France was still the hereditary enemy; and the loss of Calais under Mary had exasperated the whole English nation. Scotland was a constant menace in the north. Spain was gradually changing from friend to foe. The Pope was disinclined to recognize Elizabeth at all. To understand how difficult her position was we must remember what sort of constitution England had when the germ of the United States was forming. The Roman Empire was one constituent whole from the emperor down. The English-speaking peoples of to-day form constituent wholes from the electorate up. In both cases all parts were and are in constant relation to the whole. The case of Elizabethan England, however, was very different. There was neither despotic unity from above nor democratic unity from below, but a mixed and fluctuating kind of government in which Crown, nobles, parliament, and people formed certain parts which had to be put together for each occasion. The accepted general idea was that the sovereign, supreme as an individual, looked after the welfare of the country in peace and war so far as the Crown estates permitted; but that whenever the Crown resources would not suffice then the sovereign could call on nobles and people for whatever the common weal required. _Noblesse oblige_. In return for the estates or monopolies which they had acquired the nobles and favored commoners were expected to come forward with all their resources at every national crisis precisely as the Crown was expected to work for the common weal at all times. When the resources of the Crown and favored courtiers sufficed, no parliament was called; but whenever they had to be supplemented then parliament met and voted whatever it approved. Finally, every English freeman was required to do his own share towards defending the country in time of need, and he was further required to know the proper use of arms. The great object of every European court during early modern times was to get both the old feudal nobility and the newly promoted commoners to revolve round the throne as round the centre of their solar system. By sheer force of character--for the Tudors, had no overwhelming army like the Roman emperors'--Henry VIII had succeeded wonderfully well. Elizabeth now had to piece together what had been broken under Edward VI and Mary. She, too, succeeded--and with the hearty goodwill of nearly all her subjects. Mary had left the royal treasury deeply in debt. Yet Elizabeth succeeded in paying off all arrears and meeting new expenditure for defence and for the court. The royal income rose. England became immensely richer and more prosperous than ever before. Foreign trade increased by leaps and bounds. Home industries flourished and were stimulated by new arrivals from abroad, because England was a safe asylum for the craftsmen whom Philip was driving from the Netherlands, to his own great loss and his rival's gain. English commercial life had been slowly emerging from medieval ways throughout the fifteenth century. With the beginning of the sixteenth the rate of emergence had greatly quickened. The soil-bound peasant who produced enough food for his family from his thirty acres was being gradually replaced by the well-to-do yeoman who tilled a hundred acres and upwards. Such holdings produced a substantial surplus for the market. This increased the national wealth, which, in its turn, increased both home and foreign trade. The peasant merely raised a little wheat and barley, kept a cow, and perhaps some sheep. The yeoman or tenant farmer had sheep enough for the wool trade besides some butter, cheese, and meat for the nearest growing town. He began to 'garnish his cupboards with pewter and his joined beds with tapestry and silk hangings, and his tables with carpets and fine napery.' He could even feast his neighbors and servants after shearing day with new-fangled foreign luxuries like dates, mace, raisins, currants, and sugar. But Elizabethan society presented striking contrasts. In parts of England, the practice of engrossing and enclosing holdings was increasing, as sheep-raising became more profitable than farming. The tenants thus dispossessed either swelled the ranks of the vagabonds who infested the highways or sought their livelihood at sea or in London, which provided the two best openings for adventurous young men. The smaller provincial towns afforded them little opportunity, for there the trades were largely in the hands of close corporations descended from the medieval craft guilds. These were eventually to be swept away by the general trend of business. Their dissolution had indeed already begun; for smart village craftsmen were even then forming the new industrial settlements from which most of the great manufacturing towns of England have sprung. Camden the historian found Birmingham full of ringing anvils, Sheffield 'a town of great name for the smiths therein,' Leeds renowned for cloth, and Manchester already a sort of cottonopolis, though the 'cottons' of those days were still made of wool. There was a wages question then as now. There were demands for a minimum living wage. The influx of gold and silver from America had sent all prices soaring. Meat became almost prohibitive for the 'submerged tenth'--there was a rapidly submerging tenth. Beef rose from one cent a pound in the forties to four in 1588, the year of the Armada. How would the lowest paid of craftsmen fare on twelve cents a day, with butter at ten cents a pound? Efforts were made, again and again, to readjust the ratio between prices and wages. But, as a rule, prices increased much faster than wages. All these things--the increase of surplus hands, the high cost of living, grievances about wages and interest--tended to make the farms and workshops of England recruiting-grounds for the sea; and the young men would strike out for themselves as freighters, traders, privateers, or downright pirates, lured by the dazzling chance of great and sudden wealth. 'The gamble of it' was as potent then as now, probably more potent still. It was an age of wild speculation accompanied by all the usual evils that follow frenzied ways. It was also an age of monopoly. Both monopoly and speculation sent recruits into the sea-dog ranks. Elizabeth would grant, say, to Sir Walter Raleigh, the monopoly of sweet wines. Raleigh would naturally want as much sweet wine imported as England could be induced to swallow. So, too, would Elizabeth, who got the duty. Crews would be wanted for the monopolistic ships. They would also be wanted for 'free-trading' vessels, that is, for the ships of the smugglers who underbid, undersold, and tried to overreach the monopolist, who represented law, though not quite justice. But speculation ran to greater extremes than either monopoly or smuggling. Shakespeare's 'Putter-out of five for one' was a typical Elizabethan speculator exploiting the riskiest form of sea-dog trade for all--and sometimes for more than all--that it was worth. A merchant-adventurer would pay a capitalist, say, a thousand pounds as a premium to be forfeited if his ship should be lost, but to be repaid by the capitalist fivefold to the merchant if it returned. Incredible as it may seem to us, there were shrewd money-lenders always ready for this sort of deal in life--or life-and-death--insurance: an eloquent testimony to the risks encountered in sailing unknown seas in the midst of well-known dangers. Marine insurance of the regular kind was, of course, a very different thing. It was already of immemorial age, going back certainly to medieval and probably to very ancient times. All forms of insurance on land are mere mushrooms by comparison. Lloyd's had not been heard of. But there were plenty of smart Elizabethan underwriters already practising the general principles which were to be formally adopted two hundred years later, in 1779, at Lloyd's Coffee House. A policy taken out on the _Tiger_ immortalized by Shakespeare would serve as a model still. And what makes it all the more interesting is that the Elizabethan underwriters calculated the _Tiger's_ chances at the very spot where the association known as Lloyd's transacts its business to-day, the Royal Exchange in London. This, in turn, brings Elizabeth herself upon the scene; for when she visited the Exchange, which Sir Thomas Gresham had built to let the merchants do their street work under cover, she immediately grasped its full significance and 'caused it by an Herald and a Trumpet to be proclaimed The Royal Exchange,' the name it bears to-day. An Elizabethan might well be astonished by what he would see at any modern Lloyd's. Yet he would find the same essentials; for the British Lloyd's, like most of its foreign imitators, is not a gigantic insurance company at all, but an association of cautiously elected members who carry on their completely independent private business in daily touch with each other--precisely as Elizabethans did. Lloyd's method differs wholly from ordinary insurance. Instead of insuring vessel and cargo with a single company or man the owner puts his case before Lloyd's, and any member can then write his name underneath for any reasonable part of the risk. The modern 'underwriter,' all the world over, is the direct descendant of the Elizabethan who wrote his name under the conditions of a given risk at sea. Joint-stock companies were in one sense old when Elizabethan men of business were young. But the Elizabethans developed them enormously. 'Going shares' was doubtless prehistoric. It certainly was ancient, medieval, and Elizabethan. But those who formerly went shares generally knew each other and something of the business too. The favorite number of total shares was just sixteen. There were sixteen land-shares in a Celtic household, sixteen shares in Scottish vessels not individually owned, sixteen shares in the theatre by which Shakespeare 'made his pile.' But sixteenths, and even hundredths, were put out of date when speculation on the grander scale began and the area of investment grew. The New River Company, for supplying London with water, had only a few shares then, as it continued to have down to our own day, when they stood at over a thousand times par. The Ulster 'Plantation' in Ireland was more remote and appealed to more investors and on wider grounds--sentimental grounds, both good and bad, included. The Virginia 'Plantation' was still more remote and risky and appealed to an ever-increasing number of the speculating public. Many an investor put money on America in much the same way as a factory hand to-day puts money on a horse he has never seen or has never heard of otherwise than as something out of which a lot of easy money can be made provided luck holds good. The modern prospectus was also in full career under Elizabeth, who probably had a hand in concocting some of the most important specimens. Lord Bacon wrote one describing the advantages of the Newfoundland fisheries in terms which no promoter of the present day could better. Every type of prospectus was tried on the investing public, some genuine, many doubtful, others as outrageous in their impositions on human credulity as anything produced in our own times. The company-promoter was abroad, in London, on 'Change, and at court. What with royal favor, social prestige, general prosperity, the new national eagerness to find vent for surplus commodities, and, above all, the spirit of speculation fanned into flame by the real and fabled wonders of America, what with all this the investing public could take its choice of 'going the limit' in a hundred different and most alluring ways. England was surprised at her own investing wealth. The East India Company raised eight million dollars with ease from a thousand shareholders and paid a first dividend of 87-1/2 per cent. Spices, pearls, and silks came pouring into London; and English goods found vent increasingly abroad. Vastly expanding business opportunities of course produced the spirit of the trust--and of very much the same sort of trust that Americans think so ultra-modern now. Monopolies granted by the Crown and the volcanic forces of widespread speculation prevented some of the abuses of the trust. But there were Elizabethan trusts, for all that, though many a promising scheme fell through. The Feltmakers' Hat Trust is a case in point. They proposed buying up all the hats in the market so as to oblige all dealers to depend upon one central warehouse. Of course they issued a prospectus showing how everyone concerned would benefit by this benevolent plan. Ben Jonson and other playwrights were quick to seize the salient absurdities of such an advertisement. In _The Staple of News_ Jonson proposed a News Trust to collect all the news of the world, corner it, classify it into authentic, apocryphal, barber's gossip, and so forth, and then sell it, for the sole benefit of the consumer, in lengths to suit all purchasers. In _The Devil is an Ass_ he is a little more outspoken. We'll take in citizens, commoners, and aldermen To bear the charge, and blow them off again like so many dead flies.... This was exactly what was at that very moment being done in the case of the Alum Trust. All the leading characters of much more modern times were there already; Fitzdottrell, ready to sell his estates in order to become His Grace the Duke of Drown'dland, Gilthead, the London moneylender who 'lives by finding fools,' and My Lady Tailbush, who pulls the social wires at court. And so the game went on, usually with the result explained by Shakespeare's fisherman in _Pericles_: 'I marvel how the fishes live in the sea'---'Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.' The Newcastle coal trade grew into something very like a modern American trust with the additional advantage of an authorized government monopoly so long as the agreed-upon duty was paid. Then there was the Starch Monopoly, a very profitable one because starch was a new delight which soon enabled Elizabethan fops to wear ruffed collars big enough to make their heads--as one irreverent satirist exclaimed--'look like John Baptist's on a platter.' But America? Could not America defeat the machinations of all monopolies and other trusts? Wasn't America the land of actual gold and silver where there was plenty of room for everyone? There soon grew up a wild belief that you could tap America for precious metals almost as its Indians tapped maple trees for sugar. The 'Mountains of Bright Stones' were surely there. Peru and Mexico were nothing to these. Only find them, and 'get-rich-quick' would be the order of the day for every true adventurer. These mountains moved about in men's imaginations and on prospectors' maps, always ahead of the latest pioneer, somewhere behind the Back of Beyond. They and their glamour died hard. Even that staid geographer of a later day, Thos. Jeffreys, added to his standard atlas of America, in 1760, this item of information on the Far Northwest: _Hereabouts are supposed to be the Mountains of Bright Stones mentioned in the Map of ye Indian Ochagach._ Speculation of the wildcat kind was bad. But it was the seamy side of a praiseworthy spirit of enterprise. Monopoly seems worse than speculation. And so, in many ways, it was. But we must judge it by the custom of its age. It was often unjust and generally obstructive. But it did what neither the national government nor joint-stock companies had yet learnt to do. Monopoly went by court favor, and its rights were often scandalously let and sometimes sublet as well. But, on the whole, the Queen, the court, and the country really meant business, and monopolists had either to deliver the goods or get out. Monopolists sold dispensations from unworkable laws, which was sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad. They sold licenses for indulgence in forbidden pleasures, not often harmless. They thought out and collected all kinds of indirect taxation and had to face all the troubles that confront the framers of a tariff policy to-day. Most of all, however, in a rough-and-ready way they set a sort of Civil Service going. They served as Boards of Trade, Departments of the Interior, Customs, Inland Revenue, and so forth. What Crown and Parliament either could not or would not do was farmed out to monopolists. Like speculation the system worked both ways, and frequently for evil. But, like the British constitution, though on a lower plane, it worked. A monopoly at home--like those which we have been considering--was endurable because it was a working compromise that suited existing circumstances more or less, and that could be either mended or ended as time went on. But a general foreign monopoly--like Spain's monopoly of America--was quite unendurable. Could Spain not only hold what she had discovered and was exploiting but also extend her sphere of influence over what she had not discovered? Spain said Yes. England said No. The Spaniards looked for tribute. The English looked for trade. In government, in religion, in business, in everything, the two great rivals were irreconcilably opposed. Thus the lists were set; and sea-dog battles followed. Elizabeth was an exceedingly able woman of business and was practically president of all the great joint-stock companies engaged in oversea trade. Wherever a cargo could be bought or sold there went an English ship to buy or sell it. Whenever the authorities in foreign parts tried discrimination against English men or English goods, the English sea-dogs growled and showed their teeth. And if the foreigners persisted, the sea-dogs bit them. Elizabeth was extravagant at court; but not without state motives for at least a part of her extravagance. A brilliant court attracted the upper classes into the orbit of the Crown while it impressed the whole country with the sovereign's power. Courtiers favored with monopolies had to spend their earnings when the state was threatened. And might not the Queen's vast profusion of jewelry be turned to account at a pinch? Elizabeth could not afford to be generous when she was young. She grew to be stingy when she was old. But she saved the state by sound finance as well as by arms in spite of all her pomps and vanities. She had three thousand dresses, and gorgeous ones at that, during the course of her reign. Her bathroom was wainscoted with Venetian mirrors so that she could see 'nine-and-ninety' reflections of her very comely person as she dipped and splashed or dried her royal skin. She set a hot pace for all the votaries of dress to follow. All kinds of fashions came in from abroad with the rush of new-found wealth; and so, instead of being sanely beautiful, they soon became insanely bizarre. 'An Englishman,' says Harrison, 'endeavouring to write of our attire, gave over his travail, and only drew the picture of a naked man, since he could find no kind of garment that could please him any whiles together. I am an English man and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind what raiment I shall were; For now I will were this, and now I will were that; And now I will were I cannot tell what. Except you see a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England. Women also do far exceed the lightness of our men. What shall I say of their galligascons to bear out their attire and make it fit plum round?' But the wives of 'citizens and burgesses,' like all _nouveaux riches_, were still more bizarre than the courtiers. 'They cannot tell when or how to make an end, being women in whom all kind of curiosity is to be seen in far greater measure than in women of higher calling. I might name hues devised for the nonce, ver d'oye 'twixt green and yallow, peas-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, and the Devil-in-the-head.' Yet all this crude absurdity, 'from the courtier to the carter,' was the glass reflecting the constantly increasing sea-borne trade, ever pushing farther afield under the stimulus and protection of the sea-dogs. And the Queen took precious good care that it all paid toll to her treasury through the customs, so that she could have more money to build more ships. And if her courtiers did stuff their breeches out with sawdust, she took equally good care that each fighting man among them donned his uniform and raised his troops or fitted out his ships when the time was ripe for action. CHAPTER V HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS Said Francis I of France to Charles V, King of Spain: 'Your Majesty and the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no part of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, so that I may see if he has really made you his only universal heirs!' Then Francis sent out the Italian navigator Verrazano, who first explored the coast from Florida to Newfoundland. Afterwards Jacques Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence; Frenchmen took Havana twice, plundered the Spanish treasure-ships, and tried to found colonies--Catholic in Canada, Protestant in Florida and Brazil. Thus, at the time when Elizabeth ascended the throne of England in 1558, there was a long-established New Spain extending over Mexico, the West Indies, and most of South America; a small New Portugal confined to part of Brazil; and a shadowy New France running vaguely inland from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nowhere effectively occupied, and mostly overlapping prior English claims based on the discoveries of the Cabots. England and France had often been enemies. England and Spain had just been allied in a war against France as well as by the marriage of Philip and Mary. William Hawkins had traded with Portuguese Brazil under Henry VIII, as the Southampton merchants were to do later on. English merchants lived in Lisbon and Cadiz; a few were even settled in New Spain; and a friendly Spaniard had been so delighted by the prospective union of the English with the Spanish crown that he had given the name of Londres (London) to a new settlement in the Argentine Andes. Presently, however, Elizabethan England began to part company with Spain, to become more anti-Papal, to sympathize with Huguenots and other heretics, and, like Francis I, to wonder why an immense new world should be nothing but New Spain. Besides, Englishmen knew what the rest of Europe knew, that the discovery of Potosi had put out of business nearly all the Old-World silver mines, and that the Burgundian Ass (as Spanish treasure-mules were called, from Charles's love of Burgundy) had enabled Spain to make conquests, impose her will on her neighbors, and keep paid spies in every foreign court, the English court included. Londoners had seen Spanish gold and silver paraded through the streets when Philip married Mary--'27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2 cartloads of gold and silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars!' Moreover, the Holy Inquisition was making Spanish seaports pretty hot for heretics. In 1562, twenty-six English subjects were burnt alive in Spain itself. Ten times as many were in prison. No wonder sea-dogs were straining at the leash. Neither Philip nor Elizabeth wanted war just then, though each enjoyed a thrust at the other by any kind of fighting short of that, and though each winked at all kinds of armed trade, such as privateering and even downright piracy. The English and Spanish merchants had commercial connections going back for centuries; and business men on both sides were always ready to do a good stroke for themselves. This was the state of affairs in 1562 when young John Hawkins, son of 'Olde Master William,' went into the slave trade with New Spain. Except for the fact that both Portugal and Spain allowed no trade with their oversea possessions in any ships but their own, the circumstances appeared to favor his enterprise. The American Indians were withering away before the atrocious cruelties of the Portuguese and Spaniards, being either killed in battle, used up in merciless slavery, or driven off to alien wilds. Already the Portuguese had commenced to import negroes from their West African possessions, both for themselves and for trade with the Spaniards, who had none. Brazil prospered beyond expectation and absorbed all the blacks that Portuguese shipping could supply. The Spaniards had no spare tonnage at the time. John Hawkins, aged thirty, had made several trips to the Canaries. He now formed a joint-stock company to trade with the Spaniards farther off. Two Lord Mayors of London and the Treasurer of the Royal Navy were among the subscribers. Three small vessels, with only two hundred and sixty tons between them, formed the flotilla. The crews numbered just a hundred men. 'At Teneriffe he received friendly treatment. From thence he passed to Sierra Leona, where he stayed a good time, and got into his possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the number of 300 Negroes at the least, besides other merchandises.... With this prey he sailed over the ocean sea unto the island of Hispaniola [Hayti] ... and here he had reasonable utterance [sale] of his English commodities, as also of some part of his Negroes, trusting the Spaniards no further than that by his own strength he was able still to master them.' At 'Monte Christi, another port on the north side of Hispaniola ... he made vent of [sold] the whole number of his Negroes, for which he received by way of exchange such a quantity of merchandise that he did not only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides and other like commodities, which he sent into Spain,' where both hulks and hides were confiscated as being contraband. Nothing daunted, he was off again in 1564 with four ships and a hundred and seventy men. This time Elizabeth herself took shares and lent the _Jesus of Lubeck_, a vessel of seven hundred tons which Henry VIII had bought for the navy. Nobody questioned slavery in those days. The great Spanish missionary Las Casas denounced the Spanish atrocities against the Indians. But he thought negroes, who could be domesticated, would do as substitutes for Indians, who could not be domesticated. The Indians withered at the white man's touch. The negroes, if properly treated, throve, and were safer than among their enemies at home. Such was the argument for slavery; and it was true so far as it went. The argument against, on the score of ill treatment, was only gradually heard. On the score of general human rights it was never heard at all. 'At departing, in cutting the foresail lashings a marvellous misfortune happened to one of the officers in the ship, who by the pulley of the sheet was slain out of hand.' Hawkins 'appointed all the masters of his ships an Order for the keeping of good company in this manner:--The small ships to be always ahead and aweather of the _Jesus_, and to speak twice a-day with the _Jesus_ at least.... If the weather be extreme, that the small ships cannot keep company with the _Jesus_, then all to keep company with the _Solomon_.... If any happen to any misfortune, then to show two lights, and to shoot off a piece of ordnance. If any lose company and come in sight again, to make three yaws [zigzags in their course] and strike the mizzen three times. SERVE GOD DAILY. LOVE ONE ANOTHER. PRESERVE YOUR VICTUALS. BEWARE OF FIRE, AND KEEP GOOD COMPANY.' John Sparke, the chronicler of this second voyage, was full of curiosity over every strange sight he met with. He was also blessed with the pen of a ready writer. So we get a story that is more vivacious than Hakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own account of the third. Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs, Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and many other strange sights. Having been told that Florida was full of unicorns he at once concluded that it must also be full of lions; for how could the one kind exist without the other kind to balance it? Sparke was a soldier who never found his sea legs. But his diary, besides its other merits, is particularly interesting as being the first account of America ever written by an English eyewitness. Hawkins made for Teneriffe in the Canaries, off the west of Africa. There, to everybody's great 'amaze,' the Spaniards 'appeared levelling of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.' But when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and when it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels--English and Huguenot--had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previous summer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze.' Once explanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins as gentle entertainment as if he had been his own brother.' Peter was a trader with a great eye for the main chance. Sparke was lost in wonder over the famous Arbol Santo tree of Ferro, 'by the dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied with water, for other water they have none on the island.' This is not quite the traveller's tale it appears to be. There are three springs on the island of Teneriffe. But water is scarce, and the Arbol Santo, a sort of gigantic laurel standing alone on a rocky ledge, did actually supply two cisterns, one for men and the other for cattle. The morning mist condensing on the innumerable smooth leaves ran off and was caught in suitable conduits. In Africa Hawkins took many 'Sapies which do inhabit about Rio Grande [now the Jeba River] which do jag their flesh, both legs, arms, and bodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin.' It is a nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming slaves to white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors who used them as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise. The Sapies were sleek pacifists who found too late that the warlike Samboses, who inhabited the neighboring desert, were not to be denied. 'In the island of Sambula we found almadies or canoas, which are made of one piece of wood, digged out like a trough, but of a good proportion, being about eight yards long and one in breadth, having a beak-head and a stern very proportionably made, and on the outside artificially carved, and painted red and blue.' Neither _almadie_ nor canoa is, of course, an African word. One is Arabic for a cradle (_el-mahd_); the other, from which we get _canoe_, is what the natives told Columbus they called their dugouts; and dugout canoes are very like primitive cradles. Thus Sparke was the first man to record in English, from actual experience, the aboriginal craft whose name, both East and West, was suggested to primeval man by the idea of his being literally 'rocked in the cradle of the deep.' Hawkins did not have it all his own way with the negroes, by whom he once lost seven of his own men killed and twenty-seven wounded. 'But the captain in a singular wise manner carried himself with countenance very cheerful outwardly, although inwardly his heart was broken in pieces for it; done to this end, that the Portugais, being with him, should not presume to resist against him.' After losing five more men, who were eaten by sharks, Hawkins shaped his course westward with a good cargo of negroes and 'other merchandises.' 'Contrary winds and some tornados happened to us very ill. But the Almighty God, who never suffereth His elect to perish, sent us the ordinary Breeze, which never left us till we came to an island of the Cannibals' (Caribs of Dominica), who, by the by, had just eaten a shipload of Spaniards. Hawkins found the Spanish officials determined to make a show of resisting unauthorized trade. But when 'he prepared 100 men well armed with bows, arrows, arquebuses, and pikes, with which he marched townwards,' the officials let the sale of blacks go on. Hawkins was particularly anxious to get rid of his 'lean negroes,' who might die in his hands and become a dead loss; so he used the 'gunboat argument' to good effect. Sparke kept his eyes open for side-shows and was delighted with the alligators, which he called crocodiles, perhaps for the sake of the crocodile tears. 'His nature is to cry and sob like a Christian to provoke his prey to come to him; and thereupon came this proverb, that is applied unto women when they weep, _lachrymoe crocodili_.' From the West Indies Hawkins made for Florida, which was then an object of exceptional desire among adventurous Englishmen. De Soto, one of Pizarro's lieutenants, had annexed it to Spain and, in 1539, had started off inland to discover the supposed Peru of North America. Three years later he had died while descending the valley of the Mississippi. Six years later again, the first Spanish missionary in Florida 'taking upon him to persuade the people to subjection, was by them taken, and his skin cruelly pulled over his ears, and his flesh eaten.' Hawkins's men had fair warning on the way; for 'they, being ashore, found a dead man, dried in a manner whole, with other heads and bodies of men,' apparently smoked like hams. 'But to return to our purpose,' adds the indefatigable Sparke, 'the captain in the ship's pinnace sailed along the shore and went into every creek, speaking with divers of the _Floridians_, because he would understand where the Frenchmen inhabited.' Finally he found them 'in the river of _May_ [now St. John's River] and standing in 30 degrees and better.' There was 'great store of maize and mill, and grapes of great bigness. Also deer great plenty, which came upon the sands before them.' So here were the three rivals overlapping again--the annexing Spaniards, the would-be colonizing French, and the persistently trading English. There were, however, no Spaniards about at that time. This was the second Huguenot colony in Florida. René de Laudonnière had founded it in 1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had failed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started for home in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by an English vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where the court was all agog about the wealth of Florida. People said there were mines so bright with jewels that they had to be approached at night lest the flashing light should strike men blind. Florida became proverbial; and Elizabethan wits made endless fun of it. _Stolida_, or the land of fools, and _Sordida_, or the land of muck-worms, were some of their _jeux d'esprit_. Everyone was 'bound for Florida,' whether he meant to go there or not, despite Spanish spheres of influence, the native cannibals, and pirates by the way. Hawkins, on the contrary, did not profess to be bound for Florida. Nevertheless he arrived there, and probably had intended to do so from the first, for he took with him a Frenchman who had been in Ribaut's colony two years before, and Sparke significantly says that 'the land is more than any [one] king Christian is able to inhabit.' However this may be, Hawkins found the second French colony as well as 'a French ship of fourscore ton, and two pinnaces of fifteen ton apiece by her ... and a fort, in which their captain Monsieur Laudonnière was, with certain soldiers therein.' The colony had not been a success. Nor is this to be wondered at when we remember that most of the 'certain soldiers' were ex-pirates, who wanted gold, and 'who would not take the pains so much as to fish in the river before their doors, but would have all things put in their mouths.' Eighty of the original two hundred 'went a-roving' to the West Indies, 'where they spoiled the Spaniards ... and were of such haughty stomachs that they thought their force to be such that no man durst meddle with them.... But God ... did indurate their hearts in such sort that they lingered so long that a [Spanish] ship and galliasse being made out of St. Domingo ... took twenty of them, whereof the most part were hanged ... and twenty-five escaped ... to Florida, where ... they were put into prison [by Laudonnière, against whom they had mutinied] and ... four of the chiefest being condemned, at the request of the soldiers did pass the arquebusers, and then were hanged upon a gibbet.' Sparke got the delightful expression 'at the request of the soldiers did pass the arquebusers' from a 'very polite' Frenchman. Could any one tell you more politely, in mistranslated language, how to stand up and be shot? Sparke was greatly taken with the unknown art of smoking. 'The Floridians ... have an herb dried, who, with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire and the dried herbs put together, do suck through the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink. And this all the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion withal that it causeth water and steam to void from their stomachs.' The other 'commodities of the land' were 'more than are yet known to any man.' But Hawkins was bent on trade, not colonizing. He sold the _Tiger_, a barque of fifty tons, to Laudonnière for seven hundred crowns and sailed north on the first voyage ever made along the coast of the United States by an all-English crew. Turning east off Newfoundland 'with a good large wind, the 20 September [1565] we came to Padstow, in Cornwall, God be thanked! in safety, with the loss of twenty persons in all the voyage, and with great profit to the venturers, as also to the whole realm, in bringing home both gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels great store. His name, therefore, be praised for evermore. Amen.' Hawkins was now a rich man, a favorite at court, and quite the rage in London. The Queen was very gracious and granted him the well-known coat of arms with the crest of 'a demi-Moor, bound and captive' in honor of the great new English slave trade. The Spanish ambassador met him at court and asked him to dinner, where, over the wine, Hawkins assured him that he was going out again next year. Meanwhile, however, the famous Captain-General of the Indian trade, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the best naval officer that Spain perhaps has ever had, swooped down on the French in Florida, killed them all, and built the fort of St. Augustine to guard the 'Mountains of Bright Stones' somewhere in the hinterland. News of this slaughter soon arrived at Madrid, whence orders presently went out to have an eye on Hawkins, whom Spanish officials thenceforth regarded as the leading interloper in New Spain. Nevertheless Hawkins set out on his third and very 'troublesome' voyage in 1567, backed by all his old and many new supporters, and with a flotilla of six vessels, the _Jesus_, the _Minion_ (which then meant darling), the _William and John_, the _Judith_, the _Angel_, and the _Swallow_. This was the voyage that began those twenty years of sea-dog fighting which rose to their zenith in the battle against the Armada; and with this voyage Drake himself steps on to the stage as captain of the _Judith_. There had been a hitch in 1566, for the Spanish ambassador had reported Hawkins's after-dinner speech to his king. Philip had protested to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had consulted with Cecil, afterwards 'the great Lord Burleigh,' ancestor of the Marquis of Salisbury, British Prime Minister during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The result was that orders went down to Plymouth stopping Hawkins and binding him over, in a bond of five hundred pounds, to keep the peace with Her Majesty's right good friend King Philip of Spain. But in 1567 times had changed again, and Hawkins sailed with colors flying, for Elizabeth was now as ready to hurt Philip as he was to hurt her, provided always that open war was carefully avoided. But this time things went wrong from the first. A tremendous autumnal storm scattered the ships. Then the first negroes that Hawkins tried to 'snare' proved to be like that other kind of prey of which the sarcastic Frenchman wrote: 'This animal is very wicked; when you attack it, it defends itself.' The 'envenomed arrows' of the negroes worked the mischief. 'There hardly escaped any that had blood drawn of them, but died in strange sort, with their mouths shut some ten days before they died.' Hawkins himself was wounded, but, 'thanks be to God,' escaped the lockjaw. After this the English took sides in a native war and captured '250 persons, men, women, and children,' while their friend the King captured '600 prisoners, whereof we hoped to have had our choice. But the negro, in which nation is seldom or never found truth, that night removed his camp and prisoners, so that we were fain to content ourselves with those few we had gotten ourselves.' However, with 'between 400 and 500 negroes,' Hawkins crossed over from Africa to the West Indies and 'coasted from place to place, making our traffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, because the King had straitly commanded all his governors by no means to suffer any trade to be made with us. Notwithstanding, we had reasonable trade, and courteous entertainment' for a good part of the way. In Rio de la Hacha the Spaniards received the English with a volley that killed a couple of men, whereupon the English smashed in the gates, while the Spaniards retired. But, after this little bit of punctilio, trade went on under cover of night so briskly that two hundred negroes were sold at good prices. From there to Cartagena 'the inhabitants were glad of us and traded willingly,' supply being short and demand extra high. Then came a real rebuff from the governor of Cartagena, followed by a terrific storm 'which so beat the _Jesus_ that we cut down all her higher buildings' (deck superstructures). Then the course was shaped for Florida. But a new storm drove the battered flotilla back to 'the port which serveth the city of Mexico, called St. John de Ulua,' the modern Vera Cruz. The historic Vera Cruz was fifteen miles north of this harbor. Here 'thinking us to be the fleet of Spain, the chief officers of the country came aboard us. Which, being deceived of their expectation, were greatly dismayed; but ... when they saw our demand was nothing but victuals, were recomforted. I [for it is Hawkins's own story] found in the same port 12 ships which had in them by report £200,000 in gold and silver, all which, being in my possession [i.e., at my mercy] with the King's Island ... I set at liberty.' What was to be done? Hawkins had a hundred negroes still to sell. But it was four hundred miles to Mexico City and back again; and a new Spanish viceroy was aboard the big Spanish fleet that was daily expected to arrive in this very port. If a permit to sell came back from the capital in time, well and good. If no more than time to replenish stores was allowed, good enough, despite the loss of sales. But what if the Spanish fleet arrived? The 'King's Island' was a low little reef right in the mouth of the harbor, which it all but barred. Moreover, no vessel could live through a northerly gale inside the harbor--the only one on that coast--unless securely moored to the island itself. Consequently whoever held the island commanded the situation altogether. There was not much time for consultation; for the very next morning 'we saw open of the haven 13 great ships, the fleet of Spain.' It was a terrible predicament. '_Now_, said I, _I am in two dangers, and forced to receive the one of them_.... Either I must have kept out the fleet, which, with God's help, I was very well able to do, or else suffer them to enter with their accustomed treason.... If I had kept them out, then there had been present shipwreck of all that fleet, which amounted in value to six millions, which was in value of our money £1,800,000, which I considered I was not able to answer, fearing the Queen's Majesty's indignation.... Thus with myself revolving the doubts, I thought better to abide the jut of the uncertainty than of the certainty.' So, after conditions had been agreed upon and hostages exchanged, the thirteen Spanish ships sailed in. The little island remained in English hands; and the Spaniards were profuse in promises. But, having secretly made their preparations, the Spaniards, who were in overwhelming numbers, suddenly set upon the English by land and sea. Every Englishman ashore was killed, except a few who got off in a boat to the _Jesus_. The _Jesus_ and the _Minion_ cut their headfasts, hauled clear by their sternfasts, drove back the boarding parties, and engaged the Spanish fleet at about a hundred yards. Within an hour the Spanish flagship and another were sunk, a third vessel was burning furiously, fore and aft, while every English deck was clear of enemies. But the Spaniards had swarmed on to the island from all sides and were firing into the English hulls at only a few feet from the cannon's mouth. Hawkins was cool as ever. Calling for a tankard of beer he drank to the health of the gunners, who accounted for most of the five hundred and forty men killed on the Spanish side. 'Stand by your ordnance lustily,' he cried, as he put the tankard down and a round shot sent it flying. 'God hath delivered me,' he added, 'and so will He deliver you from these traitors and villains.' The masts of the _Jesus_ went by the board and her old, strained timbers splintered, loosened up, and were stove in under the storm of cannon balls. Hawkins then gave the order to abandon ship after taking out what stores they could and changing her berth so that she would shield the little _Minion_. But while this desperate manoeuvre was being executed down came two fire-ships. Some of the _Minion's_ crew then lost their heads and made sail so quickly that Hawkins himself was nearly left behind. The only two English vessels that escaped were the _Minion_ and the _Judith_. When nothing else was left to do, Hawkins shouted to Drake to lay the _Judith_ aboard the _Minion_, take in all the men and stores he could, and put to sea. Drake, then only twenty-three, did this with consummate skill. Hawkins followed some time after and anchored just out of range. But Drake had already gained an offing that caused the two little vessels to part company in the night, during which a whole gale from the north sprang up, threatening to put the _Judith_ on a lee shore. Drake therefore fought his way to windward; and, seeing no one when the gale abated, and having barely enough stores to make a friendly land, sailed straight home. Hawkins reported the _Judith_, without mentioning Drake's name, as 'forsaking' the _Minion_. But no other witness thought Drake to blame. Hawkins himself rode out the gale under the lee of a little island, then beat about for two weeks of increasing misery, when 'hides were thought very good meat, and rats, cats, mice, and dogs, parrots and monkeys that were got at great price, none escaped.' The _Minion_ was of three hundred tons; and so was insufferably overcrowded with three hundred men, two hundred English and one hundred negroes. Drake's little _Judith_, of only fifty tons, could have given no relief, as she was herself overfull. Hawkins asked all the men who preferred to take their chance on land to get round the foremast and all those who wanted to remain afloat to get round the mizzen. About a hundred chose one course and a hundred the other. The landing took place about a hundred and fifty miles south of the Rio Grande. The shore party nearly all died. But three lived to write of their adventures. David Ingram, following Indian trails all round the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic seaboard, came out where St. John, New Brunswick, stands now, was picked up by a passing Frenchman, and so got safely home. Job Hortop and Miles Philips were caught by the Spaniards and sent back to Mexico. Philips escaped to England fourteen years later. But Hortop was sent to Spain, where he served twelve years as a galley-slave and ten as a servant before he contrived to get aboard an English vessel. The ten Spanish hostages were found safe and sound aboard the _Jesus_; though, by all the rules of war, Hawkins would have been amply justified in killing them. The English hostages were kept fast prisoners. 'If all the miseries of this sorrowful voyage,' says Hawkins's report, 'should be perfectly written, there should need a painful man with his pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deaths of martyrs.' Thus, in complete disaster, ended that third voyage to New Spain on which so many hopes were set. And with this disastrous end began those twenty years of sea-dog rage which found their satisfaction against the Great Armada. CHAPTER VI DRAKE'S BEGINNING We must now turn back for a moment to 1545, the year in which the Old World, after the discovery of the mines of Potosi, first awoke to the illimitable riches of the New; the year in which King Henry assembled his epoch-making fleet; the year, too, in which the British National Anthem was, so to say, born at sea, when the parole throughout the waiting fleet was _God save the King!_ and the answering countersign was _Long to reign over us!_ In the same year, at Crowndale by Tavistock in Devon, was born Francis Drake, greatest of sea-dogs and first of modern admirals. His father, Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances. But from time immemorial there had been Drakes all round the countryside of Tavistock and the family name stood high. Francis was called after his godfather, Francis Russell, son and heir of Henry's right-hand reforming peer, Lord Russell, progenitor of the Dukes of Bedford down to the present day. Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his boyhood proved to be a very stormy one indeed. He was not yet five when the Protestant zeal of the Lord Protector Somerset stirred the Roman Catholics of the West Country into an insurrection that swept the anti-Papal minority before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake's father was a zealous Protestant, a 'hot gospeller,' much given to preaching; and when he was cast up by the storm on what is now Drake's Island, just off Plymouth, he was glad to take passage for Kent. His friends at court then made him a sort of naval chaplain to the men who took care of His Majesty's ships laid up in Gillingham Reach on the River Medway, just below where Chatham Dockyard stands to-day. Here, in a vessel too old for service, most of Drake's eleven brothers were born to a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any boy could be. The tide runs in with a rush from the sea at Sheerness, only ten miles away; and so, among the creeks and marshes, points and bends, through tortuous channels and hurrying waters lashed by the keen east wind of England, Drake reveled in the kind of playground that a sea-dog's son should have. During the reign of Mary (1553-58) 'hot gospellers' like Drake's father were of course turned out of the Service. And so young Francis had to be apprenticed to 'the master of a bark, which he used to coast along the shore, and sometimes to carry merchandise into Zeeland and France.' It was hard work and a rough life for the little lad of ten. But Drake stuck to it, and 'so pleased the old man by his industry that, being a bachelor, at his death he bequeathed his bark unto him by will and testament.' Moreover, after Elizabeth's accession, Drake's father came into his own. He took orders in the Church of England, and in 1561, when Francis was sixteen, became vicar of Upchurch on the Medway, the same river on which his boys had learned to live amphibious lives. No dreams of any Golden West had Drake as yet. To the boy in his teens _Westward Ho!_ meant nothing more than the usual cry of London boatmen touting for fares up-stream. But, before he went out with Sir John Hawkins, on the 'troublesome' voyage which we have just followed, he must have had a foretaste of something like his future raiding of the Spanish Main; for the Channel swarmed with Protestant privateers, no gentler, when they caught a Spaniard, than Spaniards were when they caught them. He was twenty-two when he went out with Hawkins and would be in his twenty-fourth year when he returned to England in the little _Judith_ after the murderous Spanish treachery at San Juan de Ulua. Just as the winter night was closing in, on the 20th of January, 1569, the _Judith_ sailed into Plymouth. Drake landed. William Hawkins, John's brother, wrote a petition to the Queen-in-Council for letters-of-marque in reprisal for Ulua, and Drake dashed off for London with the missive almost before the ink was dry. Now it happened that a Spanish treasure fleet, carrying money from Italy and bound for Antwerp, had been driven into Plymouth and neighboring ports by Huguenot privateers. This money was urgently needed by Alva, the very capable but ruthless governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who, having just drowned the rebellious Dutch in blood, was now erecting a colossal statue to himself for having 'extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion, secured justice, and established peace.' The Spanish ambassador therefore obtained leave to bring it overland to Dover. But no sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than in came Drake with the news of San Juan de Ulua. Elizabeth at once saw that all the English sea-dogs would be flaming for revenge. Everyone saw that the treasure would be safer now in England than aboard any Spanish vessel in the Channel. So, on the ground that the gold, though payable to Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the property of the Italian bankers who advanced it, Elizabeth sent orders down post-haste to commandeer it. The enraged ambassador advised Alva to seize everything English in the Netherlands. Elizabeth in turn seized everything Spanish in England. Elizabeth now held the diplomatic trumps; for existing treaties provided that there should be no reprisals without a reasonable delay; and Alva had seized English property before giving Elizabeth the customary time to explain. John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and started for London with four pack horses carrying all he had saved from the wreck. By the irony of fate he travelled up to town in the rear of the long procession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold. The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war with France over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the Huguenots at La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and affability for France. And when her two great merchant fleets put out to sea, one, the wine-fleet, bound for La Rochelle, went with only a small naval escort, just enough to keep the pirates off; while the other, the big wool-fleet, usually sent to Antwerp but now bound for Hamburg, went with a strong fighting escort of regular men-of-war. Aboard this escort went Francis Drake as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Home in June, Drake ran down to Tavistock in Devon; wooed, won, and married pretty Mary Newman, all within a month. He was back on duty in July. For the time being the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuous diplomacy had succeeded, owing to dissension among her enemies. In the following year (1570) the international situation was changed by the Pope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and absolving her subjects from their allegiance to her. The French and Spanish monarchs refused to publish this order because they did not approve of deposition by the Pope. But, for all that, it worked against Elizabeth by making her the official standing enemy of Rome. At the same time it worked for her among the sea-dogs and all who thought with them. 'The case,' said Thomas Fuller, author of _The Worthies of England_, 'the case was clear in _sea divinitie_.' Religious zeal and commercial enterprise went hand in hand. The case _was_ clear; and the English navy, now mobilized and ready for war, made it much clearer still. _Westward Ho!_ in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with the tiny flotilla of the _Dragon_ and the _Swan_, manned by as good a lot of daredevil experts as any privateer could wish to see! Out and back in 1570, and again in 1571, Drake took reprisals on New Spain, made money for all hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the American coast that stood him in good stead for future expeditions. * * * * * It was 1572 when Drake, at the age of twenty-seven, sailed out of Plymouth on the Nombre de Dios expedition that brought him into fame. He led a Lilliputian fleet: the _Pascha_ and the _Swan_, a hundred tons between them, with seventy-three men, all ranks and ratings, aboard of them. But both vessels were 'richly furnished with victuals and apparels for a whole year, and no less heedfully provided with all manner of ammunition, artillery [which then meant every kind of firearm as well as cannon], artificers' stuff and tools; but especially three dainty pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder all in pieces,' and stowed aboard to be set up as occasion served. Without once striking sail Drake made the channel between Dominica and Martinique in twenty-five days and arrived off a previously chosen secret harbor on the Spanish Main towards the end of July. To his intense surprise a column of smoke was rising from it, though there was no settlement within a hundred miles. On landing he found a leaden plate with this inscription: 'Captain Drake! If you fortune to come to this Port, make hast away! For the Spaniards which you had with you here, the last year, have bewrayed the place and taken away all that you left here. I depart hence, this present 7th of July, 1572. Your very loving friend, John Garrett.' That was fourteen days before. Drake, however, was determined to carry out his plan. So he built a fort and set up his pinnaces. But others had now found the secret harbor; for in came three sail under Ranse, an Englishman, who asked that he be taken into partnership, which was done. Then the combined forces, not much over a hundred strong, stole out and along the coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found himself forestalled. From the negro crews of two Spanish vessels he discovered that, only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had annihilated a Spanish force on the Isthmus and nearly taken Nombre de Dios itself. These Maroons were the descendants of escaped negro slaves intermarried with the most warlike of the Indians. They were regular desperadoes, always, and naturally, at war with the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin to be killed at sight. Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join the Maroons, with whom he always made friends. Then with seventy-three picked men he made his dash for Nombre de Dios, leaving the rest under Ranse to guard the base. Nombre de Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacific terminus, of the treasure trail across the Isthmus of Darien. The Spaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn, and unable to face the appalling dangers of Magellan's straits, used to bring the Peruvian treasure ships to Panama, whence the treasure was taken across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios by _recuas_, that is, by mule trains under escort. At evening Drake's vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios and stealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in the morning. A long and nerve-racking wait ensued. As the hours dragged on, Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized. They began to whisper about the size of the town--'as big as Plymouth'--with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanish infantry, and so on. It wanted an hour of the first real streak of dawn. But just then the old moon sent a ray of light quivering in on the tide. Drake instantly announced the dawn, issued the orders: 'Shove off, out oars, give way!' Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea was picking up her moorings. A boat left her side and pulled like mad for the wharf. But Drake's men raced the Spaniards, beat them, and made them sheer off to a landing some way beyond the town. Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns off their platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life. In five minutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpet calls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, and the civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the Maroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fell in--they were all well-drilled--and were quickly told off into three detachments. The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham--the hero of Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_--and the third, of twelve men only, to guard the pinnaces. Having found that the new fort on the hill commanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched against the town at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a flank, Drake straight up the main street, each with a trumpet sounding, a drum rolling, fire-pikes blazing, swords flashing, and all ranks yelling like fiends. Drake was only of medium stature. But he had the strength of a giant, the pluck of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the cut of a man that is born to command. Broad-browed, with steel-blue eyes and close-cropped auburn hair and beard, he was all kindliness of countenance to friends, but a very 'Dragon' to his Spanish foes. As Drake's men reached the Plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast of defiance and then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley and charged immediately, the drummer beating furiously, pikes levelled, and swords brandished. The Spaniards did not wait for him to close; for Oxenham's party, fire-pikes blazing, were taking them in flank. Out went the Spaniards through the Panama gate, with screaming townsfolk scurrying before them. Bang went the gate, now under English guard, as Drake made for the Governor's house. There lay a pile of silver bars such as his men had never dreamt of: in all, about four hundred tons of silver ready for the homeward fleet--enough not only to fill but sink the _Pascha_, _Swan_, and pinnaces. But silver was then no more to Drake than it was once to Solomon. What he wanted were the diamonds and pearls and gold, which were stored, he learned, in the King's Treasure House beside the bay. A terrific storm now burst. The fire-pikes and arquebuses had to be taken under cover. The wall of the King's Treasure House defied all efforts to breach it. And the Spaniards who had been shut into the town, discovering how few the English were, reformed for attack. Some of Drake's men began to lose heart. But in a moment he stepped to the front and ordered Oxenham to go round and smash in the Treasure House gate while he held the Plaza himself. Just as the men stepped off, however, he reeled aside and fell. He had fainted from loss of blood caused by a wound he had managed to conceal. There was no holding the men now. They gave him a cordial, after which he bound up his leg, for he was a first-rate surgeon, and repeated his orders as before. But there were a good many wounded; and, with Drake no longer able to lead, the rest all begged to go back. So back to their boats they went, and over to the Bastimentos or Victualling Islands, which contained the gardens and poultry runs of the Nombre de Dios citizens. Here they were visited, under a flag of truce, by the Spanish officer commanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama. He was all politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments, which Drake, who was a Spanish scholar, answered with the like. Waving each other a ceremonious adieu the two leaders were left no wiser than before. Nombre de Dios, now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not an easy nut to crack. But Panama? Panama meant a risky march inland and a still riskier return by the regular treasure trail. But with the help of the Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might yet be done. Ranse thought the game not worth the candle and retired from the partnership, much to Drake's delight. A good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagena. Here Drake found a frigate deserted by its crew, who had gone ashore to see fair play in a duel fought about a seaman's mistress. The old man left in charge confessed that a Seville ship was round the point. Drake cut her out at once, in spite of being fired at from the shore. Next, in came two more Spanish sail to warn Cartagena that 'Captain Drake has been at Nombre de Dios and taken it, and if a blest bullet hadn't hit him in the leg he would have sacked it too.' Cartagena, however, was up in arms already; so Drake put all his prisoners ashore unhurt and retired to reconsider his position, leaving Diego, a negro fugitive from Nombre de Dios, to muster the Maroons for a raid overland to Panama. Then Drake, who sank the _Swan_ and burnt his prizes because he had only men enough for the _Pascha_ and the pinnaces, disappeared into a new secret harbor. But his troubles were only beginning; for word came that the Maroons said that nothing could be done inland till the rains were over, five months hence. This meant a long wait; however, what with making supply depots and picking up prizes here and there, the wet time might pass off well enough. One day Oxenham's crew nearly mutinied over the shortness of provisions. 'Have ye not as much as I,' Drake called to them, 'and has God's Providence ever failed us yet?' Within an hour a Spanish vessel hove in sight, making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her was out of the question. But 'We spent not two hours in attendance till it pleased God to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our guns and approach her at pleasure. We found her laden with victuals, which we received as sent of God's great mercy.' Then 'Yellow Jack' broke out, and the men began to fall sick and die. The company consisted of seventy-three men; and twenty-eight of these perished of the fever, among them the surgeon himself and Drake's own brother. But on the 3d of February, 1573, Drake was ready for the dash on Panama. Leaving behind about twenty-five men to guard the base, he began the overland march with a company of fifty, all told, of whom thirty-one were picked Maroons. The fourth day out Drake climbed a forest giant on the top of the Divide, saw the Atlantic behind him and the Pacific far in front, and vowed that if he lived he would sail an English ship over the great South Sea. Two days more and the party left the protecting forest for the rolling pampas where the risk of being seen increased at every step. Another day's march and Panama was sighted as they topped the crest of one of the bigger waves of ground. A clever Maroon went ahead to spy out the situation and returned to say that two _recuas_ would leave at dusk, one coming from Venta Cruz, fifteen miles northwest of Panama, carrying silver and supplies, and the other from Panama, loaded with jewels and gold. Then a Spanish sentry was caught asleep by the advanced party of Maroons, who smelt him out by the match of his fire-lock. In his gratitude for being protected from the Maroons, this man confirmed the previous information. The excitement now was most intense; for the crowning triumph of a two-years' great adventure was at last within striking distance of the English crew. Drake drew them up in proper order; and every man took off his shirt and put it on again outside his coat, so that each would recognize the others in the night attack. Then they lay listening for the mule-bells, till presently the warning tinkle let them know that _recuas_ were approaching from both Venta Cruz and Panama. The first, or silver train from Venta Cruz, was to pass in silence; only the second, or gold train from Panama, was to be attacked. Unluckily one of the Englishmen had been secretly taking pulls at his flask and had just become pot-valiant when a stray Spanish gentleman came riding up from Venta Cruz. The Englishman sprang to his feet, swayed about, was tripped up by Maroons and promptly sat upon. But the Spaniard saw his shirt, reined up, whipped round, and galloped back to Panama. This took place so silently at the extreme flank in towards Panama that it was not observed by Drake or any other Englishman. Presently what appeared to be the gold train came within range. Drake blew his whistle; and all set on with glee, only to find that the Panama _recua_ they were attacking was a decoy sent on to spring the trap and that the gold and jewels had been stopped. The Spaniards were up in arms. But Drake slipped away through the engulfing forest and came out on the Atlantic side, where he found his rear-guard intact and eager for further exploits. He was met by Captain Têtu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Têtu gave Drake news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this drew the French and English Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further raiding of Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though Drake had now only thirty-one men against Têtu's seventy. Nombre de Dios, they decided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish forces were concentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to seize a Spanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give them time to get away with the plunder before the garrison could reach them. Somewhere on the coast they established a base of operations and then marched overland to the Panama trail and lay in wait. This time the marauders were successful. When the Spanish train of gold and jewels came opposite the ambush, Drake's whistle blew. The leading mules were stopped. The rest lay down, as mule-trains will. The guard was overpowered after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Têtu. And when the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the gold and jewels had all gone. For a day and a night and another day Drake and his men pushed on, loaded with plunder, back to their rendezvous along the coast, leaving Têtu and two of his devoted Frenchmen to be rescued later. When they arrived, worn out, at the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drake built a raft out of unhewn tree trunks and, setting up a biscuit bag as a sail, pushed out with two Frenchmen and one Englishman till he found his boats. The plunder was then divided up between the French and the English, while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Têtu to the coast. One Frenchman was found. But Têtu and the other had been caught by Spaniards. The _Pascha_ was given to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail away in. The pinnaces were kept till a suitable, smart-sailing Spanish craft was found, boarded, and captured to replace them; whereupon they were broken up and their metal given to the Maroons. Then, in two frigates, with ballast of silver and cargo of jewels and gold, the thirty survivors of the adventure set sail for home. 'Within 23 days we passed from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at Plymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time the news of our Captain's return, brought unto his friends, did so speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire to see him, that very few or none remained with the preacher, all hastening to see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and success. _Soli Deo Gloria._' CHAPTER VII DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE' When Drake left for Nombre de Dios in the spring of 1572, Spain and England were both ready to fly at each other's throats. When he Came back in the summer of 1573, they were all for making friends--hypocritically so, but friends. Drake's plunder stank in the nostrils of the haughty Dons. It was a very inconvenient factor in the diplomatic problem for Elizabeth. Therefore Drake disappeared and his plunder too. He went to Ireland on service in the navy. His plunder was divided up in secrecy among all the high and low contracting parties. In 1574 the Anglo-Spanish scene had changed again. The Spaniards had been so harassed by the English sea-dogs between the Netherlands and Spain that Philip listened to his great admiral, Menendez, who, despairing of direct attack on England, proposed to seize the Scilly Isles and from that naval base clear out a way through all the pirates of the English Channel. War seemed certain. But a terrible epidemic broke out in the Spanish fleet. Menendez died. And Philip changed his policy again. This same year John Oxenham, Drake's old second-in-command, sailed over to his death. The Spaniards caught him on the Isthmus of Darien and hanged him as a pirate at Lima in Peru. In the autumn of 1575 Drake returned to England with a new friend, Thomas Doughty, a soldier-scholar of the Renaissance, clever and good company, but one of those 'Italianate' Englishmen who gave rise to the Italian proverb: _Inglese italianato è diavolo incarnato--_'an Italianized Englishman is the very Devil.' Doughty was patronized by the Earl of Essex, who had great influence at court. The next year, 1576, is noted for the 'Spanish Fury.' Philip's sea power was so hampered by the Dutch and English privateers, and he was so impotent against the English navy, that he could get no ready money, either by loan or from America, to pay his troops in Antwerp. These men, reinforced by others, therefore mutinied and sacked the whole of Antwerp, killing all who opposed them and practically ruining the city from which Charles V used to draw such splendid subsidies. The result was a strengthening of Dutch resistance everywhere. Elizabeth had been unusually tortuous in her policy about this time. But in 1577 she was ready for another shot at Spain, provided always that it entailed no open war. Don John of Austria, natural son of Charles V, had all the shining qualities that his legitimate half-brother Philip lacked. He was the hero of Lepanto and had offered to conquer the Moors in Tunis if Philip would let him rule as king. Philip, crafty, cold, and jealous, of course refused and sent him to the Netherlands instead. Here Don John formed the still more aspiring plan of pacifying the Dutch, marrying Mary Queen of Scots, deposing Elizabeth, and reigning over all the British Isles. The Pope had blessed both schemes. But the Dutch insisted on the immediate withdrawal of the Spanish troops. This demolished Don John's plan. But it pleased Philip, who could now ruin his brilliant brother by letting him wear himself out by trying to govern the Netherlands without an army. Then the Duke of Anjou, brother to the King of France, came into the fast-thickening plot at the head of the French rescuers of the Netherlands from Spain. But a victorious French army in the Netherlands was worse for England than even Spanish rule there. So Elizabeth tried to support the Dutch enough to annoy Philip and at the same time keep them independent of the French. In her desire to support them against Philip indirectly she found it convenient to call Drake into consultation. Drake then presented to Sir Francis Walsingham his letter of commendation from the Earl of Essex, under whom he had served in Ireland; whereupon 'Secretary Walsingham [the first civilian who ever grasped the principle of modern sea power] declared that Her Majesty had received divers injuries of the King of Spain, for which she desired revenge. He showed me a plot [map] willing me to note down where he might be most annoyed. But I refused to set my hand to anything, affirming that Her Majesty was mortal, and that if it should please God to take Her Majesty away that some prince might reign that might be in league with the King of Spain, and then would my own hand be a witness against myself.' Elizabeth was forty-four. Mary Queen of Scots was watching for the throne. Plots and counter-plots were everywhere. Shortly after this interview Drake was told late at night that he should have audience of Her Majesty next day. On seeing him, Elizabeth went straight to the point. 'Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' 'And withal,' says Drake, 'craved my advice therein; who told Her Majesty the only way was to annoy him by the Indies.' On that he disclosed his whole daring scheme for raiding the Pacific. Elizabeth, who, like her father, 'loved a man' who was a man, fell in with this at once. Secrecy was of course essential. 'Her Majesty did swear by her Crown that if any within her realm did give the King of Spain to understand hereof they should lose their heads therefor.' At a subsequent audience 'Her Majesty gave me special commandment that of all men my Lord Treasurer should not know of it.' The cautious Lord Treasurer Burleigh was against what he considered dangerous forms of privateering and was for keeping on good terms with Spanish arms and trade as long as possible. Mendoza, lynx-eyed ambassador of Spain, was hoodwinked. But Doughty, the viper in Drake's bosom, was meditating mischief: not exactly treason with Spain, but at least a breach of confidence by telling Burleigh. De Guaras, chief Spanish spy in England, was sorely puzzled. Drake's ostensible destination was Egypt, and his men were openly enlisted for Alexandria. The Spaniards, however, saw far enough through this to suppose that he was really going back to Nombre de Dios. It did not seem likely, though quite possible, that he was going in search of the Northwest Passage, for Martin Frobisher had gone out on that quest the year before and had returned with a lump of black stone from the arctic desolation of Baffin Island. No one seems to have divined the truth. Cape Horn was unknown. The Strait of Magellan was supposed to be the only opening between South America and a huge antarctic continent, and its reputation for disasters had grown so terrible, and rightly terrible, that it had been given up as the way into the Pacific. The Spanish way, as we have seen, was overland from Nombre de Dios to Panama, more or less along the line of the modern Panama Canal. In the end Drake got away quietly enough, on the 15th of November, 1577. The court and country were in great excitement over the conspiracy between the Spaniards and Mary Queen of Scots, now a prisoner of nine years' standing. 'THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE _into the South Sea, and therehence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the year of our Lord 1577_' well deserves its great renown. Drake's flotilla seems absurdly small. But, for its own time, it was far from insignificant; and it was exceedingly well found. The _Pelican_, afterwards called the _Golden Hind_, though his flagship, was of only a hundred tons. The _Elizabeth_, the _Swan_, the _Marigold_, and the _Benedict_ were of eighty, fifty, thirty, and fifteen. There were altogether less than three hundred tons and two hundred men. The crews numbered a hundred and fifty. The rest were gentlemen-adventurers, special artificers, two trained surveyors, musicians, boys, and Drake's own page, Jack Drake. There was great store of wild-fire, chain-shot, harquebusses, pistols, corslets, bows and other like weapons in great abundance. Neither had he omitted to make provision for ornament and delight, carrying with him expert musicians, rich furniture (all the vessels for his table, yea, many belonging even to the cook-room, being of pure silver), and divers shows of all sorts of curious workmanship whereby the civility and magnificence of his native country might amongst all nations withersoever he should come, be the more admired.'[3] [3: The little handbook issued by Pette and Jackman in 1580, for those whom we should now call commercial travellers, is full of 'tips' about 'Thinges to be carried with you, whereof more or lesse is to be carried for a shewe of our commodities to bee made.' For instance:--'Kersies of all orient couleurs, specially of stamel (fine worsted), brode cloth of orient couleurs also. Taffeta hats. Deepe cappes for mariners. Quilted Cappes of Levant Taffeta of divers coulours, for the night. Garters of Silke. Girdels of Buffe and all leathers, with gilt and ungilt Buckles, specially wast girdels. Wast girdels of velvet. Gloves of all sortes, knit and of leather. Gloves perfumed. Shooes of Spanish leather, of divers colours. Looking glasses for Women, great and fayre. Comes of Ivorie. Handkerchewes, with silk of divers colours, wrought. Glasen eyes to ride with against dust [so motor goggles are not so new, after all!]. Boxes with weightes of golde, and every kind of coyne of golde, to shewe that the people here use weight and measure, which is a certayne shewe of wisedome, and of a certayne government settled here.' There are also elaborate directions about what to take 'For banketing on shipborde of persons of credite' [and prospective customers]. 'First, the sweetest perfumes to set under hatches to make the place smell sweete against their coming aborde. Marmelade. Sucket [candies]. Figges barrelled. Raisins of the Sun. Comfets that shall not dissolve. Prunes damaske. Dried peres. Walnuttes. Almondes. Olives, to make them taste their wine. The Apple John that dureth two yeares, to make showe of our fruites. Hullocke [a sweet wine]. Sacke. Vials of good sweet waters, and casting-bottels of glass, to besprinckel the gests withal, after their coming aborde. The sweet oyle of Xante and excellent French vinegar and a fine kind of Bisket steeped in the same do make a banketting dishe. and a little Sugar cast in it cooleth and comforteth, and refresheth the spirittes of man. Synomomme Water and Imperiall Water is to be had with you to comfort your sicke in the voyage.' No feature is neglected. 'Take with you the large mappe of London and let the river be drawn full of shippes to make the more showe of your great trade. The booke of the Attyre of All Nations carried with you and bestowed in gift would be much esteemed. Tinder boxes, with steel, flint, and matches. A painted Bellowes, for perhaps they have not the use of them. All manner of edge tools. Note specially what dyeing they use.' After many more items the authors end up with two bits of good advice. 'Take with you those things that bee in the Perfection of Goodnesse to make your commodities in credit in time to come.' 'Learn what the Country hath before you offer your commodities for sale; for if you bring thither what you yourself desire to lade yourself home with, you must not sell yours deare lest hereafter you purchase theirs not so cheape as you would.'] Sou'sou'west went Drake's flotilla and made its landfall 'towards the Pole Antartick' off the 'Land of Devils' in 31° 40' south, northeast of Montevideo. Frightful storms had buffeted the little ships about for weary weeks together, and all hands thought they were the victims of some magician on board, perhaps the 'Italianate' Doughty, or else of native witchcraft from the shore. The experienced old pilot, who was a Portuguese, explained that the natives had sold themselves to Devils, who were kinder masters than the Spaniards, and that 'now when they see ships they cast sand into the air, whereof ariseth a most gross thick fogg and palpable darkness, and withal horrible, fearful, and intolerable winds, rains, and storms.' But witchcraft was not Thomas Doughty's real offence. Even before leaving England, and after betraying Elizabeth and Drake to Burleigh, who wished to curry favor with the Spanish traders rather than provoke the Spanish power, Doughty was busy tampering with the men. A storekeeper had to be sent back for peculation designed to curtail Drake's range of action. Then Doughty tempted officers and men: talked up the terrors of Magellan's Strait, ran down his friend's authority, and finally tried to encourage downright desertion by underhand means. This was too much for Drake. Doughty was arrested, tied to the mast, and threatened with dire punishment if he did not mend his ways. But he would not mend his ways. He had a brother on board and a friend, a 'very craftie lawyer'; so stern measures were soon required. Drake held a sort of court-martial which condemned Doughty to death. Then Doughty, having played his last card and lost, determined to die 'like an officer and gentleman.' Drake solemnly 'pronounced him the child of Death and persuaded him that he would by these means make him the servant of God.' Doughty fell in with the idea and the former friends took the Sacrament together, 'for which Master Doughty gave him hearty thanks, never otherwise terming him than "My good Captaine."' Chaplain Fletcher having ended with the absolution, Drake and Doughty sat down together 'as cheerfully as ever in their lives, each cheering up the other and taking their leave by drinking to each other, as if some journey had been in hand.' Then Drake and Doughty went aside for a private conversation of which no record has remained. After this Doughty walked to the place of execution, where, like King Charles I, He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene. 'And so bidding the whole company farewell he laid his head on the block.' 'Lo! this is the end of traitors!' said Drake as the executioner raised the head aloft. Drake, like Magellan, decided to winter where he was, in Port St. Julian on the east coast of Patagonia. His troubles with the men were not yet over; for the soldiers resented being put on an equality with the sailors, and the 'very craftie lawyer' and Doughty's brother were anything but pleased with the turn events had taken. Then, again, the faint-hearts murmured in their storm-beaten tents against the horrors of the awful Straits. So Drake resolved to make things clear for good and all. Unfolding a document he began: 'My Masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been in learning, but what I shall speak here let every man take good notice of and let him write it down; for I will speak nothing but I will answer it in England, yea, and before Her Majesty, and I have it here already set down.' Then, after reminding them of the great adventure before them and saying that mutiny and dissension must stop at once, he went on: 'For by the life of God it doth even take my wits from me to think of it. Here is such controversy between the gentlemen and sailors that it doth make me mad to hear it. I must have the gentleman to haul with the mariner and the mariner with the gentleman. I would know him that would refuse to set his hand to a rope! But I know there is not any such here.' To those whose hearts failed them he offered the _Marigold_. 'But let them go homeward; for if I find them in my way, I will surely sink them.' Not a man stepped forward. Then, turning to the officers, he discharged every one of them for re-appointment at his pleasure. Next, he made the worst offenders, the 'craftie lawyer' included, step to the front for reprimand. Finally, producing the Queen's commission, he ended by a ringing appeal to their united patriotism. 'We have set by the ears three mighty Princes [the sovereigns of England, Spain, and Portugal]; and if this voyage should not have success we should not only be a scorning unto our enemies but a blot on our country for ever. What triumph would it not be for Spain and Portugal! The like of this would never more be tried.' Then he gave back every man his rank again, explaining that he and they were all servants of Her Majesty together. With this the men marched off, loyal and obedient, to their tents. Next week Drake sailed for the much dreaded Straits, before entering which he changed the _Pelican's_ name to the _Golden Hind_, which was the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the chief promoters of the enterprise and also one of Doughty's patrons. Then every vessel struck her topsail to the bunt in honor of the Queen as well as to show that all discoveries and captures were to be made in her sole name. Seventeen days of appalling dangers saw them through the Straits, where icy squalls came rushing down from every quarter of the baffling channels. But the Pacific was still worse. For no less than fifty-two consecutive days a furious gale kept driving them about like so many bits of driftwood. 'The like of it no traveller hath felt, neither hath there ever been such a tempest since Noah's flood.' The little English vessels fought for their very lives in that devouring hell of waters, the loneliest and most stupendous in the world. The _Marigold_ went down with all hands, and Parson Fletcher, who heard their dying call, thought it was a judgment. At last the gale abated near Cape Horn, where Drake landed with a compass, while Parson Fletcher set up a stone engraved with the Queen's name and the date of the discovery. Deceived by the false trend of the coast shown on the Spanish charts Drake went a long way northwest from Cape Horn. Then he struck in northeast and picked up the Chilean Islands. It was December, 1578; but not a word of warning had reached the Spanish Pacific when Drake stood in to Valparaiso. Seeing a sail, the crew of the _Grand Captain of the South_ got up a cask of wine and beat a welcome on their drums. In the twinkling of an eye gigantic Tom Moone was over the side at the head of a party of boarders who laid about them with a will and soon drove the Spaniards below. Half a million dollars' worth of gold and jewels was taken with this prize. Drake then found a place in Salado Bay where he could clean the _Golden Hind_ while the pinnace ranged south to look for the other ships that had parted company during the two months' storm. These were never found, the _Elizabeth_ and the _Swan_ having gone home after parting company in the storm that sank the _Marigold_. After a prolonged search the _Golden Hind_ stood north again. Meanwhile the astounding news of her arrival was spreading dismay all over the coast, where the old Spanish governor's plans were totally upset. The Indians had just been defeated when this strange ship came sailing in from nowhere, to the utter confusion of their enemies. The governor died of vexation, and all the Spanish authorities were nearly worried to death. They had never dreamt of such an invasion. Their crews were small, their lumbering vessels very lightly armed, their towns unfortified. But Drake went faster by sea than their news by land. Every vessel was overhauled, taken, searched, emptied of its treasure, and then sent back with its crew and passengers at liberty. One day a watering party chanced upon a Spaniard from Potosi fast asleep with thirteen bars of silver by him. The bars were lifted quietly and the Spaniard left sleeping peacefully. Another Spaniard suddenly came round a corner with half a ton of silver on eight llamas. The Indians came off to trade; and Drake, as usual, made friends with them at once. He had already been attacked by other Indians on both coasts. But this was because the unknown English had been mistaken for the hated Spaniards. As he neared Lima, Drake quickened his pace lest the great annual treasure ship of 1579 should get wind of what was wrong. A minor treasure ship was found to have been cleared of all her silver just in time to balk him. So he set every stitch of canvas she possessed and left her driving out to sea with two other empty prizes. Then he stole into Lima after dark and came to anchor surrounded by Spanish vessels not one of which had set a watch. They were found nearly empty. But a ship from Panama looked promising; so the pinnace started after her, but was fired on and an Englishman was killed. Drake then followed her, after cutting every cable in the harbor, which soon became a pandemonium of vessels gone adrift. The Panama ship had nothing of great value except her news, which was that the great treasure ship _Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion_, 'the chiefest glory of the whole South Sea,' was on her way to Panama. She had a very long start; and, as ill luck would have it, Drake got becalmed outside Callao, where the bells rang out in wild alarm. The news had spread inland and the Viceroy of Peru came hurrying down with all the troops that he could muster. Finding from some arrows that the strangers were Englishmen, he put four hundred soldiers into the only two vessels that had escaped the general wreck produced by Drake's cutting of the cables. When Drake saw the two pursuing craft, he took back his prize crew from the Panama vessel, into which he put his prisoners. Meanwhile a breeze sprang up and he soon drew far ahead. The Spanish soldiers overhauled the Panama prize and gladly gave up the pursuit. They had no guns of any size with which to fight the _Golden Hind_; and most of them were so sea-sick from the heaving ground-swell that they couldn't have boarded her in any case. Three more prizes were then taken by the swift _Golden Hind_. Each one had news which showed that Drake was closing on the chase. Another week passed with every stitch of canvas set. A fourth prize, taken off Cape San Francisco, said that the treasure ship was only one day ahead. But she was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out _Sail-ho!_ and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his pace. At eight o'clock the jars were cut adrift and the _Golden Hind_ sprang forward with the evening breeze, her crew at battle quarters and her decks all cleared for action The chase was called the 'Spitfire' by the Spaniards because she was much better armed than any other vessel there. But, all the same, her armament was nothing for her tonnage. The Spaniards trusted to their remoteness for protection; and that was their undoing. To every Englishman's amazement the chase was seen to go about and calmly come to hail the _Golden Hind_, which she mistook for a despatch vessel sent after her with some message from the Viceroy! Drake, asking nothing better, ran up alongside as Anton her captain hailed him with a _Who are you? A ship of Chili!_ answered Drake. Anton looked down on the stranger's deck to see it full of armed men from whom a roar of triumph came. _English! strike sail!_ Then Drake's whistle blew sharply and instant silence followed; on which he hailed Don Anton:--_Strike sail! Señor Juan de Anton, or I must send you to the bottom!--Come aboard and do it yourself!_ bravely answered Anton. Drake's whistle blew one shrill long blast, which loosed a withering volley at less than point-blank range. Anton tried to bear away and shake off his assailant. But in vain. The English guns now opened on his masts and rigging. Down came the mizzen, while a hail of English shot and arrows prevented every attempt to clear away the wreckage. The dumbfounded Spanish crew ran below, Don Anton looked overside to port; and there was the English pinnace, from which forty English boarders were nimbly climbing up his own ship's side. Resistance was hopeless; so Anton struck and was taken aboard the _Golden Hind_. There he met Drake, who was already taking off his armor. 'Accept with patience the usage of war,' said Drake, laying his hand on Anton's shoulder. For all that night, next day, and the next night following Drake sailed west with his fabulous prize so as to get well clear of the trade route along the coast. What the whole treasure was has never been revealed. But it certainly amounted to the equivalent of many millions at the present day. Among the official items were: 13 chests of pieces of eight, 80 lbs. of pure gold, jewels and plate, 26 ton weight of silver, and sundries unspecified. As the Spanish pilot's son looked over the rail at this astounding sight, the Englishmen called out to say that his father was no longer the pilot of the old Spit-_fire_ but of the new Spit-_silver_. The prisoners were no less gratified than surprised by Drake's kind treatment. He entertained Don Anton at a banquet, took him all over the _Golden Hind_, and entrusted him with a message to Don Martin, the traitor of San Juan de Ulua. This was to say that if Don Martin hanged any more Englishmen, as he had just hanged Oxenham, he should soon be given a present of two thousand Spanish heads. Then Drake gave every Spanish officer and man a personal gift proportioned to his rank, put all his accumulated prisoners aboard the emptied treasure ship, wished them a prosperous voyage and better luck next time, furnished the brave Don Anton with a letter of protection in case he should fall in with an English vessel, and, after many expressions of goodwill on both sides, sailed north, the voyage 'made'; while the poor 'spit-silver' treasure ship turned sadly east and steered for Panama. Lima, Panama, and Nombre de Dios were in wild commotion at the news; and every sailor and soldier that the Spaniards had was going to and fro, uncertain whether to attack or to defend, and still more distracted as to the most elusive English whereabouts. One good Spanish captain, Don Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, was all for going north, his instinct telling him that Drake would not come back among the angry bees after stealing all the honey. But, by the time the Captain-General of New Spain had made up his mind to take one of the many wrong directions he had been thinking of, Drake was already far on his way north to found New Albion. Drake's triumph over all difficulties had won the hearts of his men more than ever before, while the capture of the treasure ship had done nothing to loosen the bonds of discipline. Don Francisco de Zarate wrote a very intimate account of his experience as a prisoner on board the _Golden Hind._ 'The English captain is one of the greatest mariners at sea, alike from his skill and his powers of command. His ship is a very fast sailer and her men are all skilled hands of warlike age and so well trained that they might be old soldiers of the Italian tertias,' the crack corps of the age in Spanish eyes. 'He is served with much plate and has all possible kinds of delicacies and scents, many of which he says the Queen of England gave him. None of the gentlemen sit or cover in his presence without first being ordered to do so. They dine and sup to the music of violins. His galleon carries about thirty guns and a great deal of ammunition.' This was in marked contrast to the common Spanish practice, even on the Atlantic side. The greedy exploiters of New Spain grudged every ton of armament and every well-trained fighting sailor, both on account of the expense and because this form of protection took up room they wished to fill with merchandise. The result was, of course, that they lost more by capture than they gained by evading the regulation about the proper armament. 'His ship is not only of the very latest type but sheathed.' Before copper sheathing was invented some generations later, the Teredo worm used to honeycomb unprotected hulls in the most dangerous way. John Hawkins invented the sheathing used by Drake: a good thick tar-and-hair sheeting clamped on with elm. Northwest to Coronado, then to Aguatulco, then fifteen hundred miles due west, brought Drake about that distance west-by-south of the modern San Francisco. Here he turned east-north-east and, giving the land a wide berth, went on to perhaps the latitude of Vancouver Island, always looking for the reverse way through America by the fabled Northwest Passage. Either there was the most extraordinary June ever known in California and Oregon, or else the narratives of those on board have all been hopelessly confused, for freezing rain is said to have fallen on the night of June the 3d in the latitude of 42°. In 48° 'there followed most vile, thick, and stinking fogs' with still more numbing cold. The meat froze when taken off the fire. The wet rigging turned to icicles. Six men could hardly do the work of three. Fresh from the tropics, the crews were unfit for going any farther. A tremendous nor'wester settled the question, anyway; and Drake ran south to 38° 30', where, in what is now Drake's Bay, he came to anchor just north of San Francisco. Not more than once, if ever at all, and that a generation earlier, had Europeans been in northern California. The Indians took the Englishmen for gods whom they knew not whether to love or fear. Drake with the essential kindliness of most, and the magnetic power of all, great born commanders, soon won the natives' confidence. But their admiration 'as men ravished in their minds' was rather overpowering; for, after 'a kind of most lamentable weeping and crying out,' they came forward with various offerings for the new-found gods, prostrating themselves in humble adoration and tearing their breasts and faces in a wild desire to show the spirit of self-sacrifice. Drake and his men, all Protestants, were horrified at being made what they considered idols. So kneeling down, they prayed aloud, raising hands and eyes to Heaven, hoping thereby to show the heathen where the true God lived. Drake then read the Bible and all the Englishmen sang Psalms, the Indians, 'observing the end of every pause, with one voice still cried _Oh!_ greatly rejoicing in our exercises.' As this impromptu service ended the Indians gave back all the presents Drake had given them and retired in attitudes of adoration. In three days more they returned, headed by a Medicine-man, whom the English called the 'mace-bearer.' With the slow and stately measure of a mystic dance this great high priest of heathen rites advanced chanting a sort of litany. Both litany and dance were gradually taken up by tens, by hundreds, and finally by all the thousands of the devotees, who addressed Drake with shouts of _Hyoh!_ and invested him with a headdress of rare plumage and a necklace of quaint beads. It was, in fact, a native coronation without a soul to doubt the divine right of their new king. Drake's Protestant scruples were quieted by thinking 'to what good end God had brought this to pass, and what honour and profit it might bring to our country in time to come. So, in the name and to the use of her most excellent Majesty, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity' and proclaimed an English protectorate over the land he called New Albion. He then set up a brass plate commemorating this proclamation, and put an English coin in the middle so that the Indians might see Elizabeth's portrait and armorial device. The exaltation of the ecstatic devotees continued till the day he left. They crowded in to be cured by the touch of his hand--those were the times in which the sovereign was expected to cure the King's Evil by a touch. They also expected to be cured by inhaling the divine breath of any one among the English gods. The chief narrator adds that the gods who pleased the Indians most, braves and squaws included, 'were commonly the youngest of us,' which shows that the human was not quite forgotten in the all-divine. When the time for sailing came, the devotees were inconsolable. 'They not only in a sudden did lose all mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, and all pleasure, but, with sighs and sorrowings, they poured out woefull complayntes and moans with bitter tears, and wringing of their hands, and tormenting of themselves.' The last the English saw of them was the whole devoted tribe assembled on the hill around a sacrificial fire, whence they implored their gods to bring their heaven back to earth. From California Drake sailed to the Philippines; and then to the Moluccas, where the Portuguese had, if such a thing were possible, outdone even the Spaniards in their fiendish dealings with the natives. Lopez de Mosquito--viler than his pestilential name--had murdered the Sultan, who was then his guest, chopped up the body, and thrown it into the sea. Baber, the Sultan's son, had driven out the Portuguese from the island of Ternate and was preparing to do likewise from the island of Tidore, when Drake arrived. Baber then offered Drake, for Queen Elizabeth, the complete monopoly of the trade in spices if only Drake would use the _Golden Hind_ as the flagship against the Portuguese. Drake's reception was full of Oriental state; and Sultan Baber was so entranced by Drake's musicians that he sat all afternoon among them in a boat towed by the _Golden Hind_. But it was too great a risk to take a hand in this new war with only fifty-six men left. So Drake traded for all the spices he could stow away and concluded a sort of understanding which formed the sheet anchor of English diplomacy in Eastern seas for another century to come. Elizabeth was so delighted with this result that she gave Drake a cup (still at the family seat of Nutwell Court in Devonshire) engraved with a picture of his reception by the Sultan Baber of Ternate. Leaving Ternate, the _Golden Hind_ beat to and fro among the tortuous and only half-known channels of the Archipelago till the 9th of January, 1580, when she bore away before a roaring trade wind with all sail set and, so far as Drake could tell, a good clear course for home. But suddenly, without a moment's warning, there was a most terrific shock. The gallant ship reared like a stricken charger, plunged forward, grinding her trembling hull against the rocks, and then lay pounding out her life upon a reef. Drake and his men at once took in half the straining sails; then knelt in prayer; then rose to see what could be done by earthly means. To their dismay there was no holding ground on which to get an anchor fast and warp the vessel off. The lead could find no bottom anywhere aft. All night long the _Golden Hind_ remained fast caught in this insidious death-trap. At dawn Parson Fletcher preached a sermon and administered the Blessed Sacrament. Then Drake ordered ten tons overboard--cannon, cloves, and provisions. The tide was now low and she sewed seven feet, her draught being thirteen and the depth of water only six. Still she kept an even keel as the reef was to leeward and she had just sail enough to hold her up. But at high tide in the afternoon there was a lull and she began to heel over towards the unfathomable depths. Just then, however, a quiver ran through her from stem to stern; an extra sail that Drake had ordered up caught what little wind there was; and, with the last throb of the rising tide, she shook herself free and took the water as quietly as if her hull was being launched. There were perils enough to follow: dangers of navigation, the arrival of a Portuguese fleet that was only just eluded, and all the ordinary risks of travel in times when what might be called the official guide to voyagers opened with the ominous advice, _First make thy Will_. But the greatest had now been safely passed. Meanwhile all sorts of rumors were rife in Spain, New Spain, and England. Drake had been hanged. That rumor came from the hanging of John Oxenham at Lima. The _Golden Hind_ had foundered. That tale was what Winter, captain of the _Elizabeth_, was not altogether unwilling should be thought after his own failure to face another great antarctic storm. He had returned in 1578. News from Peru and Mexico came home in 1579; but no Drake. So, as 1580 wore on, his friends began to despair, the Spaniards and Portuguese rejoiced, while Burleigh, with all who found Drake an inconvenience in their diplomatic way, began to hope that perhaps the sea had smoothed things over. In August the London merchants were thrown into consternation by the report of Drake's incredible captures; for their own merchant fleet was just then off for Spain. They waited on the Council, who soothed them with the assurance that Drake's voyage was a purely private venture so far as prizes were concerned. With this diplomatic quibble they were forced to be content. But worse was soon to follow. The king of Portugal died. Philip's army marched on Lisbon immediately, and all the Portuguese possessions were added to the already overgrown empire of Spain. Worse still, this annexation gave Philip what he wanted in the way of ships; for Portugal had more than Spain. The Great Armada was now expected to be formed against England, unless Elizabeth's miraculous diplomacy could once more get her clear of the fast-entangling coils. To add to the general confusion, this was also the year in which the Pope sent his picked Jesuits to England, and in which Elizabeth was carrying on her last great international flirtation with ugly, dissipated Francis of Anjou, brother to the king of France. Into this imbroglio sailed the _Golden Hind_ with ballast of silver and cargo of gold. 'Is Her Majesty alive and well?' said Drake to the first sail outside of Plymouth Sound. 'Ay, ay, she is, my Master,' answered the skipper of a fishing smack, 'but there's a deal o' sickness here in Plymouth'; on which Drake, ready for any excuse to stay afloat, came to anchor in the harbor. His wife, pretty Mary Newman from the banks of Tavy, took boat to see him, as did the Mayor, whose business was to warn him to keep quiet till his course was clear. So Drake wrote off to the Queen and all the Councillors who were on his side. The answer from the Councillors was not encouraging; so he warped out quietly and anchored again behind Drake's Island in the Sound. But presently the Queen's own message came, commanding him to an audience at which, she said, she would be pleased to view some of the curiosities he had brought from foreign parts. Straight on that hint he started up to town with spices, diamonds, pearls, and gold enough to win any woman's pardon and consent. The audience lasted six hours. Meanwhile the Council sat without any of Drake's supporters and ordered all the treasure to be impounded in the Tower. But Leicester, Walsingham, and Hatton, all members of Drake's syndicate, refused to sign; while Elizabeth herself, the managing director, suspended the order till her further pleasure should be known. The Spanish ambassador 'did burn with passion against Drake.' The Council was distractingly divided. The London merchants trembled for their fleet. But Elizabeth was determined that the blow to Philip should hurt him as much as it could without producing an immediate war; while down among Drake's own West-Countrymen 'the case was clear in sea divinitie,' as similar cases had often been before. Tremayne, a Devonshire magistrate and friend of the syndicate, could hardly find words to express his contentment with Drake, whom he called 'a man of great government, and that by the rules of God and His Book.' Elizabeth decided to stand by Drake. She claimed, what was true, that he had injured no actual place or person of the King of Spain's, nothing but property afloat, appropriate for reprisals. All England knew the story of Ulua and approved of reprisals in accordance with the spirit of the age. And the Queen had a special grievance about Ireland, where the Spaniards were entrenched in Smerwick, thus adding to the confusion of a rebellion that never quite died down at any time. Philip explained that the Smerwick Spaniards were there as private volunteers. Elizabeth answered that Drake was just the same. The English tide, at all events, was turning in his favor. The indefatigable Stowe, chronicler of London, records that 'the people generally applauded his wonderful long adventures and rich prizes. His name and fame became admirable in all places, the people swarming daily in the streets to behold him, vowing hatred to all that misliked him.' The _Golden Hind_ had been brought round to London, where she was the greatest attraction of the day. Finally, on the 4th of April, 1581, Elizabeth went on board in state, to a banquet 'finer than has ever been seen in England since King Henry VIII,' said the furious Spanish ambassador in his report to Philip. But this was not her chief offence in Spanish eyes. For here, surrounded by her court, and in the presence of an enormous multitude of her enthusiastic subjects, she openly defied the King of Spain. 'He hath demanded Drake's head of me,' she laughed aloud, 'and here I have a gilded sword to strike it off.' With that she bade Drake kneel. Then, handing the sword to Marchaumont, the special envoy of her French suitor, Francis of Anjou, she ordered him to give the accolade. This done, she pronounced the formula of immemorial fame: _I bid thee rise, Sir Francis Drake!_ CHAPTER VIII DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN For three years after Drake had been dubbed Sir Francis by the Queen he was the hero of every class of Englishmen but two: the extreme Roman Catholics, who wanted Mary Queen of Scots, and the merchants who were doing business with Portugal and Spain. The Marian opposition to the general policy of England persisted for a few years longer. But the merchants who were the inheritors of centuries of commercial intercourse with England's new enemies were soon to receive a shock that completely changed their minds. They were themselves one of the strongest factors that made for war in the knotty problem now to be solved at the cannon's mouth because English trade was seeking new outlets in every direction and was beating hard against every door that foreigners shut in its face. These merchants would not, however, support the war party till they were forced to, as they still hoped to gain by other means what only war could win. The year that Drake came home (1580) Philip at last got hold of a sea-going fleet, the eleven big Portuguese galleons taken when Lisbon fell. With the Portuguese ships, sailors, and oversea possessions, with more galleons under construction at Santander in Spain, and with the galleons of the Indian Guard built by the great Menendez to protect New Spain: with all this performed or promised, Philip began to feel as if the hour was at hand when he could do to England what she had done to him. In 1583 Santa Cruz, the best Spanish admiral since the death of Menendez, proposed to form the nucleus of the Great Armada out of the fleet with which he had just broken down the last vestige of Portuguese resistance in the Azores. From that day on, the idea was never dropped. At the same time Elizabeth discovered the Paris Plot between Mary and Philip and the Catholics of France, all of whom were bent on her destruction. England stood to arms. But false ideas of naval defence were uppermost in the Queen's Council. No attempt was made to strike a concentrated blow at the heart of the enemy's fleet in his own waters. Instead of this the English ships were carefully divided among the three squadrons meant to defend the approaches to England, Ireland, and Scotland, because, as the Queen-in-Council sagely remarked, who could be expected to know what the enemy's point of attack would be? The fact is that when wielding the forces of the fleet and army the Queen and most of her non-combatant councillors never quite reached that supreme point of view from which the greatest statesmen see exactly where civil control ends and civilian interference begins. Luckily for England, their mistakes were once more covered up by a turn of the international kaleidoscope. No sooner had the immediate danger of a great combined attack on England passed away than Elizabeth returned to Drake's plan for a regular raid against New Spain, though it had to be one that was not designed to bring on war in Europe. Drake, who was a member of the Navy Board charged with the reorganization of the fleet, was to have command. The ships and men were ready. But the time had not yet come. Next year (1584) Amadas and Barlow, Sir Walter Raleigh's two prospectors for the 'plantation' of Virginia, were being delighted with the summer lands and waters of what is now North Carolina. We shall soon hear more of Raleigh and his vision of the West. But at this time a good many important events were happening in Europe; and it is these that we must follow first. William of Orange, the Washington of Holland, was assassinated at Philip's instigation, while plots to kill Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne began to multiply. The agents were executed, while a 'Bond of Association' was signed by all Elizabeth's chief supporters, binding them to hunt down and kill all who tried to kill her--a plain hint for Mary Queen of Scots to stop plotting or stand the consequences. But the merchants trading with Spain and Portugal were more than ever for keeping on good terms with Philip because the failure of the Spanish harvest had induced him to offer them special protection and encouragement if they would supply his country's needs at once. Every available ton of shipping was accordingly taken up for Spain. The English merchant fleet went out, and big profits seemed assured. But presently the _Primrose_, 'a tall ship of London,' came flying home to say that Philip had suddenly seized the merchandise, imprisoned the men, and taken the ships and guns for use with the Great Armada. That was the last straw. The peaceful traders now saw that they were wrong and that the fighting ones were right; and for the first time both could rejoice over the clever trick by which John Hawkins had got his own again from Philip. In 1571, three years after Don Martin's treachery at San Juan de Ulna, Hawkins, while commanding the Scilly Island squadron, led the Spanish ambassador to believe that he would go over to the Spanish cause in Ireland if his claims for damages were only paid in full and all his surviving men in Mexico were sent home. The cold and crafty Philip swallowed this tempting bait; sent the men home with Spanish dollars in their pockets, and paid Hawkins forty thousand pounds, the worth of about two million dollars now. Then Hawkins used the information he had picked up behind the Spanish scenes to unravel the Ridolfi Plot for putting Mary on the throne in 1572, the year of St. Bartholomew. No wonder Philip hated sea-dogs! Things new and old having reached this pass, the whole of England, bar the Marians, were eager for the great 'Indies Voyage' of 1585. Londoners crowded down to Woolwich 'with great jolitie' to see off their own contingent on its way to join Drake's flag at Plymouth. Very probably Shakespeare went down too, for that famous London merchantman, the _Tiger_, to which he twice alludes--once in _Macbeth_ and once in _Twelfth Night_--was off with this contingent. Such a private fleet had never yet been seen: twenty-one ships, eight smart pinnaces, and twenty-three hundred men of every rank and rating. The Queen was principal shareholder and managing director. But, as usual in colonial attacks intended for disavowal if necessity arose, no prospectus or other document was published, nor were the shareholders of this joint-stock company known in any quite official way. It was the size of the fleet and the reputation of the officers that made it a national affair. Drake, now forty, was 'Admiral'; Frobisher, of North-West-Passage fame, was 'Vice'; Knollys, the Queen's own cousin, 'Rear.' Carleill, a famous general, commanded the troops and sailed in Shakespeare's _Tiger_. Drake's old crew from the _Golden Hind_ came forward to a man, among them Wright, 'that excellent mathematician and ingineer,' and big Tom Moone, the lion of all boarding-parties, each in command of a ship. But Elizabeth was just then weaving the threads of an unusually intricate diplomatic pattern; so doubts and delays, orders and counter-orders vexed Drake to the last. Sir Philip Sidney, too, came down as a volunteer; which was another sore vexation, since his European fame would have made him practically joint commander of the fleet, although he was not a naval officer at all. But he had the good sense to go back; whereupon Drake, fearing further interruptions from the court, ordered everything to be tumbled into the nearest ships and hurried off to sea under a press of sail. The first port of call was Vigo in the northwestern corner of Spain, where Drake's envoy told the astonished governor that Elizabeth wanted to know what Philip intended doing about embargoes now. If the governor wanted peace, he must listen to Drake's arguments; if war--well, Drake was ready to begin at once. A three-days' storm interrupted the proceedings; after which the English intercepted the fugitive townsfolk whose flight showed that the governor meant to make a stand, though he had said the embargo had been lifted and that all the English prisoners were at liberty to go. Some English sailors, however, were still being held; so Drake sent in an armed party and brought them off, with a good pile of reprisal booty too. Then he put to sea and made for the Spanish Main by way of the Portuguese African islands. The plan of campaign drawn up for Burleigh's information still exists. It shows that Drake, the consummate raider, was also an admiral of the highest kind. The items, showing how long each part should take and what loot each place should yield, are exact and interesting. But it is in the relation of every part to every other part and to the whole that the original genius of the born commander shines forth in all its glory. After taking San Domingo he was to sack Margarita, La Hacha, and Santa Marta, razing their fortifications as he left. Cartagena and Nombre de Dios came next. Then Carleill was to raid Panama, with the help of the Maroons, while Drake himself was to raid the coast of Honduras. Finally, with reunited forces, he would take Havana and, if possible, hold it by leaving a sufficient garrison behind. Thus he would paralyze New Spain by destroying all the points of junction along its lines of communication just when Philip stood most in need of its help for completing the Great Armada. But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of the English 'Dragon,' that sinister hero of Lope de Vega's epic onslaught _La Dragontea_. As good luck would have it, Carleill marched in on the anniversary of the Queen's accession, the 17th of November. So there was a royal salute fired in Her Majesty's honor by land and sea. No treasure was found, French privateers had sacked the place three years before and had killed off everyone they caught; the Portuguese, therefore, were not going to wait to meet the English 'Dragon' too. The force that marched inland failed to unearth the governor. So San Domingo, Santiago, and Porto Pravda were all burnt to the ground before the fleet bore away for the West Indies. San Domingo in Hispaniola (Hayti) was made in due course, but only after a virulent epidemic had seriously thinned the ranks. San Domingo was the oldest town in New Spain and was strongly garrisoned and fortified. But Carleill's soldiers carried all before them. Drake battered down the seaward walls. The Spaniards abandoned the citadel at night, and the English took the whole place as a New Year's gift for 1586. But again there was no treasure. The Spaniards had killed off the Caribs in war or in the mines, so that nothing was now dug out. Moreover the citizens were quite on their guard against adventurers and ready to hide what they had in the most inaccessible places. Drake then put the town up to ransom and sent out his own Maroon boy servant to bring in the message from the Spanish officer proposing terms. This Spaniard, hating all Maroons, ran his lance through the boy and cantered away. The boy came back with the last ounce of his strength and fell dead at Drake's feet. Drake sent to say he would hang two Spaniards every day if the murderer was not hanged by his own compatriots. As no one came he began with two friars. Then the Spaniards brought in the offender and hanged him in the presence of both armies. That episode cleared the air; and an interchange of courtesies and hospitalities immediately followed. But no business was done. Drake therefore began to burn the town bit by bit till twenty-five thousand ducats were paid. It was very little for the capital. But the men picked up a good deal of loot in the process and vented their ultra-Protestant zeal on all the 'graven images' that were not worth keeping for sale. On the whole the English were well satisfied. They had taken all the Spanish ships and armament they wanted, destroyed the rest, liberated over a hundred brawny galley-slaves--some Turks among them--all anxious for revenge, and had struck a blow at Spanish prestige which echoed back to Europe. Spain never hid her light under a bushel; and here, in the Governor's Palace, was a huge escutcheon with a horse standing on the earth and pawing at the sky. The motto blazoned on it was to the effect that the earth itself was not enough for Spain--_Non sufficit orbis._ Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers kept asking the Spaniards to translate the motto again and again. Delays and tempestuous head winds induced Drake to let intermediate points alone and make straight for Cartagena on the South American mainland. Cartagena had been warned and was on the alert. It was strong by both nature and art. The garrison was good of its kind, though the Spaniards' custom of fighting in quilted jackets instead of armor put them at a disadvantage. This custom was due to the heat and to the fact that the jackets were proof against the native arrows. There was an outer and an inner harbor, with such an intricate and well-defended passage that no one thought Drake would dare go in. But he did. Frobisher had failed to catch a pilot. But Drake did the trick without one, to the utter dismay of the Spaniards. After some more very clever manoeuvres, to distract the enemy's attention from the real point of attack, Carleill and the soldiers landed under cover of the dark and came upon the town where they were least expected, by wading waist-deep through the water just out of sight of the Spanish gunners. The entrenchments did not bar the way in this unexpected quarter. But wine casks full of rammed earth had been hurriedly piled there in case the mad English should make the attempt. Carleill gave the signal. Goring's musketeers sprang forward and fired into the Spaniards' faces. Then Sampson's pikemen charged through and a desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued. Finally the Spaniards broke after Carleill had killed their standard-bearer and Goring had wounded and taken their commander. The enemies ran pell-mell through the town together till the English reformed in the Plaza. Next day Drake moved in to attack the harbor fort; whereupon it was abandoned and the whole place fell. But again there was a dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting shy of keeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So negotiations, emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and the lateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. The sack of the city had yielded much less than that of San Domingo; and the men, who were all volunteers, to be paid out of plunder, began to grumble at their ill-success. Many had been wounded, several killed--big, faithful Tom Moone among them. A hundred died. More were ill. Two councils of war were held, one naval, the other military. The military officers agreed to give up all their own shares to the men. But the naval officers, who were poorer and who were also responsible for the expenses of their vessels, could not concur. Finally 110,000 ducats (equivalent in purchasing power to nearly three millions of dollars) were accepted. It was now impossible to complete the programme or even to take Havana, in view of the renewed sickness, the losses, and the advance of the season. A further disappointment was experienced when Drake just missed the treasure fleet by only half a day, though through no fault of his own. Then, with constantly diminishing numbers of effective men, the course was shaped for the Spanish 'plantation' of St. Augustine in Florida. This place was utterly destroyed and some guns and money were taken from it. Then the fleet stood north again till, on the 9th of June, it found Raleigh's colony of Roanoke. Ralph Lane, the governor, was in his fort on the island ready to brave it out. Drake offered a free passage home to all the colonists. But Lane preferred staying and going on with his surveys and 'plantation.' Drake then filled up a store ship to leave behind with Lane. But a terrific three-day storm wrecked the store ship and damped the colonists' enthusiasm so much that they persuaded Lane to change his mind. The colonists embarked and the fleet then bore away for home. Though balked of much it had expected in the way of booty, reduced in strength by losses, and therefore unable to garrison any strategic point which would threaten the life of New Spain, its purely naval work was a true and glorious success. When he arrived at Plymouth, Drake wrote immediately to Burleigh: 'My very good Lord, there is now a very great gap opened, very little to the liking of the King of Spain.' This 'very great gap' on the American side of the Atlantic was soon to be matched by the still greater gap Drake was to make on the European side by destroying the Spanish Armada and thus securing that mightiest of ocean highways through which the hosts of emigration afterwards poured into a land endowed with the goodly heritage of English liberty and the English tongue. The year of Drake's return (1586) was no less troublous than its immediate predecessors. The discovery of the Babington Plot to assassinate Elizabeth and to place Mary on the throne, supported by Scotland, France, and Spain, proved Mary's complicity, produced an actual threat of war from France, and made the Pope and Philip gnash their teeth with rage. The Roman Catholic allied powers had no sufficient navy, and Philip's credit was at its lowest ebb after Drake's devastating raid. The English were exultant, east and west; for the _True Report of a Worthie Fight performed in the voiage from Turkie by Five Shippes of London against 11 gallies and two frigats of the King of Spain at Pantalarea, within the Straits_ [of Gibraltar] _Anno 1586_ was going the rounds and running a close second to Drake's West India achievement. The ignorant and thoughtless, both then and since, mistook this fight, and another like it in 1590, to mean that English merchantmen could beat off Spanish men-of-war. Nothing of the kind: the English Levanters were heavily armed and admirably manned by well-trained fighting crews; and what these actions really proved, if proof was necessary, was that galleys were no match for broadsides from the proper kind of sailing ships. Turkey came into the problems of 1586 in more than name, for there was a vast diplomatic scheme on foot to unite the Turks with such Portuguese as would support Antonio, the pretender to the throne of Portugal, and the rebellious Dutch against Spain, Catholic France, and Mary Stuart's Scotland. Leicester was in the Netherlands with an English army, fighting indecisively, losing Sir Philip Sidney and angering Elizabeth by accepting the governor-generalship without her leave and against her diplomacy, which, now as ever, was opposed to any definite avowal that could possibly be helped. Meanwhile the Great Armada was working up its strength, and Drake was commissioned to weaken it as much as possible. But, on the 8th of February, 1587, before he could sail, Mary was at last beheaded, and Elizabeth was once more entering on a tricky course of tortuous diplomacy too long by half to follow here. As the great crisis approached, it had become clearer and clearer that it was a case of kill or be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could not afford to leave Marian enemies in the rear when there might be a vast Catholic alliance in the front. But, as a sovereign, Elizabeth disliked the execution of any crowned head; as a wily woman she wanted to make the most of both sides; and as a diplomatist she would not have open war and direct operations going down to the root of the evil if devious ways would do. So the peace party of the Council prevailed again, and Drake's orders were changed. He had been going as a lion. The peace party now tried to send him as a fox. But he stretched his instructions to their utmost limits and even defied the custom of the service by holding no council of war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz. As they entered the harbor, the English saw sixty ships engaged in preparations for the Great Armada. Many had no sails--to keep the crews from deserting. Others were waiting for their guns to come from Italy. Ten galleys rowed out to protect them. The weather and surroundings were perfect for these galleys. But as they came end-on in line-abreast Drake crossed their T in line-ahead with the shattering broadsides of four Queen's ships which soon sent them flying. Each galley was the upright of the T, each English sailing ship the corresponding crosspiece. Then Drake attacked the shipping and wrecked it right and left. Next morning he led the pinnaces and boats into the inner harbor, where they cut out the big galleon belonging to Santa Cruz himself, the Spanish commander-in-chief. Then the galleys got their chance again--an absolutely perfect chance, because Drake's fleet was becalmed at the very worst possible place for sailing ships and the very best possible place for the well-oared galleys. But even under these extraordinary circumstances the ships smashed the galleys up with broadside fire and sent them back to cover. Then the Spaniards towed some fire-ships out. But the English rowed for them, threw grappling irons into them, and gave them a turn that took them clear. Then, for the last time, the galleys came on, as bravely but as uselessly as ever. When Drake sailed away he left the shipping of Cadiz completely out of action for months to come, though fifteen sail escaped destruction in the inner harbor. His own losses were quite insignificant. The next objective was Cape St. Vincent, so famous through centuries of naval history because it is the great strategic salient thrust out into the Atlantic from the southwest corner of Europe, and thus commands the flank approaches to and from the Mediterranean, to and from the coast of Africa, and, in those days, the route to and from New Spain by way of the Azores. Here Drake had trouble with Borough, his second-in-command, a friend of cautious Burleigh and a man hide-bound in the warfare of the past--a sort of English Don. Borough objected to Drake's taking decisive action without the vote of a council of war. Remembering the terrors of Italian textbooks, he had continued to regard the galleys with much respect in the harbor of Cadiz even after Drake had broken them with ease. Finally, still clinging to the old ways of mere raids and reprisals, he stood aghast at the idea of seizing Cape St. Vincent and making it a base of operations. Drake promptly put him under arrest. Sagres Castle, commanding the roadstead of Cape St. Vincent, was extraordinarily strong. The cliffs, on which it occupied about a hundred acres, rose sheer two hundred feet all round except at a narrow and well defended neck only two hundred yards across. Drake led the stormers himself. While half his eight hundred men kept up a continuous fire against every Spaniard on the wall the other half rushed piles of faggots in against the oak and iron gate. Drake was foremost in this work, carrying faggots himself and applying the first match. For two hours the fight went on; when suddenly the Spaniards sounded a parley. Their commanding officer had been killed and the woodwork of the gate had taken fire. In those days a garrison that would not surrender was put to the sword when captured; so these Spaniards may well be excused. Drake willingly granted them the honors of war; and so, even to his own surprise, the castle fell without another blow. The minor forts near by at once surrendered and were destroyed, while the guns of Sagres were thrown over the cliffs and picked up by the men below. The whole neighboring coast was then swept clear of the fishing fleet which was the main source of supply used for the Great Armada. The next objective was Lisbon, the headquarters of the Great Armada, one of the finest harbors in the world, and then the best fortified of all. Taking it was, of course, out of the question without a much larger fleet accompanied by an overwhelming army. But Drake reconnoitred to good effect, learnt wrinkles that saved him from disaster two years later, and retired after assuring himself that an Armada which could not fight him then could never get to England during the same season. Ship fevers and all the other epidemics that dogged the old sailing fleets and scourged them like the plague never waited long. Drake was soon short-handed. To add to his troubles, Borough sailed away for home; whereupon Drake tried him and his officers by court-martial and condemned them all to death. This penalty was never carried out, for reasons we shall soon understand. Since no reinforcements came from home, Cape St. Vincent could not be held any longer. There was, however, one more stroke to make. The great East-India Spanish treasure ship was coming home; and Drake made up his mind to have her. Off the Azores he met her coming towards him and dipping her colors again and again to ask him who he was. 'But we would put out no flag till we were within shot of her, when we hanged out flags, streamers, and pendants. Which done, we hailed her with cannon-shot; and having shot her through divers times, she shot at us. Then we began to ply her hotly, our fly boat [lightly armed supply vessel of comparatively small size] and one of our pinnaces lying athwart her hawse [across her bows] at whom she shot and threw fire-works [incendiary missiles] but did them no hurt, in that her ordnance lay so high over them. Then she, seeing us ready to lay her aboard [range up alongside], all of our ships plying her so hotly, and resolutely determined to make short work of her, they yielded to us.' The Spaniards fought bravely, as they generally did. But they were only naval amateurs compared with the trained professional sea-dogs. The voyage was now 'made' in the old sense of that term; for this prize was 'the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our Happy Joy.' The relative values, then and now, are impossible to fix, because not only was one dollar the equivalent in most ways of ten dollars now but, in view of the smaller material scale on which men's lives were lived, these ten dollars might themselves be multiplied by ten, or more, without producing the same effect as the multiplied sum would now produce on international affairs. Suffice it to say that the ship was worth nearly five million dollars of actual cash, and ten, twenty, thirty, or many more millions if present sums of money are to be considered relatively to the national incomes of those poorer days. But better than spices, jewels, and gold were the secret documents which revealed the dazzling profits of the new East-India trade by sea. From that time on for the next twelve years the London merchants and their friends at court worked steadily for official sanction in this most promising direction. At last, on the 31st of December, 1600, the documents captured by Drake produced their result, and the East-India Company, by far the greatest corporation of its kind the world has ever seen, was granted a royal charter for exclusive trade. Drake may therefore be said not only to have set the course for the United States but to have actually discovered the route leading to the Empire of India, now peopled by three hundred million subjects of the British Crown. So ended the famous campaign of 1587, popularly known as the singeing of King Philip's beard. Beyond a doubt it was the most consummate work of naval strategy which, up to that time, all history records. CHAPTER IX DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA With 1588 the final crisis came. Philip--haughty, gloomy, and ambitious Philip, unskilled in arms, but persistent in his plans--sat in his palace at Madrid like a spider forever spinning webs that enemies tore down. Drake and the English had thrown the whole scheme of the Armada's mobilization completely out of gear. Philip's well-intentioned orders and counter-orders had made confusion worse confounded; and though the Spanish empire held half the riches of the world it felt the lack of ready money because English sea power had made it all parts and no whole for several months together. Then, when mobilization was resumed, Philip found himself distracted by expert advice from Santa Cruz, his admiral, and from Parma, Alva's successor in the Netherlands. The general idea was to send the Invincible Armada up the English Channel as far as the Netherlands, where Parma would be ready with a magnificent Spanish army waiting aboard troopships for safe conduct into England. The Spanish regulars could then hold London up to ransom or burn it to the ground. So far, so good. But Philip, to whom amphibious warfare remained an unsolved mystery, thought that the Armada and the Spanish army could conquer England without actually destroying the English fleet. He could not see where raids must end and conquest must begin. Most Spaniards agreed with him. Parma and Santa Cruz did not. Parma, as a very able general, wanted to know how his oversea communications could be made quite safe. Santa Cruz, as a very able admiral, knew that no such sea road could possibly be safe while the ubiquitous English navy was undefeated and at large. Some time or other a naval battle must be won, or Parma's troops, cut off from their base of supplies and surrounded like an island by an angry sea of enemies, must surely perish. Win first at sea and then on land, said the expert warriors, Santa Cruz and Parma. Get into hated England with the least possible fighting, risk, or loss, said the mere politician, Philip, and then crush Drake if he annoys you. Early and late persistent Philip slaved away upon this 'Enterprize of England.' With incredible toil he spun his web anew. The ships were collected into squadrons; the squadrons at last began to wear the semblance of a fleet. But semblance only. There were far too many soldiers and not nearly enough sailors. Instead of sending the fighting fleet to try to clear the way for the troopships coming later on, Philip mixed army and navy together. The men-of-war were not bad of their kind; but the kind was bad. They were floating castles, high out of the water, crammed with soldiers, some other landsmen, and stores, and with only light ordnance, badly distributed so as to fire at rigging and superstructures only, not at the hulls as the English did. Yet this was not the worst. The worst was that the fighting fleet was cumbered with troopships which might have been useful in boarding, but which were perfectly useless in fighting of any other kind--and the English men-of-war were much too handy to be laid aboard by the lubberly Spanish troopships. Santa Cruz worked himself to death. In one of his last dispatches he begged for more and better guns. All Philip could do was to authorize the purchase of whatever guns the foreign merchantmen in Lisbon harbor could be induced to sell. Sixty second-rate pieces were obtained in this way. Then, worn out by work and worry, Santa Cruz died, and Philip forced the command on a most reluctant landlubber, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a very great grandee of Spain, but wholly unfitted to lead a fleet. The death of Santa Cruz, in whom the fleet and army had great confidence, nearly upset the whole 'Enterprize of England.' The captains were as unwilling to serve under bandylegged, sea-sick Sidonia as he was unwilling to command them. Volunteering ceased. Compulsion failed to bring in the skilled ratings urgently required. The sailors were now not only fewer than ever--sickness and desertion had been thinning their ranks--but many of these few were unfit for the higher kinds of seamanship, while only the merest handful of them were qualified as seamen gunners. Philip, however, was determined; and so the doomed Armada struggled on, fitting its imperfect parts together into a still more imperfect whole until, in June, it was as ready as it ever could be made. Meanwhile the English had their troubles too. These were also political. But the English navy was of such overwhelming strength that it could stand them with impunity. The Queen, after thirty years of wonderful, if tortuous, diplomacy, was still disinclined to drop the art in which she was supreme for that in which she counted for so much less and by which she was obliged to spend so very much more. There was still a little peace party also bent on diplomacy instead of war. Negotiations were opened with Parma at Flushing and diplomatic 'feelers' went out towards Philip, who sent back some of his own. But the time had come for war. The stream was now too strong for either Elizabeth or Philip to stem or even divert into minor channels. Lord Howard of Effingham, as Lord High Admiral of England, was charged with the defence at sea. It was impossible in those days to have any great force without some great nobleman in charge of it, because the people still looked on such men as their natural viceroys and commanders. But just as Sir John Norreys, the most expert professional soldier in England, was made Chief of the Staff to the Earl of Leicester ashore, so Drake was made Chief of the Staff to Howard afloat, which meant that he was the brain of the fleet. A directing brain was sadly needed--not that brains were lacking, but that some one man of original and creative genius was required to bring the modern naval system into triumphant being. Like all political heads, Elizabeth was sensitive to public opinion; and public opinion was ignorant enough to clamor for protection by something that a man could see; besides which there were all those weaklings who have been described as the old women of both sexes and all ages, and who have always been the nuisance they are still. Adding together the old views of warfare, which nearly everybody held, and the human weaknesses we have always with us, there was a most dangerously strong public opinion in favor of dividing up the navy so as to let enough different places actually see that they had some visible means of divided defence. The 30th of March, 1588, is the day of days to be remembered in the history of sea power because it was then that Drake, writing from Plymouth to the Queen-in-Council, first formulated the true doctrine of modern naval warfare, especially the cardinal principle that the best of all defence is to attack your enemy's main fleet as it issues from its ports. This marked the birth of the system perfected by Nelson and thence passed on, with many new developments, to the British Grand Fleet in the Great War of to-day. The first step was by far the hardest, for Drake had to convert the Queen and Howard to his own revolutionary views. He at last succeeded; and on the 7th of July sailed for Corunna, where the Armada had rendezvoused after being dispersed by a storm. Every man afloat knew that the hour had come. Yet Elizabeth, partly on the score of expense, partly not to let Drake snap her apron-strings completely, had kept the supply of food and even of ammunition very short; so much so that Drake knew he would have to starve or else replenish from the Spanish fleet itself. As he drew near Corunna on the 8th, the Spaniards were again reorganizing. Hundreds of perfectly useless landlubbers, shipped at Lisbon to complete the absurdly undermanned ships, were being dismissed at Corunna. On the 9th, when Sidonia assembled a council of war to decide whether to put to sea or not, the English van was almost in sight of the coast. But then the north wind flawed, failed, and at last chopped round. A roaring sou'wester came on; and the great strategic move was over. On the 12th the fleet was back in Plymouth replenishing as hard as it could. Howard behaved to perfection. Drake worked the strategy and tactics. But Howard had to set the tone, afloat and ashore, to all who came within his sphere of influence; and right well he set it. His dispatches at this juncture are models of what such documents should be; and their undaunted confidence is in marked contrast to what the doomed Spanish officers were writing at the selfsame time. The southwest wind that turned Drake back brought the Armada out and gave it an advantage which would have been fatal to England had the fleets been really equal, or the Spaniards in superior strength, for a week was a very short time in which to replenish the stores that Elizabeth had purposely kept so low. Drake and Howard, so the story goes, were playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe on Friday afternoon the 19th of July when Captain Fleming of the _Golden Hind_ rushed up to say the Spanish fleet was off the Lizard, only sixty miles away! All eyes turned to Drake. Divining the right way to calm the people, he whispered an order and then said out loud: 'There's time to end our game and beat the Spaniards too.' The shortness of food and ammunition that had compelled him to come back instead of waiting to blockade now threatened to get him nicely caught in the very trap he had wished to catch the Great Armada in himself; for the Spaniards, coming up with the wind, might catch him struggling out against the wind and crush his long emerging column, bit by bit, precisely as he had intended crushing their own column as it issued from the Tagus or Corunna. But it was only the van that Fleming had sighted. Many a Spanish straggler was still hull-down astern; and Sidonia had to wait for all to close and form up properly. Meanwhile Drake and Howard were straining every nerve to get out of Plymouth. It was not their fault, but the Queen's-in-Council, that Sidonia had unwittingly stolen this march on them. It was their glory that they won the lost advantage back again. All afternoon and evening, all through that summer night, the sea-dog crews were warping out of harbor. Torches, flares, and cressets threw their fitful light on toiling lines of men hauling on ropes that moved the ships apparently like snails. But once in Plymouth Sound the whinnying sheaves and long _yo-hoes_! told that all the sail the ships could carry was being made for a life-or-death effort to win the weather gage. Thus beat the heart of naval England that momentous night in Plymouth Sound, while beacons blazed from height to height ashore, horsemen spurred off post-haste with orders and dispatches, and every able-bodied landsman stood to arms. Next morning Drake was in the Channel, near the Eddystone, with fifty-four sail, when he sighted a dim blur to windward through the thickening mist and drizzling rain. This was the Great Armada. Rain came on and killed the wind. All sail was taken in aboard the English fleet, which lay under bare poles, invisible to the Spaniards, who still announced their presence with some show of canvas. In actual size and numbers the Spaniards were superior at first. But as the week-long running fight progressed the English evened up with reinforcements. Spanish vessels looked bigger than their tonnage, being high built; and Spanish official reports likewise exaggerated the size because their system of measurement made their three tons equal to an English four. In armament and seamen-gunners the English were perhaps five times as strong as the Armada--and seamen-gunners won the day. The English seamen greatly outnumbered the Spanish seamen, utterly surpassed them in seamanship, and enjoyed the further advantage of having far handier vessels to work. The Spanish grand total, for all ranks and ratings was thirty thousand men; the English, only fifteen. But the Spaniards were six thousand short on arrival; and their actual seamen, many of whom were only half-trained, then numbered a bare seven thousand. The seventeen thousand soldiers only made the ships so many death-traps; for they were of no use afloat except as boarding parties--and no boarding whatever took place. The English fifteen thousand, on the other hand, were three-quarters seamen and one-quarter soldiers who were mostly trained as marines, and this total was actually present. On the whole, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Armada was mostly composed of armed transports while all the English vessels that counted in the fighting were real men-of-war. In every one of the Armada's hundred and twenty-eight vessels, says an officer of the Spanish flagship, 'our people kneeled down and offered a prayer, beseeching our Lord to give us victory against the enemies of His holy faith.' The crews of the hundred and ninety-seven English vessels which, at one time or another, were present in some capacity on the scene of action also prayed for victory to the Lord of Hosts, but took the proper naval means to win it. 'Trust in the Lord--and keep your powder dry,' said Oliver Cromwell when about to ford a river in the presence of the enemy. And so, in other words, said Drake. All day long, on that fateful 20th of July, the visible Armada with its swinging canvas was lying-to fifteen miles west of the invisible, bare-masted English fleet. Sidonia held a council of war, which, landsman-like, believed that the English were divided, one-half watching Parma, the other the Armada. The trained soldiers and sailors were for the sound plan of attacking Plymouth first. Some admirals even proposed the only perfect plan of crushing Drake in detail as he issued from the Sound. All were in blissful ignorance of the astounding feat of English seamanship which had already robbed them of the only chance they ever had. But Philip, also landsman-like, had done his best to thwart his own Armada; for Sidonia produced the royal orders forbidding any attack on England till he and Parma had joined hands. Drake, however, might be crushed piecemeal in the offing when still with his aftermost ships in the Sound. So, with this true idea, unworkable because based on false information, the generals and admirals dispersed to their vessels and waited. But then, just as night was closing in, the weather lifted enough to reveal Drake's astonishing position. Immediately pinnaces went scurrying to Sidonia for orders. But he had none to give. At one in the morning he learnt some more dumbfounding news: that the English had nearly caught him at Corunna, that Drake and Howard had joined forces, and that both were now before him. Nor was even this the worst. For while the distracted Sidonia was getting his fleet into the 'eagle formation,' so suitable for galleys whose only fighting men were soldiers, the English fleet was stealing the weather gage, his one remaining natural advantage. An English squadron of eight sail manoeuvred coast-wise on the Armada's inner flank, while, unperceived by the Spanish lookout, Drake stole away to sea, beat round its outer flank, and then, making the most of a westerly slant in the shifting breeze, edged in to starboard. The Spaniards saw nothing till it was too late, Drake having given them a berth just wide enough to keep them quiet. But when the sun rose, there, only a few miles off to windward, was the whole main body of the English fleet, coming on in faultless line-ahead, heeling nicely over on the port tack before the freshening breeze, and, far from waiting for the Great Armada, boldly bearing down to the attack. With this consummate move the victory was won. The rest was slaughter, borne by the Spaniards with a resolution that nothing could surpass. With dauntless tenacity they kept their 'eagle formation,' so useful at Lepanto, through seven dire days of most one-sided fighting. Whenever occasion seemed to offer, the Spaniards did their best to close, to grapple, and to board, as had their heroes at Lepanto. But the English merely laughed, ran in, just out of reach, poured in a shattering broadside between wind and water, stood off to reload, fired again, with equal advantage, at longer range, caught the slow galleons end-on, raked them from stem to stern, passed to and fro in one, long, deadly line-ahead, concentrating at will on any given target; and did all this with well-nigh perfect safety to themselves. In quite a different way close-to, but to the same effect at either distance, long or short, the English 'had the range of them,' as sailors say to-day. Close-to, the little Spanish guns fired much too high to hull the English vessels, lying low and trim upon the water, with whose changing humors their lines fell in so much more happily than those of any lumbering Spaniards could. Far-off, the little Spanish guns did correspondingly small damage, even when they managed to hit; while the heavy metal of the English, handled by real seamen-gunners, inflicted crushing damage in return. But even more important than the Englishmen's superiority in rig, hull, armament, and expert seamanship was their tactical use of the thoroughly modern line-ahead. Any one who will take the letter T as an illustration can easily understand the advantage of 'crossing his T.' The upright represents an enemy caught when in column-ahead, as he would be, for instance, when issuing from a narrow-necked port. In this formation he can only use bow fire, and that only in succession, on a very narrow front. But the fleet represented by the crosspiece, moving across the point of the upright, is in the deadly line-ahead, with all its near broadsides turned in one long converging line of fire against the helplessly narrow-fronted enemy. If the enemy, sticking to medieval tactics, had room to broaden his front by forming column-abreast, as galleys always did, that is, with several uprights side by side, he would still be at the same sort of disadvantage; for this would only mean a series of T's with each nearest broadside crossing each opposing upright as before. The herded soldiers and non-combatants aboard the Great Armada stood by their useless duties to the last. Thousands fell killed or wounded. Several times the Spanish scuppers actually ran a horrid red, as if the very ships were bleeding. The priests behaved as bravely as the Jesuits of New France--and who could be braver than those undaunted missionaries were? Soldiers and sailors were alike. 'What shall we do now?' asked Sidonia after the slaughter had gone on for a week. 'Order up more powder,' said Oquendo, as dauntless as before. Even then the eagle formation was still kept up. The van ships were the head. The biggest galleons formed the body. Lighter vessels formed the wings. A reserve formed the tail. As the unflinching Armada stood slowly up the Channel a sail or two would drop out by the way, dead-beat. One night several strange sail passed suddenly by Drake. What should he do? To go about and follow them with all astern of him doing the same in succession was not to be thought of, as his aftermost vessels were merchantmen, wholly untrained to the exact combined manoeuvres required in a fighting fleet, though first-rate individually. There was then no night signal equivalent to the modern 'Disregard the flagship's movements.' So Drake dowsed his stern light, went about, overhauled the strangers, and found they were bewildered German merchantmen. He had just gone about once more to resume his own station when suddenly a Spanish flagship loomed up beside his own flagship the _Revenge_. Drake immediately had his pinnace lowered away to demand instant surrender. But the Spanish admiral was Don Pedro de Valdes, a very gallant commander and a very proud grandee, who demanded terms; and, though his flagship (which had been in collision with a run-amuck) seemed likely to sink, he was quite ready to go down fighting. Yet the moment he heard that his summoner was Drake he surrendered at discretion, feeling it a personal honor, according to the ideas of the age, to yield his sword to the greatest seaman in the world. With forty officers he saluted Drake, complimenting him on 'valour and felicity so great that Mars and Neptune seemed to attend him, as also on his generosity towards the fallen foe, a quality often experienced by the Spaniards; whereupon,' adds this eyewitness, 'Sir Francis Drake, requiting his Spanish compliments with honest English courtesies, placed him at his own table and lodged him in his own cabin.' Drake's enemies at home accused him of having deserted his fleet to capture a treasure ship--for there was a good deal of gold with Valdes. But the charge was quite unfounded. A very different charge against Howard had more foundation. The Armada had anchored at Calais to get its breath before running the gauntlet for the last time and joining Parma in the Netherlands. But in the dead of night, when the flood was making and a strong west wind was blowing in the same direction as the swirling tidal stream, nine English fire-ships suddenly burst into flame and made for the Spanish anchorage. There were no boats ready to grapple the fire-ships and tow them clear. There was no time to weigh; for every vessel had two anchors down. Sidonia, enraged that the boats were not out on patrol, gave the order for the whole fleet to cut their cables and make off for their lives. As the great lumbering hulls, which had of course been riding head to wind, swung round in the dark and confusion, several crashing collisions occurred. Next morning the Armada was strung along the Flemish coast in disorderly flight. Seeing the impossibility of bringing the leewardly vessels back against the wind in time to form up, Sidonia ran down with the windward ones and formed farther off. Howard then led in pursuit. But seeing the _capitana_ of the renowned Italian galleasses in distress near Calais, he became a medieval knight again, left his fleet, and took the galleasse. For the moment that one feather in his cap seemed better worth having than a general victory. Drake forged ahead and led the pursuit in turn. The Spaniards fought with desperate courage, still suffering ghastly losses. But, do what they could to bear up against the English and the wind, they were forced to leeward of Dunkirk, and so out of touch with Parma. This was the result of the Battle of Gravelines, fought on Monday the 29th of July, 1588, just ten days after Captain Fleming had rushed on to the bowling green of Plymouth Hoe where Drake and Howard, their shore work done, were playing a game before embarking. In those ten days the gallant Armada had lost all chance of winning the overlordship of the sea and shaking the sea-dog grip off both Americas. A rising gale now forced it to choose between getting pounded to death on the shoals of Dunkirk or running north, through that North Sea in which the British Grand Fleet of the twentieth century fought against the fourth attempt in modern times to win a world-dominion. North, and still north, round by the surf-lashed Orkneys, then down the wild west coasts of the Hebrides and Ireland, went the forlorn Armada, losing ships and men at every stage, until at last the remnant straggled into Spanish ports like the mere wreckage of a storm. CHAPTER X 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE' The next year, 1589, is famous for the unsuccessful Lisbon Expedition. Drake had the usual troubles with Elizabeth, who wanted him to go about picking leaves and breaking branches before laying the axe to the root of the tree. Though there were in the Narrow Seas defensive squadrons strong enough to ward off any possible blow, yet the nervous landsmen wanted Corunna and other ports attacked and their shipping destroyed, for fear England should be invaded before Drake could strike his blow at Lisbon. Then there were troubles about stores and ammunition. The English fleet had been reduced to the last pound of powder twice during the ten-days' battle with the Armada. Yet Elizabeth was again alarmed at the expense of munitions. She never quite rose to the idea of one supreme and finishing blow, no matter what the cost might be. This was a joint expedition, the first in which a really modern English fleet and army had ever taken part, with Sir John Norreys in command of the army. There was no trouble about recruits, for all men of spirit flocked in to follow Drake and Norreys. The fleet was perfectly organized into appropriate squadrons and flotillas, such as then corresponded with the battleships, cruisers, and mosquito craft of modern navies. The army was organized into battalions and brigades, with a regular staff and all the proper branches of the service. The fleet made for Corunna, where Norreys won a brilliant victory. A curious little incident of exact punctilio is worth recording. After the battle, and when the fleet was waiting for a fair wind to get out of the harbor, the ships were much annoyed by a battery on the heights. Norreys undertook to storm the works and sent in the usual summons by a _parlementaire_ accompanied by a drummer. An angry Spaniard fired from the walls and the drummer fell dead. The English had hostages on whom to take reprisals. But the Spaniards were too quick for them. Within ten minutes the guilty man was tried inside the fort by drum-head court-martial, condemned to death, and swung out neatly from the walls, while a polite Spanish officer came over to assure the English troops that such a breach of discipline should not occur again. Lisbon was a failure. The troops landed and marched over the ground north of Lisbon where Wellington in a later day made works whose fame has caused their memory to become an allusion in English literature for any impregnable base--the Lines of Torres Vedras. The fleet and the army now lost touch with each other; and that was the ruin of them all. Norreys was persuaded by Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of Portugal which Philip had seized, to march farther inland, where Portuguese patriots were said to be ready to rise _en masse_. This Antonio was a great talker and a first-rate fighter with his tongue. But his Portuguese followers, also great talkers, wanted to see a victory won by arms before they rose. Before leaving Lisbon Drake had one stroke of good luck. A Spanish convoy brought in a Hanseatic Dutch and German fleet of merchantmen loaded down with contraband of war destined for Philip's new Armada. Drake swooped on it immediately and took sixty well-found ships. Then he went west to the Azores, looking for what he called 'some comfortable little dew of Heaven,' that is, of course, more prizes of a richer kind. But sickness broke out. The men died off like flies. Storms completed the discomfiture. And the expedition got home with a great deal less than half its strength in men and not enough in value to pay for its expenses. It was held to have failed; and Drake lost favor. * * * * * With the sun of Drake's glory in eclipse at court and with Spain and England resting from warfare on the grander scale, there were no more big battles the following year. But the year after that, 1591, is rendered famous in the annals of the sea by Sir Richard Grenville's fight in Drake's old flagship, the _Revenge_. This is the immortal battle of 'the one and the fifty-three' from which Raleigh's prose and Tennyson's verse have made a glory of the pen fit to match the glory of the sword. Grenville had sat, with Drake and Sir Philip Sidney, on the Parliamentary committee which recommended the royal charter granted to Sir Walter Raleigh for the founding of the first English colony in what is now the United States. Grenville's grandfather, Marshal of Calais to Henry VIII, had the faculty of rhyme, and, in a set of verses very popular in their own day, showed what the Grenville family ambitions were. Who seeks the way to win renown, Or flies with wings to high desire, Who seeks to wear the laurel crown, Or hath the mind that would aspire-- Let him his native soil eschew, Let him go range and seek a new. Grenville himself was a wild and roving blade, no great commander, but an adventurer of the most daring kind by land or sea. He rather enjoyed the consternation he caused by aping the airs of a pirate king. He had a rough way with him at all times; and Ralph Lane was much set against his being the commander of the 'Virginia Voyage' of which Lane himself was the governor on land. But in action he always was, beyond a doubt, the very _beau idéal_ of a 'first-class fighting man.' A striking instance of his methods was afforded on his return from Virginia, when he found an armed Spanish treasure ship ahead of him at sea. He had no boat to board her with. But he knocked some sort of one together out of the ship's chests and sprang up the Spaniard's side with his boarding party just as this makeshift boat was sinking under them. The last fight of the _Revenge_ is almost incredible from the odds engaged--fifty-three vessels to one. But it is true; and neither Raleigh's glowing prose nor Tennyson's glowing verse exaggerates it. Lord Thomas Howard, 'almost famished for want of prey,' had been cruising in search of treasure ships when Captain Middleton, one of the gentlemen-adventurers who followed the gallant Earl of Cumberland, came in to warn him that Don Alonzo de Bazan was following with fifty-three sail. The English crews were partly ashore at the Azores; and Howard had barely time to bring them off, cut his cables, and work to windward of the overwhelming Spaniards. Grenville's men were last. The _Revenge_ had only 'her hundred fighters on deck and her ninety sick below' when the Spanish fleet closed round him. Yet, just as he had sworn to cut down the first man who touched a sail when the master thought there was still a chance to slip through, so now he refused to surrender on any terms at all. Then, running down close-hauled on the starboard tack, decks cleared for action and crew at battle quarters, he steered right between two divisions of the Spanish fleet till 'the mountain-like _San Felipe_, of fifteen hundred tons,' ranging up on his weather side, blanketed his canvas and left him almost becalmed. Immediately the vessels which the _Revenge_ had weathered hauled their wind and came up on her from to-leeward. Then, at three o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of September, 1591, that immortal fight began. The first broadside from the _Revenge_ took the _San Felipe_ on the water-line and forced her to give way and stop her leaks. Then two Spaniards ranged up in her place, while two more kept station on the other side. And so the desperate fight went on all through that afternoon and evening and far on into the night. Meanwhile Howard, still keeping the weather gage, attacked the Spaniards from the rear and thought of trying to cut through them. But his sailing master swore it would be the end of all Her Majesty's ships engaged, as it probably would; so he bore away, wisely or not as critics may judge for themselves. One vessel, the little _George Noble_ of London, a victualler, stood by the _Revenge_, offering help before the fight began. But Grenville, thanking her gallant skipper, ordered him to save his vessel by following Howard. With never less than one enemy on each side of her, the _Revenge_ fought furiously on. _Boarders away!_ shouted the Spanish colonels as the vessels closed. _Repel boarders!_ shouted Grenville in reply. And they did repel them, time and again, till the English pikes dripped red with Spanish blood. A few Spaniards gained the deck, only to be shot, stabbed, or slashed to death. Towards midnight Grenville was hit in the body by a musket-shot fired from the tops--the same sort of shot that killed Nelson. The surgeon was killed while dressing the wound, and Grenville was hit in the head. But still the fight went on. The _Revenge_ had already sunk two Spaniards, a third sank afterwards, and a fourth was beached to save her. But Grenville would not hear of surrender. When day broke not ten unwounded Englishmen remained. The pikes were broken. The powder was spent. The whole deck was a wild entanglement of masts, spars, sails, and rigging. The undaunted survivors stood dumb as their silent cannon. But every Spanish hull in the whole encircling ring of death bore marks of the _Revenge's_ rage. Four hundred Spaniards, by their own admission, had been killed, and quite six hundred wounded. One hundred Englishmen had thus accounted for a thousand Spaniards besides all those that sank! Grenville now gave his last order: 'Sink me the ship, Master-Gunner!' But the sailing master and flag-captain, both wounded, protesting that all lives should be saved to avenge the dead, manned the only remaining boat and made good terms with the Spanish admiral. Then Grenville was taken very carefully aboard Don Bazan's flagship, where he was received with every possible mark of admiration and respect. Don Bazan gave him his own cabin. The staff surgeon dressed his many wounds. The Spanish captains and military officers stood hat in hand, 'wondering at his courage and stout heart, for that he showed not any signs of faintness nor changing of his colour.' Grenville spoke Spanish very well and handsomely acknowledged the compliments they paid him. Then, gathering his ebbing strength for one last effort, he addressed them in words they have religiously recorded: '"Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour. Wherefore my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body." ... And when he had said these and other suchlike words he gave up the ghost with a great and stout courage.' Grenville's latest wish was that the _Revenge_ and he should die together; and, though he knew it not, he had this wish fulfilled. For, two weeks later, when Don Bazan had collected nearly a hundred more sail around him for the last stage home from the West Indies, a cyclone such as no living man remembered burst full on the crowded fleet. Not even the Great Armada lost more vessels than Don Bazan did in that wreck-engulfing week. No less than seventy went down. And with them sank the shattered _Revenge_, beside her own heroic dead. * * * * * Drake might be out of favor at court. The Queen might grumble at the sad extravagance of fleets. Diplomats might talk of untying Gordian knots that the sword was made to cut. Courtiers and politicians might wonder with which side to curry favor when it was an issue between two parties--peace or war. The great mass of ordinary landsmen might wonder why the 'sea-affair' was a thing they could not understand. But all this was only the mint and cummin of imperial things compared with the exalting deeds that Drake had done. For, once the English sea-dogs had shown the way to all America by breaking down the barriers of Spain, England had ceased to be merely an island in a northern sea and had become the mother country of such an empire and republic as neither record nor tradition can show the like of elsewhere. And England felt the triumph. She thrilled with pregnant joy. Poet and proseman both gave voice to her delight. Hear this new note of exultation born of England's victory on the sea: As God hath combined the sea and land into one globe, so their mutual assistance is necessary to secular happiness and glory. The sea covereth one-half of this patrimony of man. Thus should man at once lose the half of his inheritance if the art of navigation did not enable him to manage this untamed beast; and with the bridle of the winds and the saddle of his shipping make him serviceable. Now for the services of the sea, they are innumerable: it is the great purveyor of the world's commodities; the conveyor of the excess of rivers; uniter, by traffique, of all nations; it presents the eye with divers colors and motions, and is, as it were with rich brooches, adorned with many islands. It is an open field for merchandise in peace; a pitched field for the most dreadful fights in war; yields diversity of fish and fowl for diet, material for wealth; medicine for sickness; pearls and jewels for adornment; the wonders of the Lord in the deep for all instruction; multiplicity of nature for contemplation; to the thirsty Earth fertile moisture; to distant friends pleasant meeting; to weary persons delightful refreshing; to studious minds a map of knowledge, a school of prayer, meditation, devotion, and sobriety; refuge to the distressed, portage to the merchant, customs to the prince, passage to the traveller; springs, lakes, and rivers to the Earth. It hath tempests and calms to chastise sinners and exercise the faith of seamen; manifold affections to stupefy the subtlest philosopher, maintaineth (as in Our Island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state. It entertains the Sun with vapors, the Stars with a natural looking-glass, the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility. But why should I longer detain you? The Sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, and the World to the World, by this art of arts--Navigation. Well might this pious Englishman, the Reverend Samuel Purchas, exclaim with David: _Thy ways are in the Sea, and Thy paths in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known_. The poets sang of Drake and England, too. Could his 'Encompassment of All the Worlde' be more happily admired than in these four short lines: The Stars of Heaven would thee proclaim If men here silent were. The Sun himself could not forget His fellow traveller. What wonder that after Nombre de Dios and the Pacific, the West Indies and the Spanish Main, Cadiz and the Armada, what wonder, after this, that Shakespeare, English to the core, rings out:-- This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world; This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happy lands: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. * * * * * This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to herself do rest but true. CHAPTER XI RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST Conquerors first, prospectors second, then the pioneers: that is the order of those by whom America was opened up for English-speaking people. No Elizabethan colonies took root. Therefore the age of Elizabethan sea-dogs was one of conquerors and prospectors, not one of pioneering colonists at all. Spain and Portugal alone founded sixteenth-century colonies that have had a continuous life from those days to our own. Virginia and New England, like New France, only began as permanent settlements after Drake and Queen Elizabeth were dead: Virginia in 1607, New France in 1608, New England in 1620. It is true that Drake and his sea-dogs were prospectors in their way. So were the soldiers, gentlemen-adventurers, and fighting traders in theirs. On the other hand, some of the prospectors themselves belong to the class of conquerors, while many would have gladly been the pioneers of permanent colonies. Nevertheless the prospectors form a separate class; and Sir Walter Raleigh, though an adventurer in every other way as well, is undoubtedly their chief. His colonies failed. He never found his El Dorado. He died a ruined and neglected man. But still he was the chief of those whom we can only call prospectors, first, because they tried their fortune ashore, one step beyond the conquering sea-dogs, and, secondly, because their fortune failed them just one step short of where the pioneering colonists began. A man so various that he seemed to be Not one but all mankind's epitome is a description written about a very different character. But it is really much more appropriate to Sir Walter Raleigh. Courtier and would-be colonizer, soldier and sailor, statesman and scholar, poet and master of prose, Raleigh had one ruling passion greater than all the rest combined. In a letter about America to Sir Robert Cecil, the son of Queen Elizabeth's principal minister of state, Lord Burleigh, he expressed this great determined purpose of his life: _I shall yet live to see it an Inglishe nation_. He had other interests in abundance, perhaps in superabundance; and he had much more than the usual temptations to live the life of fashion with just enough of public duty to satisfy both the queen and the very least that is implied by the motto _Noblesse oblige_. He was splendidly handsome and tall, a perfect blend of strength and grace, full of deep, romantic interest in great things far and near: the very man whom women dote on. And yet, through all the seductions of the Court and all the storm and stress of Europe, he steadily pursued the vision of that West which he would make 'an Inglishe nation.' He left Oxford as an undergraduate to serve the Huguenots in France under Admiral Coligny and the Protestants in Holland under William of Orange. Like Hawkins and Drake, he hated Spain with all his heart and paid off many a score against her by killing Spanish troops at Smerwick during an Irish campaign marked by ruthless slaughter on both sides. On his return to England he soon attracted the charmed attention of the queen. His spreading his cloak for her to tread on, lest she might wet her feet, is one of those stories which ought to be true if it's not. In any case he won the royal favor, was granted monopolies, promotion, and estates, and launched upon the full flood-stream of fortune. He was not yet thirty when he obtained for his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, then a man of thirty-eight, a royal commission 'to inhabit and possess all remote and Heathen lands not in the possession of any Christian prince.' The draft of Gilbert's original prospectus, dated at London, the 6th of November, 1577, and still kept there in the Record Office, is an appeal to Elizabeth in which he proposed 'to discover and inhabit some strange place.' Gilbert was a soldier and knew what fighting meant; so he likewise proposed 'to set forth certain ships of war to the New Land, which, with your good licence, I will undertake without your Majesty's charge.... The New Land fish is a principal and rich and everywhere vendible merchandise; and by the gain thereof shipping, victual, munition, and the transporting of five or six thousand soldiers may be defrayed.' But Gilbert's associates cared nothing for fish and everything for gold. He went to the West Indies, lost a ship, and returned without a fortune. Next year he was forbidden to repeat the experiment. The project then languished until the fatal voyage of 1583, when Gilbert set sail with six vessels, intending to occupy Newfoundland as the base from which to colonize southwards until an armed New England should meet and beat New Spain. How vast his scheme! How pitiful its execution! And yet how immeasurably beyond his wildest dreams the actual development to-day! Gilbert was not a sea-dog but a soldier with an uncanny reputation for being a regular Jonah who 'had no good hap at sea.' He was also passionately self-willed, and Elizabeth had doubts about the propriety of backing him. But she sent him a gilt anchor by way of good luck and off he went in June, financed chiefly by Raleigh, whose name was given to the flagship. Gilbert's adventure never got beyond its base in Newfoundland. His ship the _Delight_ was wrecked. The crew of the _Raleigh_ mutinied and ran her home to England. The other four vessels held on. But the men, for the most part, were neither good soldiers, good sailors, nor yet good colonists, but ne'er-do-wells and desperadoes. By September the expedition was returning broken down. Gilbert, furious at the sailors' hints that he was just a little sea-shy, would persist in sticking to the Lilliputian ten-ton _Squirrel_, which was woefully top-hampered with guns and stores. Before leaving Newfoundland he was implored to abandon her and bring her crew aboard a bigger craft. But no. 'Do not fear,' he answered; 'we are as near to Heaven by sea as land.' One wild night off the Azores the _Squirrel_ foundered with all hands. Amadas and Barlow sailed in 1584. Prospecting for Sir Walter Raleigh, they discovered several harbors in North Carolina, then part of the vast 'plantation' of Virginia. Roanoke Island, Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, as well as the intervening waters, were all explored with enthusiastic thoroughness and zeal. Barlow, a skipper who was handy with his pen, described the scent of that fragrant summer land in terms which attracted the attention of Bacon at the time and of Dryden a century later. The royal charter authorizing Raleigh to take what he could find in this strange land had a clause granting his prospective colonists 'all the privileges of free denizens and persons native of England in such ample manner as if they were born and personally resident in our said realm of England.' Next year Sir Richard Grenville, who was Raleigh's cousin, convoyed out to Roanoke the little colony which Ralph Lane governed and which, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, Drake took home discomfited in 1586. There might have been a story to tell of successful colonization, instead of failure, if Drake had kept away from Roanoke that year or if he had tarried a few days longer. For no sooner had the colony departed in Drake's vessels than a ship sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, 'freighted with all maner of things in most plentiful maner,' arrived at Roanoke; and 'after some time spent in seeking our Colony up in the countrey, and not finding them, returned with all the aforesayd provision into England.' About a fortnight later Sir Richard Grenville himself arrived with three ships. Not wishing to lose possession of the country where he had planted a colony the year before, he 'landed fifteene men in the Isle of Roanoak, furnished plentifully with all maner of provision for two yeeres, and so departed for England.' Grenville unfortunately had burnt an Indian town and all its standing corn because the Indians had stolen a silver cup. Lane, too, had been severe in dealing with the natives and they had turned from friends to foes. These and other facts were carefully recorded on the spot by the official chronicler, Thomas Harriot, better known as a mathematician. Among the captains who had come out under Grenville in 1585 was Thomas Cavendish, a young and daring gentleman-adventurer, greatly distinguished as such even in that adventurous age, and the second English leader to circumnavigate the globe. When Drake was taking Lane's men home in June, 1586, Cavendish was making the final preparations for a two-year voyage. He sailed mostly along the route marked out by Drake, and many of his adventures were of much the same kind. His prime object was to make the voyage pay a handsome dividend. But he did notable service in clipping the wings of Spain. He raided the shipping off Chile and Peru, took the Spanish flagship, the famous _Santa Anna_, off the coast of California, and on his return home in 1588 had the satisfaction of reporting: 'I burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, both small and great; and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled.' While Cavendish was preying on Spanish treasure in America, and Drake was 'singeing the King of Spain's beard' in Europe, Raleigh still pursued his colonizing plans. In 1587 John White and twelve associates received incorporation as the 'Governor and Assistants of the City of Ralegh in Virginia.' The fortunes of this ambitious city were not unlike those of many another 'boomed' and 'busted' city of much more recent date. No time was lost in beginning. Three ships arrived at Roanoke on the 22nd of July, 1587. Every effort was made to find the fifteen men left behind the year before by Grenville to hold possession for the Queen. Mounds of earth, which may even now be traced, so piously have their last remains been cared for, marked the site of the fort. From natives of Croatoan Island the newcomers learned that Grenville's men had been murdered by hostile Indians. One native friend was found in Manteo, a chief whom Barlow had taken to England and Grenville had brought back. Manteo was now living with his own tribe of sea-coast Indians on Croatoan Island. But the mischief between red and white had been begun; and though Manteo had been baptized and was recognized as 'The Lord of Roanoke' the races were becoming fatally estranged. After a month Governor White went home for more men and supplies, leaving most of the colonists at Roanoke. He found Elizabeth, Raleigh, and the rest all working to meet the Great Armada. Yet, even during the following year, the momentous year of 1588, Raleigh managed to spare two pinnaces, with fifteen colonists aboard, well provided with all that was most needed. A Spanish squadron, however, forced both pinnaces to run back for their lives. After this frustrated attempt two more years passed before White could again sail for Virginia. In August, 1590, his trumpeter sounded all the old familiar English calls as he approached the little fort. No answer came. The colony was lost for ever. White had arranged that if the colonists should be obliged to move away they should carve the name of the new settlement on the fort or surrounding trees, and that if there was either danger or distress they should cut a cross above. The one word CROATOAN was all White ever found. There was no cross. White's beloved colony, White's favorite daughter and her little girl, were perhaps in hiding. But supplies were running short. White was a mere passenger on board the ship that brought him; and the crew were getting impatient, so impatient for refreshment' and a Spanish prize that they sailed past Croatoan, refusing to stop a single hour. Perhaps White learnt more than is recorded and was satisfied that all the colonists were dead. Perhaps not. Nobody knows. Only a wandering tradition comes out of that impenetrable mystery and circles round the not impossible romance of young Virginia Dare. Her father was one of White's twelve 'Assistants.' Her mother, Eleanor, was White's daughter. Virginia herself, the first of all true 'native-born' Americans, was born on the 18th of August, 1587. Perhaps Manteo, 'Lord of Roanoke,' saved the whole family whose name has been commemorated by that of the North Carolina county of Dare. Perhaps Virginia Dare alone survived to be an 'Indian Queen' about the time the first permanent Anglo-American colony was founded in 1607, twenty years after her birth. Who knows? * * * * * These twenty sundering years, from the end of this abortive colony in 1587 to the beginning of the first permanent colony in 1607, constitute a period that saw the close of one age and the opening of another in every relation of Anglo-American affairs. Nor was it only in Anglo-American affairs that change was rife. 'The Honourable East India Company' entered upon its wonderful career. Shakespeare began to write his immortal plays. The chosen translators began their work on the Authorized Version of the English Bible. The Puritans were becoming a force within the body politic as well as in religion. Ulster was 'planted' with Englishmen and Lowland Scots. In the midst of all these changes the great Queen, grown old and very lonely, died in 1603; and with her ended the glorious Tudor dynasty of England. James, pusillanimous and pedantic son of Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots, ascended the throne as the first of the sinister Stuarts, and, truckling to vindictive Spain, threw Raleigh into prison under suspended sentence of death. There was a break of no less than fifteen years in English efforts to colonize America. Nothing was tried between the last attempt at Roanoke in 1587 and the first attempt in Massachusetts in 1602, when thirty-two people sailed from England with Bartholomew Gosnold, formerly a skipper in Raleigh's employ. Gosnold made straight for the coast of Maine, which he sighted in May. He then coasted south to Cape Cod. Continuing south he entered Buzzard's Bay, where he landed on Cuttyhunk Island. Here, on a little island in a lake--an island within an island--he built a fort round which the colony was expected to grow. But supplies began to run out. There was bad blood over the proper division of what remained. The would-be colonists could not agree with those who had no intention of staying behind. The result was that the entire project had to be given up. Gosnold sailed home with the whole disgusted crew and a cargo of sassafras and cedar. Such was the first prospecting ever done for what is now New England. The following year, 1603, just after the death of Queen Elizabeth, some merchant-venturers of Bristol sent out two vessels under Martin Pring. Like Gosnold, Pring first made the coast of Maine and then felt his way south. Unlike Gosnold, however, he 'bore into the great Gulfe' of Massachusetts Bay, where he took in a cargo of sassafras at Plymouth Harbor. But that was all the prospecting done this time. There was no attempt at colonizing. Two years later another prospector was sent out by a more important company. The Earl of Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were the chief promoters of this enterprise. Gorges, as 'Lord Proprietary of the Province of Maine,' is a well-known character in the subsequent history of New England. Lord Southampton, as Shakespeare's only patron and greatest personal friend, is forever famous through the world. The chief prospector chosen by the company was George Weymouth, who landed on the coast of Maine, explored a little of the surrounding country, kidnapped five Indians, and returned to England with a glowing account of what he had seen. The cumulative effect of the three expeditions of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth was a revival of interest in colonization. Prominent men soon got together and formed two companies which were formally chartered by King James on the 10th of April, 1606. The 'first' or 'southern colony,' which came to be known as the London Company because most of its members lived there, was authorized to make its 'first plantation at any place upon the coast of Virginia or America between the four-and-thirty and one-and-forty degrees of latitude.' The northern or 'second colony,' afterwards called the Plymouth Company, was authorized to settle any place between 38° and 45° north, thus overlapping both the first company to the south and the French to the north. In the summer of the same year, 1606, Henry Challons took two ships of the Plymouth Company round by the West Indies, where he was caught in a fog by the Spaniards. Later in the season Pring went out and explored 'North Virginia.' In May, 1607, a hundred and twenty men, under George Popham, started to colonize this 'North Virginia.' In August they landed in Maine at the mouth of the Kennebec, where they built a fort, some houses, and a pinnace. Finding themselves short of provisions, two-thirds of their number returned to England late in the same year. The remaining third passed a terrible winter. Popham died, and Raleigh Gilbert succeeded him as governor. When spring came all the survivors of the colony sailed home in the pinnace they had built and the enterprise was abandoned. The reports of the colonists, after their winter in Maine, were to the effect that the second or northern colony was 'not habitable for Englishmen.' In the meantime the permanent foundation of the first or southern colony, the real Virginia, was well under way. The same number of intending emigrants went out, a hundred and twenty. On the 26th of April, 1607, 'about four a-clocke in the morning, wee descried the Land of Virginia: the same day wee entered into the Bay of Chesupioc' [Chesapeake]. Thus begins the tale of Captain John Smith, of the founding of Jamestown, and of a permanent Virginia, the first of the future United States. Now that we have seen one spot in vast America really become the promise of the 'Inglishe nation' which Raleigh had longed for, we must return once more to Raleigh himself as, mocked by his tantalizing vision, he looked out on a changing world from his secular Mount Pisgah in the prison Tower of London. By this time he had felt both extremes of fortune to the full. During the travesty of justice at his trial the attorney-general, having no sound argument, covered him with slanderous abuse. These are three of the false accusations on which he was condemned to death: 'Viperous traitor,' 'damnable atheist,' and 'spider of hell.' Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, and Grenville, all were dead. So Raleigh, last of the great Elizabethan lions, was caged and baited for the sport of Spain. Six of his twelve years of imprisonment were lightened by the companionship of his wife, Elizabeth Throgmorton, most beautiful of all the late Queen's maids of honor. Another solace was the _History of the World_, the writing of which set his mind free to wander forth at will although his body stayed behind the bars. But the contrast was too poignant not to wring this cry of anguish from his preface: 'Yet when we once come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navigation of this life takes end: Then it is, I say, that our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our life past.' At length, in the spring of 1616, Raleigh was released, though still unpardoned. He and his devoted wife immediately put all that remained of their fortune into a new venture. Twenty years before this he thought he could make 'Discovery of the mighty, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, and of that great and golden city, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, and the natives call Manoa.' Now he would go back to find the El Dorado of his dreams, somewhere inland, that mysterious Manoa among those southern Mountains of Bright Stones which lay behind the Spanish Main. The king's cupidity was roused; and so, in 1617, Raleigh was commissioned as the admiral of fourteen sail. In November he arrived off the coast that guarded all the fabled wealth still lying undiscovered in the far recesses of the Orinocan wilds. _Guiana, Manoa, El Dorado_--the inland voices called him on. But Spaniards barred the way; and Raleigh, defying the instructions of the King, attacked them. The English force was far too weak and disaster followed. Raleigh's son and heir was killed and his lieutenant committed suicide. His men began to mutiny. Spanish troops and ships came closing in; and the forlorn remnant of the expedition on which such hopes were built went straggling home to England. There Raleigh was arrested and sent to the block on the 29th of October, 1618. He had played the great game of life-and-death and lost it. When he mounted the scaffold, he asked to see the axe. Feeling the edge, he smiled and said: 'Tis a sharp medicine, but a cure for all diseases.' Then he bared his neck and died like one who had served the Great Queen as her Captain of the Guard. CHAPTER XII DRAKE'S END Drake in disfavor after 1589 seems a contradiction that nothing can explain. It can, however, be quite easily explained, though never explained away. He had simply failed to make the Lisbon Expedition pay--a heinous offence in days when the navy was as much a revenue department as the customs or excise. He had also failed to take Lisbon itself. The reasons why mattered nothing either to the disappointed government or to the general public. But, six years later, in 1595, when Drake was fifty and Hawkins sixty-three, England called on them both to strike another blow at Spain. Elizabeth was helping Henry IV of France against the League of French and Spanish Catholics. Henry, astute as he was gallant, had found Paris 'worth a mass' and, to Elizabeth's dismay, had gone straight over to the Church of Rome with terms of toleration for the Huguenots. The war against the Holy League, however, had not yet ended. The effect of Henry's conversion was to make a more united France against the encroaching power of Spain. And every eye in England was soon turned on Drake and Hawkins for a stroke at Spanish power beyond the sea. Drake and Hawkins formed a most unhappy combination, made worse by the fact that Hawkins, now old beyond his years, soured by misfortune, and staled for the sea by long spells of office work, was put in as a check on Drake, in whom Elizabeth had lost her former confidence. Sir Thomas Baskerville was to command the troops. Here, at least, no better choice could have possibly been made. Baskerville had fought with rare distinction in the Brest campaign and before that in the Netherlands. There was the usual hesitation about letting the fleet go far from home. The 'purely defensive' school was still strong; Elizabeth in certain moods belonged to it; and an incident which took place about this time seemed to give weight to the arguments of the defensivists. A small Spanish force, obliged to find water and provisions in a hurry, put into Mousehole in Cornwall and, finding no opposition, burnt several villages down to the ground. The moment these Spaniards heard that Drake and Hawkins were at Plymouth they decamped. But this ridiculous raid threw the country into doubt or consternation. Elizabeth was as brave as a lion for herself. But she never grasped the meaning of naval strategy, and she was supersensitive to any strong general opinion, however false. Drake and Hawkins, with Baskerville's troops (all in transports) and many supply vessels for the West India voyage, were ordered to cruise about Ireland and Spain looking for enemies. The admirals at once pointed out that this was the work of the Channel Fleet, not that of a joint expedition bound for America. Then, just as the Queen was penning an angry reply, she received a letter from Drake, saying that the chief Spanish treasure ship from Mexico had been seen in Porto Rico little better than a wreck, and that there was time to take her if they could only sail at once. The expedition was on the usual joint-stock lines and Elizabeth was the principal shareholder. She swallowed the bait whole; and sent sailing orders down to Plymouth by return. And so, on the 28th of August, 1595, twenty-five hundred men in twenty-seven vessels sailed out, bound for New Spain. Surprise was essential; for New Spain, taught by repeated experience, was well armed; and twenty-five hundred men were less formidable now than five hundred twenty years before. Arrived at the Canaries, Las Palmas was found too strong to carry by immediate assault; and Drake had no time to attack it in form. He was two months late already; so he determined to push on to the West Indies. When Drake reached Porto Rico, he found the Spanish in a measure forewarned and forearmed. Though he astonished the garrison by standing boldly into the harbor and dropping anchor close to a masked battery, the real surprise was now against him. The Spanish gunners got the range to an inch, brought down the flagship's mizzen, knocked Drake's chair from under him, killed two senior officers beside him, and wounded many more. In the meantime Hawkins, worn out by his exertions, had died. This reception, added to the previous failures and the astonishing strength of Porto Rico, produced a most depressing effect. Drake weighed anchor and went out. He was soon back in a new place, cleverly shielded from the Spanish guns by a couple of islands. After some more manoeuvres he attacked the Spanish fleet with fire-balls and by boarding. When a burning frigate lit up the whole wild scene, the Spanish gunners and musketeers poured into the English ships such a concentrated fire that Drake was compelled to retreat. He next tried the daring plan of running straight into the harbor, where there might still be a chance. But the Spaniards sank four of their own valuable vessels in the harbor mouth--guns, stores, and all--just in the nick of time, and thus completely barred the way. Foiled again, Drake dashed for the mainland, seized La Hacha, burnt it, ravaged the surrounding country, and got away with a successful haul of treasure; then he seized Santa Marta and Nombre de Dios, both of which were found nearly empty. The whole of New Spain was taking the alarm--_The Dragon's back again!_ Meanwhile a fleet of more than twice Drake's strength was coming out from Spain to attack him in the rear. Nor was this all, for Baskerville and his soldiers, who had landed at Nombre de Dios and started overland, were in full retreat along the road from Panama, having found an impregnable Spanish position on the way. It was a sad beginning for 1596, the centennial year of England's first connection with America. 'Since our return from Panama he never carried mirth nor joy in his face,' wrote one of Baskerville's officers who was constantly near Drake. A council of war was called and Drake, making the best of it, asked which they would have, Truxillo, the port of Honduras, or the 'golden towns' round about Lake Nicaragua. 'Both,' answered Baskerville, 'one after the other.' So the course was laid for San Juan on the Nicaragua coast. A head wind forced Drake to anchor under the island of Veragua, a hundred and twenty-five miles west of Nombre de Dios Bay and right in the deadliest part of that fever-stricken coast. The men began to sicken and die off. Drake complained at table that the place had changed for the worse. His earlier memories of New Spain were of a land like a 'pleasant and delicious arbour' very different from the 'vast and desert wilderness' he felt all round him now. The wind held foul. More and more men lay dead or dying. At last Drake himself, the man of iron constitution and steel nerves, fell ill and had to keep his cabin. Then reports were handed in to say the stores were running low and that there would soon be too few hands to man the ships. On this he gave the order to weigh and 'take the wind as God had sent it.' So they stood out from that pestilential Mosquito Gulf and came to anchor in the fine harbor of Puerto Bello, which the Spaniards had chosen to replace the one at Nombre de Dios, twenty miles east. Here, in the night of the 27th of January, Drake suddenly sprang out of his berth, dressed himself, and raved of battles, fleets, Armadas, Plymouth Hoe, and plots against his own command. The frenzy passed away. He fell exhausted, and was lifted back to bed again. Then 'like a Christian, he yielded up his spirit quietly.' His funeral rites befitted his renown. The great new Spanish fort of Puerto Bello was given to the flames, as were nearly all the Spanish prizes, and even two of his own English ships; for there were now no sailors left to man them. Thus, amid the thunder of the guns whose voice he knew so well, and surrounded by consuming pyres afloat and on the shore, his body was committed to the deep, while muffled drums rolled out their last salute and trumpets wailed his requiem. APPENDIX NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING In the sixteenth century there was no hard-and-fast distinction between naval and all other craft. The sovereign had his own fighting vessels; and in the course of the seventeenth century these gradually evolved into a Royal Navy maintained entirely by the country as a whole and devoted solely to the national defence. But in earlier days this modern system was difficult everywhere and impossible in England. The English monarch, for all his power, had no means of keeping up a great army and navy without the help of Parliament and the general consent of the people. The Crown had great estates and revenues; but nothing like enough to make war on a national scale. Consequently king and people went into partnership, sometimes in peace as well as war. When fighting stopped, and no danger seemed to threaten, the king would use his men-of-war in trade himself, or even hire them out to merchants. The merchants, for their part, furnished vessels to the king in time of war. Except as supply ships, however, these auxiliaries were never a great success. The privateers built expressly for fighting were the only ships that could approach the men-of-war. Yet, strangely enough, King Henry's first modern men-of-war grew out of a merchant-ship model, and a foreign one at that. Throughout ancient and medieval times the 'long ship' was the man-of-war while the 'round ship' was the merchantman. But the long ship was always some sort of galley, which, as we have seen repeatedly, depended on its oars and used sails only occasionally, and then not in action, while the round ship was built to carry cargo and to go under sail. The Italian naval architects, then the most scientific in the world, were trying to evolve two types of vessel: one that could act as light cavalry on the wings of a galley fleet, the other that could carry big cargoes safely through the pirate-haunted seas. In both types sail power and fighting power were essential. Finally a compromise resulted and the galleasse appeared. The galleasse was a hybrid between the galley and the sailing vessel, between the 'long ship' that was several times as long as it was broad and the 'round ship' that was only two or three times as long as its beam. Then, as the oceanic routes gained on those of the inland seas, and as oceanic sea power gained in the same proportion, the galleon appeared. The galleon had no oars at all, as the hybrid galleasses had, and it gained more in sail power than it lost by dropping oars. It was, in fact, the direct progenitor of the old three-decker which some people still alive can well remember. At the time the Cabots and Columbus were discovering America the Venetians had evolved the merchant-galleasse for their trade with London: they called it, indeed, the _galleazza di Londra_. Then, by the time Henry VIII was building his new modern navy, the real galleon had been evolved (out of the Italian new war- and older merchant-galleasses) by England, France, and Scotland; but by England best of all. In original ideas of naval architecture England was generally behind, as she continued to be till well within living memory. Nelson's captains competed eagerly for the command of French prizes, which were better built and from superior designs. The American frigates of 1812 were incomparably better than the corresponding classes in the British service were; and so on in many other instances. But, in spite of being rather slow, conservative, and rule-of-thumb, the English were already beginning to develop a national sea-sense far beyond that of any other people. They could not, indeed, do otherwise and live. Henry's policy, England's position, the dawn of oceanic strategy, and the discovery of America, all combined to make her navy by far the most important single factor in England's problems with the world at large. As with the British Empire now, so with England then: the choice lay between her being either first or nowhere. Henry's reasoning and his people's instinct having led to the same resolve, everyone with any sea-sense, especially shipwrights like Fletcher of Rye, began working towards the best types then obtainable. There were mistakes in plenty. The theory of naval architecture in England was never both sound and strong enough to get its own way against all opposition. But with the issue of life and death always dependent on sea power, and with so many men of every class following the sea, there was at all events the biggest rough-and-tumble school of practical seamanship that any leading country ever had. The two essential steps were quickly taken: first, from oared galleys with very little sail power to the hybrid galleasse with much more sail and much less in the way of oars; secondly, from this to the purely sailing galleon. With the galleon we enter the age of sailing tactics which decided the fate of the oversea world. This momentous age began with Drake and the English galleon. It ended with Nelson and the first-rate, three-decker, ship-of-the-line. But it was one throughout; for its beginning differed from its end no more than a father differs from his son. One famous Tudor vessel deserves some special notice, not because of her excellence but because of her defects. The _Henry Grace à Dieu,_ or _Great Harry_ as she was generally called, launched in 1514, was Henry's own flagship on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. She had a gala suit of sails and pennants, all made of damasked cloth of gold. Her quarters, sides, and tops were emblazoned with heraldic targets. Court artists painted her to show His Majesty on board wearing cloth of gold, edged with the royal ermine; as well as bright crimson jacket, sleeves, and breeches, with a long white feather in his cap. Doubtless, too, His Majesty of France paid her all the proper compliments; while every man who was then what reporters are to-day talked her up to the top of his bent. No single vessel ever had greater publicity till the famous first _Dreadnought_ of our own day appeared in the British navy nearly four hundred years later. But the much advertised _Great Harry_ was not a mighty prototype of a world-wide-copied class of battleships like the modern _Dreadnought_. With her lavish decorations, her towering superstructures fore and aft, and her general aping of a floating castle, she was the wonder of all the landsmen in her own age, as she has been the delight of picturesque historians ever since. But she marked no advance in naval architecture, rather the reverse. She was the last great English ship of medieval times. Twenty-five years after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Henry was commanding another English fleet, the first of modern times, and therefore one in which the out-of-date _Great Harry_ had no proper place at all. She was absurdly top-hampered and over-gunned. And, for all her thousand tons, she must have bucketed about in the chops of the Channel with the same sort of hobby-horse, see-sawing pitch that bothered Captain Concas in 1893 when sailing an exact reproduction of Columbus's flagship, the _Santa Maria_, across the North Atlantic to the great World's Fair at Chicago. In her own day the galleon was the 'great ship,' 'capital ship,' 'ship-of-the-line-of-battle,' or 'battleship' on which the main fight turned. But just as our modern fleets require three principal kinds of vessels--battleships, cruisers, and 'mosquito' craft--so did the fleets of Henry and Elizabeth. The galleon did the same work as the old three-decker of Nelson's time or the battleship of to-day. The 'pinnace' (quite different from more modern pinnaces) was the frigate or the cruiser. And, in Henry VIII's fleet of 1545, the 'row-barge' was the principal 'mosquito' craft, like the modern torpedo-boat, destroyer, or even submarine. Of course the correspondence is far from being complete in any class. The English galleon gradually developed more sail and gun power as well as handiness in action. Broadside fire began. When used against the Armada, it had grown very powerful indeed. At that time the best guns, some of which are still in existence, were nearly as good as those at Trafalgar or aboard the smart American frigates that did so well in '1812.' When galleon broadsides were fired from more than a single deck, the lower ones took enemy craft between wind and water very nicely. In the English navy the portholes had been cut so as to let the guns be pointed with considerable freedom, up or down, right or left. The huge top-hampering 'castles' and other soldier-engineering works on deck were modified or got rid of, while more canvas was used and to much better purpose. The pinnace showed the same sort of improvement during the same period--from Drake's birth under Henry VIII in 1545 to the zenith of his career as a sea-dog in 1588. This progenitor of the frigate and the cruiser was itself descended from the long-boat of the Norsemen and still used oars as occasion served. But the sea-dogs made it primarily a sailing vessel of anything up to a hundred tons and generally averaging over fifty. A smart pinnace, with its long, low, clean-run hull, if well handled under its Elizabethan fighting canvas of foresail and main topsail, could play round a Spanish galleasse or absurdly castled galleon like a lancer on a well-trained charger round a musketeer astraddle on a cart horse.[4] Henry's pinnaces still had lateen sails copied from Italian models. Elizabeth's had square sails prophetic of the frigate's. Henry's had one or a very few small guns. Elizabeth's had as many as sixteen, some of medium size, in a hundred-tonner. [4: Fuller in his _Worthies_ (1662) writes: 'Many were the wit-combats betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, like the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.'] The 'mosquito' fleet of Henry's time was represented by 'row-barges' of his own invention. Now that the pinnace was growing in size and sail power, while shedding half its oars, some new small rowing craft was wanted, during that period of groping transition, to act as a tender or to do 'mosquito' work in action. The mere fact that Henry VIII placed no dependence on oars except for this smallest type shows how far he had got on the road towards the broadside-sailing-ship fleet. On the 16th of July, 1541, the Spanish Naval Attaché (as we should call him now) reported to Charles V that Henry had begun 'to have new oared vessels built after his own design.' Four years later these same 'row-barges'--long, light, and very handy--hung round the sterns of the retreating Italian galleys in the French fleet to very good purpose, plying them with bow-chasers and the two broadside guns, till Strozzi, the Italian galley-admiral, turned back on them in fury, only to see them slip away in perfect order and with complete immunity. By the time of the Armada the mosquito fleet had outgrown these little rowing craft and had become more oceanic. But names, types, and the evolution of one type from another, with the application of the same name to changed and changing types, all tend to confusion unless the subject is followed in such detail as is impossible here. The fleets of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth did far more to improve both the theory and practice of naval gunnery than all the fleets in the world did from the death of Drake to the adoption of rifled ordnance within the memory of living men. Henry's textbook of artillery, republished in 1588, the year of the Armada, contains very practical diagrams for finding the range at sea by means of the gunner's half circle--yet we now think range-finding a very modern thing indeed. There are also full directions for making common and even something like shrapnel shells, 'star shells' to light up the enemy at night, armor-piercing arrows shot out of muskets, 'wild-fire' grenades, and many other ultra-modern devices. Henry established Woolwich Dockyard, second to none both then and now, as well as Trinity House, which presently began to undertake the duties it still discharges by supervising all aids to navigation round the British Isles. The use of quadrants, telescopes, and maps on Mercator's projection all began in the reign of Elizabeth, as did many other inventions, adaptations, handy wrinkles, and vital changes in strategy and tactics. Taken together, these improvements may well make us of the twentieth century wonder whether we are so very much superior to the comrades of Henry, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Bacon, Raleigh, and Drake. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE A complete bibliography concerned with the first century of Anglo-American affairs (1496-1596) would more than fill the present volume. But really informatory books about the sea-dogs proper are very few indeed, while good books of any kind are none too common. Taking this first century as a whole, the general reader cannot do better than look up the third volume of Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (1884) and the first volume of Avery's _History of the United States and its People_ (1904). Both give elaborate references to documents and books, but neither professes to be at all expert in naval or nautical matters, and a good deal has been written since. THE CABOTS. Cabot literature is full of conjecture and controversy. G.P. Winship's _Cabot Bibliography_ (1900) is a good guide to all but recent works. Nicholls' _Remarkable Life of Sebastian Cabot_ (1869) shows more zeal than discretion. Harrisse's _John Cabot and his son Sebastian_ (1896) arranges the documents in scholarly order but draws conclusions betraying a wonderful ignorance of the coast. On the whole, Dr. S.E. Dawson's very careful monographs in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_ (1894, 1896, 1897) are the happiest blend of scholarship and local knowledge. Neither the Cabots nor their crews appear to have written a word about their adventures and discoveries. Consequently the shifting threads of hearsay evidence soon became inextricably tangled. Biggar's _Precursors of Cartier_ is an able and accurate work. ELIZABETH. Turning to the patriot queen who had to steer England through so many storms and tortuous channels, we could find no better short guide to her political career than Beesley's volume about her in 'Twelve English Statesmen.' But the best all-round biography is _Queen Elizabeth_ by Mandell Creighton, who also wrote an excellent epitome, called _The Age of Elizabeth_, for the 'Epochs of Modern History.' _Shakespeare's England_, published in 1916 by the Oxford University Press, is quite encyclopaedic in its range. LIFE AFLOAT. The general evolution of wooden sailing craft may be traced out in Part I of Sir George Holmes's convenient little treatise on _Ancient and Modern Ships_. There is no nautical dictionary devoted to Elizabethan times. But a good deal can be picked up from the two handy modern glossaries of Dana and Admiral Smyth, the first being an American author, the second a British one. Smyth's _Sailor's Word Book_ has no alternative title. But Dana's _Seaman's Friend_ is known in England under the name of _The Seaman's Manual_. Technicalities change so much more slowly afloat than ashore that even the ultra-modern editions of Paasch's magnificent polyglot dictionary, _From Keel to Truck_, still contain many nautical terms which will help the reader out of some of his difficulties. The life of the sea-dogs, gentlemen-adventurers, and merchant-adventurers should be studied in Hakluyt's collection of _Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques, and Discoveries_; though many of his original authors were landsmen while a few were civilians as well. This Elizabethan Odyssey, the great prose epic of the English race, was first published in a single solemn folio the year after the Armada--1589. In the nineteenth century the Hakluyt Society reprinted and edited these _Navigations_ and many similar works, though not without employing some editors who had no knowledge of the Navy or the sea. In 1893 E.J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the _Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America_ which gives the very parts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with a running accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes. Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins of omission and commission are generally at their worst in naval and nautical affairs. But James Anthony Froude, whatever his other faults may be, did know something of life afloat, and his _English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century_, despite its ultra-Protestant tone, is well worth reading. HAWKINS. _The Hawkins Voyages_, published by the Hakluyt Society, give the best collection of original accounts. They deal with three generations of this famous family and are prefaced by a good introduction. _A Sea-Dog of Devon_, by R.A.J. Walling (1907) is the best recent biography of Sir John Hawkins. DRAKE. Politics, policy, trade, and colonization were all dependent on sea power; and just as the English Navy was by far the most important factor in solving the momentous New-World problems of that awakening age, so Drake was by far the most important factor in the English Navy. _The Worlde Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ and _Sir Francis Drake his Voyage_, 1595, are two of the volumes edited by the Hakluyt Society. But these contemporary accounts of his famous fights and voyages do not bring out the supreme significance of his influence as an admiral, more especially in connection with the Spanish Armada. It must always be a matter of keen, though unavailing, regret that Admiral Mahan, the great American expositor of sea power, began with the seventeenth, not the sixteenth, century. But what Mahan left undone was afterwards done to admiration by Julian Corbett, Lecturer in History to the (British) Naval War College, whose _Drake and the Tudor Navy_ (1912) is absolutely indispensable to any one who wishes to understand how England won her footing in America despite all that Spain could do to stop her. Corbett's _Drake_ (1890) in the 'English Men of Action' series is an excellent epitome. But the larger book is very much the better. Many illuminative documents on _The Defeat of the Spanish Armada_ were edited in 1894 by Corbett's predecessor, Sir John Laughton. The only other work that need be consulted is the first volume of _The Royal Navy: a History_, edited by Sir William Laird Clowes (1897). This is not so good an authority as Corbett; but it contains many details which help to round the story out, besides a wealth of illustration. RALEIGH. Gilbert, Cavendish, Raleigh, and the other gentlemen-adventurers, were soldiers, not sailors; and if they had gone afloat two centuries later they would have fought at the head of marines, not of blue-jackets; so their lives belong to a different kind of biography from that concerned with Hawkins, Frobisher. and Drake. Edwards's _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_ (1868) contains all the most interesting letters and is a competent work of its own kind. Oldys' edition of Raleigh's _Works_ still holds the field though its eight volumes were published so long ago as 1829. Raleigh's _Discovery of Guiana_ is the favorite for reprinting. The Hakluyt Society has produced an elaborate edition (1847) while a very cheap and handy one has been published in Cassell's National Library. W.G. Gosling's _Life of Sir Humphry Gilbert_ (1911) is the best recent work of its kind. The likeliest of all the Hakluyt Society's volumes, so far as its title is concerned, is one which has hardly any direct bearing on the subject of our book. Yet the reader who is disappointed by the text of _Divers Voyages to America_ because it is not devoted to Elizabethan sea-dogs will be richly rewarded by the notes on pages 116-141. These quaint bits of information and advice were intended for quite another purpose, But their transcriber's faith in their wider applicability is fully justified. Here is the exact original heading under which they first appeared: _Notes in Writing besides More Privie by Mouth that were given by a Gentleman, Anno 1580, to M. Arthure Pette and to M. Charles Jackman, sent by the Marchants of the Muscovie Companie for the discouerie of the northeast strayte, not all together vnfit for some other enterprises of discouerie hereafter to bee taken in hande._ See also in _The Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th Ed. the articles on _Henry VIII_, _Elizabeth_, _Drake_, _Raleigh_, etc. Index Alva, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, 98 et seq. Amadas, in America (1584), 151, 210 America; an obstacle to the circumnavigation of the world, 11; as a reputed source of gold and silver, 65 _Angel_, The, ship, 86 Anton, Señor Juan de, 133 Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English at Lisbon, 194 Antwerp, 98, 99, 100 Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214 Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86 Azores, 150, 169, 194 Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141 Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210 Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19 Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210 Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq. Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200 Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216 'Bond of Association,' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4 Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3 Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206 Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1; Cabottággio, 2; reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7; returns to Bristol, 7; receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8; disappears at sea (1498),8-9, 14; believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11; bibliography, 241 Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9; takes command of expedition to America, 9; leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9; coasts Greenland, 12; explores Atlantic Coast, 12; enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea,' 15; Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots,' 15; determines longitude of Moluccas, 15; voyage to South America, 15; makes a map of the world, 15; leaves Spain for England(1548), 16; receives pension from Edward VI, 16; feasts at Gravesend with the _Serchthrift_, 16-17; Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31; sailing of the _Serchthrift_, 32; bibliography, 241 Cadiz, 165 et seq. California, 137, 138, 212 Canaries, 157, 226 Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7 Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18 Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167 Caribs, 80, 158 Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160 Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq., 156, 159 Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12; discovers St. Lawrence, 71 Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11; Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30 Cavendish, Thomas, 212 Cecil, Sir Robert, 206 Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25; his dominions, 23; feud with France, 23-24; hostile to England, 29; Spanish dominion, 71; father of Don John of Austria, 117 Chesapeake Bay, 220 Cockeram, Martin, 34 Coligny, Admiral, 207 Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2; visit to Iceland, 3; fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13; reasons for his significance, 13; 400th anniversary of his discovery, 14; replica of the _Santa Maria_, 235 _Complaynt of Scotland_, The, 42 _Cordial Advice_, 40 Corunna, 178, 192 Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14 Croatoan Island, 213 et seq. Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95 Cumberland, Earl of, 197 Cuttyhunk Island, 216 Dare, Virginia, 215 _Delight_, The, ship, 209 De Soto, 19, 81 Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq., 127 _Dragon_, The, ship, 101 Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28; on the _Minion_, 92; Son of Edmund Drake, 95; boyhood, 96 et seq.; as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100; marries Mary Newman, 100; sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq.; Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104; sees the Pacific, 110; attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq.; returns to England (1573), 114; goes to Ireland, 115; recalled for consultation, 118; audience with the Queen, 119; plans to raid the Pacific, 119; sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120; his _Famous Voyage_ (1577), 121; has trouble with Doughty, 124; whom he puts to death, 125; winters in Patagonia, 125; overcomes disaffection of his men, 126; sails through Straits of Magellan, 128; enters Pacific, 128; takes the _Grand Captain of the South_, 129; scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130; at Lima, 130; pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131; captures Don Juan de Anton, 133; sails north, 137; considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq.; arrives at Moluccas, 141; lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142; _Golden Hind_ aground, 142; uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144; arrives at Plymouth, 145; knighted by Elizabeth, 148; plans a raid on New Spain, 151; prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153; calls at Vigo, 155; plans a raid on New Spain, 156; captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157; takes Cartagena, 159; calls at Roanoke, 162; arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162; expedition to Cadiz, 165; arrests Borough, 167; conquers Sagres Castle, 167; takes Spanish treasure ship, 169; defeats the Armada, 172-191; undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192; his achievement, 201; in disfavor, 223; in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224; West Indies voyage, 225; seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227; his last days, 228; his death, 229; bibliography, 243-4 Drake, Edmund, 95 Drake, Jack, 121, 132 Drake's Bay, 138 East India Company, 63, 171, 215 Edward VI, 29, 50 Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq.; early life, 50; and Mary, 51; and Anne of Cleves, 51; ascends the throne, 52; difficulty of her position, 53; and finance, 55; her court, 68; her love of luxury, 68-69; commandeers Spanish gold, 99; deposed by Pope, 100; tortuous Spanish policy, 117; consults Drake, 119; receives Drake on his return, 146; banquets on the _Golden Hind_, 148; knights Drake, 148; Babington Plot again, 163; beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165; the Armada, 176 et seq.; the Lisbon expedition, 192; dies, 216; bibliography, 242 _Elizabeth_, The, ship, 121 Essex, Earl of, 116, 118 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234 Fleming, Captain, 179, 190 Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143 Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26; as a shipwright, 233 Florida, 81, 82, 162 Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71 Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220 Fuller, Thomas, author of _The Worthies of England_, 101, 237 Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135 Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2 _George Noble_, The, ship, 198 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210 Gilbert, Raleigh, 219 _God Save the King!_ 95 _Golden Hind_, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq., 136, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 154, 179 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217 Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216 _Grand Captain of the South_, The, ship, 129 Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190 _Great Harry_, The, ship, 234 Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq., 220 Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60 _Hakluyt's Voyages_, 33 Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq. Harriot, Thomas, 212 Harrison's description of England, 69-70 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146 Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34; enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74; takes 300 slaves at Sierra Leona, 75; second expedition (1564), 75; issues sailing orders, 76; John Sparke's account, 77; at Teneriffe, 77; meets Peter de Ponte, 78; Arbol Santo tree, 78; takes many Sapies, 79; at Sambula, 79; island of the Cannibals, 80; makes for Florida, 80; finds French settlement, 82 et seq.; sells the _Tiger_, 85; sails north to Newfoundland, 85; arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85; a favorite at court, 85; watched by Spain, 86; sets out on third voyage (1567), 86; begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86; Drake joins the expedition, 86; disasters, 87; crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88; clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88; at Cartagena, 89; at St. John de Ulua, 89; fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq.; parted from Drake in a storm, 93; leaves part of his men ashore, 93; voyage ends in disaster, 94; strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223; unhappily combined with Drake, 224; sails for New Spain 226; dies, 226; bibliography, 243 Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt _Voyages_, 33 et seq.; father of Sir John Hawkins, 34; grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35, and of the second William Hawkins, 35 Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 Henry IV of France, 223 Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3; refuses to patronize Columbus, 4; gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6 Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20; establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21; a patron of sailors, 22; menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25; defies the Pope, 25; defies Francis I, 26; birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28; and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34; as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq. _Henry Grace à Dieu_, The, ship, 234 Honduras, 156, 228 Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq. Hortop, Job, 94 Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197 Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12 India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11 Ingram, David, 94 Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73 Ireland, 147, 191 Jackman, 122 James I of England, 216, 218 Jefferys, Thomas, 66 _Jesus_, The, ship, see _Jesus of Lubeck_ _Jesus of Lubeck_, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq. _Judith_, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq., 98 Knollys, 154 _La Dragontea_, by Lope de Vega, 157 La Hacha, 156, 227 Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212 La Rochelle, 100 Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq. Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176 Lepanto, 117, 185 Lima, 130, 135, 144 Lines of Torres Vedras, 194 Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq. Lloyd's, 59-61 London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218 Lope de Vega, 157 Madrid, 86, 172 Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128 Manoa, 221, 222 Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest dated (1500) map of America, 14; of world by Sebastian Cabot (1544), 15; of America by Thomas Jefferys, 66 Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129 Martin, Don, 134, 153 Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50 et seq., 117, 121, 149, 152, 163, 164, 216 _Matthew_, The, ship, 7 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175 Mendoza, 119 Menendez, 115, 150 Middleton, Captain, 197 _Minion_, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq. Monopoly, 58, 66 Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161 Mosquito, Lopez de, 141 Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222 Muscovy Company, 16, 31 Navigation, encouraged by Henry VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking discovered, 26; birth of modern sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37 et seq.; nautical terms, 42 et seq.; Pette and Jackman's advice to traders, 122-123 ftn.; Francisco de Zarate's account of Drake's _Golden Hind_, 136-137; appendix; note on Tudor shipping, 231-239; bibliography, 242 New Albion, 136, 140 Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62 New France, 72, 205 Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq., 12O, 135, 156, 227 Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193 Northwest Passage, 120, 137 Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144 Pacific Ocean, taken possession of by Balboa (1513), 18; Drake enters, 128 et seq. Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227 Parma, 172 et seq., 189 _Pascha_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114 Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188 _Pelican_, The, ship, 121, 127 Philip of Spain, marries Queen Mary, 31; protests against Drake's actions, 87; plans to seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers sack Antwerp, 116; seizes Portugal, 144; prepares a fleet, 150; Paris plot with Mary, 150; seizes English merchant fleet, 152; duped by Hawkins, 153; his credit low, 163; resumes mobilization, 172; prepares the Armada, 174 et seq. Philippines, Vasco da Gama reaches, 19; Drake sails to, 141 Pines, Isle of, 103 Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, 162, 178-180, 217, 225 Plymouth Company, 218 Pole of _Plimmouth_, The, ship, 33 Ponte, Peter de, 78 Popham, George, 219 Porto Rico, 225, 226 Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130 _Primrose_, The, ship, 152 Pring, Martin, 217 Puerto Bello. 229 Purchas, Samuel, 203 Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213 _Raleigh_, The, ship, 209 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222; bibliography, 244-245 Ranse, 103, 108 _Revenge_, The, ship, 188, 192-204 Ribaut, Jean, 82 Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq. Sagres Castle, 167 St. Augustine, 86, 162 San Domingo, 156, 157, 161 _San Felipe_, The, ship, 197 et seq. San Francisco, 137, 138 San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153 _Santa Anna_, The, ship, 212 Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq. Santa Marta, 156, 227 Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153 _Serchthrift_, The, ship, 16-17, 32 Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239 Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195 Slave Trade, 74 et seq. _Solomon_, The, ship, 76 Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96 Southampton, Earl of, 217 Spain, rights of discovery, 6; Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73; breach with England, 72; Spanish gold in London, 73; Spaniards in Florida, 81-82; the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116; Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171; Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191; Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq.; the last fight of the _Revenge_, 197 et seq. Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage to Florida, 77 et seq. _Spitfire_, The, ship, 132 _Squirrel_, The, ship, 210 _Swallow_, The, ship, 86 _Swan_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129 Teneriffe, 77-78 Ternate, Island of, 141, 142 Têtu, Capt., 112 et seq. Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220 _Tiger_, The, ship, 60, 85, 154 Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194 Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18 Venice, importance in trade, 2; Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2 Venta Cruz, 111 Vera Cruz, 89 Verrazano, 71 Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219 Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146 West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq. _Westward Ho!_ Kingsley's, 105 Weymouth, George, 218 White, John, 212 et seq. _William and John_, The, ship, 86 William of Orange, 152, 207. Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30; dies in Lapland, 30 Woolwich, 153, 238 _Worthies of England_, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237 Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136 
29304	----	IN THE DAYS OF DRAKE BY J. S. FLETCHER, AUTHOR OF "WHEN CHARLES I. WAS KING," "WHERE HIGHWAYS CROSS." CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY. MDCCCXCVII. Copyright, 1897, by Rand, McNally & Co. INTRODUCTION. In the whole history of the English people there is no period so absolutely heroic, so full of enthralling interest, as that in which the might of England made itself apparent by land and sea--the period which saw good Queen Bess mistress of English hearts and Englishmen and sovereign of the great beginnings which have come to such a magnificent fruition under Victoria. That was indeed a golden time--an age of great venture and enterprise--a period wherein men's hearts were set on personal valor and bravery--the day of great deeds and of courage most marvelous. To write down a catalogue of all the names that then were glorious, to make a list of all the daring deeds that then were done--this were an impossible task for the most painstaking of statisticians, the most conscientious of historians and chroniclers. For there were men in those days who achieved world-wide fame, such as Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Raleigh, Grenville, and Gilbert--but there were also other men, the rough "sea-dogs" of that time, whose names have never been remembered, or even recorded, and who were yet heroes of a quality not inferior to their commanders and leaders. All men of that age whose calling led them to adventure and enterprise could scarcely fail to find opportunity for heroism, self-denial, and sacrifice, and thus the Elizabethan Englishman of whatever station stands out to us of these later days as a great figure--the type and emblem of the England that was to be. It is this fact that makes the Elizabethan period so fascinating and so full of romance and glamour. Whenever we call it up before our mind's eye it is surrounded for us with all those qualities which go toward making a great picture. There is the awful feud 'twixt England, the modern spirit making toward progress and civilization, and Spain, the well-nigh worn-out retrogressive force that would dam the river of human thought. There is the spectacle of the Armada, baffled and beaten, and of the English war-ships under men like Drake and Frobisher, dropping like avenging angels upon some Spanish port and working havoc on the Spanish treasure galleons. There, too, are the figures of men like Grenville and Raleigh, born adventurers, leaders of men, who knew how to die as bravely and fearlessly as they had lived. And beyond all the glory and adventure there looms in the background of the picture the black cruelties of Spain, practiced in the dark corners of the earth, against which the English spirit of that day never ceased from protesting with speech and sword. It was well for the world that in that fierce contest England triumphed. Had Spain succeeded in perpetuating its hellish system, how different would life in east and west have been! But it was God's will that not Spain but England should win--and so to-day we find the English-speaking peoples of the world in Great Britain and America, in Australia and Africa, free, enlightened, full of great purpose and noble aims, working out in very truth their own salvation. It is when one comes to think of this, that one first realizes the immeasurable thanks due to the heroes, known and unknown, of the Elizabethan age. Whether they stand high on the scroll of fame or lie forgotten in some quiet graveyard or in the vast oceans which they crossed, it was they, and they only, who laid the great foundations of the England and the United States of to-day. J. S. FLETCHER. IN THE DAYS OF DRAKE. CHAPTER I. OF MY HOME, FRIENDS, AND SURROUNDINGS. Now that I am an old man, and have some leisure, which formerly I did not enjoy, I am often minded to write down my memories of that surprising and remarkable adventure of mine, which began in the year 1578, and came to an end, by God's mercy, two years later. There are more reasons than one why I should engage in this task. Every Christmas brings a houseful of grandchildren and young folks about me, and they, though they have heard it a dozen times already, are never tired of hearing me re-tell the story which seems to them so wonderful. Then, again, I am often visited by folk who have heard of my travels, and would fain have particulars of them from my own lips; so that ofttimes I have to tell my tale, or part of it, a dozen times in the year. Nay, upon one occasion I even told it to the King's majesty, which was when I went up to London on some tiresome law business. Sir Ralph Wood, who is my near neighbor and a Parliament man, had mentioned me to the King, and so I had to go to Whitehall and tell my story before the court, which was a hard matter for a plain-spoken country gentleman, as you may well believe. Now all these matters have oft prompted me to write down my story, so that when any visitor of mine might ask me for it, I could satisfy him without trouble to myself, by simply putting the manuscript into his hand and bidding him read what I had there written. But until this present time I have never seemed to have opportunity such as I desired, for my duties as magistrate and church-warden have been neither light nor unimportant. Now that I have resigned them to younger hands, I have leisure time of my own, and therefore I shall now proceed to carry out the intention which has been in my mind for many years. I was born at York, in the year 1558. My father, Richard Salkeld was the youngest son of Oliver Salkeld, lord-of-the-manor of Beechcot-on-the-Wold, and he practiced in York as an attorney. Whether he did well or ill in this calling I know not, for at the early age of six years I was left an orphan. My father being seized by a fever, my mother devoted herself to nursing him, which was a right and proper thing to do; but the consequence was disastrous, for she also contracted the disease, and they both died, leaving me alone in the world. However, I was not long left in this sad condition, for there presently appeared my uncle, Sir Thurstan Salkeld of Beechcot, who settled my father's affairs and took me away with him. I was somewhat afraid of him at first, for he was a good twenty years older than my father, and wore a grave, severe air. Moreover, he had been knighted by the Queen for his zealous conduct in administering the law. But I presently found him to be exceeding kind of heart, and ere many months were over I had grown fond of him, and of Beechcot. He had never married, and was not likely to, and so to the folks round about his home he now introduced me as his adopted son and heir. And thus things went very pleasantly for me, and, as children will, I soon forgot my early troubles. I think we had nothing to cause us any vexation or sorrow at Beechcot until Dame Barbara Stapleton and her son Jasper came to share our lot. Jasper was then a lad of my own age, and like me an orphan, and the nephew of Sir Thurstan. His mother, Sir Thurstan's sister, had married Devereux Stapleton, an officer in the Queen's household, and when she was left a widow she returned to Beechcot and quartered herself and her boy on her brother. Thereafter we had trouble one way or another, for Dame Barbara could not a-bear to think that I was preferred before her own boy as Sir Thurstan's heir. Nor did she scruple to tell Sir Thurstan her thoughts on the matter, on one occasion at any rate, for I heard them talking in the great hall when they fancied themselves alone. "'Tis neither right nor just," said Dame Barbara, "that you should make one nephew your son and heir to the exclusion of the other. What! is not Jasper as much your own flesh and blood as Humphrey?" "You forget that Humphrey is a Salkeld in name as well as in blood," said Sir Thurstan. "If the lad's father, my poor brother Richard, had lived, he would have succeeded me as lord of Beechcot. Therefore, 'tis but right that Dick's boy should step into his father's place." "To the hurt of my poor Jasper!" sighed Dame Barbara. "Jasper is a Stapleton," answered Sir Thurstan. "However, sister, I will do what is right as regards your lad. I will charge myself with the cost of his education and training, and will give him a start in life, and maybe leave him a goodly sum of money when I die. Therefore, make your mind easy on that point." But I knew, though I was then but a lad, that she would never give over fretting herself at the thought that I was to be lord of all the broad acres and wide moors of Beechcot, and that Jasper would be but a landless man. And so, though she never dare flout or oppress me in any way, for fear of Sir Thurstan's displeasure, she, without being openly unfavorable, wasted no love on me, and no doubt often wished me out of the way. At that time Jasper and I contrived to get on very well together. We were but lads, and there was no feeling of rivalry between us. Indeed, I do not think there would ever have been rivalry between us if that foolish woman, my Aunt Barbara, had not begun sowing the seeds of discord in her son's mind. But as soon as he was old enough to understand her, she began talking to him of Beechcot and its glories, pointing out to him the wide park and noble trees, the broad acres filled with golden grain, and the great moors that stretched away for miles towards the sea; and she said, no doubt, how grand a thing it would be to be lord of so excellent an estate, and how a man might enjoy himself in its possession. Then she told him that I was to have all these things when Sir Thurstan died, and thereafter my cousin Jasper hated me. But he let his hate smoulder within him a good while before he showed it openly. One day, however, when we were out in the park with our bows, he began to talk of the matter, and after a time we got to high words. "My mother tells me, Humphrey," said he, "that when my uncle Thurstan dies all these fair lands will pass to thee. That is not right." "'Tis our uncle's land to do with as he pleases," I answered. "We have naught to do with it. If he likes to leave it to me, what hast thou to say in the matter? 'Tis his affair; not thine, Master Jasper. Besides, I am a Salkeld, and you are not." "Is not my mother a Salkeld?" he asked. "It counts not by the mother," I answered. "And, moreover, my father would have heired the estate had he lived. But be not down-hearted about it, Jasper, I will see that thou art provided for. When I am lord of Beechcot I will make thee my steward." Now, that vexed him sore, and he flew into a violent rage, declaring that he would serve no man, and me last of all; and so violent did he become that he was foolish to look at, and thereupon I laughed at him. At that his rage did but increase, and he presently fitted an arrow to his bow and shot at me meaning, I doubt not, to put an end to me forever. But by good fortune his aim mischanced, and the arrow did no more than pin me to the tree by which I stood, passing through my clothes between the arm and the body. And at that we were both sobered, and Jasper cooled his hot temper. "What wouldst thou have done if the arrow had passed through my heart, as it might easily have chanced to do?" I inquired of him. "I would have gone home and told them that I had killed thee by accident," he answered readily enough. "Thou wouldst have been dead, and therefore no one could have denied my tale." I said naught to that, but I there and then made up my mind that if ever I went shooting with him again I would keep my eyes open. For I now saw that he was not only false, but also treacherous. Indeed, I was somewhat minded to go to my uncle and tell him what had taken place between us, but I remembered that the good knight was not fond of carried tales, and therefore I refrained. After that there was peace for some years, Dame Barbara having evidently made up her mind to take things as they were. She was mortally afraid of offending Sir Thurstan, for she had no jointure or portion of her own, and was totally dependent upon his charity for a sustenance. This made her conduct herself towards me with more consideration than I should otherwise have received from her. Possibly she thought that it might be well to keep in good favor with me in view of my succeeding Sir Thurstan at no distant period. At any rate I had no more trouble with Jasper, and I overheard no more unpleasant discussions between Dame Barbara and the knight. From our tenth year upwards Jasper and myself daily attended the vicarage, in order to be taught Greek, Latin, and other matters by the Reverend Mr. Timotheus Herrick, vicar of Beechcot. He was a tall, thin, spindle-shanked gentleman, very absent-minded, but a great scholar. It was said of him, that if he had not married a very managing woman in the shape of Mistress Priscilla Horbury, he would never have got through the world. He had one child, Rose, of whom you will hear somewhat in this history, and she was three years younger than myself. When Jasper and I were thirteen and Rose ten years of age, she began to learn with us, and presently made such progress that she caught up to us, and then passed us, and so made us ashamed of ourselves. After that she was always in advance of us, and we used to procure her help in our lessons; then she lorded it over us, as little maidens will over big lads, and we were her humble slaves in everything. CHAPTER II. PHARAOH NANJULIAN. Now it chanced that one afternoon in the June of 1575 Jasper and I were on our way from the vicarage to the manor, our lessons for that day being over. We had to pass through the village of Beechcot on our homeward journey, and it was when we were opposite the inn, then kept by Geoffrey Scales, that there occurred an incident which was to have a greater influence upon our future lives than we then imagined. In the wide space by the inn, formed by the meeting of four roads, there was gathered together a goodly company of people, who seemed to be talking as one man, and looking as with one eye at something in their midst. "What have we here?" said Jasper, as we paused. "Is it some bear-ward with his bear, or one of those wandering Italians that go about with a guitar and a monkey?" "I hear no music," said I. "It seems to be something of more importance than either bear or monkey. Let us see for ourselves." So we ran forward and joined the crowd, which began presently to make way for us. Then we saw that nearly everybody in the village, saving only the men who were at work in the fields, had run together with one accord in order to stare and wonder at a man, who sat on the bench just outside the ale-house door. It was clear to me at once that he was not a native of those parts, and might possibly be a foreigner. He seemed to be of thirty-five or forty years of age, his skin and hair were very dark, and he wore a great black beard, which looked as if it had known neither comb nor scissors for many a long month. Also he was of great size and height, and on his brawny arms, which were bare from the elbows downwards, there were figures and patterns traced in blue and red, so that I at once set him down for a sailor, who had seen much life in strange countries. As for his garments, they were much stained and worn, and his feet, which were naked, were evidently callous and hardened enough to stand even the roughest roads. When we first set eyes upon him the man was leaning back against the wall of the ale-house, looking defiantly at John Broad, the constable, who stood by him, and at Geoffrey Scales, the landlord, who stood behind Broad. In the rear, holding his chin with one hand, and looking exceeding rueful of countenance, stood Peter Pipe, the drawer. All round them hung the crowd of men and women, lads and lasses, staring open-mouthed at the great man with the black beard. "What's all this?" said I, as we pushed our way to the front. The sailor jumped to his feet and touched his forelock civilly enough. He looked at John Broad. "Marry, Master Humphrey," answered John Broad, "you see this great fellow here, with a beard so long as the Turks? A' cometh into our village here, God knows where from, and must needs fall to breaking the heads of peaceable and honest men." "'Tis a lie," said the sailor. "At least, that part of it which refers to peaceable and honest men. As to the breaking of heads, I say naught." "But whose head hath he broken?" asked Jasper. "Mine, sir," whined Peter Pipe. "God ha' mercy!--it sings like Benjamin Good's bees when they are hiving." "And why did he break thy head?" "Let him say," said the sailor. "Aye, let him say." Peter Pipe shuffled his feet and looked out of his eye-corners. He was a creature of no spirit, and always in deadly fear of something or somebody. "Maybe he will clout me again," said Peter. "Fear not," said the sailor. "I would not hurt thee, thou two-penny-halfpenny drawer of small beer. Say on." "This man, then, Master Humphrey, a' cometh into our kitchen and demands a pot of ale. So I fetched it to him and he paid me--" "Was his money good?" "Oh, aye, good money enough, I warrant him," said Geoffrey Scales. "I said naught to the contrary," continued Peter. "But no sooner had he drunk than he fell to cursing me for a thief, and swore that I had served him with small beer, and with that he caught up the tankard and heaved it at me with such force that my jaw is well-nigh broken." "And didst serve him with small beer?" "I serve him with small beer! Nay, Master Humphrey, bethink you. As if I did not know the difference betwixt small beer and good ale!" "That thou dost not," said the sailor. "Young sir, listen to me. I know thee not, and I fear thee not, and I know not why I should trouble to talk to thee. But thou seemest to be in authority." "'Tis Sir Thurstan's nephew," whispered the constable. "What know I of Sir Thurstan? Young sir, I am a man of Cornwall, and my name it is Pharaoh Nanjulian. They know me in Marazion. I have been on a venture to the North Seas--plague take it, there is naught but ice and snow there, with white bears twenty feet long--" "List to him!" said someone in the crowd. "I will show thee the white bear's trick, an' thou doubtest me. But to proceed. Young sir, we were wrecked--sixteen good men and true we were--off the Norroway coasts, which methinks are fashioned of iron, and we underwent trials, yea, and hunger. After a time we came to Drontheim--" "Where is that?" "A sea-coast town of Norroway, young sir. And thence we took ship to Scarborough. But there was no ship at Scarborough going south, wherefore I set out for mine own country on foot. And to-day, which is my first on this journey, I came to this inn for a pint of good ale, and paid my money for it too, whereupon yonder scurvy knave gives me small beer, thin as water. And I, being somewhat hot and choleric of temper, threw the measure at him, and rewarded him for his insolence. So now I will go on my way, for 'tis a brave step from here to Marazion, and I love not ye north-country folk." "Not so fast," quoth John Broad. "Thou must needs see Sir Thurstan before we let thee go." "What want I with Sir Thurstan?" "Marry, naught; but he may want something with thee. We allow not that wandering rascals shall break the peace in our village." "If thou talkest to me like that, Master Constable, I shall break thy head, and in such a fashion that thou wilt never more know what peace is. We men of Devon and Cornwall allow no man to lord it over us." "Thou shalt to Sir Thurstan, anyhow," said John Broad. "We will see what the law says to thee. I fear me thou art a man of lawless behavior; and, moreover, there are strange characters about at this moment." "Dame Good had two fowls stolen last night," said a voice in the crowd. "Yea, and there are two fine linen sheets stolen from the vicarage hedge," piped another. "He looks a strange mortal," said a third. "And wears gold rings in his ears," cried a fourth. "A' must be a foreigner, and maybe a Papist." "Foreigner or Papist I am not, good folks, but a true-born Englishman, and a good hater of all Frenchmen and Spaniards. So let me go forward peaceably. As for the clout I gave Master Peter, here is a groat to mend it. I have but a round dozen, or I would give him two." With that he would have moved forward, but John Broad barred the way. "Not till I have taken thee before his worship," said he. "What, am I not constable of this parish, and duly sworn to arrest all suspicious persons, sturdy beggars, and what not?" The sailor paused and drew his breath, and looked at the constable's round figure as if in doubt what to do. "I am loth to hurt thee," said he, "but if I hit thee, Master Constable, thou wilt never more drink ale nor smell beef. Know that once in Palermo there came upon me a great brown bear that had got loose from his ward, and I hit him fair and square between the eyes, and he fell, and when they took him up, his skull it was cracked. Is thy skull harder than the bear's?" At this John Broad trembled and shrank away, but continued to mutter something about the law and its majesty. "You had better go with him before my uncle," said I. "He will deal justly with thee. He is hard upon no man, but it might fare ill with John Broad if Sir Thurstan knew that he had suffered you to go unapprehended." "Oh, if you put it in that way," he answered, and turned again, "I will go with you. Heaven send that the good gentleman do not detain me, for I would fain reach York to-night." So we all moved off to the manor, and as many as could find room crowded into the great hall where Sir Thurstan sat to deliver judgment on all naughty and evilly-disposed persons. And presently he came and took his seat in the justice-chair and commanded silence, and bade John Broad state his case. Then Peter Pipe gave his testimony, and likewise Geoffrey Scales, and then Sir Thurstan called upon the sailor to have his say, for he made a practice of never condemning any man unheard. After he had heard them all, my uncle considered matters for a moment and then delivered judgment, during which everybody preserved strict silence. "I find, first of all," said he, "that Peter Pipe, the drawer, did serve this man with small beer instead of good ale. For what! I watched the man as he told his story, and he did not lie." "I thank your honor," said the sailor. "Wherefore I recommend Geoffrey Scales to admonish Peter at his convenience--" "Yea, and with a stick, your honor," said Geoffrey. "So that he transgress not again. Nevertheless, the sailor did wrong to maltreat Peter. There is law to be had, and no man should administer his own justice. Wherefore I fine thee, sailor, and order thee to pay ten groats to the court." "As your honor wills," said the man, and handed over the money. "I have now one left to see me all the way to Marazion. But justice is justice." "Clear my hall, John Broad," said my uncle. This order the constable carried out with promptitude. But when the sailor would have gone, Sir Thurstan bade him stay, and presently he called him to his side and held converse with him. "Dost thou propose to walk to Marazion?" he asked. "With God's help, sir," answered the man. "Why not try Hull? Thou mightest find a ship there for a southern port." "I had never thought of it, your honor. How far away may Hull be?" "Forty miles. What means hast thou?" "But one groat, sir. But then I have become used to hardships." "Try Hull: thou wilt find a ship there, I doubt not. Hold, here are twelve shillings for thee. Humphrey, have him to the kitchen and give him a good meal ere he starts." "Your honor," said the sailor, "is a father and a brother to me. I shall not forget." "Do thy duty," said Sir Thurstan. So I took the man to the kitchen, and fed him, and soon he went away. "Young master," said he, "if I can ever repay this kindness I will, yea, with interest. Pharaoh Nanjulian never forgets." With that he went away, and we saw him no more. CHAPTER III. ROSE. There being no disposition on my part to renew our differences, and none on his to lead up to an open rupture, my cousin Jasper Stapleton and I got on together very well, until we had reached the age of nineteen years, when a new and far more important matter of contention arose between us. Now, our first quarrel had arisen over the ultimate disposition of my uncle's estates; our second was as to which should be lord over the heart and hand of a fair maiden. To both of us the second quarrel was far more serious than the first--which is a thing that will readily be understood by all young folks. It seemed to both of us that not all the broad acres of Beechcot, nay, of Yorkshire itself, were to be reckoned in comparison with the little hand of Mistress Rose Herrick. For by that time Mistress Rose had grown to be a fair and gracious maiden, whose golden hair, floating from under her dainty cap, was a dangerous snare for any hot-hearted lad's thoughts to fall entangled in. So sweet and gracious was she, so delightful her conversation, so bewitching her eyes, that I marvel not even at this stretch of time that I then became her captive and slave for life. Nor do I marvel, either, that Jasper Stapleton was equally enslaved by her charms. It had indeed been wonderful if he or I had made any resistance to them. As to myself, the little blind god pierced my heart with his arrow at a very early stage. Indeed, I do not remember any period of my life when I did not love Rose Herrick more dearly than anything else in God's fair world. To me she was all that is sweet and desirable, a companion whose company must needs make the path of life a primrose path; and, therefore, even when I was a lad, I looked forward to the time when I might take her hand in mine, and enter with her upon the highway which all of us must travel. However, when I was come to nineteen years of age, being then a tall and strapping lad, and somewhat grave withal, it came to my mind that I should find out for myself what feelings Rose had with regard to me, and therefore I began to seek her company, and to engage her in more constant conversation than we had hitherto enjoyed. And the effect of this was that my love for her, which had until then been of a placid nature, now became restless and unsatisfied, and longed to know whether it was to be answered with love or finally dismissed. Thus I became somewhat moody and taciturn, and took to wandering about the land by myself, by day or night, so that Sir Thurstan more than once asked me if I had turned poet or fallen in love. Now, both these things were true, for because I had fallen in love I had also turned poet; as, I suppose, every lover must. In sooth, I had scribbled lines and couplets, and here and there a song, to my sweet mistress, though I had never as yet mustered sufficient courage to show her what I had written. That, I think, is the way with all lovers who make rhymes. There is a satisfaction to them in the mere writing of them; and I doubt not that they often read over their verses, and in the reading find a certain keen and peculiar sort of pleasure which is not altogether unmixed with pain. Now it chanced that one day in the early spring of 1578 I had been wandering about the park of Beechcot, thinking of my passion and its object, and my thoughts as usual had clothed themselves in verses. Wherefore, when I again reached the house, I went into the library and wrote down my rhymes on paper, in order that I might put them away with my other compositions. I will write them down here from the copy I then made. It lies before me now, a yellow, time-stained sheet, and somehow it brings back to me the long-dead days of happiness which came before my wonderful adventure. TO ROSE. When I first beheld thee, dear, Day across the land was breaking, April skies were fine and clear And the world to life was waking; All was fair In earth and air: Spring lay lurking in the sedges: Suddenly I looked on thee And straight forgot the budding hedges. When I first beheld thee, sweet, Madcap Love came gayly flying Where the woods and meadows meet: Then I straightway fell a-sighing. Fair, I said, Are hills and glade And sweet the light with which they're laden, But ah, to me, Nor flower nor tree Are half so sweet as yonder maiden. Thus when I beheld thee, love, Vanished quick my first devotion, Earth below and heaven above And the mystic, magic ocean Seemed to me No more to be. I had eyes for naught but thee, dear, With his dart Love pierced my heart And thou wert all in all to me, dear! Now, as I came to an end of writing these verses I was suddenly aware of someone standing at my side, and when I looked up, with anger and resentment that anyone should spy upon my actions, I saw my cousin Jasper at my elbow, staring at the two words, "To Rose," which headed my composition. I sprang to my feet and faced him. "That is like you, cousin," said I, striving to master my anger, "to act the spy upon a man." "As you please," he answered. "I care what no man thinks of my actions. But there," pointing to the paper, "is proof of what I have long suspected. Humphrey, you are in love with Mistress Rose Herrick!" "What if I am?" said I. "Nothing, but that I also am in love with her, and mean to win her," he replied. After that there was silence. "We cannot both have her," said I at last. "True," said he. "She shall be mine." "Not if I can prevent it, cousin. At any rate she has the principal say in this matter." "Thou hast not spoken to her, Humphrey?" "What is that to thee, cousin? But I have not." "Humphrey, thou wilt heir our uncle's lands. Thou hast robbed me of my share in them. I will not be robbed of my love. Pish! do not stay me. Thou art hot-tempered and boyish, but I am cold as an icicle. It is men like me whose love is deep and determined, and therefore I swear thou shalt not come between me and Rose Herrick." I watched him closely, and saw that he valued nothing of land or money as he valued his passion, and that he would stay at nothing in order to gain his own ends. But I was equally firm. "What do you propose, Jasper?" I asked. "It is for Mistress Rose Herrick to decide. We cannot both address her at the same time." "True," he said; "true. I agree that you have the same right to speak to her that I have. Let us draw lots. The successful one shall have the first chance. Do you agree?" I agreed willingly, because I felt certain that even if Jasper beat me he would have no chance with Rose. There was something in my heart that told me she would look on me, and on me only, with favor. We went out into the stackyard, and agreed that each of us should draw a straw from a wheat-stack. He that drew the longest straw should have the first right of speaking. Then we put our hands to the stack and drew our straws. I beat him there--my straw was a good foot longer than his. "You have beaten me again," he said. "Is it always to be so? But I will wait, cousin Humphrey." And so he turned away and left me. Now, seeing how matters stood, it came to my mind that I had best put my fortune to the test as quickly as possible, and therefore I made haste over to the vicarage in order to find Rose and ask her to make me either happy or miserable. And as good luck would have it, I found her alone in the vicarage garden, looking so sweet and gracious that I was suddenly struck dumb, and in my confusion could think of naught but that my face was red, my attire negligent, and my whole appearance not at all like that of a lover. "Humphrey," said Rose, laughing at me, "you look as you used to look in the days when you came late to your lessons, from robbing an orchard or chasing Farmer Good's cattle, or following the hounds. Are you a boy again?" But there she stopped, for I think she saw something in my eyes that astonished her. And after that I know not what we said or did, save that presently we understood one another, and for the space of an hour entirely forgot that there were other people in the world, or, indeed, that there was any world at all. So that evening I went home happy. And as I marched up to the manor, whistling and singing, I met my cousin. He looked at me for a moment, and then turned on his heel. "I see how it is," he said. "You have no need to speak." "Congratulate me, at any rate, cousin," I cried. "Time enough for that," said he. And from that moment he hated me, and waited his opportunity to do me a mischief. CHAPTER IV. FOUL PLAY. When a man has conceived a deadly hatred of one of his fellow-men, and has further resolved to let slip no chance of satisfying it, his revenge becomes to him simply a question of time, for the chance is sure to come sooner or later. It was this conviction, I think, that kept my cousin Jasper Stapleton quiet during the next few months. He knew that in due course his revenge would have an opportunity of glutting itself, and for that evil time he was well content to wait. You may wonder that so young a man should have possessed such cruel feelings toward one who had never done him any willful wrong. But as events proved Jasper was of an exceeding cruel and malignant nature, and his wickedness was all the worse because it was of a cold and calculating sort. If a man gave him an honest straightforward blow or buffet, it was not Jasper's way to strike back there and then, face to face, but rather to wait until some evil chance presented itself--and then, his adversary's back being turned, Jasper would plant a dagger between his shoulders. In other words, he bided his time, and when he did strike, struck at an unguarded place. Now at that time I had very little idea that Jasper entertained such hard thoughts of me--my knowledge of his cruelty only came by later experience. All that spring and summer of 1578 I was living in a very paradise, and cared not for Jasper or Dame Barbara or anybody else. My uncle had sanctioned the betrothal of Rose Herrick and myself, and the good vicar had given us his blessing in choice Latin. There had been some little scolding of us from both manor-house and vicarage, for Sir Thurstan and Master Timotheus both thought us too young to talk of love and marriage; but in the end our pleadings prevailed, and it was arranged that we were to consider ourselves plighted lovers, and that our wedding was to take place in two years. This settled, there was naught but happiness for me and Rose. I think we spent most of that summer out of doors, wandering about the Chase, and talking as lovers will, of all the days to come. Never once did there come a cloud over the fair heaven of our hopes, unless it was once, when in a remote corner of the woods, we suddenly came face to face with Jasper Stapleton. He had been out with his bow, and when we met him he was advancing along the path, with a young deer slung over his shoulders. At the sound of our footsteps on the crackling underwood, he stopped, looked up, and, recognizing us, turned hastily away and vanished in the thick bushes. "Why did Jasper go away so suddenly?" asked Rose. "Because he was not minded to meet us," said I. "But why? And I have not seen him these many weeks--he seems to avoid me. Did you mark his face, Humphrey,--how white it turned when he set eyes on us? And there was a look on it that frightened me--a look that seemed to promise no love for you, Humphrey," she said. "Have no fear, sweetheart," I answered. "Jasper is a strange fellow, but he will do me no harm. He is only disappointed because I have won a flower that he would fain have possessed himself." "What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean, sweetheart, that Jasper was much in love with Mistress Rose Herrick, and liked not that Humphrey Salkeld should win her. There--perhaps I have done wrong to tell thee this; but, indeed, I like not mysteries." But so strange are women, that Rose immediately fell to sighing and lamenting on Jasper's woes. "It is sad," she said, "that any man should sorrow over a maiden's pretty face, when there are so many girls in the world." This train of thought, however, suddenly slipped from her when she remembered Master Jasper's ugly looks. "He will do you a mischief, Humphrey," she said. "I saw it in his eyes. He hates you. They say that jealousy breeds murder--oh! what if Jasper should try to kill you?" I laughed at the notion. I was so cock-a-whoop at that time, so elated with my love and my fair prospects, that I did not believe anything could harm me, and said so. Nevertheless, I believe Rose was from that time much concerned as to the relations between me and Jasper, having some woman-born notion that all might not go so well as I, in my boyish confidence, anticipated. But when she set forth her fears from time to time, I only laughed at her, never thinking that my cousin's opportunity was already close at hand. Early in the month of October in that year Sir Thurstan called Jasper and myself into the library one morning, and informed us that he had business for us at the port of Scarborough. There was, he said, a ship coming over from Hamburg, the master of which had been entrusted with a certain commission from him, and as the vessel was now due, he wished us to go over to Scarborough and complete the matter, by receiving certain goods and paying the master his money. Neither Jasper nor I were displeased at the notion of this trip, for we were both minded to see a little of the world. True, I did not like the idea of being separated from my sweetheart for several days; but then, as she said, there would be the delight of looking forward to our meeting again. Alas! neither of us knew that that meeting was not to take place for three long and weary years. We set out from Beechcot, Jasper and I, one Monday morning, having with us money wherewith to pay the charges of the ship-master. From the manor-house to Scarborough there was a distance of twenty odd miles, and therefore we rode our horses. Sir Thurstan had given us instructions to put up at the Mermaid Tavern, near the harbor, and there we accordingly stabled our beasts and made arrangements for our own accommodation. The ship which we were expecting had not yet arrived, and was not likely to come in before the next day, so that we had naught to do but look about us and derive what amusement we could from the sights of the little fishing town. Small as the place was, it being then little more than a great cluster of houses nestling under the shadow of the high rock on which stands Scarborough Castle, it was still a place of importance to us, who had never for many years seen any town or village bigger than our own hamlet of Beechcot, where there were no more than a dozen farmsteads and cottages all told. Also the sailors, who hung about the harbor or on the quay-side, or who sat in their boats mending their nets and spinning their yarns one to another, were sources of much interest, so that we felt two or three days of life in their company would not be dull nor misspent. Moreover, the merchant, whose ship it was that carried Sir Thurstan's goods, showed us much attention, and would have us to his house to talk with him and tell him of our uncle, whose acquaintance he had made many years previously, but had not been able to cultivate. There is, near the harbor of Scarborough, lying half-hid amongst the narrow streets which run up towards the Castle Hill, a quaint and curious inn known as the Three Jolly Mariners. At its door stands a figure carved in wood, which at some time, no doubt, acted as figurehead to a ship, but whether it represents Venus or Diana, Hebe or Minerva, I do not know. Inside, the house more resembles the cabin of a vessel than the parlor of a tavern. On the walls are many curious things brought by mariners from foreign parts, together with relics of ships that had made many voyages from the harbor outside, and had finally come home to be broken up. In this place, half-parlor, half-cabin, there assembled men of seafaring life: salts, young and old, English, Scotch, Norwegians, and Danes, with now and then a Frenchman or Spaniard, so that there is never any lack of interesting and ofttimes marvelous discourse. Our ship not having come in on the Tuesday night, Jasper and I, in company with the merchant aforesaid, entered the Three Jolly Mariners, and having saluted the assembled company, sat down to wait awhile, the harbor-master thinking it likely that our vessel would shortly be signaled. There were several men in the inn, drinking and talking, and all were of interest in my eyes, but one of them much more so than the others. He was a stoutly-built, tall man of middle age, dressed in what seemed to my eyes a very fantastic style, there being more color in his dress than was then usual. He had a high, white forehead, over which his jet-black hair was closely cropped, his eyes were set rather too near together to be pleasant, his nose was long, his teeth very white and large, and his beard, almost as black as his hair, was trimmed to a point. As he sat and listened to the conversation around him he never laughed, but occasionally he smiled, exposing his cruel teeth, and reminding me of a dog that shows its fangs threateningly. Our friend the merchant whispered to us that this gentleman was a certain Captain Manuel Nunez, who came trading to Scarborough from Seville. He further informed us that his ship now lay outside in the harbor, and was a fine vessel, of very graceful proportions, and much more beautiful to look at than our English ships, which are somewhat squat and ugly, though not difficult to handle. "And although he is a Spaniard," continued our friend, "this Senor Nunez is well liked here, for he makes himself courtly and agreeable to those who have to do with him, so that our recent relations with his country have not prevented him from coming amongst us." However, there was something about the man which almost made me afraid. He reminded me of a viper which I once killed in Beechcot Woods. And though we entered into conversation with him that night, and found him a mightily agreeable companion, I still preserved the notion that he was a man not to be trusted, and like to prove cruel and treacherous. The following day, going down to the harbor-wall to see if there were any signs of our ship, I saw my cousin engaged in close conversation with Senor Nunez. I did not intrude myself upon them, but presently the Spaniard, catching sight of me, came to my side, and with a courteous salutation addressed me. "I have been inviting your good cousin, Master Stapleton, to go aboard my vessel yonder," said he, "and I would tender the same courtesy to yourself, Master Salkeld. It is not often that an English country gentleman has a chance of seeing a Spanish ship in these sad days, unless, alack! it be in this deplorable warfare; and, therefore, I thought you might both be glad of this opportunity." "What do you say, Humphrey?" asked Jasper, who had now approached us. "I would like to see the inside of a Spanish ship. If 'tis aught like the outside it should be well worth an examination." "A look at the Santa Luisa will repay your trouble, gentlemen," said the Spaniard with a proud smile. "There is no faster ship for her size on the high seas." "I am agreeable," said I. "Our own ship is not yet come, and time begins to hang heavy." "Then you shall come on board to-night," said Captain Nunez. "Until six of the clock I am engaged on shore, but at that hour I will have a boat awaiting us at the harbor stairs, and you shall go aboard with me, gentlemen." So we agreed and parted with him, Jasper full of the matter, and exclaiming that we should have much to tell the folks at home. I, however, was beginning to get somewhat impatient with respect to our own ship, which its owner now believed to have been unexpectedly detained, and I only regarded the visit to the Santa Luisa as a diversion. At six o'clock that night, Jasper and I met the Spaniard at the harbor stairs and went on board his vessel. We found the Santa Luisa to be a very fine ship, and of much more pretentious appearance as regarded her fittings than our own English trading vessels. We passed an hour or so in examining her, and were then pressed by Senor Nunez to enter his cabin and enjoy his hospitality. I have no very clear recollection of what followed. I remember that we ate and drank, that the Spaniard was vastly amusing in his discourse, and that I began to feel mighty sleepy. After that I must have gone to sleep. When I came to my full senses again I was lying in a hammock, and I could tell from the motion of the ship that we were at sea in a good, fresh wind. The Spaniard stood by me, regarding me attentively. I started up and addressed him. "Senor Nunez! I have been asleep. Where am I? The ship seems to be moving!" "The ship is moving, Master Salkeld," he answered, in his smooth, rich voice. "At this moment she is off the Lincolnshire coast. You have slept for twelve hours." CHAPTER V. PHARAOH NANJULIAN AGAIN. I do not know to this day how I got out of the hammock, but no sooner did I hear the Spanish captain utter these words than I made haste to go on deck and examine the truth of his statement for myself. But before I could reach the companion I reeled and staggered, and should have fallen, if Nunez had not seized my arm and supported me. He helped me to a seat, and handed me a glass containing a restorative. "You are not well," he said. "But you will come round presently." "Senor!" I cried, "what is the meaning of this? Why am I on this ship, and why are we at sea? How is it that I am not at Scarborough? There has been some treachery--some foul play!" "Nay," said he, "be moderate, I entreat you, Senor. Do not let there be any talk of treachery. Am I not serving you as a friend?" "I do not comprehend anything of what you say," I answered. "There is some mystery here. Again I ask you--why am I on board your ship and at sea?" "And I ask you, Senor, where else did you expect to be but on board my ship and at sea?" I stared at the man in amaze and wonder. He returned my gaze unflinchingly, but I felt certain that in his eyes there was a cruel mockery of me, and my blood seemed to turn cold within me as I recognized that I was in the Spaniard's power. But, being now in a desperate mood, I strove to be cool and to keep my wits about me. "I expected to be at Scarborough, Senor," I said. "Where else? I remember coming aboard your vessel and eating and drinking with you, but after that I must have fallen asleep. I wake and find myself at sea." "Naturally you do," said he with a smile. "Allow me, Master Salkeld, to recall to you certain incidents which took place last night. You came on board my ship with your cousin, Master Stapleton, and I offered you my poor hospitality. Was that all that took place?" "It was," said I, confidently enough. "That is strange," said he, giving me another of his queer looks. "I fear you have undergone some strange mental change in your long sleep. But as I perceive that you do not understand me, I will explain matters to you. Last night, Master Salkeld, as you and your cousin sat at meat with me, you explained to me that you had committed some great crime against the laws of your country, and that it was necessary, if you would save your head, to leave England at once. I remarked that I was about to set sail for the West Indies, and should be pleased to take you as my passenger, whereupon you and your cousin having consulted together, you paid me the passage-money--and here we are." The man told me all this with the utmost assurance, his face utterly unmoved and his strange eyes inscrutable. It was a lie from beginning to end, and I knew it to be a lie. Nevertheless, I knew also that I was powerless, and I made up my mind to act prudently. "Senor," I replied, "as between you and me, I may as well tell you that I do not believe a single word of what you have said. There has been treachery--and it lies with you and my rascal cousin, Jasper Stapleton. I have committed no crime against the laws, and I wish to be put ashore at your earliest opportunity." "You shall be obeyed, Master Salkeld," he replied, bowing low, but with a mocking smile about his lips. "Where do you first touch land?" I inquired. "I have already told you, Master Salkeld. Somewhere in the West Indies." "But you do not mean to carry me to the West Indies?" I cried. "Why, 'tis a journey of many thousands of miles!" "Precisely. Nevertheless, you must undertake it. We touch no land until we make Barbadoes or Martinique." I said no more; it was useless. I was in the man's power. Nothing that I could say or do would alter his purpose. There had been villainy and treachery--and my cousin, Jasper Stapleton, had worked it. I comprehended everything at that moment. I had been lured on board the Spanish vessel and subsequently drugged, in order that Jasper might rid himself of my presence. That was plainly to be seen. But what of the future? The West Indies, I knew, were thousands of miles away. They were in the hands of our hereditary enemies, the Spaniards. From them I should receive scant mercy or consideration. I was penniless--for my money had disappeared--and even if I had possessed money, what would it have benefited me in a savage land like that to which I was being carried? I might wait there many a long year without meeting with an English ship. I turned to the Spaniard. "So I am a prisoner, Senor,--your prisoner?" "My ship and my goods are at your disposal, Senor," he replied. "So long as I do not make any demands upon them, eh?" "Say unreasonable demands, Master Salkeld. As a matter of fact you are free to walk or stand, sit or lie, wake or sleep as you please. I entertain you as I best can until we touch land--and then you go your own way. You have made a contract with me, you have paid your money, and now I have nothing to do but carry out my share of the bargain." "And that is----?" "To take you to the West Indies." "Very good, Senor. Now we understand each other. You will perhaps not object to my telling you, that when I next meet my cousin, Master Jasper Stapleton, I will break his head for his share in this foul conspiracy." "I do not object in the least, Master Salkeld. But you do well to say, when you next meet him." "Why so, Senor?" "Because it is so highly improbable. Indeed, you will never be so near England again as you are at this moment." I looked through the port, and saw the long, flat Lincolnshire coast. The day was dull and heavy, and the land was little more than a gray bank, but it meant much to me. I was being carried away from all that I loved, from my sweetheart, my uncle, my friends, from everything that had grown a part of my daily life. And I was going--where? That I knew not. Not to the West Indies--no, I was sure of that. Captain Manuel Nunez was an accomplished liar in everything, and I felt sure that he had another lie in reserve yet. At the thought of him and of Jasper's villainy the blood boiled in my veins, and tears of rage and despair gathered in my eyes. But what was the use of anger or sorrow? I was powerless. I now made up my mind to show a good face to all these troubles and difficulties, and, therefore, I strove to be as much at my ease as was possible under the circumstances. I walked the decks, talked with such of the men as knew a word or two of English, and cultivated as much of the captain's acquaintance as my aversion to his wickedness would permit. I learnt the names of masts, sheets, stays, and sprits, and picked up other information of seafaring matters, thinking that it might some day be useful to me. I am bound to say that Senor Manuel Nunez was very courteous towards me. But what avails courtesy, when the courteous man is only waiting his time to injure you? We had been at sea something like three weeks, and had passed Ushant four days previously, when, sailing south-by-west, we were overtaken by a gale and had to run before it with bare poles. Upon the second morning, our lookout, gazing across a stormy sea, cried that he saw a man clinging to a piece of wreckage on the lee bow, and presently all those on deck were conscious of the same sight. The man was drifting and tossing half a mile away, and had seen us, for he was making frantic efforts to attract our notice. I was somewhat surprised when Captain Nunez took steps to rescue him, for it would have fitted in with my notion of his character if he had suffered the wretch to remain unaided, However, he sent off a boat, which eventually brought away the man from his piece of wreckage, and had hard work to make the ship again, for the sea was running hard and high. The rescued man crouched in the stern, hiding his head in his hands, so that I did not see his face until he came aboard. Then it seemed familiar, but I could not bethink me where I had seen it before. "And who art thou, friend?" asked Nunez. "A mariner of Plymouth, good sir," answered the man, "and sole survivor of the ship Hawthorn. Lost she is, and all hands, save only me." Then I suddenly recognized him. It was the Cornish sailor, Pharaoh Nanjulian. So the sea had given me a friend in need. CHAPTER VI. SCHEMES AND STRATAGEMS. I was not minded to let Captain Nunez and the crew--every man of which was either Spaniard or Portugee--see that I had any knowledge of the man whom they had rescued, and therefore I presently went below and kept out of the way for a while. Somehow I felt a considerable sense of gratification at the thought of the Cornishman's presence on board. He seemed to me a man of resource and of courage, and I no sooner set eyes on him in this remarkable fashion, than I began to think how he might aid me in making my escape from my present position. After a time Nunez came down into the cabin where I sat, and began to talk with me. "We have fallen in with a countryman of yours, Master Salkeld," said he, regarding me closely, as if he wished to see how I took the news. "Indeed!" said I. "The man just come aboard?" "The same. A native of Cornwall, with an outlandish name, and an appetite as large as his body, judging by the way he eats." "He is no doubt hungry, Senor," I said. "Perhaps he has been tossing about for a while." "A day and a night. One additional mouth, Master Salkeld, is what I did not bargain for." "But you would not have allowed the man to drift away to starvation and death?" I said. "His life was no concern of mine, Master Salkeld. But I can make him useful; therefore he was worth saving. I shall enroll him as one of my crew, and carry him to the Indies." "And then?" "Then he will go ashore with you, unless he prefers to go back with me to Cadiz--which he probably will not do." He left me then, and I sat wondering what he meant by saying that the English sailor would probably not care to go back to Spain with him. There seemed something sinister in his meaning. But I gave over thinking about it, for I was by that time firmly convinced that Captain Manuel Nunez was a thorough-paced scoundrel, and well fitted to undertake all manner of villainy, despite his polished manners and fine words. Also, I was certain that there was in store for me some unpleasant and possibly terrible fate, which I was powerless to avoid and which was certain to come. Therefore I had resigned myself to my conditions, and only hoped to show myself a true Englishman when my time of trouble came. Nevertheless, many a sad hour and day did I spend, looking across the great wild waste of gray water and wondering what they were doing at Beechcot. In my sad thoughts and in my dreams I could see the little hamlet nestling against the purple Wold; the brown leaves piled high about the shivering hedgerows; the autumn sunlight shining over the close-cropped fields; and in the manor-house the good knight, my uncle, seated by his wood-fire, wondering what had become of me. Also I could see the old vicarage and the vicar, good Master Timotheus, thumbing his well-loved folios, and occasionally pushing his spectacles from his nose to look round and inquire whether there was yet news of the boy Humphrey. But more than these, I saw my sweetheart's face, sad and weary with fear, and her eyes seemed as if they looked for something and were unsatisfied. And then would come worse thoughts--thoughts of Jasper and his villainy, and of what it might have prompted him to in the way of lies. He would carry home a straight and an ingenious tale--I was very sure of that. He would tell them I was drowned or kidnaped, and nobody would doubt his story. That was the worst thought of all--that my dear ones should be thinking of me as one dead while I was simply a prisoner, being carried I knew not where, nor to what fate. On the evening of the second day after the Cornish sailor came aboard, the weather having moderated and the ship making good progress, I was leaning over the port bulwarks moodily gazing at the sea, when I felt a touch on my hand. Looking round, I saw the Englishman engaged in coiling a rope close to me. He continued his task and spoke in a low voice. "I recognized you, master," said he. "I looked through the skylight last night as you talked with the captain, and I knew you again. I know not how you came here, nor why, but it is strange company for a young English gentleman." "I was trapped on board," I said. "I thought so," he responded. "But speak low, master, and take no heed of me. We can converse while I work, but it will not do for us to be seen talking too much. The less we are noticed together the better for our necks. How came you here, master? I had no thought of seeing you in such company." I told him as briefly as possible while he continued to coil the rope. "Aye," said he, when I had finished my story, "I expected something of that sort. Well, I am glad that the old Hawthorn left me swimming, though sorry enough that all her merry men are gone down below. But what! death must come. Now, young master, what can we do? I swore a solemn oath when your good uncle befriended me that I would serve you. This is the time. What can I do?" "Alas," said I, "I know not." "Do you know whither we are bound?" he asked. "The Captain says to the West Indies. But I do not know if that be true or false." "More likely to be false than true, master. Now, then, hearken to me, young sir. I have seen a deal of life, and have been a mariner this thirty year or more. We must use our wits. Can you, do you think, find out what our destination really is?" "I am afraid not," I replied. "Nunez will not tell me more than he has already told me." "True," said he; "true--you will get naught out of him. But I have a better chance. I can talk to the men--well it is that I know their lingo sufficiently for that. But nay, I will not talk to them, I will listen instead. They do not know that I understand Spanish. There are three of them speak broken English--they shall do the talking. I will keep my ears open for their Spanish--peradventure I shall hear something worth my trouble. You see, master, if we only know where we are going, and what we have to expect when we get there, we shall be in a much better position than we are now. For now we are as men that walk in a fog, not knowing where the next step will take them." "I will do whatever you wish," said I. "Then be careful not to have over-much converse with me, master. Yon Nunez has the eye of a hawk and the stealth of a viper, and if he does but suspect that you and I are in treaty together, he will throw me overboard with a dagger wound under my shoulder-blade." "How shall we hold converse, then?" "As we are now doing. If I have aught to tell you I will give you a sign when you are near me. A wink, or a nod, or a cough--either will do. And what I have to say I will say quickly, so that whoever watches us will think we do no more than pass the time of day." So for that time we parted, and during the next few days I watched for Pharaoh Nanjulian's sign eagerly, and was sadly disappointed when I received it not. Indeed, for nearly a week he took no notice of me whatever, giving me not even a sign of recognition as I passed him on the deck, so that Nunez was minded to remark upon his indifference. "Your countryman seems but a surly dog," said he. "I should have thought he would have sought your company, Master Salkeld, but he seems to care no more for it than for that of the ship's dog." "He is a Cornishman and a sailor, and I am a Yorkshireman and a gentleman," said I. "In England we should not associate one with the other, so wherefore should we here?" "Nay, true, unless that you are companions in adversity, and that makes strange bedfellows," said he. "But you English are not given to talking." I hoped that he really thought so, and that he had no idea of the thoughts within me. I was ready enough to talk when Pharaoh Nanjulian gave the signal. It came at last as he stood at the wheel one night, and I stood near, apparently idling away my time. "Now, master," said he, "continue looking over the side and I will talk. I have found out where we are going." "Well?" I said, eager enough for his news. "We are bound for Vera Cruz, master." "Where is that? In the West Indies?" "It is a port of Mexico, master, and in the possession of the Spaniards, who are devils in human shape." "And what will they do with us there?" "That I have also found out. It seems that your good cousin, Master Stapleton, did make a bargain with this noble Spanish gentleman, Captain Nunez, for getting you out of the way. The bo's'n, Pedro, says that your cousin suggested that Nunez should sail you out to sea, and then knock you on the head and heave you overboard. But Nunez would have none of that, and decided that he would carry you with him to Vera Cruz." "And what will befall me at Vera Cruz?" "He, being a pious man, will hand you over to the Holy Office." "To the Holy Office! You mean the Inquisitors? And they----" "They will burn you for a Lutheran dog, master." We were both silent for awhile. I was thinking of naught but the fiendish cruelty which existed in such a man as Manuel Nunez. Presently I thought of Pharaoh Nanjulian. "And yourself?" I said. "What will he do with you?" "I am to share your fate, master. Senor Nunez is a good and pious son of Mother Church, and he will wipe out a score or two of sins by presenting the stake with two English heretics." After that I thought again for a time. "Pharaoh," I said at last, "we will not die very willingly. I have a good deal to live for. There is my sweetheart and my uncle to go back to, and also I have an account to settle with Jasper Stapleton. I will make an effort to do all this before my time comes." "I am with you, master," said he. "Have you thought of anything?" I asked. "Nothing, but that we must escape," he answered. "Could we manage that after the ship reaches Vera Cruz?" "No, for a surety. We shall be watched as cats watch mice. If we ever set foot on a quay-side in that accursed port, master, we are dead men. God help us! I know what the mercies of these Spaniards are. I stood in the City of Mexico and saw two Englishmen burnt. That was ten years ago. But more of that anon. Let us see to the present. We are dead men, I say, if we set foot in Vera Cruz, or any port of that cruel region." "Then there is but one thing for us," I said. "And that, master?" "We must leave this ship before she drops anchor." "That is a good notion," said he, "a right good notion; but the thing is, how to do it?" "Could we not take one of the boats some night, and get away in it?" "Aye, but there are many things to consider. We should have to victual it, and then we might run short, for we should have no compass, and no notion, or very little, of our direction. We might starve to death, or die of thirst." "I had as soon die of thirst or hunger, as of fire and torture." "Marry, and so would I. Yea, it were better to die here on the wide ocean than in the market-place of Mexico or Vera Cruz." "Let us try it, Pharaoh. Devise some plan. I will not fail to help if I can be of any use." "I will think," he said; "I will think till I find a means of escape. I reckon that we have still a month before us. It shall go hard if our English brains cannot devise some method whereby we may outwit these Spanish devils." So we began to plot and plan, spurred on by the knowledge of what awaited us in Mexico. CHAPTER VII. WE ESCAPE THE SPANIARDS. Now that I knew his real sentiments towards me, it was very difficult to preserve my composure and indifference in the presence of Captain Manuel Nunez. As I sat at table with him, or talked with him on deck or in his cabin, I had hard work to keep from telling him my real thoughts of his wicked nature. Nay, sometimes I was sore put to it to keep my hands from his throat. Nothing would have pleased me better than to find either him or my cousin Jasper in some lonely spot where no odds could have favored them or me. Then my wrongs should have received full vengeance, and none would have blamed me for meting it out to these two villains. Judge how hard it was for me to have to associate, week after week, with one of the men who had so deeply wronged me, and, moreover, to have to preserve towards him a certain degree of cordiality. Try as I would, however, I could not give Nunez as much in the way of politeness as Nunez gave me. My manners were surly at the best, and I had much ado to preserve them at all. Getting in the way of fair winds, we sighted the Bahamas, and passed the north-west coast of Cuba somewhere about the beginning of September. We were then some five hundred miles from Vera Cruz, but it was not until Christmas week that we bore down upon the Mexican coast. It was, I think, on Christmas morning that I first saw the shores of that beautiful land, whose natural loveliness served but to make more evident the horrible cruelties of the men who had seized and possessed it. Fair and wonderful it was as the mists lifted under the sun's warmth to see the giant peak of Orizaba lifting its head, snow-white and awful, into the clear air, while full seventeen thousand feet below it the land lay dim and indistinct, nothing more than a bank of gray cloud. "You would think a country with such a mountain as that would be a place of much delight, master, would you not?" said Pharaoh Nanjulian, pointing to the great white peak. "It looks fair and innocent enough, but it is a very devil's land, this Mexico, since the Spaniards overran it; and yonder peak is an emblem of nothing in it, except it be the innocence of those who are murdered in God's name." "What mountain is that?" I inquired. "Orizaba, master. It lies some sixty miles beyond Vera Cruz, and is of a height scarcely credible to us Englishmen. God be thanked that there is so little wind to-day! With a fair breeze we should have been in port ere nightfall. As it is, we must take our chance to-night, master, or fall into the hands of the Inquisition." "I am ready for aught," said I. "But have you thought of a plan?" "Aye, trust me for that. Marry! I have thought of naught else since we came through the Bahamas. Certainly our chances are exceedingly small, for we must needs land in a country that is infested with our enemies, but we will do our best." "Tell me your plan, Pharaoh." "'Tis simplicity itself, master. To-night it is my watch. When the captain is asleep in his cabin, do you come on deck and go aft. You will find a boat alongside, and into it you must contrive to get as you best can. Hide yourself there so that no one can see you from the deck. When the watch is changed, instead of going forward I shall make for the boat. No one will see me, I promise you. When I am with you we shall cut the boat adrift and let the vessel outsail us. Then we must make for the coast in the direction of Tuxtla. We shall know which way to steer because of the volcano. But after that--why, I know not what we shall do." "Have you no plan?" "Marry, I have ideas. We might go across country to Acapulco, hoping to find there an English ship; but 'tis a long and weary way, and what with Indians and wild beasts I fear we should never get there. Howbeit let us tackle one danger at a time." Being then called to dinner I went below, and was perforce once more obliged to sit at meat with my jailer, who, now that his charge of me was coming to an end, was more polite than ever, and treated me with exceeding great courtesy. "You have been on deck, Master Salkeld," said he, "and have doubtless perceived that we are in sight of land." "I have seen the great mountain, Senor," I answered. "True, the land is yet little more than a line. If the wind had been fair we should have dropped anchor ere midnight. Your voyage has been a long one, but I trust you have not been inconvenienced." "Only as a man may be by the loss of his liberty, Senor." "You will soon be free," he answered, giving me one of his strange, mocking smiles. "And I trust that when we part it will be with a full recognition on your side of the way in which I have carried out our bargain." "As I do not remember our bargain, Senor, I am afraid that is hardly possible," I made answer. "Chut! your memory is certainly at fault. However, the facts will probably occur to you--later." "Part of the bargain, if I remember your first mention of it, Senor, was that you should carry me to the West Indies." "You are right in that," said he. "Are we approaching the West Indies?" "The West Indies is a wide term, Master Salkeld. We are certainly not approaching the West India islands. We are, in fact, off the coast of Mexico, and the mountain you see in the distance is the famed peak of Orizaba. To-morrow morning we shall drop anchor in the port of Vera Cruz." "And what shall I do there, Senor?" He smiled at the question--a mysterious smile, which had a grim meaning behind it. "Who knows, Senor? There are many occupations for a young and active gentleman." Now, for the life of me I could not help asking him a very pertinent question before I left the cabin to return on deck. "Senor," I said, "seeing that we are to part so soon you will perhaps not object to giving me some information. How much did my cousin, Master Jasper Stapleton, pay you for your share in this matter?" He gave me a curious glance out of his eye corners. "The amount of your passage-money, Master Salkeld, was two hundred English guineas. I hope you consider the poor accommodation which I have been able to give you in accordance with that sum." "I have no fault to find with the accommodation, Senor," I replied. "So far as the bodily comfort of your prisoner was concerned you have proved yourself a good jailer." "Let us hope you will never find a worse, Master Salkeld," he answered, with another mocking smile. "But, indeed, you wrong me in speaking of me as a jailer. Say rather a kind and considerate host." I repressed the words which lay on the tip of my tongue ready to fling at him, and went on deck. The wind was still against us, and the ship made little progress, for which both Pharaoh and I were devoutly thankful, neither of us being minded to make Vera Cruz ere night fell. Certainly there was little to choose between the two courses open to us. If we were handed over to the Inquisitors by Nunez, we should certainly be burned at the stake, or, at any rate, racked, tortured, and turned over to a slave-master. If we reached shore we should have to undergo many privations and face all manner of perils, with every probability of ultimately falling into the hands of the Spaniards once more. Indeed, so certain did it seem that we should eventually meet our fate at the stake, or the rack, that more than once I doubted whether it was worth our while to attempt an escape. But life is sweet, however dark its prospects may be, and a true man will always fight for it, though the odds against him are great. And, moreover, when a man knows what manner of death it is that awaits him, he will make the most desperate efforts to escape it, if it be such a death as that intended for us by the Spaniards. Now, although I had lived in such an out-of-the-way part of England, I had heard many a fearful story of the wrongs and cruelties practiced by the Inquisitors in Mexico. Tales came across the wide ocean of rackings and tormentings and burnings, of men given over to slavery, wearing their San-benitos for many a weary year, and perhaps dying of torture in the end. We would do something to escape a fate like that, God helping us! Late that night Captain Nunez stood by my side on deck. The wind now blew from the north-west, and the ship was making headway towards land. To the south-east, through the darkness, glimmered the volcanic fire of Tuxtla, but the giant peak of Orizaba had disappeared. "To-morrow at sunrise, Master Salkeld, we shall be in the port of Vera Cruz," said Nunez. "I have some friends there to whom I will give you an introduction. Till then, Senor, sleep well." He smiled at me in the dim lantern light and went below. I remained pacing the deck for another hour. Once or twice I looked over the side and saw the boat swinging below our stern. Now, the poop of the Spanish ship was of a more than usual height, and I foresaw that I should have some difficulty in getting into the boat, and run a fair chance of drowning. Better drown, I thought, than burn; and so, after a time, the deck being quiet, I climbed over the side and managed to drop into the boat, where I made haste to hide myself as I best could. It was some two hours after that when Pharaoh Nanjulian joined me, and immediately cut us adrift. The ship seemed to glide away from us into the darkness. CHAPTER VIII. AN UNKNOWN LAND. Now, although we were adrift in a perilous sea, and had no hope of making land, save in a wild and savage country, where there was more hope of mercy from the Indians than from the civilized Spaniards, I was yet so thankful to find myself free of the ship and of Senor Manuel Nunez, that for some moments I could scarcely believe in my freedom. "I could swear that I am but dreaming and shall presently awake to find myself a prisoner," I said to Pharaoh, who was busily engaged in examining the boat. "'Tis no dream, master," said he. "This is a very stern reality, as you shall quickly find. Nor is it time for dreaming. If we mean to come out of this adventure with whole skins, we shall have to acquit ourselves like true men." "I am ready," said I. "Tell me what to do, and I will do it." "Well said," he answered approvingly. "But I could see from the outset that you had the true spirit in you. You are a Yorkshireman, master, and I am a sea-dog of Cornwall; but, marry, we are both Englishmen, and we will come out of this scrape yet. 'Tis not the worst I have been in--but more of that anon. Now to begin with, we will discuss our present situation, and then, having determined our course of action, we will put it into execution." So we talked things over, and eventually came to these conclusions. We were, so far as Pharaoh could reckon, about ten miles from land, and we must reach the coast during the night if we wished to escape observation. That accomplished, we must strike across country for Acapulco, where it was possible we might meet with an English ship. The distance was some three hundred miles in a bee-line, and the character of the country rough; but that mattered little, for we should of necessity be obliged to keep away from the roads and bridges. There was no considerable town on our way, save Oaxaca, and that we must leave to our left. If we fell in with Spaniards we were lost men, for they would certainly carry us to Vera Cruz or to Mexico, and there hand us over to the Inquisitors. As for wild beasts and Indians, we must take our chance, trusting in God's mercy for protection and help. We now examined the boat, which was but a small craft that had been unstrung the day before, in order that the ship's carpenter might examine some fancied defect in the rudder. Fortunately a pair of oars had been left in her, and these Pharaoh now took in hand, bidding me steer for the volcanic flame, which played over the peak of Tuxtla, immediately before us. "I can pull ten miles in this sea," said he, "and I warrant you have had little experience in that line, master. Now, you see that the wind has drifted us due south until to-night, and therefore Nunez has come some five-and-thirty miles out of his course for Vera Cruz. He will now beat up along the coast, heading north and west, and so if we steer south-by-east he will have hard work to catch us when he finds that we are gone, as he will ere morning. And now to work." Thereupon he fell to the oars, and with such good-will, that the light craft, her nose kept towards the volcanic fire, began to shoot through the regular swell of the placid ocean at a comfortable rate. Hour after hour he toiled, and would hear naught of my relieving him, though his throat grew dry with thirst and his arms ached. Gradually the coast loomed higher and higher through the gloom, and at length Pharaoh pulled in his oars, and stood up in the bow to look around him. "When I was off this coast ten years ago," said he, "I remember a spot hereabouts where a boat might land with safety and ease. We will lie quiet till the light comes, master, and then attempt a landing." "But suppose Nunez should see us?" "He could not catch us ere we land if he did, unless by some strange chance he has gotten to the east of us--and that's not possible," said Pharaoh. "I reckon that by this time he is twenty miles to westward of us, and therefore we are well out of his reach." So we hove-to until the morning began to break, when, spying a convenient creek, we ran the boat ashore, and so set foot on Mexican soil, wondering what was to befall us next. Now, to me, who had never seen aught of any land save England, these new surroundings were exceeding strange and wonderful. Although it was yet but a half-light all round us on shore, the giant peak of Orizaba, rising high and magnificent across the land to the north-west, was already blazing in the saffron-colored tints of early morning, while directly above us the lower heights of Tuxtla also reflected the rays of the rising sun. Once away from the shore the vegetation surprised and delighted me exceedingly. Great trees, such as I had never seen or heard of, sprang from the rocks and towered above us like gigantic ferns; the undergrowth was thick and luxurious, and the grass under foot was soft and heavy as velvet. Also, though it was winter, there were flowers and plants blossoming in the open such as never blossom in our English glass-houses, so that altogether I was amazed at the richness and prodigality of the land, and said so to my companion. "Aye," said he, "'tis indeed a fair land, master, and would be very well if these murderous Spaniards had left it alone. As it is, they have simply turned it into a pandemonium, such as all lands, fair or foul, become when men go a-lusting for gold and treasure. Yea, not even the Indians, with all their heathenish practices, were half so cruel as these Spaniards with their racks and thumb-screws, their stakes and daggers. And therefore the more reason why we should avoid them." Having somewhat refreshed ourselves by a brief rest, and armed ourselves with two stout cudgels cut from a neighboring tree by Pharaoh's knife, which was the only weapon we had, we set forth through the woods, he leading the way. By that time we were faint with hunger and could well have done with a meal, but though there were, doubtless, Indian villages close at hand we dare enter none of them, and so went forward with empty stomachs. In the woods, however, we came upon prickly pears, which there grow wild, and these we essayed to eat; but had great difficulty in stripping them of the prickles, which, if they enter the tongue, do cause an unpleasantness that is not soon forgot. Our hunger growing very keen we sought to capture or slay some bird or animal, and Pharaoh being accustomed to this sort of hunting--for he had known many adventures--presently succeeded in knocking down a wild turkey, flocks of which bird we constantly encountered. We lighted a fire by means of his flint and steel, and cooked our quarry, and so went forward again refreshed by the food, which was pleasant enough to hungry men. We pressed on for two days through the woods, living as we best could upon such animals as Pharaoh was able to knock down, and on the pears, which were all the more aggravating to our hunger because of their sharp spines. During those two days we did not come in contact with human beings, though we thrice saw parties of Indians and had to conceal ourselves from them. We followed no path, and if we chanced to cross one we immediately left it and plunged deeper into the woods. By the end of the first day our clothes were torn to rags, and hung in strips from our backs; by the end of the second our shoes had been cut to pieces, and so we looked as wretched and lost a couple of vagabonds as you ever saw. On the evening of the second day we came to the verge of the wooded heights, and saw before us the wide plain of Orizaba, which lay between us and Acapulco, and must needs be crossed if we meant to reach the Pacific coast. "It is here that I see most reason to be a-feared," said Pharaoh, as we halted and looked out across the plain. "There is precious little cover or shelter on this plain, and it will be a miracle if we escape observation in crossing it. Moreover, there are constantly traversing it bodies of Spaniards, going to and from Oaxaca and Mexico, so that we shall be liable to capture at any moment, having nowhere to hide ourselves." "How would it do to hide ourselves as we best can by day, and to go forward by night?" said I. "'Tis a good notion, master, and we will try it," he answered. "But I fear me there is little in which we can hide, and as for food, I do not see how we are to manage. Howbeit, we will not despair yet awhile, having managed so far." That night we accordingly made our way across the wide and lonely plain, having for our guide the constellation Virgo, which Pharaoh Nanjulian knew and pointed out to me with some learning. "Them that go down to the sea in ships," said he, "must needs learn a good deal if they would prosper. I have studied the heavens somewhat, because more than once it has been my lot to find myself at sea without a compass, and in a plight like that a knowledge of the stars and planets is a good thing for a man to have at his command. Now, if we do but set our faces to yonder constellation we shall keep in a straight line for Acapulco--and God send we may land there safely!" We made fairly good progress across the plain, but when morning broke from the eastern horizon we were still many a long mile from the great terrace of mountainous land which divides Mexico from Oaxaca and the Pacific coast. Therefore we had to cast about us for some shelter. This we had great difficulty in securing, for the plain at that part was entirely barren of shrub or tree, and there was not even a water-course at which we could slack our parched throats. But coming upon a half-ruined hut, which had evidently been the home of some Mexican Indian, tending his sheep in those wild parts, we took refuge in it and lay down to sleep, hoping that no one passing that way would feel curious enough to stop and examine our shelter. This sort of life continued to be our lot for another day and night, during which we had scarcely anything in the way of food, and also suffered severely from thirst. And what with this, and with our fear of meeting Indians and Spaniards materially increased, our condition was by no means a happy one. But we still continued to hope, and to cheer each other onward. CHAPTER IX. AN ADVENTURE OF SOME IMPORTANCE. We traveled in this fashion, sleeping in the daytime and pressing forward during the night, until the sixth day after our departure from the ship. By that time we were both considerably changed in health and appearance. Our clothes were torn to rags, our feet and arms were torn and bleeding, and our vagabond air increased with every mile we covered. Of our looks, however, we thought nothing; but we were perforce obliged to think a good deal of our unfortunate stomachs, which had not been either filled or reasonably satisfied since we set foot in those regions. Hunger and privation, in short, were doing their work upon us, and we were doubtful if we should manage to hold out until we had crossed the country and made Acapulco. Towards evening of the sixth day of our travels, we were lying asleep in a little gully formed by the descent of a mountain stream into the plain which we were then quitting. We had arrived at this spot early that morning, and finding sweet and fresh water there had drunk heartily of it and lain down to sleep in a sheltered spot. We were both well-nigh exhausted that morning, and our hunger was exceeding fierce; but sharp-set as we were our limbs refused to carry us on any foraging expedition, and therefore we sank to sleep, and slept despite our hunger and danger. It was well towards evening when I suddenly awoke. I know not what it was that made me open my eyes so suddenly, but there flashed through my mind at that moment a notion that we were being watched. It was a strange feeling, and one that occasioned me considerable discomposure, not to say fright, and it seemed to enter my brain with the same ray of sunlight that lifted my eyelids. And so strong was this feeling, that I experienced no surprise or astonishment when I saw two eyes looking straight into mine from over the top of a rock which rose immediately in front. Nevertheless it was a hideous and fearful sight that I looked upon. The eyes shone, not out of a human face foul or fair, but out of the slits in a black cowl, drawn so tightly over its wearer's head that nothing of him was to be seen from forehead to chin. There was this horrible black thing, a blot upon the bright sunlit sky behind, peeping at me from over the rock, and out of its eye-holes gleamed two eyes, as keen and bright as those of a wild animal. If I had not just then been parched with thirst I should have screamed in my terror. As it was, I gave a feeble cry, and the black head instantly vanished. I leapt to my feet and ran forward to the rock. Below it the ground was broken and rocky, and at a few yards' distance was a belt of wood which stretched down to the plain. I fancied I could see a black robe disappearing amongst the trees, but though I waited a few moments I saw no further signs of a human being. I returned to Pharaoh Nanjulian and woke him up. He was sound asleep when I touched him, but started to his feet as soon as I laid my hand on his shoulder. "What is it, master?" he asked, scanning my face narrowly, as if he saw some sign of disturbance there. "You look alarmed." "I have seen a man watching us." "What kind of a man? Where has he gone?" "Nay, that I know not. When I opened my eyes just now they fell full upon him. He stood behind that rock, peering over it at me. I saw naught of him but his head, and that was hidden in a black cowl with eye-slits, through which his eyes gleamed like fire." Pharaoh shook his head. "'Tis a Familiar," said he. "One of those accursed fanatics, master, that dog and pry after honest men like sleuth-hounds, and leave them not until the flame licks their bodies. This is bad news, i' faith. Which way went he?" I told him that I thought I had seen a black robe vanishing among the trees below, but could not be certain. At that he seized his staff and went down the slope himself, examining all the likely places in which a man might have concealed himself. But he found naught, and so came back to me, shaking his head. "You are sure you were not dreaming?" he asked. "Men dream of strange things when hunger is on them." "How could I dream of what I never saw in my life?" said I. "You mean the black hood, master? Alas! I have seen it, and so has many a good man, to his sorrow. Those accursed fanatics! They creep about in God's blessed sunlight like reptiles. You should see them walk the streets. Close to the walls they go, their hands meekly folded, their cowled heads bent to the ground, and yet their eyes note everything. God is on their lips--yea, but the devil is in their hearts." "What shall we do, Pharaoh?" I asked him. "Marry, all we can do is to leave this spot and push forward up the mountains. There are yet two hours of daylight, but we must chance that. If we can escape this fellow until darkness sets in, we may yet give him the slip altogether." So we set out once more, our bodies refreshed by our long sleep, but the hunger still fiercely gnawing within us. We were driven to plucking the prickly pears again, troublesome as was the peeling of them, for we could eat them as we walked, whereas if we had gone a-hunting for wild turkeys or rabbits we should have had to light a fire, and that would have attracted attention to our whereabouts. However, we were successful in knocking down one or two birds, and these we took along with us, intending to cook them as soon as we considered ourselves in safety. As night fell we emerged from the wooded slope up which we had painfully traveled, and found ourselves on a good road, evidently much used for traffic. "This must be the highway that leads from Oaxaca to Vera Cruz," said Pharaoh, looking out upon it from a sheltering tree; "and lo! yonder is a post-house. We must bide awhile where we are or we shall be seen." So we sat down amongst the undergrowth, which was there thick and luxurious, as it was in every wood we had yet crossed, and served to conceal us very well from observation. More than once, as we stayed there, we heard the voices of people passing along the highroad above, and we judged from that, that if we ventured to show ourselves upon it before nightfall we should certainly be seen and stopped. Therefore, apart from our usual hunger and discomfort, we were very well content to remain hidden until such time as the coast cleared. Now about dark, and just as we were making up our minds to a fresh start, and wondering how we should fare in the mountainous range which we had yet to cross, there arose not far away along the highroad a chorus of shouts and screams of such exceeding bitterness, that we felt sure murder was being done. We leapt to our feet and advanced to the edge of the highway, but feared to go further lest we should be seen. "'Tis some footpad affray," said Pharaoh, "and none of our business." But just then came still shriller cries of entreaty for help, and they were so pleading and full of agony, that we both leapt into the road with one accord. "That is a woman's voice," said Pharaoh. "We must needs go to her assistance, come what will. Have your staff in readiness, master, and if there is need, strike hard." We ran swiftly down the road for some fifty yards, and then, turning a sharp corner, came suddenly upon the cause of the disturbance. In the middle of the highway stood a coach, drawn by two mules, and on either side of it were two tall fellows of ferocious aspect, striving to drag from it the occupants, who screamed for help without ceasing. There was no driver or servant visible; the rogues had doubtless escaped to the woods at the first sign of danger. "Take the two on the left," said Pharaoh, "and get in the first blow, master. Look out for their daggers." Now I had never been engaged in a fight since the days when Jasper and I occasionally came to fisticuffs with the village boys at Beechcot, but I felt my blood warm at the notion of combat, and so I sprang in between the two desperadoes who were busy at the left side of the coach, and laid my staff about their ears with hearty good-will. They were trying to drag an old man from the coach when we came up, and were threatening him with what I took to be the most horrible of curses. I hit one of them fair and square on the shoulder before he knew of my presence, and he immediately turned and fled, howling like a beaten dog. The other turned on me with a cruel-looking knife, but I knocked it out of his hand with a blow that must have broken his wrist, and he too fled into the woods with a fearful imprecation. Meanwhile, Pharaoh had beaten off his men on the other side; one was limping along the highway howling with pain, and the other lay on the ground senseless. We had carried the fight with sharp and startling effect. Inside the coach sat an old gentleman and a young girl, and both were so frightened, that when we assisted them to alight they were nearly speechless, and could only sigh and moan. Presently, however, the young lady found her tongue, and began to pour out an astonishingly rapid flow of words to me, none of which I understood, but which I took to be expressions of gratitude. "Say naught," whispered Pharaoh in my ear, "I will talk to them in their own lingo. Do not let them see that we are English." "Noble gentlemen," said the old man, presently recovering his speech, "I know not how to thank you for this valuable assistance. Caramba! if you had not appeared when you did we should certainly have had our throats cut. Isabella mia, art thou safe? Did those knaves lay finger on thee?" "They did but seize me by the wrist, father," answered the young lady. "But yourself--you are not hurt?" "Nay, child, I called too loudly for that. But certainly another moment would have been our last. Senor, is yonder villain dead?" "Nay," said Pharaoh in his best Spanish, "he breathes, Senor, and will come to presently." "I am beholden, deeply beholden to you both, gentlemen. Dios! to think that I should be unable to travel on even so short a journey with safety! And my own servants--where are they, rascals and poltroons that they are. Ho! Pedro, Chispa, Antonio! I warrant me the knaves are hiding in these woods." This was exactly the truth, for at the old gentleman's call three serving-men came forward from the trees and advanced tremblingly towards the coach. At sight of them their master flew into a terrible rage, and scolded them with a vigor which at any other time would have amused me highly. "Cowards and knaves that ye are!" quoth he. "A pretty body-guard, indeed. What, ye pitiful rogues, did I not fit ye all out with pikes and pistols before quitting Mexico in case we met with ventures of this sort? Oh, ye poltroons, to fly me at the first glimpse of danger! And thou, Pedro Gomez, my coachman these ten years, fie upon thee!" "Most noble Senor," said the man, trembling and bowing, "I did but run to find assistance." "Thou liest, knave. Thou didst run to save thine own skin. But I will remember ye when we are safe in Oaxaca. I will have a convoy of soldiers over these mountains, and trust not to pitiful cowards like ye three. Tie me up this robber who lies there in the road, and fasten him behind the coach. We will see justice done on him at Oaxaca." While the men were doing this the old gentleman once more talked to Pharaoh, thanking us again, and asking how he could reward us. Were we journeying to Oaxaca? If so, let us go along with him, and he would reward us bounteously for our protection. "We thank your honor," said Pharaoh, "but we are two poor shipwrecked mariners, bound across country to Acapulco, where we hope to find ship. But if you would give us food and drink we would thank you, for in good sooth we are desperately hungered." Now it luckily chanced that the coach was well supplied with both the commodities which we desired so earnestly, and, therefore, the old gentleman made haste to reward us according to Pharaoh's request, so that presently we found ourselves with our arms full of meat and bread and bottles of wine, our new-found friend pressing all upon us with great hospitality. Also, he would have us to take a purse of money, assuring us that we should find it useful, and as we had not a penny-piece between us we accepted this offering with thankfulness. "I am sorry that ye cannot accompany me to Oaxaca," said he. "I should have been glad of the company of two such stalwart champions. But know, caballeros, that I am devoutly thankful to you, and will aid you if ever ye have need of me, and it lies in my power." So we thanked him and said farewell for that time, and when the coach had gone on, taking the wounded prisoner with it, we continued our way up the mountains, first supping heartily of the food and wine, and blessing God for it. "'Tis always well to help them that need help," said Pharaoh. "Verily we are rewarded for so doing. This meat and drink makes a new man of me, master." And so it did of me, and it was well, for previously we had been sorely put to it to keep any heart or soul within our starving bodies. CHAPTER X. THE BLACK SHADOWS. Our course that night being of more than usual roughness and difficulty, we made little headway, and by morning we had done no more than reach the height of the mountain range over which we were climbing, and which at that point was some three or four thousand feet above sea-level. Howbeit, we were not disappointed with our night's work, for when the sun rose we found ourselves looking out upon the wide plain which stretches from those mountains to the sea-coast of the Pacific. Half our journey was over. "God send that all may be as well with us during this next journey as it has been during the last," said Pharaoh. "We have prospered exceeding well so far--yea, much better than I expected. Only let us do as well on our way over yonder plain and we shall reach Acapulco in safety." "But what then?" I asked, not knowing what his plans might be. "That," he answered, "is a difficult question, master. We shall certainly meet with no more love at Acapulco than at Vera Cruz, for the Spaniards have still some sore memories of the drubbings we have given them. But there we may find an English ship, for 'tis a convenient port for those vessels that come north. Maybe we shall have to wait awhile, and lie hidden outside the city or on the coast. All that we must leave till the time comes. 'Tis something that we have come thus far without let or hindrance." And truly he was right there and we felt thankful to God for it. In truth we had so far been most mercifully protected, and our adventures had abundantly proved to us that God is merciful to men who have no hope of any mercy or consideration from their fellow-creatures. We now sought out a convenient resting-place, and having found a quiet corner amongst the rocks, we sat down there and ate another hearty meal from the stores given to us by the old Spaniard, after which, feeling much refreshed, we lay down to sleep in a hopeful state of mind. The good food and drink had marvelously restored us, giving us new strength in body and soul, so that we now hoped where we had previously been inclined to despair. And so, being impelled to brighter thoughts than had filled our hearts for some days, we slept more composedly, and had none of those evil visions which had disturbed our sleep on former occasions. Nevertheless evil was drawing near to us while we slept. It was about half-way through the afternoon, when I woke with a sudden feeling that all was not well. It was not the feeling which I had experienced the previous day, namely, that I was being watched, but a curious sensation of coming ill. How it came into my mind I know not; all I know is that I suddenly awoke and came into possession of all my senses with startling swiftness, so that while I had been sound asleep one moment I was wide awake the next, and looking and listening with very eager and acute perception. Also, my heart was beating hard in my breast, as a man's heart will when he suddenly fronts some great danger. And then I knew that evil was at hand, and as I held up my head and looked round I saw it draw near. The place in which we lay was a corner amongst the rocks on the side of the mountain. Before us lay a wide expanse of smooth stone, the top of a great rock that had its base in the woods below. Behind us rose a high wall of rock, and beyond that was the sun, now sinking towards the western horizon. Where we lay everything was in deep shadow, but the table-like piece of rock in front was bathed in brilliant sunlight, and when I woke and looked round my eyes fell upon it, and on a sight which was like to freeze my heart within me. Some ridge of rock or mountain high above us was outlined on the bright stretch of reflected sunlight at our feet, and on this as I looked appeared two shadows--the shadows of human beings, standing motionless on the ridge, and evidently looking out from that commanding position across the wide plain that lay far below. I recognized one of the shadows instantly. It was the figure of a man cloaked in some long clinging garment, that enveloped him from head to foot. As he turned his head I saw the peculiar cowl, with its peaked top, which had confronted me the previous day. The other shadow seemed to be that of a naked man, of slender, sinewy limbs, who carried a bow, and whose head was ornamented with long, waving feathers. Now he stood motionless against the sky, looking like a figure cut out of stone or bronze; now he shaded his eyes with his hand, evidently gazing across the plain below; now he stooped and seemed to examine the ground at his feet. But the shadow of the cowled and cloaked figure stood statue-like and never moved. Now, if you can so exercise your imagination as to put yourself in my place, you will not be slow to recognize the terror which came over me at this unexpected sight. If I had seen a dozen armed men spring out upon us from the rocks I should have cared not. But to see these sinister-looking shadows, motionless or restless, on the bright patch of sunlight, was an awful thing--yea, to this day I do often see it in my dreams, and wake sweating with fear and horror. I leaned over and touched Pharaoh lightly. He woke on the instant and sat up. "Hush!" I whispered, pointing to the shadows. "Look there!" He lifted his hand to his brow and gazed at the shadows with a wonder-struck air. Then he seemed to recognize their import, and turned to me with a shake of the head. "Lad," said he, "we are about to have trouble. 'Tis that accursed Familiar. He hath tracked us. Said I not that these devils in man's shape are like sleuth-hounds?" "But the other, Pharaoh? What is the other?" "An Indian, lad. See there, he is stooping to examine the ground. They are like dogs--they will find a trace where we should see naught." "What shall we do?" "God help us!--I know not. Once on our track they will hunt us down. See there!" To the two shadows was suddenly added a third, a fourth, a fifth, then a sixth and seventh, and presently others until we counted twelve. "All Indians except the monk," said Pharaoh. "He is the huntsman and they are his dogs. See, they are separating again. Lad, get thy cudgel in readiness. 'Tis the best weapon we have." We started to our feet and gripped our staves firmly. And at the prospect of a fight my terror died away. There was no ghostly fear about things of flesh and blood. You can strike a man, but who can strike a shadow? At that moment, over a rock to our left, appeared the face of an Indian, scarred and painted, a very devil's face to look at. We were seen at last! CHAPTER XI. CAPTIVE. As soon as the Indian's face appeared above the rock Pharaoh and I instinctively moved towards him, whereupon he disappeared again with a sudden sharp cry, which was immediately answered from above. "Now, we shall have the whole pack upon us," said my companion. In this prediction he was right, for within a moment the whole body of twelve Indians had surrounded us, and stood gazing at us with faces in which I looked in vain for any sign of compassion at our forlorn state. Behind them came the monk, still clad in his shroud-like cowl, and moving with silent steps as if he were a ghost rather than a living man. But as he drew near to where we stood he threw back the hood from his head, and then we saw his face for the first time. I will describe this man to you, because he was not only the most remarkable but also the most relentlessly cruel man that I have ever come across in my life. As for his name, which we learnt ere long, it was Bartolomeo de los Rios, and his one aim and passion was the hunting, torturing, and burning of heretics. He had the faculties of a sleuth-hound and the instincts of a serpent, and when he had once set his heart on hunting a man to his death, it was only by God's mercy that that man escaped. Nevertheless this man as he stood before us, looking steadily upon us from under his cowl, did not seem so fearful a monster of cruelty as we afterwards knew him to be. We saw simply a thin, dark-faced monk, whose face was pale as parchment, and whose eyes were extraordinarily bright and keen. The lines and furrows on his brow and cheeks seemed to tell of pain or thought, and his tightly-pursed, thin lips betokened firmness and resolution. I think he could have stood calmly by while his own father was being tortured and have changed no muscle of his face. Thus he was an object of much greater fear than the Indians, who were certainly horrible enough to frighten anybody that had never seen them before. We stood gazing at the monk and his Indians for a moment ere either of us spoke. The Indians seemed to wait instructions from the monk, and looked toward him with eager eyes. As for Pharaoh and myself, we waited to see what would happen. I think we both realized that fortune had suddenly deserted us, but nevertheless we kept a firm grip on our cudgels, and were both resolved to use them if necessary. The monk spoke. His voice was low, sweet and gentle--there was naught of cruelty in it. "Greeting, my children," said he, addressing us. "Be not afraid. There shall no harm come to you." "It will be ill for the man who threatens us with any," answered Pharaoh in Spanish. "We are travelers, and have no mind to be disturbed." "You travel by strange paths," said the monk. "To what part of the country are you going?" "To Acapulco," answered Pharaoh, adding to me, in English, "there is no harm in telling him that." "There is a good road from Oaxaca to Acapulco," said the monk. "Why not follow it?" "We are minded to take our own way," said Pharaoh doggedly. "You Englishmen are fond of that," observed the monk with a strange smile. "Who says we are English?" asked Pharaoh. "Your Spanish is proof of that." "I am from Catalonia," said Pharaoh. "We do not speak pure Castilian there." "And your companion? Is he, too, from Catalonia, or is he dumb?" To that Pharaoh answered nothing. The monk turned his bright eyes on me. "What is your business here?" he said, in very good English. "If you cannot speak to me in my tongue, I must talk with you in yours." "Answer him," said Pharaoh. "There is no use in further concealment." "I see no reason why I should answer you, master," said I, feeling somewhat nettled at the man's peremptory tone. "What right have you to stop us in this fashion?" He smiled again, if that could be called a smile which was simply a sudden flash of the eyes and a tightening of the thin lips, and looked round at his Indians. "The right of force," said he quietly. "You are two--we are many." "Two Englishmen are worth twenty Spanish devils," said I sulkily. "If it is to come to fighting," said Pharaoh, gripping his cudgel. The monk said a word in a low tone. The Indians on the instant raised their bows and drew their arrows to the full extent of the string. The tips pointed dead upon us. "Englishmen," said the monk, "look at those arrows. Every one of them is tipped with poison. If you move I give the word, and those arrows will find a resting place in you. Let them but touch your arms, your shoulders, inflicting but a scratch, in a few seconds you will be as one that is paralyzed, in a few minutes you will lie dead." The man's words were gentle enough, but somehow his low, sweet voice made my blood run cold. Why did cruelty veil itself in such a honeyed tone? "What is it you want of us, master?" asked Pharaoh presently. "Your names and business." "That is easily answered. This gentleman is one Master Humphrey Salkeld, of Yorkshire in England, who hath many powerful friends at court; as for me, I am a sailor, and my name is Pharaoh Nanjulian, of Marazion in Cornwall. As for our business, we are shipwrecked mariners, or as good, and our hope is to find an English vessel at Acapulco and so return home. If you be a Christian you will help us." "Christians help only Christians. I fear ye are Lutherans, enemies of God." "That we are not," answered Pharaoh stoutly. "I will say my Paternoster in English with anybody, and my Belief too, for that matter." The monk sighed. Perhaps he was disappointed to find that Pharaoh had so much knowledge. "And you?" he said, turning to me. "I am a Christian," I answered, surlily enough, for I did not like this examination. "We are both Christians, master," said Pharaoh. "Maybe we think not as you do on some points, but 'tis naught. So help us of your charity, and assist us to get out of this country to our own, and we will say a Paternoster for you night and morning." "Verily," answered the monk, "you speak fairly. I will help you. You shall go with me to Mexico, and there we will see what ships there are at Vera Cruz." "We would rather push forward to Acapulco," answered Pharaoh. "There are more likely to be English ships there." "English ships have gone there little during recent years, and you will find none now," said the monk. "For all that we would rather take our chance there," said Pharaoh. "It will be better for you to accompany me to Mexico. Vera Cruz is close at hand. And now, as the day waxes late, we will proceed." Now, there was no use in further argument, for the monk had every advantage of us, and was clearly minded to have us accompany him at whatever cost. Therefore we had to yield ourselves to his will but never did men give in with worse grace or heavier hearts than we. "God help us!" said Pharaoh. "We are going into the very jaws of death in going to Mexico. We shall meet Nunez there, and even if we do not, we shall be handed over to the Inquisitors. But God's will be done. Moreover, while there is life there is hope. We may pull through yet." So we set out, the monk going first and taking no further notice of us for some time. He would walk for hours as if absorbed in his own thoughts, and again for a long stretch of time he would read his book or count his beads, but to us he said little. He walked in the midst of the Indians, who for their part were kind and considerate to us, and indulged in no cruelties. Indeed, during our journey to the City of Mexico we had no reason to complain of discomfort or poor fare, for we had all that men can require, and were well treated, save that at night they guarded us more closely than we liked. But as to food and drink, we were abundantly served, and so began to wax fat, in spite of our anxiety. There was no restriction placed upon our tongues at this time, and therefore Pharaoh and I talked freely whenever we were out of hearing of the monk. As for our conversation, it was all of one thing--the prospect that awaited us in Mexico. "What will come of this venture, Pharaoh?" I asked him one day as we drew near our destination. "Shall we come off with whole skins, or what?" "It will be well if we come off with our lives, master. I have been thinking things over to-day, and I make no doubt that this monk will hand us over to the Inquisition. Put no trust in what he says about finding us a ship at Vera Cruz. The only ship he will find us will be a dungeon in some of their prisons. Well, now, what are our chances when we fall into the hands of these fellows?" "Nay, very small I should say. I am well-nigh resigned to anything. Nevertheless, Pharaoh, I shall make a fight for it." "It may not come to fighting. Can you say the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Creed?" "I can say two of them, and I can learn the third. But what difference does that make?" "All the difference 'twixt burning at the stake and wearing a San-benito in a monastery for a year or two. Now, if we are burnt there is an end of us, but if they put us into a monastery with a San-benito on our backs we shall still have a chance of life, and shall be poor Englishmen if we do not take it." Thus we talked, striving to comfort ourselves, until at the end of the fourth day we were brought by our captors to the City of Mexico. CHAPTER XII. MORE CRUEL THAN WILD BEASTS. There are times when, looking round these fair lands of Beechcot, and thinking on the quiet and prosperous life which I have spent in their midst these many years, I fall to wondering whether those dark days in Mexico were real or only a dream. It seems to me, sometimes, that all which then happened to me and to my companion, Pharaoh Nanjulian, must have been but a dream and naught else, so horrible were the cruelties and indignities practiced upon us. You could hardly bring yourselves to believe, you who have lived quiet, stay-at-home lives, how merciless were the men into whose hands we fell, and if I did but tell you one-tenth of the malignity which they displayed towards us, you would not wonder that I sometimes feel inclined to wonder if my memories of that most unhappy time are not dreams rather than realities. But I know well that there is nothing unreal about them, for I bear on my body certain marks which came there from the rack and the pincers, and there are moments when I seem to endure my agony over again, and the sweat drops from my brow as I think of it. We were led into the City of Mexico through the gate of St. Catherine, and were thence marched forward to the Placa del Marquese, close by the market-place. There we were soon surrounded by a throng of folks, who seemed not unkindly disposed towards us. Some, indeed, brought us food from their houses, and others drink; one man handed Pharaoh Nanjulian a coat, a noble-looking lady, closely wrapped in her mantilla, gave me money, hurrying away ere I could refuse the gift. I suppose we looked so woe-begone and vagabondish in our rags and tatters, that the hearts of these people melted towards us. Nevertheless it was plain to see that we were prisoners, and that the monk had no notion of putting us in the way of getting a ship. Now, as we stood there in the Placa, closely guarded by the Indians, the monk having disappeared for the moment, who should come up to us but that polite gentleman, Captain Manuel Nunez, arrayed in very brave fashion and smiling his cruel smile as usual. He pushed his way through the throng, folded his arms, and stood smiling upon us. "So, Master Salkeld," he said, "you have fallen into the tiger's den after all. Certainly what was born to be burned will never be drowned. I looked to see you again, Senor." "We shall possibly meet yet once again," said I. "And it may be where you and I are on level terms, Captain Nunez. If that time should ever come, ask God to have mercy upon you, for rest assured that I shall have none." "Brave words, Senor, brave words! I wish it were possible that you might have the chance to make them good. But that I am afraid you never will have. You are safely caged." Then he began to abuse us to the people, bidding them look upon us for English dogs, Lutherans, enemies of God, sweepings of the English sink of iniquity, for whom neither rack, thumb-screw, nor stake was sufficient reward. Me he denounced to the people as a runaway criminal, describing me in such terms as made my blood boil within me, and my hands itch to take him by the neck and crush the life out of his wicked heart. "You are a liar and a knave," said I and then for the moment forgetting my dignity as an English gentleman I spat full in his face. Bethink you--my hands were tied behind me, and not free to use. Otherwise I had not done it. Now at this insult his face turned deathly white and then flushed a bright red, and there came into his eyes a gleam which meant murder, and plucking forth his rapier he would certainly have slain me there and then, had not the monk returned at that instant and prevented his fury from wreaking itself upon me. At this interference he grew still more furious, and well-nigh foamed at the mouth, swearing by all the saints in his calendar that he would slay me where I stood. But at a word from the monk he smiled a grim, meaning smile, and thrusting back his rapier into its sheath turned away from us with a face full of hate and malignity. We were now taken away to a hospital, where we found other Englishmen--some sailors that had been captured by the Spaniards at sea, and others merchants who had been taken while prosecuting their trade in various ports in that part of the world. Some of these men had been in captivity for many months, and they explained to us that they were being kept for a new sitting of the Inquisition, at which, they said, we should all be examined and possibly tortured, with a view to extracting from us confessions that would doom us to the fire. So under this prospect we sat down to wait, and for several weeks remained in strict captivity, having enough to eat, but being terribly cast down by the knowledge of what awaited us. It appeared from such information as we could obtain that the Inquisitors were at that time absent from the city, conducting examinations in another part of the country, and that when they returned our cases would be gone into. There had been no Auto-de-fe, or public burning of heretics for a year or two, and it seemed only too probable from what we now heard that one was meditated for the coming Good Friday. Positive information on this point, however, we could not then get; therefore we remained in our captivity, alternately hopeful and despondent, praying God either to release us from our desperate situation or to give us strength to endure whatever might be in store for us. About the beginning of Lent, in the year 1579, the Inquisitors returned to the City of Mexico, and it immediately began to be whispered amongst us that the examinations were shortly to begin. We soon found that this was the truth, and the first intimation of it came to us in highly unpleasant form. On Ash Wednesday we were removed from the hospital in which we had been confined until then, and were taken through the city to certain cells or dungeons, in which we were separately placed, so that from that time forward we saw nothing of each other, and thus had no companion to turn to for sympathy when our need was sorest. But as God would have it, it befell to Pharaoh Nanjulian and to me, that as we were being led across the market-square by our guards, there came up to us the old gentleman whom we had saved from highwaymen on the road to Oaxaca. He seemed vastly surprised to find us in that unhappy condition, and insisted with some slight show of authority on our guards allowing him to speak with us. "Surely," said he, "ye are the two brave men who preserved me and my daughter from those cut-throat villains as we traveled to Oaxaca. How came ye in this company?" "Sir," said Pharaoh, "that is what we do not know ourselves. We are two inoffensive Englishmen, brought into this country against our wills, and wishing or intending no harm to any man, but only anxious to find a ship that will carry us back to our own land. Here we are treated like malefactors and criminals, and yet we have broken no law that we know of, nor are we brought before any judge to hear what our jailer hath against us. If you indeed are grateful for what we did for you help us to our liberty." "I am grateful, friend," answered the old man, "and will do what I can for you. But tell me your story." So we told him all that had happened to us from the time of our leaving England, and mentioning more particularly the treacheries practiced upon us by Captain Nunez and Frey Bartolomeo, at the mention of whose names he shook his head. "I am sorry indeed for you," said he when we made an end, "and the more so because ye are in a very grievous plight. But now, keep up your hearts, for I have some influence with the Chief Inquisitor, and it shall be exerted on your behalf. 'Tis truly a pity that ye are Englishmen, but I hope ye are Christians." "Christians we are," said Pharaoh, "and will say our Paternoster and Credo with any man." "'Tis well, and therefore keep up your hearts, I say. I will see to this matter at once." This meeting and the cheerful words spoken to us by the old man did somewhat revive our hopes, more especially when we heard from our guards that he was a person of some distinction in that city. So we parted, Pharaoh and I, and were prisoned in solitary dungeons. For the next three or four weeks I saw no man save my jailers, who fed me chiefly on bread and water, or on maize, crushed and boiled, which food did speedily bring me to a low and miserable condition. Indeed, what the noisomeness of my cell and the loneliness of my state failed to do the bad food speedily accomplished, so that within a month of my imprisonment I became a weak and nerveless creature, and was ready to weep at a rough word. About three weeks before Easter I was taken before the Inquisitors and put to the question. Now, I had expected and dreaded this ordeal, and was not in over good a state to face it when at last it came upon me. Nevertheless I made shift to summon my courage so that I might show a bold front to my oppressors. The Inquisitors sat in a small apartment hung round with black and lighted by torches, and there was that in their appearance which was calculated to strike terror into the stoutest heart. Behind a table, set upon a dais, sat the Chief Inquisitor, with his assistant on one side of him and his secretary on the other. They were all robed in black, and their thin, ascetic faces looking out from the dark recesses of their cowls, had in them neither mercy nor pity, nor indeed aught but merciless resolution. There were other robed and cowled figures in the room, but I noticed none of them particularly save the monk Bartolomeo, who stood there ready to make accusation against me. There was an interpreter in the apartment, a half-breed named Robert Sweeting, whose name I desire to put on record, because he did me a kindness at the risk of his own life. To this man the Inquisitors addressed their questions, and through him I answered them to the best of my ability. They set out by asking me the full particulars of my presence in Mexico, which questions I replied to with very great delight, as they afforded me an opportunity of having my say as to Captain Manuel Nunez and his fellow-villain Frey Bartolomeo, whom I did not spare, though he stood by and heard me with an unmoved countenance. Indeed, I spake so plainly concerning him that the Chief Inquisitor stopped me. "It is not seemly," said he, "to speak in disrespectful terms of men vowed to sacred offices." To this I answered that I had been brought up from my birth to treat my pastors and teachers with respect and reverence, but that I could feel none for a man who had abused his sacred office by deceiving unfortunate men. Then they began to examine me as to my faith, and commanded me to say the Paternoster, Ave Maria, and the Creed in Latin, which, rubbing up such Latin as I remembered from Mr. Timotheus Herrick's instructions, I made difficult shift to do, informing them at the same time that I could say all these things much more readily in English. And this part of my examination being over, and my judges seeming satisfied, I began to breathe more freely, hoping that all might end well. But now they began to examine me on more particular and nicer points, and it was plain to me that if I did but make a slip they would visit it upon my body. For they demanded first, whether I believed or not that any bread or wine remained in the paten or in the chalice after the consecration, and second, whether or not the bread and the wine were not actually the very body and blood of our Lord. To have answered "No" to these questions would have insured my death, therefore I cudgeled my brains for a fitting reply to them, well knowing what depended upon it. And bethinking me of the articles and teachings of my own church, I made answer that I was no scholar or theologian, but a simple country gentleman that had left subtle points to priests and schoolmen, and had always held what they taught me, namely, that our blessed Lord is indeed verily and truly present in the sacrament of His body and blood. This answer seemed to satisfy them, but presently they asked me if I did not follow the teachings of Doctor Martin Luther. I cheerfully replied to that, that I knew naught about Doctor Luther, and had never heard his name mentioned until I came into Mexico; which was plain truth, for we were out of the world at Beechcot, and knew naught of controversies. Then they would have me to tell them what I had been taught to believe in England, to which I answered that I had never been taught any other doctrine than that to which I had already testified, and in which I did firmly and truly believe as a good Christian man, hoping for salvation in the Christian faith. "We must have a more satisfactory answer than that," said the Chief Inquisitor, "otherwise we must try what a sterner method will do with you." "Sir," said I, "other answer I cannot give you, for I have already told you the truth. As for my sins against God I heartily ask His forgiveness, and also yours if I have offended your laws in any way; but I beseech you to remember that I came into your country against my own will, and have never done aught against its laws or against you wittingly. Therefore, I beseech you to have Christian mercy upon my defenseless condition." But they had none, and that night I was put upon the rack, and cruelly tortured by Frey Bartolomeo and his fellows, in the hope that I should confess something against myself. However, God giving me strength, I said naught, and was preserved through that awful torment, the memory of which is strong in my mind even after all these years. CHAPTER XIII. THE AUTO-DA-FE. About the beginning of Holy Week the Inquisitors caused to be erected a great scaffold against the large church in the main square, and from it they proclaimed, with much beating of drums and blaring of trumpets, that whoever should come there upon Good Friday should have made known to them the most just judgments of the Holy Inquisition upon the English heretics, Lutherans, and should, moreover, see the same put into immediate execution. And so now we were face to face with whatever final cruelty these devils in human shape might devise upon us, who were helpless and defenseless in their hands. There was little rest for any of us on the night preceding the judgments, for there came to each of us officers and Familiars of the Inquisition, tormenting us with gibes and sneers, and bringing us the San-benitos in which we were to appear in the great square next morning. It was already turning gray in the east when two of these men entered my dungeon, where I lay still stiff and bruised because of the racking which I had undergone a few days before. They woke me rudely and without consideration, caring naught for the woes I had already suffered or the sorrow I was that day to undergo. "Wake, English dog, Lutheran, enemy of God!" cried one. "Wake and robe thyself to meet thy master the devil. Truly the saints will rejoice to see the sight provided for them this day." Then they hustled me from my straw pallet and bade me dress in the San-benito, which was a garment of yellow cotton having divers devices painted upon it. And this done they took me out into the courtyard of the prison, and there for the first time for some weeks I met Pharaoh Nanjulian. It was easy to see, even in the uncertain light of the early morning, that he had undergone the same torments which they had applied to me. His face was pinched and thin with suffering, and his great frame seemed to have been crushed and bruised until it had shrunk in height and girth. Yet he bore himself with composure and bravery, and I felt at once that, however the rest of us behaved, he at least would not disgrace the name of England. "Heart up, master!" quoth he, as soon as we came within speaking distance of each other. "Heart up! Let us show ourselves brave men this day. I do not think they can torment us more than they have already done. And what if they kill us? We must all die." "Did they torture you badly, Pharaoh?" I asked, admiring his fortitude. He shook his head and smiled grimly. "So badly, master, that it seemed as if every bone in my body was broken and every sinew cracked. But a man may undergo a deal of suffering and yet live. So let us quit us like men and be strong. For truly, though we be in the hands of these devils at present, God is near us, and will maybe be nearer ere the day is done." Then our custodians separated us again, and for a couple of hours they exercised us in the prison yard, showing us in what order we should proceed to the scaffold, and admonishing us as to our behavior when we had come there. And after that was over, it being broad daylight, they gave us breakfast, which was a cup of wine with a piece of bread fried in honey, and so we were ready for the ordeal. There were some sixty to seventy prisoners in all, of all nationalities, a considerable number being Englishmen, and all of us were dressed in those hideous San-benitos, which make the most shameful garb that a man can wear. Being drawn up in single file, our guards fastened a halter round the neck of each prisoner, and afterwards gave to each of us a green wax candle, which we carried, unlighted, in the right hand. Two Spaniards, well armed, guarded each of us, and so the procession being arranged, the great doors were thrown open and we were led forth into the square. The crowd in the square was so thick that the guards had much ado to free a passage through it; but ere long we came to the scaffold, and were conducted upon it, seating ourselves on long rows of chairs placed in full sight of the people. We had not long occupied this shameful position when the Viceroy and his officers came upon the scaffold by another flight of steps, closely followed by the Inquisitors, who took the chief places and made much show of their authority. Then three hundred friars, wearing the garb of their various orders, black, white, gray, and brown, were marshaled to their places, and all was ready for the judgments. Now, we were so sorely exercised in our minds at that time because of the agony of sitting there and wondering when our turn would come and what our fate would be, that I have utterly forgotten many of the names and sentences of my unfortunate companions. Some still come back to me, because their sentences were heavier than those which have escaped my memory. The manner of judgment was after this fashion. The clerk to the Inquisitors calling out our names in a loud voice, we were commanded to stand up in our places and hear the judgment of the Holy Office upon us. Thomas White, Cornelius Johnson, Peter Brown, Henry More, all Englishmen shipwrecked on those inhospitable coasts or captured at sea, were condemned to three hundred lashes on horseback, and to serve in the galleys for ten years. William Collier, Thomas Ford, John Page, two hundred lashes and eight years in the galleys. Stephen Brown and Nicholas Peterson, a Dutchman, one hundred lashes and six years in the galleys. Then came some forty or fifty men whose names I have forgotten, who were condemned to a lesser number of lashes and less servitude in the galleys, and after them some four or five who were adjudged to serve in monasteries for various terms of years, wearing their San-benitos all the time. And then, after two or three hours of weary waiting, for they did everything with exceeding tediousness and much ceremony, they called upon Pharaoh Nanjulian and myself, and we stood up together to receive sentence. And then we suddenly knew that God had not deserted us, for the sentence was a lighter one than any that we had heard passed. We were to serve two years in the galleys, submitting ourselves to the chaplain for admonition and instruction. So that was over and we could breathe freely again. Nevertheless the horrible work of that day was far from over, for it was hardly begun. The torments, the murders, were yet to come. William Moor, John Wood, and Hans Schewitzer, a German Lutheran, were brought up for sentence and condemned, being pestilent and naughty heretics, to be burned to ashes. They lost no time, these villainous Spaniards, in carrying out this sentence. In front of the scaffold stood three stout iron posts, firmly sunk in the ground, with fagots already piled about them, and to these the unfortunate men were speedily bound, amidst the silence of the crowd and the cries of the monks and Familiars, who pressed upon their victims, bidding them repent and recant ere they were lost forever. But to these murdering villains the three men answered naught, and presently it was all over with them, and there was one more crime recorded against Spain. Then those of us who had been sentenced to so many lashes were led down from the scaffold and placed upon horses, being stripped to the waist, and having by them, every man, an executioner armed with a whip. Such of us as had escaped this sentence were arranged in pairs behind, with our halters still round our necks and our guards on either side of us. Before the men who were to be whipped marched two criers, crying "Behold these English dogs, Lutherans, enemies of God," and at intervals came Familiars, such as Frey Bartolomeo, admonishing the executioners to lay on and spare not. Then the procession started, and was conducted by the criers through all the principal streets back to the great square, and at every few steps the executioners laid on with their whips, fetching blood at every stroke, so that to any man having aught of mercy and compassion within him the spectacle was horrible and nauseating, though to the Familiars and Inquisitors it seemed delightful enough. Now, as we returned to the great square, this bloody work being over, the throng pressed upon us so closely that for some few moments we were unable to move, and while we stood there waiting for what would happen next, there came to our side Captain Manuel Nunez, his evil eyes mocking and sneering at us. "So, Master Salkeld," said he, "it would seem that you have not altogether escaped. Our Holy Office is merciful, Master Salkeld, yea, sadly too merciful for my liking. But there are those of us, who know not any mercy for Englishmen and heretics, as you shall find ere long, both of you." With that he vanished in the crowd, and presently Pharaoh and I were led back to prison, wondering what his last words meant. CHAPTER XIV. ON BOARD THE GALLEY. Being led back to the prison, Pharaoh and I found to our unspeakable joy and astonishment that we were to be placed in one cell and not separated as heretofore. This consideration on the part of our jailers was exceedingly pleasant to us, because it afforded us the opportunity of conversing one with the other. Therefore, in spite of our bruises and strains, caused by the rack and not yet forgotten, and of the sad sights which we had that day seen, we made an effort to pluck up our spirits, and to be cheerful and even hopeful. We were further assisted in this laudable desire by a visit from the old gentleman whom we had rescued from highwaymen on the road to Oaxaca. About seven o'clock that evening he was admitted to our cell, and left alone with us. This latter fact at once assured us that our friend was a man of rank and position, otherwise he would not have been permitted to see and speak with us, save in the presence of witnesses. "I trust all is well with you, friends," said he, as he entered our presence, and set down a basket which the jailer had carried to the door. "I come to see you at a sad time, doubtless, but 'tis indeed with feelings of friendship." "We have so few friends in this country, Senor," answered Pharaoh, "that we are glad to see any of them. Nay, indeed, so far as we know, your honor is the only friend we have. Therefore, Senor, you are something more than welcome." Now the jailer being gone, the old gentleman took our hands in his own, and was like to weep over us, at which we marveled, for we did not know that his gratitude was so hearty, seeing that we had done such a small thing for him. "Alas, friends," said he. "I grieve for you more than I can say, for I hate and abominate these murderous Inquisitors, whose hearts are filled with naught but torment and murder. Nevertheless I have saved you somewhat, for it was through my efforts and bribes that you came off with such light sentences." "I thought we had your honor to thank for that," said Pharaoh. "Aye, 'tis well to have a friend at court when need arises." "I labored hard," said the old gentleman, "to secure your freedom, but these bloody-minded Inquisitors are without bowels of mercy, and ye are fortunate to have escaped death or torture. But now I have brought you a little matter of wine and fruit, so fall-to and refresh yourselves, and after that we will talk of what is to come." So he unpacked his basket and set food and wine and delightful fruit before us, and we ate and drank and were vastly comforted thereby, for our commons during the past week or two had been of the very shortest. And when we had thus refreshed ourselves, we began to discuss our situation anew. "That you have escaped with your lives and without the torture of the lash," said our friend, "is due to my continued exertions on your behalf. But now, gentlemen, I am powerless to do more for you." Then we once more thanked him for doing so much, saying that we should always hold his kindness in remembrance, and should ever pray for his happiness and prosperity. "And if," continued I, "your honor can suggest any means by which we can escape from these galleys and regain our own country, we shall be further beholden to you. For, indeed, we have friends in England who must be anxious about us, if they be not already in despair of ever seeing us again." "I fear there is small chance of your escape," said he, shaking his head. "Men that are chained to the oar cannot well escape. I pray God that you may survive your two years of that work--it is not all that do." "Sir," said Pharaoh, "do you know where we shall be taken?" "Nay," answered he, "that I cannot say. Most men who lie under your sentence are shipped to Spain, and are there placed in the galleys. The same fate is probably in store for you." "God help us if they take us to Spain!" said Pharaoh. "We shall have to go through it all over again." However, it seemed almost certain that this would be our fate, and as nothing that we could say or do could alter it, there was naught for it but to submit ourselves with such cheerfulness as we could muster. But here the old Senor gave us some additional comfort, for it seemed that his special purpose in coming to us that night was to give us the names of friends of his in certain towns and ports of Spain, to whom we might apply in case of our being in their neighborhood. "You are something more than likely to be finally dismissed at Cadiz or at Seville," said he, "and it will be none the worse if you know where to turn for a friend;" and with that he gave us the names of certain Spanish gentlemen of rank, his friends, assuring us that they would help us to escape to England. And these names he made us learn by heart, and then, having no more time to spend with us, he bade us farewell, and we saw him no more. But in him we found one Spaniard at least who hated the horrible practices of the Inquisitors, and had a heart within him which was not insensible to the woes of others. After we had remained in the prison five days longer, we were one morning brought forth and stripped of our San-benitos and given rough clothing suited to galley slaves. And that being done we were mounted on stout horses, in company with the other prisoners who had been sentenced to serve in the galleys, and being guarded by a great number of soldiers, well armed, we were sent off across country to the port of Acapulco. But ere we left Mexico every man of us had fastened to his left wrist and ankle a heavily-weighted chain, which would have made it impossible for us to attempt an escape even if we could have eluded the vigilance of our escort. We were somewhat surprised to find that our first destination was Acapulco, for we had fancied that we should be sent to Vera Cruz, which is much nearer to the city of Mexico, and from which we expected to be sent across seas to Spain. We found, however, that at Acapulco there lay at that time a great treasure-galleon, the Santa Filomena, which the Spaniards were minded to take home by way of the Pacific islands and Africa, it being their belief that by this route there would be less chance of meeting Hawkins, or Drake, or Frobisher, or any of the great English sea-captains, of whom they were mortally afraid. In this galleon, then, we were to be shipped, with the prospect of a long and tedious voyage, which, according to Pharaoh's calculations, might cover the best part of a year even with fair winds. Our overland journey to Acapulco was not wholly unpleasant, for our guards being soldiers, and free from the encouragement of those murderous fanatics the Inquisitors and Familiars, treated us with as much consideration as was possible, and forbore to taunt us with our misfortunes. Moreover, we were frequently lodged for the night in the neighborhood of some convent or monastery, and then we did exceeding well, the friars feeding us with their best, and compassionating us for our many sorrows. And at that time it was plain to us that the Inquisition was heartily hated by the friars--black, white, and gray,--and met with no favor from any but such as had long since forgotten all that they had ever known of mercy and compassion. Having reached Acapulco, after many days' journeying over mountains and plains, we were immediately conveyed on board the Santa Filomena, which was a great galleon of full rig, having a high poop and a double bank of oars, and there our chains were knocked off by the armorer. This relief, however, did not long benefit us, for we were presently conducted below to a great deck filled with long wooden benches, parallel with the mighty oars which came through the ports. To one of these benches Pharaoh and I were immediately chained and padlocked, our companions suffering a like treatment. In another part of the deck the benches were filled by negroes, stark naked, whose backs and shoulders were covered by scars, and who yelled and grinned at us like fiends or madmen. "God help us!" said Pharaoh; "they will not release us from these benches till we make Seville or Cadiz." And at that awful prospect I half-regretted that we had not died in Mexico. For simply to think of being chained to the oar all those weary months amidst that foul and unclean mass of humanity, sleeping where we labored, and eating amidst dirt and filth, was more than I could stomach, and at that moment black despair seemed to settle upon my heart. But Pharaoh once more came to my aid and strove to cheer me. "Heart up, master!" said he. "All is not yet over. We are going through sore trials, but what then? Are we not Englishmen? At any rate let us show a stern front to these villains. Cowards we will never be." CHAPTER XV. NUNEZ IN A NEW GUISE. The second day after our arrival at Acapulco, we knew by the hurry and scurry on board our vessel that preparations were being made for sailing. Our deck was now full, and every oar was fully manned with its complement of slaves or captives. Of these the majority were blacks, whose misfortunes had transformed them into nothing better than wild animals; but there were still a large number of whites, and amongst them thirty to forty of our own countrymen. Every man was chained to his bench, and it was evident that there was no intention of releasing us until our voyage came to an end. Thus amongst our miserable company were many who hung their heads in deep dejection, and envied the three men who had met death by the flames in the great square of Mexico. Towards the evening of that day, as I was sitting lost in sad thoughts, I looked up and saw standing at my side two figures, which I had given anything rather than set eyes upon. One was that of Captain Manuel Nunez, the other the black-robed form of Frey Bartolomeo. They stood regarding me steadfastly: the monk calm and quiet, the sailor with his usual cold smile faintly curling about the eyes and mouth. "So, Master Salkeld," said Nunez, "we meet again. You are doubtless on your way home to England to take vengeance on your cousin, Master Stapleton." I looked at him steadfastly. I was not going to be cowed by him, defenseless as I was. "That may be, Senor," said I. "It is a long way to England by the road we are taking, but I shall reach it if God wills that it should be so." "You do well to make that proviso," said he. "For God gives His power to men, and at this moment I, as master of this vessel, and Frey Bartolomeo, as its chaplain, are his viceregents. Wherefore, Master Salkeld, I think your chances are not good." "We are in God's hands," said I; though indeed my heart turned faint and sick to think that these wretches had us in their power. "At present, good Master Salkeld, you are in mine," he answered, smiling mockingly upon me. "But then you know what a kind and considerate host I am. You did admit that, when I carried you across the Atlantic. Still, Master Salkeld, things are somewhat altered between us. I am not now paid to carry you to Mexico and get rid of you. Also, since then you have spat in my face. Ah, you remember that, do you? Dog, you shall remember it every day of your life! I will not kill you now, as I might, but I will kill you by inches, and you shall die at last at your bench and lie there to rot. That is the fate of the dog who spits in the face of a Spanish gentleman." So he turned away, but the man sitting next me put out his hand and plucked the monk's cloak, bidding him remember that he had promised to find him a ship for England, and begging him to keep his plighted word. But Frey Bartolomeo shook him off. "Thou art a heretic," he said. "With heretics we keep no faith. To thy oar, Lutheran!" CHAPTER XVI. THE FLAG OF ENGLAND. And now our cup of misery seemed full indeed. We were friendless and captive, and we had for our jailers two of the most inhuman beings that ever lived to disgrace the earth, and both of them hated us with an exceeding bitter hatred; one because I had spat in his face, the other because we had escaped the fire. Moreover, we were chained to an oar in a vessel which was sailing over I know not how many thousands of miles of water, in latitudes where it was not likely we should fall in with any ship that could rescue us. Verily there seemed before us nothing but horror and death! And truly our lot was hard. Hour upon hour we tugged at the oar. Where we toiled there we slept, amongst the shrieks, sobs, groans, and heart-rending lamentations of our fellow-captives. Up and down the gangways that divided us walked stalwart Spaniards, armed with heavy whips, which they scarcely ever ceased from laying about our bare shoulders. Our food was such as is given to pigs in England--coarse maize or meal, soaked in cold water, with bread of the blackest and hardest description. The heat burned us to madness; the cold night-winds blew in upon us; the salt-spray dashing through the open ports found the raw places in our wounds and stung us as if with fire. Verily, we were in hell! Ere many days had gone by a man dropped and died at his post. They let him hang there by his chains till another day had gone past, then they knocked off his irons and flung him through the port-hole. And there was scarcely a man of us that did not envy him. Now that Captain Manuel Nunez had us in his power there was apparently no limit to his cruelty. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not descend the ladder to our deck and vex our souls with some new form of torture. Sometimes he would take his station near us, and bid the overseers lay on to us with their whips. Sometimes he would take the whip himself and beat us about the head and face with it until we became senseless. Now and then he would amuse himself by pricking us with his sword or dagger; now and then he would spit in our faces and bespatter us with filth, pouring out upon us every foul and evil name he could think of. And when he had worked his will upon us, there would come to us Frey Bartolomeo, cold and cruel, and he would admonish and instruct us, and finding that he could get naught out of us, would depart cursing us for Lutherans and dogs. These two presently devised a new torture, and put it into operation upon us. They caused the ship's armorer to make an iron brand, bearing the word "Heretic", and this being heated red, they came down to us and branded us on back and breast, so that all men, they said, should know us for what we were. And after that they gave us more lashes, and then deluged us with salt water, and so left us more dead than alive. Now, after I had undergone some weeks of this treatment, I was like to have lost my senses, for the strength of my body was giving out, and I felt myself powerless to resist the continued cruelties and insults which were put upon me. Yea, I should certainly have gone mad at that time if it had not been for my faithful companion, Pharaoh Nanjulian, who did his best to cheer and support me, and got no reward for it but an increase of blows and stripes from Nunez, and venomous curses from Frey Bartolomeo. It was one of Nunez's chief delights at this period to come down upon our deck and goad me into a rage that closely approached madness. Thus after exposing me to numerous insults, he would ask me what I proposed to do when I reached England again, and what fate I was keeping in store for my cousin Stapleton. "It must afford you the most exquisite delight of which the human mind is capable, Master Salkeld," he said one day, when he had tormented and plagued me beyond endurance, "to sit here in these pleasant quarters and think of your cousin at home. He hath doubtless entered upon the family estates and married the lady whose affections you stole from him, and maybe he hath by this time told her of the trick he played upon you, and they laugh at it together." And at that I cursed him before God and man and wept bitter tears, for I was thoroughly broken, and had no more heart in me than a child. "So you are broken at last?" said he, and struck me across the mouth and went away. And then I wished to die, for I was indeed broken; but Pharaoh did his best to console me and bade me be of good cheer, for we should triumph yet. Now the next day, our voyage having then lasted some nine or ten weeks, we were aware of a sail bearing down upon us from the south-east, and before long it became evident that this ship was chasing us, whereupon there was much to-do on board the Santa Filomena, and our overseers urged us to renewed exertions with continual lashing of their whips. Nevertheless, within three hours the ship had overhauled us, and from our post we saw flying from her mast-head the flag of England. CHAPTER XVII. FRANCIS DRAKE. Now, if you can bring yourself to imagine what he feels like who, having remained in dire and horrible distress for many weary days, suddenly sees salvation coming to him, you will know what we felt as we gazed through the port-hole and saw that noble English ship draw near with the English flag flying at her mast-head. If you have ever been in like peril yourself you will understand it better. A man condemned to die and suddenly reprieved; another suddenly released from awful slavery; a third suffering from heavy sorrow and suddenly overwhelmed with good tidings--any of these will know what we felt. "An English ship!" cried Pharaoh. "Thanks be to God--an English ship!" And straightway there rose from the crowded benches on our deck a strange and marvelous babble of sound. Some burst into tears of thankfulness and relief, some howled like wild beasts because of their chains, some cursed and blasphemed because there was small chance of the English ship's folk knowing our condition. Others shouted and yelled for help; the men sitting next the port-holes thrust forth their heads and cried loudly across the waters, though the ship was yet a good mile away. Every man betrayed his emotion and his misery in some way: here they tugged at the chains which bound them, there they showed their teeth at the Spaniards, snarling and snapping like dogs chained to a staple in the wall. And then the overseers fell upon us once more, and their great hide-whips descended mercilessly upon our shoulders, so that we were forced to tug at the oars with redoubled force, and the galleon shot forward again under a storm of yells and cries and loud groans. "Yon is an English ship, as I live," said Pharaoh, as we tugged at our oar. "And she will overhaul us. Pray God she does not slay a score of us in this rat-trap by her first shot. If she only knew what we know. Listen, master!" Over the strip of sea that separated us came the dull, heavy roar of a cannon-shot. They were firing at us in order to make the Spaniard lay-to. But Captain Manuel Nunez had no intention of acceding to the Englishman's wishes in that respect, and it was evident that he was crowding on all sail, and making every possible effort to escape that terrible ship which overhauled him hand over hand. On deck we heard the Spaniards rushing hither and thither, the mates and boatswain shrieking and yelling orders to the crew, the armorer and the soldiers making ready the ordnance and small arms. Now and then we caught the voice of Nunez, cool and collected as usual, but very fierce and determined; and once the pale face of Frey Bartolomeo appeared, and we heard him admonishing the overseers to lay on with their whips. "We are like to be flayed alive if this goes on much longer," muttered Pharaoh as the lash curled about his shoulders again. "Oh, if we were but free and had some weapon in our hands! Lay on, ye murderous villains, lay on! Your reign is well-nigh over. Master, hold up a while longer. See there!" Another puff of white smoke burst from the English ship's side, followed by a dull roar, and, immediately after, by a loud crashing and splintering of the deck above our heads. Then came shrieks, groans, and loud cries of pain. The shot had swept the deck. Fathom by fathom the English ship overhauled us. Through our port-hole we could see her deck swarming with men armed to the teeth. On her poop stood a little knot of men evidently in command, and one of these was directing the boatswain with outstretched arm. "I see their plan," said Pharaoh; "they have seen the oars, and they are minded not to fire upon us again for fear of killing or wounding the captives. They are going to lay their ship alongside ours and board us." So the ship came nearer and nearer, sailing nearly twice as fast as our great lumbering galleon, and at last we could make out the faces of the men on deck. And suddenly Pharaoh set up a great cry that made every Englishman on our deck turn to him with astonishment. "'Tis Francis Drake!" he cried. "God be thanked, 'tis Francis Drake himself! See yonder, lads, there he stands on the poop. Are there any men here that ever served under Francis Drake? If so, let them look out at yonder captain and speak." "'Tis Francis Drake and no other!" cried one. "I know him by the gold band round his scarlet cap. He always wears that at sea. Now may God be praised for this deliverance." But there was much to be done ere our deliverance could be accomplished. Nay, indeed, it seemed as if our cruel jailers were minded to murder us before ever help would come, for they proceeded to beat us so unmercifully with their whips that many of us sank down faint and bleeding, and lay like dead men. But the rest of us kept up because of the fierce excitement. Presently the English ship was within a boat's length of us, and then she slowly crashed against our side, the brass muzzles of her guns, in some cases, coming through our ports. Meanwhile the Spaniards had not been idle, for their gunners were plying their cannon with all possible speed, and the noise and confusion was horrible. But yet never a shot did the Englishman fire, but their ship closed steadily upon us. At last we heard the grappling-irons thrown out and made fast, and knew that the two ships were locked together, like lions that fasten teeth and claws in each other and will not loose their grip till death comes. Then began a noise and confusion as if all the devils of hell had suddenly been let loose. We heard the shouts of the Englishmen, hoarse and deep, and the shriller cries of the Spaniards, above the roaring of the guns. On deck there sounded the wild rush and hurry of feet as the combatants were driven hither and thither. The overseers had thrown down their whips and fled to the upper decks as soon as the English boarded, and now we captives sat breathless and bleeding, listening to the noise above us and longing for release, so that we too might join in the fight. Suddenly there leapt through one of the ports a brawny Englishman, armed not with sword or pike, but with hammer and chisel, and he was speedily followed by half-a-dozen more, armed in similar fashion. "Are there Englishmen here?" roared the first as he tumbled in amongst us. "Speak, lads, if ye be English!" And at that there went up such a roar as was like to burst open the deck above us. Men stretched out their hands and arms to these great English sailors as if they were angels, and prayed them to knock off their bonds. So they, staring stupidly at us for a moment,--as is the manner of Englishmen when they see something which they do not understand,--suddenly fell to and knocked away our chains and padlocks, while we wept over them and blessed them as our saviors. And meanwhile others had handed in pikes and swords and glaives through the ports, and others were guarding the ladder against the Spaniards, in case any of them should come below. But they were too busy on the upper decks to have even a thought of us, and so we were uninterrupted, and ere long every man of us was free of his chains. "Now, lads!" cried the big man who had first leapt in upon us, "can ye fight, or are ye too weak for a brush? If any man thinks he can hold pike or sword, let him pick his weapon and follow me." Some of us could fight and some could not. Here and there a man was only released from his chains to fall upon the deck and die. Others, suddenly made free, found on striving to rise from the benches that the use of their legs was gone. Others again, whose minds had suffered under those long months of fiendish torture, were no sooner released than they became utterly mad, and fell to laughing and gibbering at their preservers. But many of us, weak as we were, felt the strength of ten men come into our arms, and we seized eagerly upon the weapons offered to us, and followed the sailors up the gangway with a fierce resolve to call our late oppressors to a final account. On the upper deck the fight was raging furiously. The Spaniards, furious and desperate, were massed together in a solid body, keeping back the Englishmen by sheer skill. Already between the gangways and the bulwarks lay a great heap of dead and dying. High above the combatants on the poop stood Nunez, his pale face set and drawn, watching the progress of the fight with gleaming eyes and compressed lips. From the tops the sharp-shooters were pouring showers of arrows into the English ship, but the guns had ceased, and the gunners lay dead beside them. We dashed on deck with a great cry, and for an instant the whole body of combatants turned and looked at us. A strange and awful sight we must needs have presented at that moment. There was scarcely a rag upon us, our hair was long and unkempt, our shoulders were torn and bleeding from the effects of the lashes lately laid on them, and our entire aspect must have resembled that of wild beasts rather than of men. I saw Nunez turn paler as he caught sight of us, and heard the English storm of execration burst forth over the noise and confusion of the fight. Then we fell upon the Spaniards from behind, and after that all was red, and I seemed to do naught but strike and strike again, unconscious of pain or wounds or anything but a fierce desire to be avenged on the villains who had wrought such cruelty upon me. Howbeit, after a time I felt myself dragged by a friendly hand out of the thick of the fight and led across the bulwarks to the English ship, where I was presently conducted on to the poop, into the presence of a man whom I at once knew to be some great captain. He was of middle height, with a high forehead, crisp brown hair, very steady gray eyes, and a hard, fierce mouth, slightly covered by a beard and moustache. He wore a loose, dark, seaman's shirt, belted at the waist, and about his neck was a plaited cord, having attached to it a ring, with which his fingers played as he spoke to me. On his head was a scarlet cap with a gold band, even as the man in the galleon had said. Such was my first glimpse of the great captain, Francis Drake, then thirty years of age, and making his first voyage round the world. I stood staring at him for a moment, and he at me, and I know not which was most interested in the other. "Who art thou, friend?" he inquired, presently. "An English gentleman, sir, kidnaped by the Spaniards and carried to Mexico, where I have undergone torments at the hands of the Inquisitors. I was a galley slave on board yonder vessel." "How many Englishmen are there with you?" "At least forty." "Does the ship carry treasure?" "Yes, sir," I answered; "and she also carries two of the most cruel wretches that ever walked the earth." "Who are they, friend?" "Manuel Nunez, the captain, and Bartolomeo, the monk. In God's name, sir, do justice upon them." He turned and gave some orders to an officer who stood by. Then he gave his attention to the Spanish ship again, so I caught up my weapon and rushed back over the side, eager to find Pharaoh Nanjulian. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FATE OF NUNEZ AND FREY BARTOLOMEO. By that time the fight was well-nigh over. During its progress another English ship had sailed up on the other side of the Spaniard, and her men were now swarming over the side, eager to have some share in the struggle. Thus it came about that in a few moments, the Spaniards were completely worsted, and were forced to lay down their arms and beg for mercy. I found Pharaoh Nanjulian busily occupied in seeing to the removal of several men, who were too weak to move of their own accord, from the benches where we had lately been chained. These were being carried to the English ships, where they were received with such indignation as is felt by honest men who abhor cruelty. So strong, indeed, were the feelings aroused amongst the English sailors at the sight of our bleeding backs, that their officers had much ado to prevent them from slaying the Spaniards without mercy. "Where is the monk, Pharaoh?" I said. "He must not escape. Have you seen aught of him during the fight?" But Pharaoh had seen naught. He had been fighting hard himself, and that being over he had turned his attention to such of our unfortunate companions as were unable to help themselves. "He cannot be far away, master," said he. "The rat will have found some hole, no doubt." At that moment one of Drake's officers came pressing on board, asking for the friar. "Bring him aboard the Golden Hinde unharmed," said he, "and the Spanish captain too. 'Tis Captain Drake's special order. Harm neither of them, but have them aboard." But neither Nunez nor Frey Bartolomeo were to be seen. Their men, such as survived--and they were but few,--stood bound on deck, glaring sullenly at their captors, but neither monk nor captain were at hand. "Try the cabin," said one, and we made our way to the cabin under the poop, where Nunez was used to sit. But the door was fast, and we had to break it down. As the first man rushed in he fell back dead, with a sword-thrust through his heart from Nunez, while the second dropped with a dagger-wound in his throat. But ere he could strike again Pharaoh Nanjulian had seized him by the neck, and Captain Manuel Nunez was dragged into the light, dispossessed of his weapons and bound securely. I stood and looked at him, and suddenly the fierce scowl of hate and rage cleared away from his features, and the old mocking, cold smile began to play about the corners of his eyes and mouth again. "The fortunes of war, Master Salkeld," said he. "Yesterday you were down and I was up. To-day you are up and I am down. 'Tis fate." But I had no time to talk with him then, for I was anxious to find Frey Bartolomeo. Therefore Pharaoh and I left Nunez with the officer and began searching the ship high and low. Because on first coming aboard her we had been straightway conducted to the oars we knew next to nothing of the Santa Filomena, and were accordingly some time in getting our bearings. Nevertheless we could find no trace of the monk, who seemed to have vanished into thin air, or to have gone overboard during the fight. He was not to be found either in cockpit or cabin, forecastle or lazaretto, and at last we stared blankly in each other's faces and wondered what had become of him. "There is one place we have not yet tried," said Pharaoh, "and that is the powder magazine. Maybe he has retreated there." We fetched a Spaniard from the upper deck and obliged him to conduct us to the magazine, and there, sure enough, was Frey Bartolomeo, calm and impassive as ever. He had stove in the head of one barrel of gunpowder, and now stood over the powder holding a lighted candle in his hand. As we burst in the door and confronted him, he raised his pale face and regarded us with calmness and scorn. "Lay but a finger on me, ye Lutheran dogs," he said, "and I will drop this light into the powder and send your souls to perdition!" The men with us started back, dismayed and affrighted by his grim looks and determined words. But Pharaoh Nanjulian laughed. "Your own soul will go with ours, friar," said he. Frey Bartolomeo shot a fierce glance at him from under his cowl. "Fool!" he said. "Thinkest thou that I value life? What hinders me from destroying every one of you and myself as well?" "This!" said Pharaoh, suddenly knocking the candle out of his hand. It flew across the powder, and striking a bulkhead opposite, went out harmlessly. So we seized Frey Bartolomeo, who now bitterly reproached himself for not having blown up the ship before we reached him, and conducted him to the upper deck, from whence he and Captain Nunez were presently conveyed to the Golden Hinde, where they were safely stowed in irons. And now, the fight being over, Drake and his men made haste to see what treasure the galleon contained. In this quest, however, those of us who had been rescued from the oars took no part, for now that the excitement was dying away our feverish strength went with it, so that we presently began to exhibit signs of terrible distress and exhaustion, and many of us swooned away. Here, however, our rescuers came to our further relief, and the ship's doctor was soon busily engaged in seeing to us, dressing our wounds, giving us oils and unguents for our bloody stripes, and ordering wine and food for all of us. So we were much refreshed; but none of these things, comforting as they were, seemed so good to us as the words of kindness, which we heard with wonder and astonishment, our ears having become accustomed to naught but threatenings and revilings. While we were occupied in this pleasant fashion, Drake's men transferred a vast amount of treasure from the Santa Filomena to the Golden Hinde. There was a large quantity of jewels, fourteen chests of ryals of plate, over a hundred pounds weight of gold, twenty tons of uncoined silver, and pieces of wrought gold and silver plate of great value. The discovery of all this treasure put our newly-found friends in high good-humor, such ventures not having come in their way since they had left the coast of Panama some months previous. When all this treasure had been transferred to Drake's vessel, the Golden Hinde, the admiral sent for the Englishmen who had been rescued from the Santa Filomena, and gave audience to us on the quarterdeck. A sad and sorry multitude we looked, spite of the surgeon's care, as we stood gazing at the great sea-captain who had rescued us, and waiting for him to speak. "Friends and fellow-countrymen," said he, "every one of you shall go back with me to England. We have strange tales to tell ourselves, and so, it is somewhat evident, have ye. Be content now, I will charge myself with your welfare. Where is he that spoke with me this morning?" So I stepped forward, and he looked upon me keenly. "Thy name, friend?" "Humphrey Salkeld, sir, nephew of Sir Thurstan Salkeld of Beechcot, in the East Riding of Yorkshire." "Tell me thy tale, Master Salkeld." So I gave him the history that I have here written down, and when it came to our doings in Mexico I spoke for Pharaoh Nanjulian and for all who stood behind me. When I had got to the period which we spent on board the Santa Filomena, my companions in distress bared their shoulders and backs, and showed him the scars and the wounds and the stripes which we had received. Then his face grew stern and set and the English sailors that stood by groaned in their wrath and indignation. "I am beholden to you, Master Salkeld," he said, when I had done. "Are there any of you that would say more?" But none wished to speak save one old white-haired man, who lifted up his hand and called God to witness that all I had said was true, and that our torments under the Inquisition had been such as could only be prompted by the devil. Then Drake commanded his men to bring forward Manuel Nunez and Frey Bartolomeo, and presently they stood before us, still bold and defiant, and Drake looked upon them. "I am thinking, Senors," said he, "that if I had wrought such misdeeds upon your people as you have upon mine, and you had caught me red-handed as I have caught you, there would have been something in the way of torture for me before I came to my last end. But be not alarmed; we Englishmen love justice, but we hate cruelty. And so we will be just to you, and we will send you to your true place, where there is doubtless a reward prepared for you. Hang them to the yard-arm of their own ship." So they carried Nunez and the monk over the side, and presently their bodies swung from the yard-arm of the Santa Filomena, and so they passed to their reward. And as for Nunez, he mocked us till the end, but the monk said never a word, but stared fixedly before him, seeming to care no more for death than he had for the sufferings that he had heaped upon his fellow-men. After that Drake restored the Spaniards whom we had captured to their own ship, and bade them go home, or back to Mexico, or wherever they pleased, and to tell their masters what Francis Drake had done to them, and that he would do the same to every Spaniard who crossed his path. CHAPTER XIX. HOME WITH DRAKE. During our awful captivity on board the galleon we had well-nigh lost all count or notion of time. To us one day was pretty much like another. If we slept it was only to be awakened by the overseer's whip. Day or night it was all one with us; never did our tormentors cease to afflict us. We were reduced to the condition of animals, and had not even the comfort which is allowed to them. Thus when the time of our rescue came, we had no notion of where we were or what part of the year it was. We now found that it was the middle of August, and that we were in the North Pacific Ocean and bearing direct for the Moluccas, where Drake intended to trade before continuing his voyage homeward by way of the Cape. We also learnt that this great captain was now taking his first voyage round the world, and that he had had many great and remarkable adventures on the Spanish Main and on the coast of Peru, and had enriched his vessels with the spoils of Spanish treasure-ships, so that he now had with him a store of great and unusual value. For from some ships he had taken bars of silver, and from others blocks of gold, together with rich ladings, merchandise and silks, so rare and curious as to be worth great sums of money. And all this treasure had been chiefly won from the Spaniards in fair fight, and that without any cruelty or lust of blood or revenge. About the thirteenth day of September we came within view of some islands, situated about eight degrees northward from the line. From these the islanders came out to us in canoes hollowed out of solid trunks of a tree, and raised very high out of the water at both ends, so that they almost formed a semicircle. These canoes were polished so highly that they shone like ebony, and were kept steady by pieces of timber fixed on each side of them by strong canes, fastened at one end to the canoe, and at the other to the timber. The first company that came out to us brought fruits, potatoes, and other commodities, none of any great value, and seemed anxious to trade with us, making a great show of good-will and honesty. Soon after, however, they sent out another fleet of canoes, the crews of which showed themselves to be nothing better than thieves, for if we placed anything in their hands they immediately considered it to belong to them, and would neither restore nor pay for it. Upon this we were obliged to get rid of them, which we did by discharging a gun. As they had never seen ordnance discharged before they were vastly astonished by this, and fled precipitately to the shore, having first pelted us with showers of stones which they carried in their canoes. On the fifth of November we cast anchor before Ternate, and had scarce arrived when the viceroy of that place, attended by the chief nobles, came out in three boats, rowed by forty men on each side. Soon afterwards appeared the king himself, attended by a large and imposing retinue. Him we received with discharges of cannon and musketry, together with various kinds of music, with which he was so highly delighted that he would have the musicians down into his own boat. At this place we stayed some days, trafficking with the inhabitants, who brought us large quantities of provisions, and behaved to us with civility. After that we repaired to a neighboring island, and there found a commodious harbor where we repaired the Golden Hinde, and did ourselves enjoy a much-needed rest. Leaving this place on the 12th day of December, we sailed southwards towards the Celebes; but the wind being against us, we drifted about among a multitude of islands mingled with shallows until the middle of January. And now we met with an adventure which was like to have stayed our further progress and put a summary end to all our hopes. For sailing forward under a strong gale we were one night suddenly surprised by a shock, caused by our being thrown upon a shoal, on which the speed of our course served to fix us very fast. Upon examination we found that the rock on which we had struck rose perpendicularly from the water, and there was no anchorage, nor any bottom to be found for some distance. On making this discovery we lightened the ship by throwing into the sea a not inconsiderable portion of her lading. Even then the ship seemed hopelessly fast, and we had almost given way to despair when we were on a sudden relieved by a remission of the wind, which, having hitherto blown strongly against that side of the ship which lay towards the sea, holding it upright against the rock, now slackened, and blowing no longer against our vessel allowed it to reel into deep water, to our great comfort and relief. We had enjoyed so little hope of ever extricating ourselves from this perilous position, that Drake had caused the sacrament to be administered to us as if we had been on the point of death, and now that we were mercifully set free we sang a Te Deum and went forward very cautiously, hardly daring to set sails lest we should chance upon some reef still more dangerous. We now continued our voyage without any remarkable occurrence or adventure, until about the middle of March we came to anchor off the Island of Java. Having sent to the king a present of clothes and silks, we received from him in return a quantity of provisions; and on the following day Drake himself went on shore, and after entertaining the king with music obtained leave from him to forage for fresh food. Here, then, we remained some days, taking in provisions, and being visited by the princes and head men of that country, and later by the king, all of whom manifested great interest in us, and in our armaments and instruments of navigation. Leaving Java about the end of March we sailed for the Cape of Good Hope, which we sighted about the middle of June. During all that time we met with no very remarkable adventure; nevertheless, because we were sailing through seas which no Englishman had ever previously traversed there was not a day which did not present some feature of interest to us, or add to our knowledge of those strange parts of the world. To me, and to such of my companions as had suffered with me in the dungeons of the Inquisition or on the deck of the galleon, this voyage was as a glimpse of Paradise. For we were treated with the utmost kindness and consideration by Drake and his men, and they would not suffer us to undertake anything in the shape of work until our wounds were fairly healed and our strength recruited. To those of us who had suffered so bitterly that our strength was well-nigh departed, this welcome relief was very grateful. As for me, on discovering my condition I was rated with Drake and his officers, and with them did spend many exceeding pleasant hours, listening to their marvelous adventures and stories of fights with our old enemies, the Spaniards. But Pharaoh, hating to do naught, applied for a rating, and so they made him boatswain's mate, and thenceforth he was happy, and seemed quickly to forget the many privations and discomforts which he and I had undergone. So on the third week of September, 1580, we came to Plymouth Sound, and once more looked upon English land and English faces. And this we did with such thankfulness and rejoicing as you cannot conceive. As for Drake and his men, they had been away two years and some ten months, and in that time had taken their ships round the world. And because they were the first Englishmen that had ever done this, there was such ringing of bells, and lighting of bonfires, and setting up of feasts and jollities as had never been known in England. From the queen to the meanest hind there was nobody that did not join in the general rejoicing. Wherefore, at Plymouth, where we landed, there were great stirrings, and men clung around us to hear our marvelous tales and adventures. And as for Drake himself, the queen soon afterwards made him a knight on the deck of the Golden Hinde; and so he became Sir Francis, and thereafter did many wonderful deeds which are set forth in the chronicles of that time. Now, I no sooner set foot upon English soil than I was immediately consumed with impatience to go home to Beechcot, and therefore I sought out Drake and begged him to let me begone. "Why," quoth he, "knowing your story as I do, Master Salkeld, I make no wonder that you should be in some haste to return to your own friends. I pray God that you may find all well with them." Then he generously pressed upon me a sum of money in gold, wherewith to fit myself out for the journey and defray my expenses on the way; and for this kindness I was deeply grateful, seeing that I was utterly penniless, and owed the very garments I then wore to the charity of one of his officers. So I said farewell to him and his company, and begged them to remember me if we should meet no more, and then I went to find Pharaoh Nanjulian. "Pharaoh," said I, when I came upon him on the deck of the Golden Hinde, "I am going home." He pushed back his cap and scratched his head and looked at me. "Aye," he said, "I supposed it would be so, master. As for me, I have no home to go to. My mother is dead and buried in Marazion churchyard, and I have neither kith nor kin in the wide world." "Come with me to Beechcot," said I, "you shall abide there for the rest of your days in peace and plenty." But he shook his head. "Nay, master," he answered, "that would never do. I am naught but a rough sea-dog, and I should be too big and savage for a quiet life. Besides, yon constable of yours would be forever at my heels, fearing lest I should break the peace again." "There shall no man harm you if you will come with me," said I. "Come and be my man." "Nay, master, not so. Born and bred to the sea I was, and to the sea I will cleave. Besides, I am Francis Drake's man now, and with him I shall see rare ventures. Already there is talk of an expedition against the Spaniards. That is the life for me." So there was no more to be said, and I gave him my hand sorrowfully, for he had proved a true friend. "Good-bye, then, Pharaoh Nanjulian." "Good-bye, master. We have seen some rare ventures together. I thank God for bringing us safely out of them." "Amen! I shall not forget them or thee. And God grant we may meet again." So we pressed each other's hands with full hearts, and I went away and left him gazing after me. CHAPTER XX. BEECHCOT ONCE MORE. Because it was autumn, I found some slight difficulty in traveling across country from Plymouth to Beechcot, and it accordingly was several days before I reached York and entered upon the final stage of my journey. At Plymouth I had bought a stout horse, and pushed forward, mounted in creditable fashion, to Exeter, and from thence to Bristol, where I struck into the Midlands and made for Derby and Sheffield. It took me a fortnight to reach York, and there, my horse being well-nigh spent, though I had used him with mercy, I exchanged him for a cob, which was of stout build, and good enough to carry me over the thirty miles which yet remained of my journey. Now, as I drew near the old place, in the twilight of a dull October afternoon, my heart beat within my breast as if it would suffocate me. I had been away two years, and had gone under circumstances of the strangest character. Those whom I had left behind had probably long since given me up as dead. Worse than that--how did I know what malicious story might not have been invented and set forth by my cousin Jasper as to my disappearance? Well, the time was now at hand when all should be explained. But yet--what changes might there not be? I dreaded to think of them. I might find my good uncle dead, Jasper in possession, my sweetheart married--but nay, that seemed hardly to be believed. And yet if she thought me dead? Thus I went forward, my heart torn by many conflicting emotions. Then I began to think of the changes that had taken place in me. Two years ago I had set out a light-hearted, careless lad, full of confidence and ignorance, knowing naught of the world nor of its cruelties. Now I came back a man, full of strange experiences, my mind charged with many terrible memories, my body bearing witness of the sufferings and privations which I had undergone. It was not the old Humphrey Salkeld that rode down Beechcot village street. Nay, it was not even the old Humphrey Salkeld in looks. Stopping a few hours at the inn in York I had examined myself in a mirror, and had decided that it would be hard work for my old friends to recognize me. I had grown an inch or two, my face was seamed and wrinkled, and wore a strange, grim, wearied look, my beard was a good three inches long, and my mouth covered by a moustache. Changed I was indeed. I rode up to the door of the inn at Beechcot, where I had first seen Pharaoh Nanjulian, and called loudly for the host. There was no one about the door of the inn, but presently Geoffrey Scales, looking no different to what he did when I had last seen him, came bustling along the sanded passage with his lantern, and turned the light full on my face. I trembled, and could scarce control my voice as I spoke to him; but I soon saw that he did not recognize me. "How far is it to Scarborough, master?" I inquired. "A good twenty miles, sir, and a bad road." "What, are there thieves on it?" "There are highwaymen, sir, and ruts, which is worse; and as for mud--there, your honor would be lost in it." "Then I had better stay here for the night, eh?" "Much better, if your honor pleases." So I dismounted and bade him take my cob round to his stable, and followed him myself to hear more news. "What place is this?" I inquired. "Beechcot, sir--a village of the Wolds." "And who owns it, landlord?" "Sir Thurstan Salkeld, sir." "Is he alive and well, landlord?" Now, whether it was my voice or the unwonted agitation in it that attracted his attention, I know not, but certain it is that when I asked this question Geoffrey Scales held up his light to my face, and after anxiously peering therein for a moment, cried out loudly: "Marry, I knew it! 'Tis Master Humphrey, come home again, alive and well!" and therewith he would have rushed away to rouse the whole village if I had not stayed him. "Hush! Geoffrey," I said. "It is I, true enough, and I am well enough, but prithee keep quiet awhile, for I do not wish anyone to know that I have returned for a season. Tell me first how is my uncle and Mistress Rose. Are they well, Geoffrey? Quick!" "Oh, Master Humphrey," quoth he, "what a turn you have given me! Yes, sir, yes; your uncle, good man, is well, though he hath never been the same man since you disappeared, Master Humphrey. And as for Mistress Rose, 'tis just the same sweet maiden as ever, and hath grieved for you mightily. But what a to-do there will be, Master Humphrey! Prithee, let me go and tell all the folk." "Not now, Geoffrey, on thy life. Let me first see my sweetheart and my uncle, and then I will cause the great bell at the manor to be rung, and you shall take it for a signal and shall tell who you like." So he promised to obey me, and I left him and took my way towards the vicarage, for my heart longed sore for the presence of my sweetheart. Now, as I came up to the front of the house there was a light burning in the parlor, and I stole up to the window and looked in, and saw Rose busy with her needle. Fair and sweet she was, aye, sweeter, I think, than ever; but it was easy to see that she had sorrowed, and that the sorrow had left its mark upon her. I had always remembered her in my trials and torments as the merry, laughing maiden, that had flown hither and thither like a spirit of spring; now I saw her a woman, sweet and lovely, but with a touch of sadness about her that I knew had come there because of me. I went round to the door and tapped softly upon it. Presently came Rose, bearing a candle, and opened it to my knock, and looked out upon me. I drew farther away into the darkness. "Is this the abode of Master Timotheus Herrick?" I asked. "Yes, sir," she answered, "but he is not in at this moment. You will find him at the church, where he has gone to read the evening service." "I had a message for his daughter," said I. "I am his daughter, sir. What message have you for me?" "I have come from sea," I answered. "It is a message from one you know." "From one I know--at sea? But I know no one at sea. Oh, sir, what is it you would tell me?" "Let me come in," I said; and she turned and led the way into the parlor, and set down the candle and looked steadily at me. And then she suddenly knew me, and in another instant I had her in my arms, and her face was upon my breast, and all the woes and sorrows of my captivity were forgotten. "Humphrey!" she cried. "O, thank God--thank God! My dear, my dear, it is you, is it not? Am I dreaming--shall I wake presently to find you gone?" "Never again, sweetheart, never again! I am come back indeed--somewhat changed, it is true, but still your true and faithful lover." "And I thought you were dead! O my poor Humphrey, where have you been and what has been done to you? Yes, you are changed--you have suffered, have you not?" "More than I could wish my worst enemy to suffer," I answered. "But I forget it all when I look at you, Rose. Oh, sweetheart, if you knew how I have longed for this moment!" And then, hand in hand, we kneeled down together and thanked God for all his goodness, and for the marvelous mercy with which he had brought us through this time of sore trouble. And on our knees we kissed each other solemnly, and so sealed our reunion, and blotted out all the bitterness of the past from our hearts, so that there was nothing left there but memories, sad indeed, but no longer painful. "And now," said Rose, "tell me, Humphrey, where you have been and how it was you went away. Oh, if you knew how we have sorrowed for you." "First tell me, Rose, how is my uncle?" "He is well, Humphrey, but he has mourned for you ever since Jasper came home and told us of your death." "Ah! Jasper came home and told you of my death, did he? And by what manner of death did I die, according to Master Jasper?" "He said you were drowned at Scarborough, in coming from some vessel where you and he had been paying a visit at night to the captain." "And did no one doubt him, Rose? Were there no inquiries made?" "I doubted him, Humphrey. I felt sure there was some strange mystery, but how could I find it out? And what could be done--they could not drag Scarborough Bay for your body. Humphrey, did Jasper play some trick upon you--did he get you out of the way?" "He did, Rose. Yea, he got me out of the way so well that I have been right round the world since last I set foot in Beechcot. Think of that, my dear. Right round the world! I have seen Mexico and the Pacific and Java and the Celebes and Africa, and I know not what, and here I am again." "But you have suffered, Humphrey? Where--and how?" So I told her very briefly of what had happened to me in the cells of the Inquisition, and as I spoke, her sweet face was filled with compassion and her eyes were bright with tears, and she held my hands tightly clasped in her own as if she would never let them go again. "Can such things be?" she asked. "Oh, why God does allow them I cannot understand. My poor Humphrey!" "Naught but God's help could have brought us through them, dear heart," I answered. "And, indeed, I think naught of them now, and would cheerfully face them again if I thought they would cause you to love me more." But she answered that that was impossible, and scolded me very prettily for thinking of such a thing. And then came Master Timotheus back from reading prayers, and entered the parlor, carrying a great folio in his hand and blinking at us through his big spectacles. And when he saw me, he stopped and stared. "Here is a visitor, father," said Rose. "Look closely at him--do you not know him?" But the good man, taking my hand in his own, did stare at me hard and long ere he discovered me, and then he fell upon my neck and embraced me heartily and wept with joy. "Of a truth," said he, "I might have known that it was thee, Humphrey, for two reasons. First, I have been of an uncommonly light-hearted nature all this day, and did once detect myself in the act of singing a merry song; and secondly, I saw on entering the parlor that Rose's face was brighter than it hath been since last we saw thee." Then he laid his hand on my head and blessed me, and thanked God for sending me home again; and he shed more tears, and was fain to take off his spectacles and polish them anew. And he would have had me sup with them, but on hearing that I had not yet seen my uncle he bade me go to him at once, so I said farewell for that time and took my way to the manor. CHAPTER XXI. HOW THEY RANG THE BELLS AT BEECHCOT CHURCH. As I walked across from the vicarage to the manor house, the moon came out in the autumn evening sky and lighted the landscape with a brightness that was little short of daylight. I stood for a few moments at the vicarage gate admiring the prospect. Far away to the eastward rose the Wolds, dark and unbroken, different indeed from the giant bulk of Orizaba, but far more beautiful to me. Beneath them lay the village of Beechcot, with its farmsteads and cottages casting black shadows upon the moonlit meadow, and here and there a rushlight burning dimly in the windows. I had kept that scene in my mind's eye many a time during my recent tribulations, and had wondered if ever I should see it again. Now that I did see it, it was far more beautiful than I had ever known it or imagined it to be, for it meant home, and love, and peace after much sorrow. My path led me through the churchyard. There the moonlight fell bright and clear on the silent mounds and ghostly tombstones. By the chancel I paused for a moment to glance at the monument which Sir Thurstan had long since erected to my father and mother's memory. It was light enough to read the inscription, and also to see that a new one had been added to it. Wondering what member of our family was dead, I went nearer and examined the stone more carefully. Then I saw that the new inscription was in memory of myself! I have never heard of a man reading his own epitaph, and truly it gave me many curious feelings to stand there and read of myself as a dead man. And yet I had been dead to all of them for more than two years. "And of Humphrey Salkeld, only son of the above Richard Salkeld and his wife Barbara, who was drowned at Scarborough, October, 1578, to the great grief and sorrow of his uncle, Thurstan Salkeld, Knight." * * * * * "So I am dead and yet alive," I said, and laughed gayly at the notion. "If that is so, there are some great surprises in store for more than one in this parish. And no one will be more surprised than my worthy cousin, but he will be the only person that is sorry to see me. Oh, for half an hour with him alone!" At that very moment Jasper was coming to meet me. I knew it not, nor did he. Between the churchyard and the manor-house of Beechcot there is a field called the Duke's Garth, and across this runs a foot-path. As I turned away from reading my own epitaph, I saw a figure advancing along this path and making for the churchyard. It was the figure of a man, and he was singing some catch or song softly to himself. I recognized the voice at once. It was Jasper's. I drew back into the shadow cast by the buttress of the chancel and waited his coming. We were going to settle our account once and forever. He came lightly over the stile which separates the garth from the churchyard, and was making rapid strides towards the vicarage when I stopped him. "Jasper," I said, speaking in a deep voice and concealing myself in the shadow. "Jasper Stapleton." He stopped instantly, and stood looking intently towards where I stood. "Who calls me?" he said. "I, Jasper,--thy cousin, Humphrey Salkeld." I could have sworn that he started and began to tremble. But suddenly he laughed. "Dead men call nobody," said he. "You are some fool that is trying to frighten me. Come out, sirrah!" And he drew near. I waited till he was close by, and then I stepped into the moonlight, which fell full and clear on my face. He gave a great cry, and lifting up his arm as if to ward off a blow fell back a pace or two and stood staring at me. "Humphrey!" he cried. "None other, cousin. The dead, you see, sometimes come to life again. And I am very much alive, Jasper." He stood still staring at me, and clutching his heart as if his breath came with difficulty. "What have you to say, Jasper?" I asked at length. "We--we thought you were drowned," he gasped out. "There is an inscription on your father's tombstone." "Liar!" I said. "You know I was not drowned. You know that you contrived that I should be carried to Mexico. Tell me no more lies, cousin. Let us for once have the plain truth. Why did you treat me as you did at Scarborough?" "Because you stood 'twixt me and the inheritance," he muttered sullenly. "And so for the sake of a few acres of land and a goodly heritage you would condemn one who had never harmed you to horrors such as you cannot imagine?" I said. "Look at me, Jasper. Even in this light it is not difficult to see how I am changed. I have gone through such woes and torments as you would scarcely credit. I have been in the hands of devils in human shape, and they have so worked their will upon me that there is hardly an inch of my body that is not marked and scarred. That was thy doing, Jasper,--thine and thy fellow-villain's. Dost know what happened to him?" "No," he whispered, "what of him?" "I saw him hanged to his own yard-arm in the Pacific Ocean, Jasper, and he went to his own place with the lives of many an innocent man upon his black soul. Take care you do not follow him. Shame upon you, cousin, for the trick you played me!" "You came between me and the girl I loved," he said fiercely. "All is fair in love and war." "Coward!" I said. "And liar, too! I never came between her and thee, for she had never a word to give such a black-hearted villain as thou hast proved thyself. And now, what is to prevent me from taking my revenge upon thee, Jasper?" "This," he said, very suddenly, whipping out his rapier. "This, Master Humphrey. Home you have come again, worse luck, and have no doubt done your best to injure me in more quarters than one, but you shall not live to enjoy either land, or title, or sweetheart, for you shall die here and now." And with that he came pressing upon me with a sudden fury that was full of murderous intent. Now I had no weapon by me save a stout cudgel which I had cut from a coppice by the wayside that morning, and this you would think was naught when set against a rapier. Nevertheless I made such play with it, that presently I knocked Jasper's weapon clean out of his hand so that he could not recover it. And after that I seized him by the throat and beat with my cudgel until he roared and begged for mercy, beseeching me not to kill him. "Have no fear, cousin," said I, still laying on to him, "I will not kill thee, for I would have thee repent of all thy misdeeds." And with that I gave him two or three sound cuts and then flung him from me against the wall, where he lay groaning and cursing me. After that I saw Jasper Stapleton no more. He never showed his face in Beechcot again, and in a few days his mother, Dame Barbara, disappeared also; and so they vanished out of my life, and I was glad of it, for they had worked me much mischief. When I reached the manor-house I let myself in by a secret way that I knew of and went straight to the great hall, where sat my uncle, Sir Thurstan, wrapped in cloaks and rugs, before a great fire of wood. He was all alone, and hearing my step he half turned his head. "Is that Jasper?" he inquired. "Nay, sir," said I. "It is I--Humphrey--and I am come home again." And I went forward and kneeled down before him and put my hands on his knees. For a moment he stared at me as men stare at ghosts, then he gave a great sob of delight, stretched out his arms, put them about my neck, and wept over me like a woman. "Oh lad, lad!" said he. "If thou didst but know how this old heart did grieve for thy sake. And thou art here, well and strong, and I did cause thy name to be graven on thy parents' tombstone!" "Never mind, sir," said I, "we can cut it out again. Anyway I am not dead, but I have seen some rare and terrible adventures." "Sit thyself down at my side," quoth he, "and tell me all about them. Alive and well--yes, and two inches taller, as I live! Well, I thank God humbly. But thou art hungry, poor boy,--what ho! where are those rascals? Call for them, Humphrey,--thou must be famished." "All in good time, sir," said I, and went over to the rope which led to the great bell and pulled it vigorously, so that the clangor filled the park below with stirring sound. And Geoffrey Scales, waiting impatiently at the inn, heard it and ran round with the news, and they rang the church bells, and every soul in Beechcot that could walk came hurrying to the manor and would have audience of me in the great hall. Thus did I come home again. And having told my story to my uncle, Sir Thurstan, and to Master Timotheus Herrick, we agreed that for the present we would leave Jasper Stapleton's name out of it. But somehow, most likely because Jasper and his evil-tongued mother disappeared, the truth got out, and ere long everybody knew my story from beginning to end. Within a few weeks of my home-coming Rose and I were married in Beechcot church, and again the bells rang out merrily. Never had bridegroom a sweeter bride; never had husband a truer or nobler wife. I say it after fifty years of blessed companionship, and in my heart I thank God for the delights which he hath given me in her. And now I have brought my history to a close. Yet there is one matter which I must speak of before I say farewell to you. It is about twenty years since one of my servants came to me one summer evening and said that an old man stood at my door waiting to see me. I followed him presently, and there saw a tall, white-haired, white-bearded figure, dressed in a rough seaman's dress and leaning upon a staff. He looked at me and smiled, and then I saw that it was Pharaoh Nanjulian. "You have not forgotten me, master?" he said. "Forgotten thee! May God forget me if ever I forget thee, my old, true friend!" I said, and I led him in and made him welcome as a king to my house and to all that I had. And with me he lived, an honored guest and friend, for ten years longer, when he died, being then a very old man of near one hundred years. And him I still mourn with true sorrow and affection, for his was a mighty heart, and it had been knit to mine by those bonds of sorrow which are scarcely less strong than the bonds of love. THE END. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
15299	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 15299-h.htm or 15299-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/2/9/15299/15299-h/15299-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/2/9/15299/15299-h.zip) DRAKE, NELSON AND NAPOLEON Studies by SIR WALTER RUNCIMAN, BART Illustrated London T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. Adelphi Terrace 1919 DEDICATORY LETTER TO SIR JAMES KNOTT MY DEAR SIR JAMES, We have travelled far since those early days when you and I, who are of totally different tastes and temperament, first met and became friends. I was attracted by your wide knowledge, versatile vigour of mind, and engaging personality, which subsequent years have not diminished. You were strenuously engaged at that time in breaking down the weevilly traditions of a bygone age, and helping to create a new era in the art of steamship management, and, at the same time, studying for the Bar; and were I writing a biography of you, I would have to include your interesting travels in distant lands in quest of business and organizing it. That must be left for another occasion, when the vast results to the commercial life of the country to which you contributed may be fittingly told. At the present time my vision recalls our joyous yachting cruises on the Clyde, when poor Leadbitter added to the charm that stays. Perhaps best of all were the golden days when we habitually took our week-end strolls together by the edge of the inspiriting splendour of the blue North Sea, strolls which are hallowed by many memories, and gave me an opportunity of listening to your vehement flashes of human sympathies, which are so widely known now. It is my high appreciation of those tender gifts and of your personal worth, together with the many acts of kindness and consideration shown to me when I have been your guest, that gives me the desire to inscribe this book to you and Lady Knott, and to the memory of your gallant sons, Major Leadbitter Knott, D.S.O., who was killed while leading his battalion in a terrific engagement in Flanders, and Captain Basil Knott, who fell so tragically a few months previously at his brother's side. With every sentiment of esteem, I am, dear Sir James, Ever yours sincerely, WALTER RUNCIMAN. March 1919. PREFACE This book has evolved from another which I had for years been urged to write by personal friends. I had chatted occasionally about my own voyages, related incidents concerning them and the countries and places I had visited, the ships I had sailed in, the men I had sailed with, and the sailors of that period. It is one thing to tell sea-tales in a cosy room and to enjoy living again for a brief time in the days that are gone; but it is another matter when one is asked to put the stories into book form. Needless to say for a long time I shrank from undertaking the task, but was ultimately prevailed upon to do so. The book was commenced and was well advanced, and, as I could not depict the sailors of my own period without dealing--as I thought at the time--briefly with the race of men called buccaneers who were really the creators of the British mercantile marine and Navy, who lived centuries before my generation, I was obliged to deal with some of them, such as Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Daimper, Alexander Selkirk of Robinson Crusoe fame, and others who combined piracy with commerce and sailorism. After I had written all I thought necessary about the three former, I instinctively slipped on to Nelson as the greatest sea personality of the beginning of the last century. I found the subject so engrossing that I could not centre my thoughts on any other, so determined to continue my narrative, which is not, and never was intended to be a life of Nelson. Perhaps it may be properly termed fragmentary thoughts and jottings concerning the life of an extraordinary human force, written at intervals when I had leisure from an otherwise busy life. Even if I had thought it desirable, it was hardly possible to write about Nelson without also dealing with Britain's great adversary and Nelson's distracted opinion of him. It would be futile to attempt to draw a comparison between the two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other, extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished man he flippantly raged at from his quarterdeck. But be that as it may, Nelson's terrific aversion to and explosions against the French and Napoleon, in whose history I had been absorbed for many years, seem to me to be the deliberate outpouring of a mind governed by feeling rather than by knowledge as to the real cause of the wars and of how we came to be involved and continue in them. Nor does he ever show that he had any clear conception of the history of Napoleon's advent as the Ruler of the People with whom we were at war. I have given this book the title of "Drake, Nelson and Napoleon" because it seemed to me necessary to bring in Drake, the prototype, and Napoleon, the antagonist of Nelson. Drake's influence bore fruit in what is known as the Fleet Tradition, which culminated in the "Nelson touch." No excuse is needed, therefore, for writing a chapter which shows how little the seaman's character has changed in essentials since that time. To-day, our sailors have the same simple direct force which characterized the Elizabethan seamen and those of Nelsonian times. Of Napoleon I have written fully in my book "The Tragedy of St. Helena," and have contented myself here with pointing out how the crass stupidity and blind prejudice of his opponents have helped largely to bring about the world-war of our own times. I have also endeavoured to contrast the statesmanlike attitude of Napoleon with the short-sighted policy of England's politicians and their allies at that time. Having planned the book on such lines, it inevitably follows that Nelson must occupy a larger space in it than either Drake or Napoleon, but for that I offer no apology. WALTER RUNCIMAN. March 1919. CONTENTS DEDICATORY LETTER PREFACE 1. DRAKE AND THE FLEET TRADITION 2. NELSON AND HIS CIRCLE TRAFALGAR, OCT. 21st, 1805 (_a_) BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE (_b_) A LIST OF THE COMBINED FLEET OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 3. NAPOLEON AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE WORLD-WAR 4. SEA SONGS APPENDIX: SOME INCIDENTS OF NELSON'S LIFE (CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED) INDEX ILLUSTRATIONS LINE OF BATTLE SHIP (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) DRAKE NELSON LADY HAMILTON AS "A SIBYL" CAPTAIN HARDY (OF THE "VICTORY") "PRINCESS CHARLOTTE."--FRIGATE (EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY) H.M.S. "VICTORY" GOING INTO BATTLE AT TRAFALGAR ADMIRAL COLLINGWOOD THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON AFTER HIS ACCESSION DRAKE AND THE FLEET TRADITION I The great sailors of the Elizabethan era--Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Howard, Davis, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert--were the prototypes of the sailors of the nineteenth century. They discovered new lands, opened up new avenues of commerce, and combined these legitimate forms of enterprise with others which at this date would be regarded as rank piracy. Since, however, they believed themselves to be the ambassadors of God, they did everything in His name, whether it were the seizing of Spanish treasure or the annexing of new worlds by fair means or foul, believing quite sincerely in the sanctity of what they did with a seriousness and faith which now appear almost comic. For many years the authorities of the Inquisition had plundered goods and put to death English seamen and merchants, and Spanish Philip, when remonstrated with, shrugged his shoulders and repudiated the responsibility by saying that he had no power over the "Holy House." Drake retaliated by taking possession of and bringing to England a million and a half of Spanish treasure while the two countries were not at war. It is said that when Drake laid hands on the bullion at Panama he sent a message to the Viceroy that he must now learn not to interfere with the properties of English subjects, and that if four English sailors who were prisoners in Mexico were ill-treated he would execute two thousand Spaniards and send him their heads. Drake never wasted thought about reprisals or made frothy apologetic speeches as to what would happen to those with whom he was at religious war if they molested his fellow-countrymen. He met atrocity with atrocity. He believed it to be his mission to avenge the burning of British seamen and the Spanish and Popish attempts on the life of his virgin sovereign. That he knew her to be an audacious flirt, an insufferable miser, and an incurable political intriguer whose tortuous moves had to be watched as vigilantly as Philip's assassins and English traitors, is apparent from reliable records. His mind was saturated with the belief in his own high destiny, as the chosen instrument to break the Spanish power in Europe. He was insensible to fear, and knew how to make other people fear and obey him. He was not only an invincible crusader, but one of those rare personalities who have the power of infusing into his comrades his own courage and enthusiasm. The Spanish said he was "a magician who had sold his soul to the devil." The Spanish sailors, and Philip himself, together with his nobles, were terror-stricken at the mention of his name. He was to them an invincible dragon. Santa Cruz warned his compatriots that the heretics "had teeth, and could use them." Here is another instance, selected from many, of the fanatical superstitions concerning Drake's irresistible power. Medina Sidonia had deserted the Andalusian squadron. Drake came across the flagship. Her commander said he was Don Pedro de Valdes, and could only surrender on honourable terms. The English commander replied, "I am Drake, and have no time to parley. Don Pedro must surrender or fight." So Don Pedro surrendered to the gallant captain of the _Revenge_, and lavished him with praise, evidently glad to have fallen into the hands of so famous and generous a foe. Drake is said to have treated his captive with elaborate generosity, while his crew commandeered all the vast treasure. He then sent the galleon into Dartmouth Harbour, and set off with his prisoners to chase Medina Sidonia. In the whole range of Drake's adventurous career there does not appear to be any evidence of his having been possessed with the idea of supernatural assistance, though if perchance he missed any of Philip's treasure-ships he complacently reported "the reason" to those in authority as "being best known to God," and there the incident ended. On the other hand, the Deity was no mystery to him. His belief in a Supreme Power was real, and that he worked in harmony with It he never doubted. When he came across anything on land or sea which he thought should be appropriated for the benefit of his Queen and country, or for himself and those who were associated with him in his piratical enterprises, nothing was allowed to stand in his way, and, generally speaking, he paralysed all resistance to his arms into submission by an inexorable will and genius. The parsimonious Elizabeth was always slyly willing to receive the proceeds of his dashing deeds, but never unduly generous in fixing his share of them. She allowed her ships to lie rotting when they should have been kept in sound and efficient condition, and her sailors to starve in the streets and seaports. Never a care was bestowed on these poor fellows to whom she owed so much. Drake and Hawkins, on the other hand, saw the national danger, and founded a war fund called the "Chatham Chest"; and, after great pressure, the Queen granted £20,000 and the loan of six battleships to the Syndicate. Happily the commercial people gave freely, as they always do. What trouble these matchless patriots had to overcome! Intrigue, treason, religious fanaticism, begrudging of supplies, the constant shortage of stores and provisions at every critical stage of a crisis, the contradictory instructions from the exasperating Tudor Queen: the fleet kept in port until the chances of an easy victory over England's bitterest foes had passed away! But for the vacillation of the icy virgin, Drake's Portugal expedition would have put the triumph of the Spanish Armada to the blush, and the great Admiral might have been saved the anguish of misfortune that seemed to follow his future daring adventures for Spanish treasure on land and sea until the shadows of failure compassed him round. His spirit broken and his body smitten with incurable disease, the fleet under his command anchored at Puerto Bello after a heavy passage from Escudo de Veragua, a pestilential desert island. He was then in delirium, and on the 28th January, 1596, the big soul of our greatest seaman passed away beyond the veil. His body was put into a lead and oak coffin and taken a few miles out to sea, and amidst manifestations of great sorrow he was lowered down the side and the waters covered him over. Two useless prize ships were sunk beside him, and there they may still lie together. The fleet, having lost their guiding spirit, weighed anchor and shaped their course homewards. Drake was not merely a seaman and the creator of generations of sailors, but he was also a sea warrior of superb naval genius. It was he who invented the magnificent plan of searching for his country's enemies in every creek into which he could get a craft. He also imbued Her Gracious Majesty and Her Gracious Majesty's seamen with the idea that in warfare on sea or land it is a first principle to strike first if you wish to gain the field and hold it. Having smashed his antagonist, he regarded it as a plain duty in the name of God to live on his beaten foes and seize their treasures of gold, silver, diamonds, works of art, etc., wherever these could be laid hold of. The First Lady of the Land was abashed at the gallant sailor's bold piratical efforts. She would not touch the dirty, ill-gotten stuff until the noble fellow had told her the fascinating story of his matchless adventures and slashing successes. Doubtless the astute Admiral had learned that his blameless Queen was only averse to sharing with him the plunder of a risky voyage until he had assured her again and again that her cousin, Philip of Spain, had his voracious eye on her life, her throne, and all her British possessions, wherever they might be. The valiant seaman appears to have played daintily and to good effect with the diabolical acts of the Spaniards, such as the burning of English seamen, until they roused in Elizabeth the spirit of covetousness and retaliation. It was easy then for her incorruptible integrity (!) to surrender to temptation. A division of what had been taken from Philip's subjects was forthwith piously made. Elizabeth, being the chief of the contracting parties, took with her accustomed grace the queenly share. On one occasion she walked in the parks with Drake, held a royal banquet on board the notorious _Pelican_, and knighted him; while he, in return for these little attentions, lavished on his Queen presents of diamonds, emeralds, etc. The accounts which have been handed down to us seem, in these days, amazing in their cold-blooded defiance of honourable dealing. But we must face the hard facts of the necessity of retaliation against the revolting deeds of the Inquisition and the determined, intriguing policy of worming Popery into the hearts of a Protestant nation, and then we realize that Drake's methods were the "invention" of an inevitable alternative either to fight this hideous despotism with more desperate weapons and greater vigour than the languid, luxury-loving Spaniards had taken the trouble to create or succumb to their tremendous power of wealth and wickedness. Drake was the chosen instrument of an inscrutable destiny, and we owe it to him that the divided England of that day was saved from annihilation. He broke the power of Spain at sea, and established England as the first naval and mercantile Power in the world. He was the real founder of generations of seamen, and his undying fame will inspire generations yet unborn to maintain the supremacy of the seas. The callous, brutal attitude of Elizabeth towards a race of men who had given their lives and souls so freely in every form of danger and patriotic adventure because they believed it to be a holy duty is one of the blackest pages of human history. The cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition and the treatment of sailors in the galleys were only different in degree, and while there are sound reasons for condemning the Queen and the ruling classes of that time for conduct that would not be tolerated in these days, it is unquestionably true that it was a difficult task to keep under control the spirit of rebellion of that period, as it is to-day. Doubtless those in authority were, in their judgment, compelled to rule with a heavy hand in order to keep in check wilful breaches of discipline. Attempts to mutiny and acts of treason were incidents in the wonderful career of Francis Drake which frequently caused him to act with severity. Doughty, the Spanish spy, who was at one time a personal friend of Drake's, resolved to betray his commander. Doughty was caught in the act, tried by a court composed of men serving under Drake, found guilty, and after dining with the Admiral, chatting cheerfully as in their friendly days, they drank each other's health and had some private conversation not recorded; then Doughty was led to the place of execution and had his head chopped off, Drake exclaiming as it fell, "Lo, this is the end of traitors!" Then Drake relieved Fletcher of his duties as chaplain by telling him softly that he would "preach this day." The ship's company was called together and he exhorted them to harmony, warning them of the danger of discord. Then in his breezy phraseology he exclaims, "By the life of God, it doth even take my wits from me to think of it." The crew, it appears, was composed of gentlemen, who were obviously putting on airs, and sailors, who resented their swank as much as did the great captain. So Drake proceeds to lay the law down vehemently. "Let us show ourselves," said he, "all to be of one company, and let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow. Show me the man that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know that there is not any such here." Then he proceeds to drive home his plan of discipline with vigour. "And as gentlemen are necessary for government's sake in the voyage, so I have shipped them to that and to some further intent." He does not say quite what it is, but they doubtless understand that it is meant to be a warning lest he should be compelled to put them through some harsh form of punishment. He concludes his memorable address with a few candid words, in which he declares that he knows sailors to be the most envious people in the world and, in his own words, "unruly without government," yet, says he, "May I not be without them!" It is quite clear that Drake would have no class distinction. His little sermon sank deep into the souls of his crew, so that when he offered the _Marigold_ to those who had lost heart, to take them back to England, he had not only made them ashamed of their refractory conduct, but imbued them with a new spirit, which caused them to vie with each other in professions of loyalty and eagerness to go on with him and comply with all the conditions of the enterprise. The great commander had no room for antics of martyrdom. He gave human nature first place in his plan of dealing with human affairs. He did not allow his mind to be disturbed by trifles. He had big jobs to tackle, and he never doubted that he was the one and only man who could carry them to a successful issue. He took his instructions from Elizabeth and her blustering ministers, whom he regarded as just as likely to serve Philip as the Tudor Queen if it came to a matter of deciding between Popery and Protestantism. He received their instructions in a courtly way, but there are striking evidences that he was ever on the watch for their vacillating pranks, and he always dashed out of port as soon as he had received the usual hesitating permission. Once out of reach, he brushed aside imperial instructions if they stood in the way of his own definite plan of serving the best interests of his country, and if the course he took did not completely succeed--which was seldom the case--he believed "the reason was best known to God." John Hawkins and Francis Drake had a simple faith in the divine object they were serving. Hawkins thought it an act of high godliness to pretend that he had turned Papist, in order that he might revenge and rescue the remnant of his poor comrades of the San Juan de Ulloa catastrophe, who were now shut up in Seville yards and made to work in chains. Sir John hoodwinked Philip by making use of Mr. George Fitzwilliam, who in turn made use of Rudolfe and Mary Stuart. Mary believed in the genuineness of the conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth and set up the Queen of Scots in her place, to hand over Elizabeth's ships to Spain, confiscate property, and to kill a number of anti-Catholic people. The Hawkins counterplot of revenge on Philip and his guilty confederates was completely successful. The comic audacity of it is almost beyond belief. The Pope had bestowed his blessing on the conspiracy, and the Spanish Council of State was enthusiastically certain of its success. So credulous were they of the great piratical seaman's conversion, that an agreement was signed pardoning Hawkins for his acts of piracy in the West Indies and other places; a Spanish peerage was given him together with £40,000, which was to be used for equipping the privateer fleet. The money was duly paid in London, and possibly some of it was used for repairing the British squadron which Hawkins had pronounced as being composed of the finest ships in the world for him to hand over to Philip, even though they had been neglected owing to the Queen's meanness. The plausible way in which the great seaman put this proposition caught the imagination of the negotiators. They were captivated by him. He had caused them to believe that he was a genuine seceder from heresy and from allegiance to the Queen of England, and was anxious to avow his penitence for the great sins he had committed against God and the only true faith, and to make atonement for them in befitting humility. All he asked for was forgiveness, and in the fullness of magnanimity they were possibly moved to ask if, in addition to forgiveness, a Spanish peerage, and £40,000, he would like to commemorate the occasion of his conversion by a further token of His Spanish Majesty's favour. It is easy to picture the apparent indifference with which he suggested that he did not ask for favours, but if he were to ask for anything, it would be the release from the Inquisition galleys of a few poor sailor prisoners. The apparently modest request was granted. Hawkins had risked his life to accomplish this, and now he writes a letter to Cecil beginning "My very good Lord." I do not give the whole of the letter. Suffice it to say that he confirms the success of the plot so far as he is concerned, and in a last paragraph he says, "I have sent your Lordship the copy of my pardon from the King of Spain, in the order and manner I have it, with my great titles and honours from the King, from which God deliver me." The process by which Hawkins succeeded in obtaining the object he had in view was the conception of no ordinary man. We talk and write of his wonderful accomplishments on sea and land, as a skilful, brave sailor, but he was more than that. He was, in many respects, a genius, and his courage and resolution were unfailingly magnificent. I dare say the prank he played on Philip and his advisers would be regarded as unworthy cunning, and an outrage on the rules of high honour. Good Protestant Christians disapproved then, as now, the wickedness of thus gambling with religion to attain any object whatsoever, and especially of swearing by the Mother of God the renunciation of the Protestant faith and the adoption of Roman Catholicism. The Spaniards, who had a hand in this nefarious proceeding, were quite convinced that, though Hawkins had been a pirate and a sea robber and murderer, now that he had come over to their faith the predisposition to his former evil habits would leave him. These were the high moral grounds on which was based the resolve to execute Elizabeth and a large number of her subjects, and take possession of the throne and private property at their will. It was, of course, the spirit of retaliation for the iniquities of the British rovers which was condoned by their monarch. In justification of our part of the game during this period of warfare for religious and material ascendancy, we stand by the eternal platitude that in that age we were compelled to act differently from what we should be justified in doing now. Civilization, for instance, so the argument goes, was at a low ebb then. I am not so sure that it did not stand higher than it does now. It is so easy for nations to become uncivilized, and we, in common with other nations, have a singular aptitude for it when we think we have a grievance. Be that as it may, Hawkins, Drake, and the other fine sea rovers had no petty scruples about relieving Spaniards of their treasure when they came across it on land or on their ships at sea. Call them by what epithet you like, they believed in the sanctity of their methods of carrying on war, and the results for the most part confirmed the accuracy of their judgment. At any rate, by their bold and resolute deeds they established British freedom and her supremacy of the seas, and handed down to us an abiding spirit that has reared the finest seamen and established our incomparable merchant fleet, the largest and finest in the world. There is no shame in wishing the nation to become imbued with the spirit of these old-time heroes, for the heritage they have bequeathed to us is divine and lives on. We speak of the great deeds they were guided to perform, but we rarely stop to think from whence the inspiration came, until we are touched by a throbbing impulse that brings us into the presence of the great mystery, at which who would dare to mock? It is strange that Hawkins' and Drake's brilliant and tragic careers should have been brought to an end by the same disease within a short time of each other and not many miles apart, and that their mother, the sea, should have claimed them at last in the vicinity of the scene of their first victorious encounter with their lifelong enemies, the Spaniards. The death of the two invincibles, who had long struck terror into the hearts of their foes, was the signal for prolonged rejoicings in the Spanish Main and the Indies, while the British squadron, battered and disease-smitten, made its melancholy way homeward with the news of the tragedy. For a time the loss of these commanding figures dealt a blow at the national spirit. There are usually long intervals between Cæsars and Napoleons. Nations have, in obedience to some law of Nature, to pass through periods of mediocre rule, and when men of great genius and dominating qualities come to clear up the mess, they are only tolerated possibly by fear, and never for long by appreciation. A capricious public soon tires of these living heroes. It is after they are dead that they become abiding examples of human greatness, not so much to their contemporaries as to those generations that follow them. The historian has a great deal to do with the manner in which the fame of a great man is handed down to posterity, and it should never be forgotten that historians have to depend on evidence which may be faulty, while their own judgment may not always be sound. It is a most difficult task to discipline the mind into a perfectly unbiased condition. The great point is to state honestly what you believe, and not what you may know those you are speaking to wish you to say. The contemporaries of Hawkins and Drake unquestionably regarded them with high admiration, but I question whether they were deified then as they are now. The same thing applies to Nelson and Collingwood, of whom I shall speak later on, as the historian has put the stamp upon their great deeds also. Drake and Hawkins attracted attention because of their daring voyages and piratical enterprises on Spanish property on sea and land. Every obstacle was brushed aside. Danger ever appealed to them. They dashed into fortified ports filled with warships fully equipped, silenced the forts, sank and set fire to Philip's vessels, and made everything and everybody fly before them in the belief that hell had been let loose. To the superstitious Spanish mind it seemed as though the English must be under Satanic protection when they slashed their way undaunted into the midst of dangers which would inevitably spell death for the mere mortal. These corsairs of ours obviously knew and took advantage of this superstition, for cannon were never resorted to without good reason, and never without effect. The deliberate defiance of any written or unwritten law that forbade their laying hands on the treasure they sought so diligently, and went far and near to find, merely increased public admiration. Elizabeth pretended that they were very trying to her Christian virtues. But leave out of count the foregoing deeds--which no one can dispute were prodigious, and quite equal to the part these men played in the destruction of the Armada--what could be more dashingly brilliant in naval warfare than Drake's raids on San Domingo, Carthagena, Cadiz, and other ports and cities of old and new Spain, to which I have already briefly alluded? It was their great successes in their great undertakings, no matter whether it was "shocking piracy" or not, that immortalized these terrible creators of England's greatness all the world over! Thomas Cobham, a member of a lordly and Protestant family, became a sailor, and soon became fascinated with the gay life of privateering. Once when in command of a vessel, eagerly scouring the seas for Spanish prizes, one was sighted, bound from Antwerp to Cadiz. Cobham gave chase, easily captured her in the Bay of Biscay, and discovered there were forty Inquisition prisoners aboard. After rescuing the prisoners, the captain and crew of the Spanish vessel were then sewn up in their own mainsail and tossed into the sea, no doubt with such sententious expressions of godliness as was thought befitting to sacred occasions of that period. This ceremony having been performed, the vessel was scuttled, so that she might nevermore be used in trading with British sailors or any one else for Inquisition purposes. When the story became known, the case was discreetly inquired into, and very properly the gallant Cobham was never punished, and was soon running here and there at his old game. It may be taken for granted that there was no mincing matters when an opportunity for reprisals occurred. The Spaniards had carried barbarism to such a pitch in seizing our ships and condemning their crews to the galleys, that Queen Elizabeth was never averse to meeting murder and plunder by more than the equivalent in retaliation, except when she imagined that Philip was showing signs of overpowering strength; she then became timid and vacillating. She was never mentally disturbed by the moral side of the great deeds that brought her vast stores of plunder. Moreover, she could always find an accommodating bishop to put her qualms (if she ever had any, except those of consequence to herself) at rest on points of conscience. One noted personage, who held high ecclesiastical office, told her that it was a virtue to seize treasure when she knew it would otherwise be used for the purpose of murdering her Protestant subjects. Sir Arthur Champernowne, a noted vice-admiral of Elizabeth's reign, in writing to Cecil of the vessel that had put into Plymouth through stress of weather with the needy Philip's half-million of ducats on board, borrowed, it is said, from a Genoa firm of financiers, said it should be claimed as fair booty. Sir Arthur's view was that anything taken from so perfidious a nation was both necessary and profitable to the Commonwealth. No doubt a great deal of pious discussion would centre round the Vice-Admiral's easy moral but very logical opinions. The main thing in his mind, and in that of everybody else who was free from poisoned cant, was that the most shocking crimes were being openly advocated by Philip, King of Spain, against all European Protestants, rich or poor, who came within the clutches of the savages that administered the cruelties of the Inquisition. The canting crowd shrieked against the monstrous impiety of such notions, but their efforts to prove purity of motive were unavailing. After considered thought by a committee of men of high rectitude, it was decided to act without fear or favour in a strictly impartial manner, so Philip's half-million of bullion was divided between the Prince of Orange and the rigid moralist, Elizabeth, who is credited with having spent her share on the Navy, a very admirable way of disposing of it. This act was the cause of a deluge of reprisals on the part of Spain. But, from all accounts, Elizabeth's corsairs had always the best of it in matters of material importance. The Spanish are naturally a proud, brave race. In the middle of the sixteenth century their power dominated two-thirds of the universe, and had they stuck to business, and not so feverishly to the spreading of their religious faith by violent means, they might have continued a predominant nation. Their civil, naval, and military position was unequalled. The commerce and wealth of the whole world was pre-eminently in their hands, and in common with other nations who arrive at heights of power, prosperity, and grandeur (which last sits so easily on the Spaniard), they gave way to pleasures and to the luxury of laziness which invariably carries with it sensuality. Wherever they found themselves in the ascendancy, they intrigued to impose the Roman faith on the population, and if that method did not succeed with felicity, whenever the agents of their governing classes, including their king, met with opposition from prominent men or women, their opponents were put to the rack, burnt, or their heads sent flying. In this country no leading Protestant's life or property was safe. Even Elizabeth, during the reign of her half-sister, Mary, was obliged to make believe that her religious faith was Roman in harmony with that of the Queen. It was either adoption, deception, or execution, and the future queen outwitted all their traps and inventions until Mary passed on, and Elizabeth took her place on the throne. Meanwhile, Spain, as I have indicated, was tampering with abiding laws. Catastrophe always follows perilous habits of life, which were correctly attributed to the Spanish. As with individuals, so it is with nations; pride can never successfully run in conjunction with the decadence of wealth. It is manifestly true that it is easier for a nation to go up than to realize that it has come down, and during long years Spain has had to learn this bitter lesson. It was not only imperious pride of race and extravagant grandeur that brought the destruction of her supremacy of the seas, and the wealth and supremacy of many lands, but their intolerable religious despotism towards those who were not already, and refused to become, as I have said, adherents of the Roman Catholic creed. Poor wretches who were not strong enough to defend themselves had the mark of heretics put on them; and for nearly thirty years Spaniards carried on a system of burning British seamen whenever they could lay hands on them. They kept up a constant system of spying and plotting against the British Protestant Queen and her subjects of every position in life. The policy of the Spanish King and government was to make the British and other races vassals of the Pope. Philip, like all powerful monarchs and individuals who are put into power without any of the qualities of fitness to fill a high post, always believed that his presence on earth was an act of supreme Providence. Philip, in proclaiming his glorious advent for the good of mankind, explained it with a decorum that had a fascinating flavour. Unlike some imitators of great personalities, he was never vulgarly boastful in giving expression to the belief that his power came from above and would be sustained by the mystery that gave him it in such abundance, but, in fact, he never doubted what was known as the doctrine of the divine right of kings. The human support which kept him in authority did not enter into his calculations. The popular notions of the democracies then was that no physical force could sever the alliance which existed between God and monarchs; and there is no evidence that Philip was ever disillusioned. He regarded his adversaries, especially Hawkins and Drake, in the light of magicians possessed of devilish spirits that were in conflict with the wishes of the Deity. His highly placed and best naval officer, Santa Cruz, took a more realistic view than his master, though he might have had doubts as to whether the people who were at war with Spain were not a species of devil. But he expressed the view which even at this distance of time shows him to have been a man of sane, practical thought. Philip imagined he could agree with the acts of assassins (and also support the Holy Office) in their policy of burning English sailors as heretics. Santa Cruz reflected more deeply, and advised the King that such acts were positively courting disaster, because "the British corsairs had teeth, and could use them." Spain looked upon her naval position as impregnable, but Elizabeth's pirates contemptuously termed it "a Colossus stuffed with clouts." Priests, crucifixes, and reliance on supernatural assistance had no meaning for them. If any suggestion to impose on them by such means had been made, they would have cast the culprits over the side into the sea. They were peculiarly religious, but would tolerate no saintly humbugs who lived on superstition. When they had serious work in hand, they relied on their own mental and physical powers, and if they failed in their objective, they reverently remarked, "The reason is best known to God"--a simple, unadorned final phrase. Some of the sayings and doings, reliable or unreliable, that have been handed down to us, are extremely comical, looking at them from our religious standpoint in these days; for instance, Drake's method of dealing with insubordination, his idea of how treason was to be stamped out, and the trial of Doughty, the traitor. People who sit in cosy houses, which these early sailors made it possible for them in other days and now to acquire, may regard many of the disciplinary methods of Drake and his sea contemporaries as sheer savage murder, but these critics are not quite qualified to judge as to the justice or injustice of the actions of one man who is responsible for the safe and proper navigation of a vessel, no matter whether on an enterprising voyage of piracy, fair trade, or invasion. If a nautical project is to be carried out with complete success, the first element in the venture is discipline, and the early seafarers believed this, as their successors have always done, especially during the different periods of the sailing-ship era. A commander, if he wishes to be successful in keeping the spirit of rebellion under, must imbue those under him with a kind of awe. This only succeeds if the commander has a magnetic and powerful will, combined with quick action and sound, unhesitating judgment. All the greatest naval and military chiefs have had and must have now these essential gifts of nature if they are to be successful in their art. The man of dashing expediency without judgment or knowledge is a great peril in any responsible position. When either a ship or nation or anything else is in trouble, it is the cool, calculating, orderly administrator, who never makes chaos or destructive fuss, that succeeds. That is essential, and it is only this type of person that so often saves both ships, armies, and nations from inevitable destruction. The Duke of Wellington used to say that "In every case, the winning of a battle was always a damned near thing." One of the most important characteristics of Drake's and Hawkins' genius was their fearless accurate methods of putting the fear of God into the Spaniards, both at sea and ashore. The mention of their names made Philip's flesh creep. Even Admiral Santa Cruz, in common with his compatriots, thought Drake was "The Serpent"--"The Devil." And the Spanish opinion of him helped Drake to win many a tough battle. Amongst the thrilling examples are his dashes into Corunna and Cadiz. Drake never took the risk before calculating the cost and making certain of where the vulnerable weak spot of the enemy lay, and when and where to strike it. The complete vanquishing of the Armada is another instance of Drake's great qualities of slashing yet sound judgment put accurately into effect. Of course, the honours of the defeat of the Armada must always be shared with other naval experts who had acquired their knowledge of sea warfare in what is called the piratical line. But the spirit that inflamed the whole British fleet was that of Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, Seymour, and Howard, and the inspiration came mainly from the two former. On the Spanish side, as a naval battle, it was a fiasco, a mere colossal clerical burlesque. Neither naval strategy nor ordinary seamanship was in evidence on the part of the chief commander or his admirals. The men fought with rough-and-tumble heroism. The sailors were only second in quality to our own, but there was no plan of battle, and the poor Duke of Medina Sidonia had neither knowledge of naval affairs nor courage. Philip's theory seems to have been that any lack of efficiency in the art of war by his commanders would be made up by the spiritual encouragement of the priests dangling their crucifixes about the decks amongst the sailors and soldiers, who had been put through a course of instruction on spiritual efficacy before sailing on their doomed expedition. They were made to believe that the Spanish cause was so just that assistance would be given from God to defeat the "infernal devils" and to invade their country. This great battle transferred the sea supremacy from the Spanish to the British, who have held it, with one interval, ever since, and will continue to hold it, provided that Philip's theories of relying merely on the help that comes from above be supplemented by, first, the appointment of a proper head at the Admiralty with some nautical instinct and knowledge of affairs; and secondly, the keeping up of an efficient fleet, manned with efficient officers and men. Heaven helps those who help themselves. No department of government can be properly managed by novices. The reckless, experimental appointment of untried men to positions of grave responsibility on which the happiness, comfort, and life of the whole public may depend, and the very existence of the country be put in jeopardy, is a gamble, and may be a crime. It is always risky to assume that any person holding authority in the bigger affairs of life is in consequence an instrument of Providence. Had the conception of the Armada and the organization of every detail been put into the hands of experienced and trained experts with sound judgment in naval matters, such as Admiral Santa Cruz, and had it not been for Philip and his landsman ideas of the efficacy of priests and crucifixes, and greenhorns such as the Duke of Medina Sidonia and his landlubber colleagues, Spain might never have been involved in the Armada fight, and if she had, it is scarcely likely that so appalling a disaster could have come to her. Apart from any fighting, the fact of having no better sea knowledge or judgment than to anchor the Spanish ships in an open roadstead like Calais was courting the loss of the whole Spanish fleet. One of the fundamental precautions of seamanship is never to anchor on a lee shore or in an open roadstead, without a means of escape. The dunderheaded Spanish commanders made their extermination much more easy for the highly trained British seamen of all grades, none of whom had any reason to hide their heads in shame for any part they individually took in the complete ruin of the Spanish Navy. One cannot read the sordid story without feeling a pang of pity for the proud men, such as Recaldo, who died on landing at Bilbao; or Oquendo, whose home was at Santander. He refused to see his wife and children, turned his face to the wall, and died of a broken heart begotten of shame. The soldiers and sailors were so weak they could not help themselves, and died in hundreds on the ships that crawled back to Spain. The tragic fate of these vessels and their crews that were dashed to pieces on the rocks of the Hebrides and Ireland added greatly to the tale of horror. Philip was crushed, but was a man of tender sympathies, and free from vindictive resentment against those who were placed in charge of his terrific and ill-fated navy. He worked and exhorted others to relieve the sufferers in every possible way. He obviously regarded the disaster as a divine rebuke, and submissively acquiesced with true Spanish indolence, saying that he believed it to be the "great purpose of Heaven." On the authority of the Duke of Parma, "The English regarded their victory with modesty, and were languidly indifferent to their valour." They looked upon the defeat of the Spanish Navy as a token of the Ruler of all things being decidedly partial to the Protestant faith. The Spaniards, as a whole, would not allow that Heaven was against them or that the verdict was that of Providence. They declared that it was entirely the result of the superior management of the English ships and the fighting quality of their crews. With this chivalrous testimonial no one could then or will now disagree. It was very sporting of them to admit the superiority of the British ships and seamanship. Drake and his compeers had reason to be proud of their efforts in the great naval contest. Their reputations were enhanced by it all over the world, though never a sign or word came from themselves about their gallantry. They looked upon these matters as mere incidents of their enterprising lives. II But it is really in the lesser sea encounters, though they probably had just as great results, that we become enthralled by Drake's adventurous voyages. The Armada affair was more like the battle of Trafalgar, one of the differences being that in the latter engagement the Spanish ships did not risk going far into the open sea, but wisely kept Cadiz open for retreat, which they availed themselves of after receiving a dreadful pounding. Drake's voyage in the _Pelican_ excelled anything that had ever been accomplished by previous sea rovers, and his expedition to the West Indies was a great feat. He always had trouble with Queen Elizabeth about money when organizing his voyages. Her Spanish brother-in-law's power was always in her thoughts. He never allowed her to forget that if he were provoked he would invade England, and notwithstanding her retort that England had a long arm which he would do well to fear, her courage alternated with some nervousness at times. Elizabeth was not so much concerned about his threat of excommunication of her as the sly tricks in conjunction with the Pope in spreading the spirit of rebellion in Ireland, and in other ways conspiring against her. Her mood was at one time to defy him, and at another conciliatory and fearful lest her pirate chiefs should do anything to provoke Spanish susceptibilities. Drake was much hampered by her moods when he wanted to get quickly to business, and never lost an opportunity of slipping out of her reach when his eloquence on the acquisition of untold wealth and the capture of some of Philip's distant colonies had appealed to her boundless avarice and made her conscience easy. His expedition to the West Indies might never have been undertaken had he not been a dare-devil fellow, to whom Burleigh's wink was as good as a nod to be off. He slipped out of port unknown to her, and his first prize was a large Spanish ship loaded with salt fish. He pounced upon her after passing Ushant, and the excellent cargo was suitably distributed amongst the fleet. There were 25 privateers, and a company of 2,500 men on this expedition. All were volunteers, and represented every grade of society, high and low. There was never any difficulty in getting a supply of men. On this occasion the applications largely outnumbered the posts available. Drake could always depend upon volunteers, and, like all men of superb action, he had no liking for conscription. He knew that in the performance and carrying out of great deeds (and nearly all of his were terrific) it is men aflame with courage and enthusiasm that carry the day, and take them as a whole, conscripts are never wholehearted. The two great characteristics of the British race--initiative and endurance--are due to this burning flame of voluntarism. The West India expedition was organized and all expenses guaranteed by private individuals. The capital was £60,000, and its allocation was £40,000 for expenses and £20,000 to be distributed amongst those who had volunteered to serve. Both men and officers had signed on without any stipulation for wages. They knew they were out for a piratical cruise, and welcomed any danger, great or small, that would give them a chance of making it not only a monetary success, but one that would give Spanish autocracy another shattering blow. These ancient mariners never trifled with life, and no sombre views or fatal shadows disturbed their spirited ambition or caused them to shrink from their strenuous and stupendous work. They went forth in their cockleshell fleet as full of hope and confidence as those who are accustomed to sail and man a transatlantic liner of the present day. Some of their vessels were but little larger than a present-day battleship's tender. Neither roaring forties nor Cape Horn hurricanes intimidated them. It is only when we stop to think, that we realize how great these adventurers were, and how much we owe to their sacred memories. In addition to being ridiculously small and shabby in point of efficiency in rigging, sails, and general outfit, it will always be a mystery how it was that so few were lost by stress of weather or even ordinary navigable risks. They were veritable boxes in design, and their rig alone made it impossible for them to make rapid passages, even if they had wished to do so. As I write these lines, and think of my own Western Ocean experiences in well-designed, perfectly equipped, large and small sailing vessels during the winter hurricane months, when the passages were made literally under water and every liquid mountain seemed to forebode immediate destruction, it taxes my nautical knowledge to understand how these inferior and smaller craft which Drake commanded did not succumb to the same elements that have carried superior vessels in later years to their doom. One reason that occurs to me is that they were never deeply laden, and they were accustomed to ride hurricanes out when they had plenty of sea room at their sea anchors. But nothing can detract from what our generation may describe as their eccentric genius in combining navigation with piracy and naval and military art. Talk about "human vision"! What is the good of it if it turns out nothing but unrestrained confusion? The men of the period I am writing about had real "vision," and applied it with accuracy without disorganizing the machinery of life and making the world a miserable place to live in. They were all for country and none for self. After the capture of the Spanish ship and the appropriation of her cargo of fish, Drake's fleet went lounging along towards Vigo. In due course he brought his ships to anchor in the harbour, and lost no time in coming in contact with Don Pedro Bendero, the Spanish governor, who was annoyed at the British Admiral's unceremonious appearance. Don Pedro said that he was not aware that his country was at war with Britain. Drake quickly disillusioned him, and demanded, "If we are not at war, why have English merchants been arrested?" Don Pedro said an order had come for their release. Drake landed forthwith a portion of his force, and seeing that he meant business that foreboded trouble, the governor sent him wine, fruit, and other luxurious articles of food in abundance. The ships were anchored in a somewhat open roadstead, so Drake resolved to take them farther up the waterway where they would lie comfortably, no matter from what direction the threatening storm might break. But he had another shrewd object in view, which was to make a beginning in acquiring any of the valuable and treasured possessions adorning the churches. A trusted officer who was in his confidence, and a great admirer of his wisdom and other personal qualities, was sent to survey the passage and to find a suitable anchorage. He was a man of enterprise, with a strong dislike to the Roman Catholic faith, and never doubted that he was perfectly justified in relieving the churches of plate and other valuables. These were, in his eyes, articles of idolatry that no man of puritanic and Protestant principles could refrain from removing and placing under the safe keeping of his revered chief, who was no more averse to robbing a church than he was to robbing a ship carrying gold or fish. As the vessel in charge of this intrepid officer, whose name was Carlile, approached the town where it was proposed to anchor the fleet the inhabitants fled, taking with them much of the church plate and other things which the British had covetously thought an appropriate prize of theirs. Carlile, being a man of resource, soon laid hold of other church treasure, which amply compensated for the loss of that which was carried off by the fleeing inhabitants at the mouth of the harbour. The day following Christopher Carlile's satisfactory survey the fleet was anchored off the town. The sight of it threw the whole district into panic. A pompous governor of Galicia hastened to Vigo, and on his arrival there he took fright at the number of ships and the dreaded name of the pirate chief who was in command. It would be futile to show fight, so he determined to accommodate himself to the Admiral's terms, which were that he should have a free hand to replenish the fleet with water and provisions, or any other odds and ends, without interference. This being accomplished, he agreed to sail, and no doubt the governor thought he had made a judicious bargain in getting rid of him so easily. But Drake all the time had the Spanish gold fleet in his mind. Sacrifices must be made in order that it may be captured, so off he went for the Cape de Verde islands, and found when he got there that the treasure-ships had arrived and sailed only a few hours before. The disappointment was, according to custom, taken with Christian composure. He had the aptitude of switching his mind from one form of warfare to another. As I have said, he would just as soon attack and plunder a city as a church or a ship. Drake had missed the gold fleet, so he turned his attention to the treasures of Santiago. When the governor and population were made aware that the distinguished visitor to their island was the terrible "El Draque," they and their spiritual advisers as usual flew to the mountains, without neglecting to take their money and priceless possessions with them. Drake looted as much as was left in the city of wine and other valuables, but he got neither gold nor silver, and would probably have left Santiago unharmed but for the horrible murder of one of his sailor-boys, whose body was found hacked to pieces. This settled the doom of the finest built city in the Old World. "El Draque" at once set fire to it and burnt it to ashes, with that thoroughness which characterized all such dealings in an age when barbaric acts justified more than equivalent reprisals. It would have been a wiser course for the governor to have treated for the ransom of the town than to have murdered a poor sailor lad who was innocently having a stroll. It is balderdash to talk of the Spaniards as being too proud to treat with a person whom they believed to be nothing better than a pirate. The Spaniards, like other nationalities, were never too proud to do anything that would strengthen or maintain their supremacy. Their apparent pride in not treating with Drake at Santiago and on other rare occasions was really the acme of terror at hearing his name; there was neither high honour nor grandee dignity connected with it. As to Philip's kingly pride, it consisted in offering a special reward of £40,000 to have Elizabeth's great sailor assassinated or kidnapped. There were many to whom the thought of the bribe was fascinating. Numerous attempts were made, but whenever the assassins came within sound of his name or sight of him or his ships they became possessed of involuntary twitchy sensations, and fled in a delirium of fear, which was attributed to his being a magician. As soon as Drake had avenged the sailor-boy's murder he sailed for the West Indies. When he got into the hot latitudes the plague of yellow fever appeared, and nearly three hundred of his men died in a few days. Arriving at Dominica, they found the Caribs had a deadly hatred of the Spanish, and when they learned that the British were at war with Spain they offered to prescribe a certain cure for yellow jack which was eminently effectual. After disinfecting the ships, and getting supplied with their requirements, the fleet left for San Domingo, via St. Kitts, which was uninhabited at that time. Domingo was one of the most beautiful and most wealthy islands in the world. Columbus and his brother, Diego, are buried in the cathedral there. The population believed themselves to be immune from harm or invasion on this distant island home, but Drake soon disillusioned them. His devoted lieutenant, Christopher Carlile, was selected as usual to find a suitable channel and landing, a hazardous and almost unattainable quest, but in his and Drake's skilful hands their object was accomplished. The ships were brought into port, and in his usual direct way Drake demanded that the garrison of the castle should surrender without parley, and it was done. Drake was not finished with them yet; he wished to know from the governor what terms he was prepared to offer in order that the city should be saved from pillage. A negro boy was sent with this dispatch, and raging with the disgrace of surrendering to the British Admiral, an officer ran a lance through the boy's body. The poor boy was just able to get back, and died immediately, close to where Drake was. The Spaniards had allowed their vicious pride to incite them to commit murder and to insult the British Admiral, who promptly avenged both deeds by having two friars taken to the place where the boy had been stabbed, and there hanged. "El Draque" sent a further note to the governor informing him that unless the officer who murdered his messenger was executed at once by the Spanish authorities he would hang two friars for every day that it was put off. Needless to say, no more friars were hung, as the officer paid the penalty of his crime without further delay. The lacerated dignity of the Spaniards was still further tried by the demand for the ransom of the city, and their procrastination cost them dear. Drake's theology was at variance with that of the Founder of our faith. His method was rigid self-assertion, and the power of the strong. The affront he conceived to have been laid upon him and upon the country he represented could only be wiped out by martial law. Theoretic babbling about equality had no place in his ethics of the universe. He proceeded to raid and burn both private dwellings, palaces, and magazines; and the Government House, which was reputed to be the finest building in the world, was operated upon for a month, until it was reduced to dust. These are some of the penalties that would have gladdened the heart of the gallant Beresford and his Albert Hall comrades of our time had they been carried out against the Germans, who have excelled the Spaniards of Philip's reign in cultured murder and other brutalities in a war that has cost William II his throne and brought the period of civilization perilously near its end. It may be that the instability of petty statesmanship is to disappear, and that Providence may have in unseen reserve a group of men with mental and physical powers capable of subduing human virulence and re-creating out of the chaos the Germans have made a new and enduring civilization; and when they shall appear their advent will be applauded by the stricken world. Incidentally, it may be added that the German nation, which has endangered the existence of civilization, would never have been despised or thought ill of on account of its defeat by the Allies. It is their unjustifiable method of beginning the war, and the dirty brutal tricks by which they sought to win it, which have created enduring mistrust and animosity against them. The law of human fairness is no more exacting to small communities or individuals than it is to nations. Drake continued his relentless reprisals against San Domingo. The burning of British sailors as heretics possessed his mind. The distracted governor would have given his soul to get rid of him, but Drake demanded money, and this the governor pleaded was not available, but he was ultimately forced to provide 25,000 ducats, equalling £50,000. This was accepted after the town had been shattered to pieces and the shipping destroyed. The cathedral was the only important building left intact, the probable reason being that the remains of the great navigator, Columbus, were entombed there. Already the mortality amongst Drake's crew had been alarmingly heavy, and he was too wise a man to gamble with their lives until the bad season came on, so he settled up and hurried away into the fresh sea breezes, determined to give many more Spanish possessions a thorough shaking up. The news that the freebooters were near at hand, and that they were committing shocking deeds of theft and destruction on the way, had filtered to the Carribean Sea, and struck the somnolent population with terror. Carthagena, a magnificent city and the capital of the Spanish Main, was Drake's next objective. He had large hopes of doing well there. The health of most of his crew had improved and was now robust, and their fighting spirits had been kindled to a high pitch by their gallant chief, whose eye of genius was centred on a big haul of material things. On arrival off the port, Carlile, whose resource and courage were always in demand, was put in charge of a strong force. He led the attack, mounted the parapets, drove the Spanish garrison away in confusion, killed the commander, and subsequently destroyed a large number of ships which were lazily lying in the port. Many English prisoners were released, which was a godsend in filling the places of those who had died. The combative pretensions of the governor had received a severe shock. He was beaten, and Drake, like a true sportsman, asked him and his suite to dine with him, and with an air of Spanish dignity he accepted. The occasion was memorable for the royal way the distinguished guests were treated. The governor was studiously cordial, and obviously wished to win the favour of his remorseless visitors, so asked Drake and his officers to do him the honour of accepting his hospitality in return, which they did. What form the interchange of civilities took is not quite clear, but the governor's apparent amiableness did not in any way move Drake to exercise generosity. His object was ransom, and if this was agreed to good-naturedly, all the better for the Spaniards, but he was neither to be bought nor sold by wily tactics, nor won over by golden-tongued rhetoric. The price of the rugged Devonshire sailor's alternative of wild wrath and ruin was the modest sum of 100,000 ducats in hard cash. Mutual convivialities and flowing courtesies were at an end; these were one thing and reparation for the incarceration and burning of unoffending British sailors as heretics was another. "Deeds of blood and torture can never be atoned for in money or destruction of property. I am Drake, 'El Draque' if you like, and if you don't comply with my terms, you shall be destroyed." It was his habit openly to express himself in this way to Philip's subjects, whether hostile or not, and we can imagine that similar views were uttered in the Carthagena negotiations. The Spaniards regarded his terms as monstrous impiety; they were aghast, pleaded poverty, and protested and swore by the Holy Office that the total amount they could find in the whole city was only 30,000 ducats. Drake, with commendable prudence, seeing that he wished to get away from the fever zone without delay, appears to have accepted this amount, though authorities are at variance on this point. Some say that he held out for his first claim and got it. I have not been able to verify which is the correct amount, but in all probability he got the 100,000 ducats. In any case, he piously charged them with deception in their plea of poverty, but came to terms, declaring, no doubt, that his own magnanimity astonished him. But for the sudden outbreak of sickness amongst his crew, the Carthagenians would not have fared nearly so well. The city might have been, not only pillaged, but laid in ruins. As it was, he had emptied a monastery and blown the harbour forts to pieces. Drake's intention was to visit Panama, but the fever had laid heavy hands on his men. Only a third of those who commenced the voyage with him were well enough to do work at all, notwithstanding the replenishment by released prisoners, so he was forced to abandon further enterprises and shape his course homewards as quickly as skilful navigation and the vagaries of wind and weather would allow. Great deeds, even on this trip, stood to the credit of himself and crew. The accomplishments were far below what was expected at the outset in point of money value, but the priceless feature of the voyage was the enhanced respect for Drake's name which had taken possession of the Spanish race in every part of the world and subsequently made the defeat of the Armada an easier task. This eager soul, who was really the pioneer of a new civilization, had still to face hard fate after the reluctant abandonment of his intention to visit Panama. The sufferings of the adventurers from bad weather and shortness of water was severely felt on the passage to Florida. But the rough leader never lost heart or spared himself in any way. He was obliged to heave-to at Cape Antonio (Cuba), and here with indomitable courage went to work, putting heart into his men by digging with pick and shovel in a way that would have put a navvy to the blush, and when their efforts were rewarded he took his ships through the Bahama Channel, and as he passed a fort which the Spaniards had constructed and used as a base for a force which had murdered many French Protestant colonists in the vicinity, Drake landed, found out the murderous purpose of the fort, and blew it to pieces. But that was not all. He also had the satisfaction of saving the remainder of an unsuccessful English settlement founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and of taking possession of everything that he could lay hands on from the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. This was the last episode of plunder connected with an expedition that was ripe with thrilling incidents, and added to the fame of the most enterprising figure of the Elizabethan reign. In point of profit to those who had financed the voyage it was not a success; but its political and ultimate commercial advantages were enormous. These early seamen of the seventeenth century, many of them amateurs, laid the foundation of the greatest navy and mercantile marine of the world. It is to these fascinating adventurers, too, that the generations which followed are indebted for the initiative in human comforts and progress. The superficial self-righteous critic may find it an agreeable pursuit to search out their blemishes; but these men cannot be airily dismissed in that manner. They towered above their fellows, the supreme product of the spirit of their day in adventure and daring; they fulfilled their great destiny, and left their indelible mark upon the life of their nation and of the world. Their great emancipating heroism and reckless self-abnegation more than counterbalanced the faults with which the modern mind, judging their day by ours, is too prone to credit them, and whatever their deeds of perfidy may have been, they were imbued more with the idea of patriotism than with that of avarice. They were remarkable men, nor did they come into the life of the nation by chance, but for a purpose, and their memories are enshrined in human history. Drake sailed for home as soon as he had embarked what was left of Raleigh's colonists at Roanoke River, Virginia, and after a protracted and monotonous passage, arrived at Plymouth on the 28th July, 1586. The population received the news with acclamation. Drake wrote to Lord Burleigh, bemoaning his fate in having missed the gold fleet by a few hours, and again placing his services at the disposal of his Queen and country. The most momentous of all his commissions, especially to his own country, was in 1587, when he destroyed a hundred ships in Cadiz Harbour. It was a fine piece of work, this "singeing of the King of Spain's beard" as he called it, and by far excelled anything he had previously done. He captured the _San Philip_, the King of Spain's ship, which was the largest afloat. Her cargo was valued at over one million sterling, in addition to which papers were found on board revealing the wealth of the East India trade. The knowledge of this soon found a company of capitalists, who formed the East India Company, out of which our great Indian Empire was established. When the _San Philip_ was towed into Dartmouth Harbour, and when it became known generally, the whole country was ablaze with excitement, and people travelled from far and near to see the leviathan. Drake bore himself on this occasion with that sober modesty that characterized him always under any circumstances. His reputation stood higher now than ever, and it was no detriment to him that Philip should shudder, and when he became virtuously agitated speak of him as "that fearful man Drake." Everywhere he was a formidable reality, strong, forbidding and terrible; his penetrating spirit saw through the plans of the enemies of his country and his vigorous counter-measures were invariably successful. The exalted part he took in the defeat of the Armada has been briefly referred to in another part of this book. He was then at the height of his imposing magnificence and fame, but owing to the caprice of his royal mistress, who had an insatiable habit of venting her Tudor temper indiscriminately, he fell under her displeasure, and for a time was in disgrace; but she soon discovered that his services, whatever his lack of success on apparently rash enterprises may have been, were indispensable at so critical a moment. He was recalled, and soon after sent on his melancholy last voyage. He had worn himself out in the service of his country. Born at Tavistock in 1539, his eager spirit passed into the shadows off Puerto Bello on the 28th January, 1596, and, as previously stated, he was buried three miles out at sea, and two of his prizes were sunk and laid beside him. The following beautiful lines of Sir Henry Newbolt not only describe his patriotic and heroic end, but breathe the very spirit of the man who was one of the most striking figures of the Elizabethan age:-- DRAKE'S DRUM. _3rd Verse_: Drake, he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; Where the old trade's plyin', and the old flag flyin', They shall find him ware an' wakin', As they found him long ago! NELSON AND HIS CIRCLE I The tradition created by Drake and Hawkins was carried on by Nelson and Collingwood in a different age and under different conditions, and the same heroic spirit animated them all. Nelson must certainly have been familiar with the enthralling tales of these men and of their gallant colleagues, but without all the essential qualities born in him he could not have been the victor of Trafalgar. Men have to do something distinctive, that sets the human brain on fire, before they are really recognized as being great; then all others are put in the shade, no matter how necessary their great gifts may be to fill up the gaps in the man of initiative and of action. Drake could not have done what he did had he not had the aid of Frobisher, and Jervis would not have become Earl St. Vincent had he not been supported by Nelson at the battle of that name; and we should never have seen the imposing monument erected in Trafalgar Square had Nelson been without his Collingwood. Victorious and valiant performances do not come by chance, and so it comes to pass in the natural course of human law that if our Jervises, Nelsons, and Collingwoods, who are the prototypes of our present-day heroes, had not lived, we should not have had our Fishers, Jellicoes, and Beattys. Nelson was always an attractive personality and by no means the type of man to allow himself to be forgotten. He believed he was a personage with a mission on earth, and never an opportunity was given him that did not confirm this belief in himself. Horatio Nelson was the son of the Rev. Edmund Nelson, and was born at Burnham Thorpe on the 29th September, 1758. His mother died in 1767, and left eight children. Her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, was appointed to the _Raisonable_ three years after her death, and agreed, at the request of Horatio himself and the instigation of his father, after some doubtful comments as to the boy's physical suitableness for the rough life of a sailor, to take him; so on the 1st January, 1771, he became a midshipman on the _Raisonable._ On the 22nd May he either shipped of his own accord or was put as cabin-boy on a merchant vessel which went to the West Indies, and ended his career in the merchant service at the end of an eventful voyage. In July 1772 he became midshipman on board the _Triumph_. This was the real starting-point of his naval career and of the development of those great gifts that made him the renowned Admiral of the world. Twenty-two years after joining his uncle's ship he was made captain of the _Agamemnon_. At the siege of Calvi in 1794 he was wounded in the right eye and lost the sight of it. Three years afterwards he lost his right arm while commanding an attack on Santa Cruz, and although he had put so many sensational events into his life up to that time, it was not until the battle of St. Vincent that he began to attract attention. He had been promoted Rear-Admiral before the news of the battle was known, and when the news reached England the public enthusiasm was irrepressible. Jervis was made an Earl, with £3,000 a year pension, and the King requested that he should take his title from the name of the battle. Nelson refused a baronetcy, and was made, at his own request, a Knight of the Bath, receiving the thanks of the City of London and a sword. All those who were in prominent positions or came to the front in this conflict received something. It was not by a freak of chance that the authorities began to see in Nelson the elements of an extraordinary man. Nor was it mere chance that they so far neglected him that he was obliged to force himself upon the Admiralty in order to get them to employ him. The nation was in need of a great spirit, and Providence had been preparing one for many years before the ruling authorities discovered that Nelson was their man of the future. For several months he was tearing about the seas in search of the French fleet. He popped into Naples on the 17th June, 1798, ostensibly to know if anything had been heard of it, and no doubt he took the opportunity of having a word with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, who were to come so romantically into his life. He found the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay and sailed upon it with such amazing audacity that the heart was knocked out of them at the very outset. Neither the French Admiral nor anybody else would have expected the British fleet to run their ships between them and the shore at the risk of grounding. The _Culloden_ _did_ ground. The French had 11 out of 13 ships put out of action, but the British fleet suffered severely also, and the loss of men was serious.[1] Out of a total of 7,401 men, 218 were killed and 678 wounded. Nelson himself was badly wounded on the forehead, and as the skin fell down on his good eye and the blood streamed into it, he was both dazed and blinded. He shouted to Captain Berry as he was staggering to a fall, "I am killed; remember me to my wife." But there was a lot more work for him to do before the fatal day. He was carried below, believing the injury would prove fatal, in spite of the assurances to the contrary of the surgeon who was in attendance. Although Nelson's courage can never be doubted, there is something very curious in his constant, eccentric foreboding of death and the way in which he scattered his messages about to one and another. This habit increased amazingly after his conflict with the French at the Nile. He seems to have had intermittent attacks of hypochondria. The wound incident at Aboukir must have given great amusement as well as anxiety to those about him. Unquestionably the wound had the appearance at first of being mortal, but the surgeon soon gave a reassuring opinion, and after binding up the ugly cut he requested his patient to remain below. But Nelson, as soon as he knew he was not going to die, became bored with the inactivity and insisted on writing a dispatch to the Admiralty. His secretary was too excited to carry out his wishes, so he tackled it himself. But his suffering being great and his mind in a condition of whirling confusion, he did not get far beyond the beginning, which intimated that "Almighty God had blessed His Majesty's arms." The battle raged on. The _Orient_ was set on fire and her destruction assured. When Nelson was informed of the terrible catastrophe to the great French line-of-battle ship, he demanded to be assisted to the deck, whereupon he gave instructions that his only boat not destroyed was to be sent with the _Vanguard's_ first lieutenant to render assistance to the crew. He remained on deck until the _Orient_ blew up, and was then urged to go to bed. But sleep under the circumstances and in view of his own condition would not come. All night long he was sending messages directing the plan of battle the news of which was to enthral the civilized world. Nelson himself was not satisfied. "Not one of the French vessels would have escaped," he said, "if it had pleased God that he had not been wounded." This was rather a slur on those who had given their best blood and really won the battle. Notwithstanding the apparent egotism of this outburst, there are sound reasons for believing that the Admiral's inspiring influence was much discounted by his not being able to remain on deck. The sight of his guiding, magnetic figure had an amazing effect on his men, but I think it must be admitted that Nelson's head was not in a condition at that time to be entirely relied upon, and those in charge of the different ships put the finishing touches to the victory that was won by the force of his courage and commanding genius in the initial stages of the struggle. II Nelson was a true descendant of a race of men who had never faltered in the traditional belief that the world should be governed and dominated by the British. His King, his country, and particularly the profession to which he belonged, were to him the supreme authorities whose destiny it was to direct the affairs of the universe. With unfailing comic seriousness, intermixed with occasional explosions of bitter violence, he placed the French low down in the scale of the human family. There was scarcely a sailor adjective that was not applied to them. Carlyle, in later years, designated the voice of France as "a confused babblement from the gutters" and "scarcely human"; "A country indeed with its head cut off"; but this quotation does not reach some of the picturesque heights of nautical language that was invented by Nelson to describe his view of them. Both he and many of his fellow-countrymen regarded the chosen chief on whom the French nation had democratically placed an imperial crown as the embodiment of a wild beast. The great Admiral was always wholehearted in his declamation against the French people and their leaders who are our present allies fighting against that country which now is, and which Napoleon predicted to his dying day would become, one of the most imperious, inhuman foes to civilization. Nelson and his government at that time thought it a merciful high policy of brotherhood to protect and re-create Prussia out of the wreck to which Napoleon had reduced it; the result being that the military spirit of Prussia has been a growing, determined menace to the peace of the world and to the cause of human liberty in every form since the downfall of the man who warned us at the time from his exiled home on the rock of St. Helena that our policy would ultimately reflect with a vengeance upon ourselves, and involve the whole world in a great effort to save itself from destruction. He foresaw that Prussia would inveigle and bully the smaller German states into unification with herself, and, having cunningly accomplished this, that her perfidy would proceed to consolidate the united fabric into a formidable power which would crush all others by its military superiority; this dream of universal control of human life and affairs was at one time nearly realized. The German Empire has bankrupted herself in men, necessaries of life, and money. But that in no degree minimizes the disaster she has wrought on those who have had to bleed at every pore to avoid annihilation. The Allies, as well as the Central Powers, are no longer going concerns. It will take generations to get back to the point at which we started in 1914. But the tragic thought of all is the enormous sacrifice of life, and the mental and physical wrecks that have survived the savage, brutal struggle brought on a world that was, and wished to remain, at peace, when in 1914 the Central Powers arrogantly forced the pace which caused an alliance to be formed quickly by their enemies to save them from the doom which Napoleon, with his clear vision, had predicted would come. It was fitting that Nelson should by every conceivable means adopt methods of declamation against the French, if by doing so he thought it would inspire the men whom he commanded with the same conquering spirit he himself possessed. His country was at war with the French, and he was merely one of the instruments appointed to defeat them, and this may account for his ebullitions of hatred from time to time. I have found, however, no record that would in any way show that it was intended as surface policy, so it may be concluded that his dislike was as deep-seated as it appeared. Nelson never seems to have shown evidences of being a humbug by saying things which he did not believe. He had a wholesome dislike of the French people and of Bonaparte, who was their idol at that time. But neither he nor his government can be credited with the faculty of being students of human life. He and they believed that Paris was the centre of all that was corrupt and brutal. Napoleon, on the other hand, had no real hatred of the British people, but during his wars with their government his avowed opinion was that "all the ills, and all the scourges that afflict mankind, came from London." Both were wrong in their conclusions. They simply did not understand each other's point of view in the great upheaval that was disturbing the world. The British were not only jealous and afraid of Napoleon's genius and amazing rise to eminence--which they attributed to his inordinate ambition to establish himself as the dominating factor in the affairs of the universe--but they determined that his power should not only not be acknowledged, but destroyed, and their policy after twenty years of bitter war was completely accomplished. The merits or demerits of British policy must always remain a matter of controversy. It is too big a question to deal with here. Napoleon said himself that "Everything in the life of man is subject to calculation; the good and evil must be equally balanced." Other true sayings of his indicate that he, at any rate, _was_ a student of human life, and knew how fickle fortune is under certain conditions. "Reprisals," he declared, "are but a sad resource"; and again, no doubt dwelling on his own misfortunes, but with vivid truth all the same, he declares that "The allies gained by victory will turn against you upon the bare whisper of our defeat." III After his victory on the Nile, Nelson fully expected to be created a Viscount, and his claim was well supported by Hood, his old Admiral. He was made Baron Nelson of the Nile, and given a pension of £2,000 per annum--a poor recompense for the great service he had rendered to his country. But that was by no means the measure of the public gratitude. He was acclaimed from every corner of Great Britain as the national hero. The City of London presented him with a two hundred guinea sword, and a vote of thanks to himself, officers and men. There was much prayer and thanksgiving, and several women went as daft as brushes over him. One said her heart was absolutely bursting with all sorts of sensations. "I am half mad," says she, and any one who reads the letter will conclude that she understated her mental condition. But of all the many letters received by Nelson none surpasses in extravagance of adulation that written by Amy Lyon, the daughter of a village blacksmith, born at Great Neston in Cheshire, in 1761, who had come to London in the early part of 1780, fallen into evil ways and given birth to a little girl. She was then left destitute and sank as low as it is possible for a woman to do. She rose out of the depths into which she had fallen by appearing as the Goddess of Health in the exhibition of a James Graham. Sir Henry Featherstonehaugh took her under his protection for close on twelve months, but owing to her extravagance and faithlessness he turned her out when within a few months of a second child, which was stillborn. The first was handed over to her grandmother to take care of. Charles Greville, the second son of the Earl of Warwick, then took her to live with him. She had intimate relations with him while she was still Featherstonehaugh's mistress, and he believed the child about to be born was his. At this time Amy Lyon changed her name to Emily Hart. Greville went to work on business lines. He struck a bargain that all her previous lovers were to be dropped, and under this compact she lived with him in a respectable manner for nearly four years. He gave her some education, but she seems to have had natural genius, and her beauty was undisputed. Emily Hart sat to Romney,[2] the artist, and it is said that twenty-three portraits were painted, though some writers have placed the number at over forty. "Marinda," "Sibyl," and the "Spinstress" were amongst them. The pictures bring high prices; one, I think called "Sensibility," brought, in 1890, over £3,000. Notwithstanding her lowly birth (which has no right to stop any one's path to greatness) and lack of chastity, she had something uncommon about her that was irresistibly attractive. Sir William Hamilton, Greville's uncle, returned to England some time in 1784 from Naples, where he was the British Minister. It was said that he was in quest of a second wife, the first having died some two years before. Greville did not take kindly to the idea of Sir William marrying again, because he was his heir. He thought instead that, being in financial trouble himself, he would try to plant Emma on his uncle, not with the object of marriage, but of her becoming his mistress. Sir William was captivated with the girl, which made it easy for the shameless nephew to persuade his uncle to take her off his hands. Emma, however, was in love with Greville, and there were indications of revolt when the astute lady discovered that serious negotiations were proceeding for her transference from nephew to uncle. It took twelve months to arrive at a settlement. There does not appear to have been a signed agreement, but there certainly was a tacit understanding that Sir William was to assist Greville out of his difficulties, in return for which Emma was to join him at Naples, ostensibly as a visitor. She writes imploringly to Greville to answer her letters, but never an answer came, and in utter despair she tells him at last that she will not become his uncle's concubine, and threatens to make Hamilton marry her. This poor wretched woman was human, after all, and indeed she gave convincing proofs of many high qualities in after-years, but in the passion of her love for the dissolute scamp who bartered her away she pleaded for that touch of human compassion that never came. She knew that her reprobate lover was fearful lest she should induce his uncle to marry her, and she may have had an instinctive feeling that it was part of the contract that she was to be warded off if any attempt of the kind were made likely to endanger his prospects of becoming Hamilton's heir. His indifference made her venomously malignant, and she sent him a last stab that would at least give him a troubled mind, even though it should not cause him to recall her; she would then pursue her revenge by ignoring him. It is a sordid story which smears the pages of British History. Emma lived with the British Ambassador at Naples as his mistress. He was popular in this city of questionable morals at that time. She was beautiful and developed remarkable talents as a singer, and was a bright, witty, fascinating conversationalist. She worked hard at her studies, and became a fluent speaker of the Italian language. Hamilton had great consideration for her, and never risked having her affronted because of the liaison. Her singing was a triumph. It is said she was offered £6,000 to go to Madrid for three years and £2,000 for a season in London. She invented classic attitudes. Goethe said that "Sir William Hamilton, after long love and study of art, has at last discovered the most perfect of the wonders of nature and art in a beautiful young woman. She lives with him, and is about twenty years old. She is very handsome, and of a beautiful figure. What the greatest artists have aimed at is shown in perfection, in movement, in ravishing variety. Standing, kneeling, sitting, lying down, grave or sad, playful, exulting, repentant, wanton, menacing, anxious, all mental states follow rapidly one after another. With wonderful taste she suits the folding of her veil to each expression, and with the same handkerchief makes every kind of head-dress. The Old Knight holds the Light for her, and enters into the exhibition with his whole soul." Sir William had twelve of the "Representations" done by a German artist named Frederick Rehberg, entitled "Drawings faithfully copied from Nature at Naples." Hamilton married Emma in 1791 in England, and when they returned to Naples she was presented to the Queen, and ultimately became on intimate terms with Her Majesty of Naples, whose questionable morals were freely spoken of. Emma quickly attained a high social standing, but it is doubtful whether she exercised that influence over the Queen of which she liked to boast. In September, 1793, Nelson was at Naples by orders, and was the guest of the Hamiltons for a few days. He had not been there for five years, yet the precious Emma, without decorum or ceremony, sent him a written whirlwind of congratulations on the occasion of his victory at the Nile. Every line of the letter sends forth crackling sparks of fiery passion. She begins, "My dear, dear Sir," tells him she is delirious, that she fainted and fell on her side, "and am hurt," when she heard the joyful news. She "would feel it a glory to die in such a cause," but she cannot die until she has embraced "the Victor of the Nile." Then she proceeds to describe the transports of Maria Carolina. "She fainted too, cried, kissed her husband, her children, walked, frantic with pleasure, about the room, cried, kissed and embraced everybody near her." Then she continues, "Oh! brave Nelson! Oh! God bless and protect our brave deliverer! Oh! Nelson, Nelson! Oh! Victor! Oh! that my swollen heart could now tell him personally what we owe to him. My dress from head to foot is Allah Nelson. My earrings are Nelson's anchors." She sends him some sonnets, and avers that she must have taken a ship to "send all what is written on you." And so she goes on, throwing herself into his arms, metaphorically speaking, at every sentence. When the _Vanguard_ arrived at Naples, Nelson invited Lady Hamilton on board and she was no sooner on the deck than she made one dramatic plunge at him, and proceeded to faint on the poor shattered man's breast. Nelson, whose besetting weakness was love of approbation, became intoxicated with the lady's method of making love. Poor gallant fellow! He was, like many another, the victim of human weakness. He immediately believed that he and Emma had "found each other," and allowed himself to be flattered with refined delicacy into a liaison which became a fierce passion, and tested the loyalty of his closest friends to breaking-point. How infinitely pathetic is this piteous story from beginning to end! Like most sailors, Nelson had a fervent, religious belief in the Eternal, and never went to battle without casting himself on the mercy of the Infinite Pity which alone can give solace. He was fearless and strong in the affairs of his profession, and it may be safely assumed that, even if it went no deeper, he had a mystic fear of God, and was lost to all other fear. I think it was Carlyle who said, "God save us from the madness of popularity. It invariably injures those who get it." There never was a truer thing said, and it is sadly true of our great national hero. Not many months had passed before the dispenser of his praises had become his proprietor. It is doubtful whether Emma ever loved him, but that does not concern any one. What does concern us is the imperious domination she exercised over him. No flighty absurdities of fiction can equal the extravagance of his devotion to her, and his unchecked desire to let every one know it. He even informs Lady Nelson that Lady Hamilton is the very best woman in the world and an honour to her sex, and that he had a pride in having her as a friend. He writes to Lord St. Vincent that she is "an angel," and has honoured him in being his Ambassadress to the Queen and is worthy of his confidence. Again he writes, "Our dear Lady Hamilton, whom to see is to admire, but to know are to be added honour and respect; her head and heart surpass her beauty, which cannot be equalled by anything I have seen." It is impossible to suppose that a man could fall so violently in love with this extraordinary creature and permit her to come so intimately into his life without injury to his judgment and to those keen mental qualities which were needed at that time in the service of his country. Such loss of control must surely have been followed by mental and intellectual deterioration. This lady of varied antecedents was the intermediary between the Court of Naples and himself, and it is now an authentic fact that it was on the advice of the Queen and Emma that Naples entered into a war, the result of which was the complete defeat of the Neapolitans; the Court and the Hamiltons had to fly to Palermo and Nelson again lived with the Minister and his wife. He again pours out the virtues and charms of Lady Hamilton, to whom he gives the credit of engineering the embarkation of the Royal Family and two and a half million sterling aboard the _Vanguard_. After giving St. Vincent another dose of Emma, he goes on to say, "It is my duty to tell your Lordship the obligations which the whole Royal Family, as well as myself, are under on this trying occasion to her Ladyship." Her Ladyship, still hankering after her old friend Greville, writes him, "My dear adorable queen and I weep together, and now that is our only comfort." It is no concern of ours, but it looks uncommonly as though Greville still held the field, and the opinion of many that Nelson would not have had much chance against her former lover is borne out by many facts. Amongst the saddest stories that raged about the Hamiltons, their friends, and Nelson was the scandal of gambling for large stakes. Some are persistent in the assertion that the report was well founded, and others that it was not so bad as it was made out to be. Lady Hamilton asserted that the stories were all falsehoods invented by the Jacobinical party, but her Ladyship's veracity was never to be relied upon. Perhaps a foundation of truth and a large amount of exaggeration sums up the reports, so we must let it go at that. Troubridge seems to have been convinced that his Admiral was in the midst of a fast set, for he sends a most imploring remonstrance to him to get out of it and have no more incense puffed in his face. This was fine advice, but the victor of the Nile made no response. IV Nelson was little known to his countrymen before the St. Vincent battle. But after the victory of the Nile his name became immortal, and he could take any liberty he liked with our national conventionalisms. Even his love affairs were regarded as heroics. He refused occasionally to carry out instructions when he thought his own plans were better, and it was winked at; but had any of them miscarried, the memory of St. Vincent and the Nile would not have lived long. When he arrived with the Hamiltons in London after his long absence and victorious record, the mob, as usual, took the horses from the carriage and dragged him along Cheapside amid tumultuous cheers. Whenever he appeared in public the same thing happened. At Court, things were different. His reception was offensively cold, and George III ran some risk when he affronted his most popular subject by turning his back on him. Whatever private indiscretions Nelson may have been guilty of, nothing could justify so ungrateful an act of ill-mannered snobbery. The King should have known how to distinguish between private weakness, however unconventional, and matchless public service. But for the fine genius and patriotism of this noble fellow, he might have lost his crown. The temper of a capricious public in an era of revolution should not be tested by freaks of royal self-righteousness, while its imagination is being stirred by the deeds of a national hero. His action might have brought the dignity of George's kingliness into the gutter of ridicule, which would have been a public misfortune. The King's treatment of Nelson was worse than tactless; it was an impertinence. King Edward VII, whose wisdom and tact could always be trusted, might have disapproved, as strongly as did George III, Nelson's disregard of social conventions, but he would have received him on grounds of high public service, and have let his private faults, if he knew of them, pass unnoticed, instead of giving him an inarticulate snub. Still, a genius of naval distinction, or any other, has no right to claim exemption from a law that governs a large section of society, or to suppose that he may not be criticized or even ostracized if he defiantly offends the susceptibilities of our moral national life. And it is rather a big tax on one's patience for a man, because of his exalted position and distinguished deeds of valour and high services rendered to the State, to expect that he may be granted licence to parade his gallantries with women in boastful indifference to the moral law that governs the lives of a large section of the community. There are undoubtedly cases of ill-assorted unions, but it does not lie within our province to judge such cases. They may be victims of a hard fate far beyond the knowledge of the serene critics, whose habit of life is to sneak into the sacred affairs of others, while their own may be in need of vigilant enquiry and adjustment. It would hardly be possible, with the facts before us, to say a word in mitigation of Nelson's ostentatious infatuation for Lady Hamilton, were it not that he can never be judged from the same standpoint as ordinary mortals. That is not to say that a man, mentally constituted as he was, should not be amenable to established social laws. Nelson was a compound of peculiarities, like most men who are put into the world to do something great. He was amusingly vain, while his dainty vanity so obscured his judgment that he could not see through the most fulsome flattery, especially that of women. At the same time he was professionally keen, with a clear-seeing intellect, dashing, flawless courage, and a mind that quickly grasped the weak points of the enemy's position or formation. He fought the old form of sea warfare by methods that were exclusively his, and sent his opponents staggering into confusion. Once a plan of battle had been arranged, he never faltered in his judgment, and only manoeuvred as circumstances arose, but always with that unexpected rush and resource which carried with it certain victory. Nelson's great talents and his victories caused society outwardly to overlook his connection with the notorious Lady Hamilton. But the gossips were always at work. On this point he does not seem to have realized that he was playing pranks with society, though there were abundant evidences of it. He was offended because at Dresden, on their way to England, the Electress refused to receive his mistress on account of her antecedents, and no Court was held during their stay. Of course Emma was given the cold shoulder in England by the Court and by society. Nelson told his friend Collingwood of his own treatment, and added that, either as a public or private man, he wished nothing undone which he had done. He told Collingwood of his cold reception by the King, but it seems quite obvious that he maintained his belief that his connection with Emma had no right to be questioned by His Majesty or any of his subjects, and he held this view to the last. He would have none of the moralists' cant lavished on him, and by his consistent attitude seemed to say, "Hands off my private life! If I _did_ introduce Lady Hamilton to my wife at her apartments on my arrival in England after two and a half years' absence, when she was on the point of becoming the mother of Horatia, what business is that of yours? I will have none of your abstract morality. Get away, and clean up your own morals before you talk to me of mine." The above is what I think a man of Nelson's temperament might say to the people who wished to warn him against the dangerous course he was pursuing. Lady Nelson does not seem to have been a woman who could appeal to a man like Nelson. The fact is she may have been one of those unamiable, sexless females who was either coldly ignoring her husband or storing up in her heart any excuse for hurling at him the most bitter invective with which she might humiliate him. She does not appear to have been a vulgar shrieker, but she may have been a silent stabber, which is worse. In any case, Nelson seems to have made a bad choice, as by his actions he openly avowed that he preferred to live with the former mistress of Featherstonehaugh, Greville, and Hamilton, rather than with his lawful wife; and he, without a doubt, was the best judge as to which of them suited him best. The truth remains that Emma was attractive and talented, and although lowly born, she became the bosom companion of kings, queens, princesses, princes, and of many men and women of distinction. Nelson must have been extraordinarily simple to imagine that his wife, knowing, as all the world knew, that Lady Hamilton was his mistress and a bold, unscrupulous rival, would receive her with rapturous friendliness. The amazing puzzle to most people, then and now, is why she received her at all, unless she wished to worm out of her the precise nature of the intimacy. That may have been her definite purpose in allowing the visits for two or three months; then one day she flew into a rage, which conjures up a vision of hooks and eyes bursting like crackers from her person, and after a theatrical display of temper she disappears like a whirling tempest from the presence of her faithless husband, never again to meet him. This manner of showing resentment to the gallant sailor's fondness for the wife of Sir William Hamilton was the last straw. There was nothing dignified in Lady Nelson's tornado farewell to her husband; rather, if the records may be relied on, it was accompanied by a flow of abuse which could only emanate from an enraged termagant. Nelson now had a free hand. His wife was to have a generous allowance on condition that she left him alone freely to bestow his affections on the seductive Emma, whose story, retold by Mr. Harrison, shows Lady Nelson to have been an impossible woman to live with. She made home hell to him, so he said. And making liberal allowance for Emma's fibbing propensities, there are positive evidences that her story of Nelson's home life was crammed with pathetic truths of domestic misery. Nelson corroborates this by a letter to Emma almost immediately after his wife's ludicrous exit. The letter is the outpouring of an embittered soul that had been freed from purgatory and was entering into a new joy. It is a sickening effusion of unrestrained love-making that would put any personage of penny-novel fame to the blush. I may as well give the full dose. Here it is:-- Now, my own dear wife: for such you are in the sight of Heaven, I can give full scope to my feelings, for I dare say Oliver will faithfully deliver this letter. You know, my dearest Emma, that there is nothing in this world that I would not do for us to live together, and to have our dear little child with us. I firmly believe that this campaign will give us peace, and then we will set off for Bronte. In twelve hours we shall be across the water, and freed from all the nonsense of his friends, or rather pretended ones. Nothing but an event happening to him could prevent my going; and I am sure you will think so, for, unless all matters accord, it would bring a hundred of tongues and slanderous reports if I separated from her, which I would do with pleasure the moment we can be united. I want to see her no more; therefore we must manage till we can quit this country, or your uncle dies. I love you: I never did love any one else. I never had a dear pledge of love till you gave me one; and you, thank my God, never gave one to anybody else. I think before March is out, you will either see us back, or so victorious that we shall ensure a glorious issue to our toils. Think what my Emma will feel at seeing return safe, perhaps with a little more fame, her own dear Nelson. Never, if I can help it, will I dine out of my ship or go on shore, except duty calls me. Let Sir Hyde have any glory he can catch, I envy him not. You, my beloved Emma, and my country, are the two dearest objects of my fond heart. _A heart susceptible and true._ Only place confidence in me, and you shall never be disappointed. I burn all your dear letters, because it is right for your sake; and I wish you would burn all mine--they can do no good, and will do us both harm if any seizure of them; or the dropping even one of them would fill the mouths of the world sooner than we intend. My longing for you, both person and conversation, you may readily imagine (especially the person). No, my heart, person, and mind are in perfect union of love towards my own dear, beloved Emma, the real bosom friend of her, all hers, all Emma's. NELSON AND BRONTE. The Prince of Wales had dined with and paid suspicious attentions to Emma, and her fond lover, knowing this, advised her to warn him off. He probably had an instinct that his "beloved Emma," who is "the dearest object of his fond heart," was not quite strong enough to resist temptation. Especially would she be likely to fall under the fascinating influence of this little princely scamp. Nelson's mind turned to his wife, and he emphasized the desire that he might never see his aversion again. Nor did he. Some of his contemporaries doubted the paternity of Horatia; Nelson never did, and it would be hard to find a more beautiful outpouring of love than that which he unfailingly gave to his little daughter. Every thought of his soul was divided between her and the audacious flirt of a mother whom Nelson, always lavish, calls "his love"; "his darling angel"; "his heaven-given wife"; "the dearest, only true wife of his own till death." The "till death" finish is quite sailorly! No one will doubt his amazing faculty for love-making and love-writing, and it must always be a puzzle how he managed to mix it so successfully with war. His guilty love-making was an occasional embarrassment to him, and though he was the greatest naval tactician of his time, his domestic methods were hopelessly clumsy and transparent. For instance, in pouring out his grievances to his mistress he refers to himself by the name of Thompson, and to Lady Nelson as Aunt. Here are a few examples:--"Thompson desires me to say he has never wrote his Aunt since he sailed." "In twelve hours we shall be across the water, and freed from all the nonsense of his friends, or rather, pretended ones." "His" means Hamilton, and "friends" means the Prince of Wales, whom he looked upon as a rival for Emma's accommodating affections. Again, he says, "If I separated from her, which I would do with pleasure the moment we can be united." "Her" is Lady Nelson, but in discussing delicate matters of domestic policy he thinks it desirable to conceal that he would not weep were he to hear of Sir William's death, or be broken with grief to separate entirely from Lady Nelson, so that he might become "united to his heaven-given wife," "our darling angel, Emma." V The Admiralty did a great injustice to the victor of the Nile by appointing Sir Hyde Parker commander-in-chief, instead of one who was known to be the most brilliant officer in the Navy. It must have cut deeply into Nelson's proud soul to have to serve under a man who had not a particle of initiative; and, but for the splendid bravery and matchless talents of his second, the wooden walls of old England would have been sent to Davy Jones by the forts of Copenhagen and the Danish fleet. Sir Hyde did not relish having Nelson with him at all. He sulked, and treated him in a way that was observed and resented by those who served under him. The commander-in-chief acted like a jealous maiden, his intention being to freeze and humiliate the man who was destined to win the victory and save the British fleet from entire destruction. There always has been tremendous jealousy in the Navy. But Sir Hyde Parker should have known that he was dealing with an officer (who was the genius of the Navy) who would stand no nonsense from any Lord High Admiral or other fussy dignitary whom he could put in his pocket whenever he liked to exercise his personality. Nelson never shirked responsibility when his country's interests were being endangered by a dignified snob. Discipline, so far as he was concerned until his object was gained, was pushed aside, and the great spirit swept into the vortex of the danger and extinguished all opposition. He said on one occasion, "I hate your pen-and-ink men. A fleet of British warships are the best negotiators in Europe." I have said that Parker was in the "sulks," so Nelson adopted a humorous plan of thawing the ice by catching a turbot on the Dogger Bank on the passage out to the Baltic. A sly seaman had told him that this kind of fish was easily caught, so when they arrived on the Bank the fishing commenced, and the turbot was caught. Nelson knew his commander-in-chief was never averse to eating, so he gave orders to have it sent to Sir Hyde, and although the sea was dangerous for a small boat, the fish was in due course presented to Parker, who sent back a cordial note of thanks. This ingenious stratagem eased the strained relations between the two men, but there still remained a feeling on the part of the commander-in-chief that the electric and resourceful spirit of Nelson would, in any engagement, be the dominating factor, with or without official sanction. He knew how irresistibly Nelson's influence permeated the fleet, for no man knew better than this much-envied Vice-Admiral how to enthuse his comrades (high and low) in battle, and also what confidence the nation as a whole had in what he called the "Nelson touch." Sir Hyde Parker, knowing Nelson's superb qualities, should have paused and considered the consequences before he slyly sought to put such a man in the shade. There was not a man in the whole squadron who would not have gone to his doom under Nelson's lead rather than live under any other's. Nelson inspired men with the same love of glory which he craved for himself. No real sailor ever did like to sail under a hesitating, nervous commander. Parker, at the battle of Copenhagen, gives one (from all accounts) the impression of unsureness, afraid to take any risk lest it be the wrong one. Nelson was always sure, and never hesitated to put into practice his considered views. Parker, at a critical moment in the battle of Copenhagen, hoisted No. 39, which meant "Leave off action." Nelson shrugged his shoulders, and Said, "No, I'm damned if I do," and kept his own "Engage the enemy more closely" flying. He then added to Captain Foley, "I have only one eye, and have a right to be blind sometimes." He then put the telescope to his blind eye, and said, "I really do not see the signal." Unfortunately, some of the ships retired, and one able fellow, Captain Riou, who knew it was a wrong move, was so distressed that he called out in despair to one of his officers beside him, "What will Nelson think of us?" The poor captain was subsequently killed. There can be no doubt now that the signal 39 was not permissive or optional, nor that Nelson, having the enemy by the throat, refused to let go until he had strangled him, nor that he did dramatically act the blind-eye trick. He deliberately disobeyed orders, and saved England's honour and fleet by doing so. It was one of his splendid performances, and the story of it will live on into distant ages. Who can calculate the loss of national prestige or the lives that have been thrown away by putting severely decorous senior officers over the heads of men who knew their business better and had the courage and capacity to carry through big naval or military tasks? And how tempting it must be to many a gallant fellow to take the business into his own hands! Nelson knew well enough that he had laid himself open to the full penalty of naval law, but he knew also that if any of the moth-eaten crew at Whitehall even hinted it there would be "wigs on the green." No man knew the pulse of the nation better, and no commander played up to it less. One can imagine hearing him say to some of his officers (perhaps Captain Hardy of Trafalgar fame), after he had wrecked the Danish fleet and battered the forts into a dilapidated condition, "Well, I have fought contrary to orders, and they will perhaps hang me; never mind, let them." A significant "let them" this, which means more than he cares to express. The Danes frankly admitted that they had been beaten, and that even their defence was destroyed, as the Crown batteries could not be held. Instead of any talk of "hanging" him because of his "disobedience," he was made a Viscount and his Rear-Admiral (Graves) a Knight of the Bath. These were the only two significant honours conferred. When he landed at Copenhagen, it is said that the people viewed him with a mixture of admiration and hostility. He thought they were extremely amiable. They cheered and shouted "God bless Lord Nelson!" There can be no reason for their doing this, except gratitude to him for not blowing the city down about their ears. Whatever the cause, it is quite certain that the Crown Prince and some of the Danish statesmen treated him with studied cordiality. Sir Hyde Parker was a drag, and indeed, an intolerable nuisance to him. When the armistice was sealed and settled for fourteen weeks, he wished to get of to Reval and hammer the Russian squadron there, but the commander-in-chief shirked all responsibility, and his victim was made to say in a letter to Lord St. Vincent "that he would have been in Reval fourteen days before, and that no one could tell what he had suffered," and asks my dear Lord "if he has deserved well, to let him retire, and if ill, for heaven's sake to supersede him, for he cannot exist in this state." Lord Nelson conducted the British case with the Danes with consummate statesmanship, but notwithstanding this, the fine sensitive nature of the noble fellow could not fail to be hurt when His Majesty (the same who lost us America) stated that, "under _all_ the circumstances, he had thought well to approve." Nelson replied that he was sorry the armistice was only approved under _all_ the circumstances, and then gives His Majesty a slap in the eye by informing him that every part of the _all_ was to the advantage of the King and Country. St. Vincent, the First Lord of the Admiralty, subsequently made amends for His Majesty's error by writing to say that his "whole conduct was approved and admired, and that he does not care to draw comparisons, but that everybody agrees there is only one Nelson." This strong and valiant sailor was never at any time unconscious of his power. What troubled him was other people's lack of appreciation of it, though he accepted with a whimsical humour the grudging spirit in which credit was given to his unerring judgment and unequalled bravery. Nor can we examine the great deeds of his career without feeling a thrill of pride in the knowledge that he belonged to us. The spirit which animated Nelson was the same as that which lived in those heroes of old who were used by Providence as instruments in their country's destiny, and we may believe that this same spirit will live in those God-sent men of the future who will be necessary for the carrying out of some special task or for the destruction of evil. Apparently, long intervals elapse between the appearance of men such as Napoleon or Nelson. Napoleon's name still stirs the blood, and now, more than a century after his death, any one of the Powers who had a share in his tragic end would give worlds to get back some of his force and genius. Nelson in a much less degree and in a different way was another of those sent by Providence to take part in his country's struggles and, like many another great man, was subjected to cruel indignities at the hands of his inferiors. He often complained about his treatment, but this never prevented him from doing his work. But as his instructions were not always in accordance with his view of success, he occasionally disobeyed them for the country's good. It might be a gain to borrow _his_ spirit for a while at the present time to electrify the British Admiralty. Nelson was more successful in his conflicts with the enemy than with the chiefs of his calling afloat and ashore. He was not really strong and audacious enough in his dealings with them. "Jacky Fisher" (as he is fondly called) who lives in our disturbed time, would have had similar sandbags jettisoned in quick time. The modern Nelson has had his troubles with inferior superiors too, but he flattened out some of them. The modern man is all business, and does not show vanity if he has any. The "Only Nelson" was strong, weak, and vain. If no one else gratuitously sounded his praises, he would do so himself in the most comical way, not altogether in public, but to "Santa Emma," whose function it was to spread them abroad. After the battle of Copenhagen, Sir Hyde Parker sailed for Carlscrona, and left Nelson to hoist his flag as commander-in-chief on the _St. George_, which was not ready, and was possibly being refitted after rough handling. He tells Emma of Parker's departure, and adds, "if there is any work to do," i.e. any fighting, "he is pretty certain they will wait for him" before commencing it. And then he adds, "_Nelson will be first_. Who can stop him?" On the eve of the battle of Copenhagen he wrote to her, "Before you receive this, all will be over with Denmark. Either your Nelson will be safe, and Sir Hyde Parker victor, or your own Nelson will be laid low." What deep and genuine love-lunacy to be found in a terrific warrior, whose very name terrified those who had the honour to fight against him! The incongruity of it baffles one's belief, and seems to reverse the very order of human construction. In matters concerning his profession and highly technical State affairs there was no more astute man, but as soon as his thoughts centre on this female nightmare, he loses control of his wonderful gifts, and his mind becomes deranged with the idea of her being an object on which he should bestow reverence and infinite adulation. If ever there was a creature of lamentable contradictions, surely it was this genius, who immortalized our national glory at the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar! That a man of his calibre, surrounded with eternal fame, should be inflamed with a passion for a woman of negative morals who was refused admittance to the same circle that, but for this attachment would receive him as their triumphant hero, is an example of human eccentricity that never has and never can be accounted for. It may be taken for granted that at the very time he was writing to her about "her own Nelson" she would be carrying on a love intrigue with some old or new acquaintance, possibly the Prince of Wales, whom as I have said, her gallant lover wished her to avoid. He was known to be a cheat, a liar, and a faithless friend to men and to women, while in accordance with the splendid ethic of this type of person, he believed himself to be possessed of every saintly virtue. But any one who is curious to have a fascinating description of the "little dapper" should consult Thackeray. Well, there was no fighting to be done when the fleet under Nelson arrived at Reval, and the Emperor Paul's death and the dilatoriness of Parker saved the Russian fleet from extermination. They had sailed into safer anchorage and the British Admiral had to content himself by paying an official visit to the authorities at Reval, and receiving another ovation from the populace, which appealed to his whimsical love of approbation. As is his custom, he sends Emma an account of his Reval experiences. He says he would not mention so personal an incident to any one else, as it would appear so uncommonly like vanity, but between her and himself, hundreds had come to have a look at Nelson, and he heard them say, "_That is him!_ That is _him_!" It touches his vanity so keenly that he follows on by intimating that he "feels a good name is better than riches, and that it has a fine feeling to an honest heart." "All the Russians," says he, "are of opinion that I am like Suwaroff, le Jeune Suwaroff." As may be imagined, Nelson was bitterly disappointed at so sudden a collapse of his hopes, but, always master of the situation, he wrote a most courteous letter to Count Pahlen, the Russian Minister, who had complained that his presence was calculated to make a breach of the good feeling between the two countries. The Admiral's reply was tactful and unconsciously humorous. The tone was that of a person who had never been so unjustly hurt in his life. "He had come to pay his respects to His Imperial Majesty, and as his motives had been so entirely misunderstood, he would put to sea at once." VI His health was beginning to feel the enormous strain that had been imposed upon him for many months. This, together with his longing to be in the congenial society of Lady Hamilton, caused him to ask to be relieved of his command, and he was delighted to receive a letter from his old chief, Lord St. Vincent, stating that it was almost an impossible task to find a suitable successor, as in all his experience he never knew any one, except Troubridge, who had the art of enthusing others with his own unequalled spirit as he had. The command was handed over to Sir Charles Pole, and Nelson, almost wild with joy, sailed from the Baltic in the brig _Kite_ on the 19th June, and arrived at Yarmouth on the 1st July, 1801. Nelson always claimed that if the command had been given to him in February many lives would have been saved, and our prestige would not have suffered. We cannot describe all the fascinating pleasure we get when we read and think of the wonders this strange mortal performed in the ordinary course of his profession; when, however, he departs from that and begins to make stagey love to Lady Hamilton, it tries one's Christian patience. What business had he, as the first sailor in the world, to enter into such a compact with another man's wife? However, he must not be judged by this liaison alone, but by the circumstances that led to it. We know that his domestic life had been made irritating and unbearable to his sensitive and highly strung nature, but he found in Emma Hamilton one who played upon his vanity, and made him feel that he was regarded as an idol as well as an idolatrous lover. He thirsted for reverence and the love of soul for soul, and she, in her own way, gave both with lavish profusion, whereas his wife's austere indifference to his amazing accomplishments fell upon his large heart like ice, and who can estimate his sufferings before he decided to defy society? He believed and hoped that he would be exonerated, and became in the sight of Heaven (as he avowed) the husband of a woman who, there can be little doubt, did not keep her honour unstained, but who, to him, was the guiding spirit of his remaining days: and whatever impressions we may have forced upon us of the liaisons of this noxious creature, there is nothing on record that suggests that he was ever unfaithful to her after the bond of union was made. Nor does he appear to have been openly charged with illicit intimacy with other women after his marriage to Mrs. Nisbet, other than with Lady Hamilton. We may talk of his wonderful career being morally blunted, but his own belief in the sanctity of the verbal arrangement was sound to the core, and he hazarded the opprobrium of our stern conventional system. To him, Lady Hamilton had an enduring charm which influenced his wild, weak, generous soul, and was in fact an inspiration to him. It is a truism that the life-story of all men has its tragedy and romance, and in this, Nelson's was only similar to others; and who can help loving his memory? The Hamiltons lived with him at Merton when he was on leave. They shared the cost of the home, which Lady Hamilton had, with elaborate, artistic taste, prepared for him. A document written by Sir William makes it clear that the relations of man and wife were strained at times to breaking-point, for, as he states, "I am old and she in the beauty and vigour of youth"; and then he proceeds: "I have no complaint to make, but I feel that the whole attention of my wife is given to Lord Nelson and his interest at Merton." Obviously, this is the old gentleman's dull way of expressing his idea that there was a gamble going on with the marriage vow, and then, with delightful simplicity, he nullifies his suspicious thoughts by stating that he well knows the purity of Lord Nelson's friendship for Emma and himself and that he knows how uncomfortable it would make his Lordship, our best friend, if a separation should take place; therefore he was determined to do all in his power to prevent such an extremity, which would be essentially detrimental to all parties, but would be more sensibly felt by "_our dear friend than by us_."[3] He is willing to go on provided the expenses do not go on increasing, but as he cannot expect to live many years, every moment is precious to him, and hopes that he may be allowed to be his own master _and pass his time in his own way_.[4] He continues: "I am fully determined not to have any more silly altercations that too often arise between us, and embitter his present moments exceedingly. If we cannot live comfortably together," he continues, "a wise and well-concerted separation would be preferable." He says he knows and admires her talents and many excellent qualities, but _he is not blind to her defects_,[5] and confesses to having many himself, and pleads "for God's sake to bear and forbear." Throughout this pathetic document we find evidences that his heart was torn with the consciousness of the mean advantage being taken of his friendship. There is a droll, vacillating belief in the virtue of his wife and the purity of Nelson's motives, but every sentence indicates that his instinct led him to believe that another had taken his place. It may have been that he saw it dimly, and that he shrank from making any direct accusation, not wishing to break with the man with whom he had long been on close terms of friendship. It is highly improbable that either his own or Emma's past histories escaped his memory when he was penning his grievances. Indeed, there are evidences gleaming through his memorandum that his reflections were harassed by the remembrance of his own conduct, which had plunged to epic depths of wrongdoing in other days. These and other considerations would doubtless have a restraining effect on the action that might have been taken under different circumstances. Sir William Hamilton must have pondered over the parentage of Horatia, who was born on the 29th January, 1801. Is it possible that he knew that Nelson was her father, and believed in the purity of his friendship for Emma and himself? I think everything goes to prove that he knew of his friend's relations with his wife and condoned it. Nelson, in his clumsy, transparent way, tried to conceal the origin of the child, so he proceeds to write a letter to Lady Hamilton, which I shall quote later on. To say that Sir William Hamilton, a man of the world with vast experience of human deceptions and intrigues, could have been put off the scent, in view of all the circumstances, is too great a tax on credulity, but it is wholly characteristic of Nelson's ideas of mystification. But even if there were any further proof needed, Lady Hamilton has settled the matter by preserving the correspondence Nelson urged her to destroy. This will be referred to later on. Meanwhile, it is hardly thinkable that Nelson, who had such a high sense of honour in other affairs of life, and who had accepted the hospitality and been the honoured guest of Sir William Hamilton at Naples, should have made the occasion an opportunity of establishing illicit relations with his wife. The whole matter must ever remain a blot on the great Admiral's fame, even though his host appeared to, or really did, connive at it. The price was too high to pay for both of them. The following extract from a letter from Lord Minto to his wife indicates the mode of life of the family party. He says: I went to Lord Nelson's (Merton) on Saturday. The whole establishment and way of life makes me angry as well as melancholy. I do not think myself obliged to quarrel with him for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce me to give the smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. She looks ultimately to the chance of marriage, as Sir William will not be long in her way, and she probably indulges a hope that she may survive Lady Nelson. She is in high looks, but more immense than ever. She goes on cramming Nelson with trowels of flattery, which he takes as quietly as a child does pap. The love she makes to him is ridiculous and disgusting. The whole house, staircase and all, are covered with pictures of her and him of all sorts and sizes. He is represented in naval actions, coats of arms, pieces of plate in his honour, the flagstaff of _L'Orient_. If it were Lady Hamilton's house, there might be pretence for it; but to make his own a mere looking-glass to view himself all day is bad taste. This letter was written on the 22nd March, 1802, and Nelson writes that Sir William Hamilton died in his arms and in Lady Hamilton's on the 6th April, 1803, passing on "without a struggle, and that the world had never lost a more upright and accomplished gentleman";[5] which, be it said, is rather a stagey performance of his wife's lover. But the mistress excels her lover in the record of the death-bed drama. "Unhappy day," says she in profusion of tears, "for the forlorn Emma. Ten minutes past ten dear beloved Sir William left me." Emma was poorly provided for; only £700 a year jointure and £100 a year for her mother for life. She and Nelson appealed to Lord Minto to urge on Mr. Addington her claim for a pension, and she vowed to Minto that her connection with Nelson was pure, and he says he can believe it, which is hardly consistent with the description he gives his wife as to "their open and disgusting proceedings," or with his comments on a visit paid to the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, where the Duke had treated the gallant naval chief and his party as though they were mere ordinary trippers who had come to see the wonders of his possessions. He condescendingly ordered refreshments to be given to them, which sent Nelson into a fury of indignation, and Minto excuses the Duke by stating that Nelson persuaded himself that all the world should be blind because he chose to extol Emma's "virtues." Obviously, Minto was not firmly convinced of her chastity. Nelson, with his heart full of blind adoration, had quite a simple, sailorly conviction that no one ought to question the innocence of his attachment to Emma, since he called Hamilton her "Uncle"; and, because he wished the public to believe in his innocence, he took it for granted that they would believe it. The Duke of Marlborough evidently had heard and believed in the impure tale, but that did not justify him in treating his noble guest and his friends in the snobbish and ill-mannered way he did. It is hardly likely that Nelson would have paid the visit without being asked, and in ordinary decency he should have been received or not asked at all. He was a greater figure and public servant than the Duke, and His Grace would not have suffered in dignity had he met Nelson on terms of equality. He could not have done less, at all events. On the other hand, the great Admiral showed a peevishness at the treatment which was unworthy of his fame and position; he could well afford to ignore the affront, more especially as he prided himself that the lady the Duke took exception to was "in the sight of Heaven his wife," and no one had any right to question his choice. The views held by Hamilton and recorded in various conflicting versions give the impression that he was puzzled, and could not determine whether to believe in the fidelity of Nelson or not. Some writers think that he winked at the liaison because of the difference between his own age and that of his wife; others, that he thought the relations were innocent, and a token of high-spirited friendship for himself; but all delicately indicate their conviction that he knew what was going on. Meanwhile, Nelson steadfastly avows his unyielding fidelity to his friends, and, with this exception, I think we may conclude that his devotion to them could always be relied upon; indeed, his attachment to Hamilton was of an affectionate character, even when many people believed he was betraying him. Whether Sir William knew and believed that the association between his wife and Nelson was pure or not,[6] he evidently desired that no one else should believe it, for in a codicil to his will he bequeaths "The copy of Madam Le Brun's picture of his wife in enamel, and gives to his dearest friend, Nelson, a very small token of the great regard he has for his Lordship, the most virtuous, loyal, and truly brave character I ever met with." Then he finishes up with God's blessing to him and shame to those who do not say "Amen." This is a wonderful testimony of friendship from a man who had been wronged, and might well have shaken the belief of those who founded their opinions on the startling improprieties they had beheld between the man whom he designated "the most virtuous, loyal, and truly brave character he had ever met with" and his wife. That Sir William connived at what looked uncommonly like infidelity may or may not be doubtful, but that he saw more than would have impressed an ordinary man or woman with suspicion is unquestionable, and the best that can be said for his attitude is that he was so mentally constituted that he could only see or preferred to see in Nelson's extravagant attentions to his wife a guileless symbol of high friendship for her, which he took as a compliment to himself. On the other hand, if he not only suspected but knew that he was being betrayed, and bitterly resented the passion which no remonstrances from him could have controlled, he at any rate determined to let the world see "how a Christian could die," and refrained from uttering the unutterable. Napoleon on the rock at St. Helena acted in the same magnanimous way towards the adulterous Marie Louise, of whose faithlessness he also unguardedly let slip his opinion. It is an odious habit, but we are apt to believe, without any reserve, disparaging stories, that may or may not be true, concerning men of distinction, and the more prominent the man or woman, the more viciously the scandal-mongers pursue their contemptible occupation. These vermin invariably belong to a class of industrious mediocrities who have been born with a mental kink, and their treachery, falsehood, and cowardice are incurable. They are merely hurtful creatures who spoil the earth, and are to be found dolefully chattering about what they conceive to be other men's and women's lapses from the paths of stern virtue. Their plan of life is to defame other people, and by this means proclaim their own superiority over other weak mortals. Give the unsexed woman a chance, and she will let fly with unrestrained industry. How many innocent people have had their names dragged into the public gaze by this vice! The report may arise from professional or political jealousy, and may grow into incredible accusations of immorality. Who can estimate the suffering caused to Lord Melbourne, the then Prime Minister, and to his relatives and friends, and even to some of his political opponents, and to the Hon. Mrs. Norton, one of Sheridan's beautiful daughters (who was the wife of as unscrupulous a scamp as was ever permitted to live), by the engineering of an accusation of infidelity that forced the Prime Minister and Mrs. Norton into the Courts to defend themselves against what was proved to be a malicious and unfounded story? The plaintiff's case, resting as it did upon a tissue of fabricated evidence, takes a fine place in history because of the judge's impartiality and sagacious charge, and the verdict of the jury for the defendants which was received with tumultuous cheers, characterized by the judge as "disgraceful in a court of justice." His Lordship's remonstrance was futile, and again and again the cheers were given, both in the court and outside, where the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. No one who took part in this disgraceful action came out of it with a higher reputation than Sir John Campbell, who acted for Melbourne. His entrance to the House of Commons that night was the occasion of an outburst of delirious cheering, the like of which had never been witnessed in the House. "The Tories" are said to have "affected to cheer." I give this as a notable case whereby two innocent people were threatened with ruin and disgrace by the poisonous slander circulated for both private and political ends and fostered by the worthless husband of a virtuous and amiable woman. It is common knowledge that Nelson and Sir William Hamilton were assailed by the same stinging wasps as Melbourne and Mrs. Norton (if it be proper to make a comparison), but they were different types of men living in a different atmosphere and under different circumstances. It is true that Nelson had scruples about the unwisdom of his unconventional connection with Lady Hamilton, and, big-hearted fellow that he was, he would have struggled hard to avoid giving pain to his relations and friends; and who knows that he did not? For though his actions may belie that impression, his whole attitude was reckless, silly, and whimsical. To whatever extent he may have had scruples, he certainly did not possess the faculty of holding his inclinations in check. Indeed, he made no secret of the idea that "every man became a bachelor after passing the Rock of Gibraltar," and in this notion he carried out the orthodoxy of the old-time sailor. He disliked marriage and loved glory, and being a popular hero, he was forgiven all his amorous sins, which were by many looked upon as being part of his heroism. His laughable efforts to obscure the facts might have satisfied those who wished to rely on Hamilton's benedictory absolution, had not Nelson and Emma, as I have already said, left behind them incriminating letters and documents which leave no doubt as to what they were to each other. The great Admiral industriously destroyed much of the massive correspondence, but had overlooked some of the hidden treasures. Lady Hamilton promised to destroy all hers, but failed to do so. Hence the documentary proof written by his own hand and that of Emma's cancels Nelson's childish device to throw a too critical public off the scent. Nelson was alternately weak, nervous, careless, and defiant in his attitude in regard to public opinion concerning his private life. He at one time asserted the right of living in any way he might choose, and resented the criticism of a few cackling busybodies, even though it was not in accordance with the views of the late Mr. Edward Cocker. It was his affair, and if his ideas differed from those of his critics, it was no business of theirs. His independence in this, as well as in the practical concerns of his profession, coincided with the opinions held by Sandy Mackay in "Alton Locke," who declared that he would "never bow down to a bit of brains." But these independent views alternated with weaker ones. He was as indiscreetly lavish with his love as he was with his money; at one time he would contemptuously defy the poisoned arrows that were darted at him, and when beset by the sullen storm-cloud of scandal, he let fly with red-hot courage and audaciously upheld his honour: at another time he was timid, vacillating, and ridiculous in his attempts to avert the public eye from his love affair and its consequence. People who knew him intimately were aware that Horatia was his daughter, and in order to throw them off their guard he proceeded to invent a cock-and-bull story of how he came by the child. Here is his letter to Lady Hamilton written in the middle of 1804: "I am now going to state a thing to you and to request your kind assistance which, from my dear Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in. Before we left Italy, I told you of the extraordinary circumstances of a child being left to my care and protection. On your first coming to England, I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a mere nurse, and to think of educating her. I am now anxious for the child's being placed under your protecting wing"; a clumsy, transparent piece of foolery, which at once confirms its intention to mislead! But we are saved the trouble of interpretation, for the father goes on to write on another piece of note-paper, "My beloved, how I feel for your situation and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child." It is almost incredible that Nelson could have written such a silly fabrication. In the early part of 1804, Emma gave birth to another child, of which he believed himself to be the father. He asked the mother to call _him_ what she pleased (evidently he hoped and expected a boy), but if a girl, it was to be named Emma. It was a girl, so it was called after the mother, but it did not live long, and the father never saw it. As though he thought the letter written about little Miss Thompson (Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently delusive, he sends an equally absurd production to his niece, Charlotte Nelson, who lived a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is "truly sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, Horatia," and although her parents are lost, yet she is not "without a fortune; and that he will cherish her to the last moment of his life, and _curse_ them who _curse_ her, and Heaven bless them who bless her." This solemn enthusiasm for the poor orphan puts Nelson out of court as a cute letter-writer. The quality of ingenious diplomacy had been left entirely out of him, and like any one else who dallies with an art for which they have no gift, he excites suspicions, and more often than not discloses the very secret he is so anxious to keep. Every line of these letters indicates a tussle between a natural tendency to frank honesty and an unnatural and unworthy method of deception. Obviously, the recipient of this precious document would have her curiosity excited over the disingenuous tale of romance. She would ask herself first of all, "Why should my kinsman be so desirous to tell me that the orphan in whom he has so fond an interest is not without a fortune? and why should the responsibility of rearing and educating the child have been entrusted to him, the most active and important Admiral in the British Navy? And if it be true that she is an orphan, surely there could be no object in supposing that any one would '_curse_ her,' especially as he declared that she was 'not without fortune,' and that she was to be known as his adopted child." The niece, being a quick-witted girl, would naturally think the problem out for herself, and decide that there was something fishy involved in the mystery of these unnecessary phrases. In dealing with his domestic complications, Nelson's mind seems to have been in a constant whirlwind, dodging from one difficulty into another, never direct, and for ever in conflict with his true self. He was brave and resourceful in everything that appertained to the service he adorned, and yet a shivering fear came over him now and again lest the truth concerning his attachment to his friend's wife should be revealed. When he was seized with these remorseful thoughts, he could not be silent; he was not possessed of the constitutional gift of reticence, and could only find relief by constant reference to the matter he wished kept secret in such a way as to cause people to put two and two together and arrive at the very truth he wished to hide. VII But whatever his ruling passion may have been, his belief in the Power that rules us all never forsook him. He believed in religious forms as of a spiritual force. He often committed himself to it, and claimed the privilege of asking for Heaven's guidance. Call it eccentricity or superstition, or what you like, but to him it was a reality. One of the many amusing instances of his devotion to religious rites was the occasion when he and Lady Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother at the christening of their daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by which name she was baptized. To the puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping in view all the circumstances of parentage) this will be looked upon as an act of abominable hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him it was a pious duty. Like all highly strung and overwrought mortals, he was often moody, depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of his early demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly worrying him, as did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy fortune-teller who had correctly described his career up to the year 1805, and then stopping had said, "I can see no further." This creepy ending of the gipsy's tale was afflicting him with a dumb pain and depression when he unexpectedly came across his sister Catherine in London. She referred to his worn, haggard look with a tenderness that was peculiarly her own. He replied, "Ah! Katty! Katty! that gipsy!" and then relapsed into morbid silence. The foreboding bore heavily on his mind, and the story may well make one's heart throb with pity for the noble fellow who was so soon to fulfil his tragic destiny. Well may we exclaim that fame seems to be the most wretched of mockeries! The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery was too strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account of his meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office. He gives the account of it, thirty years after Nelson's death, to John Wilson Croker at Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood's great comrade:-- WALMER, _1st October, 1834_. We were [that is, Croker and he] talking of Lord Nelson, and some instances were mentioned of the egotism and vanity that derogated from his character. "Why," said the Duke, "I am not surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch, though I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an hour. It was soon after I returned from India. I went to the Colonial Office in Downing Street, and there I was shown into the little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman, whom, from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognized as Lord Nelson. He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself, and in, really, a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me. I suppose something that I happened to say made him guess that I was _somebody_, and he went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the office keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter. All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and the probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad, that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman. The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly, for the last half or three-quarters of an hour, I don't know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more. Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had; but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw."[8] We must not be too critical of the Duke's opinions of the vanity of the Admiral, but it calls for some notice, inasmuch as the Duke himself is reputed to have had an uncommonly good amount of it himself, though it took a different form and created a different impression. Wellington showed it in a cold, haughty, unimaginative, repelling self-importance; fearful of unbending to his inferiors lest his dignity should be offended. Nelson's peculiarities were the very antithesis; it was his delightful egotism and vanity that added to his charm and made him such a fascinating personality. His direct slap-dash, unconventional phrases and flashes of naval brilliancy, whether in search of, or engaged in battle with the enemy, together with a natural kindness to his officers and men of all ranks, filled them with confidence and pride in having him as their chief. The "Nelson touch," the "drubbing" he swore in his own engaging way that Mr. Villeneuve--as he called him to Blackwood--was to have when he caught him, the putting of the telescope to his blind eye at Copenhagen when the signal was flying to leave off action, and then "No, damn me if I do," had an inspiring effect on his men and strengthened the belief in his dauntlessness and sagacity. "What will Nelson think of us?" remarked one of the men aboard one of the frigates that obeyed the signal. But Nelson went on fighting with complete success. "Luckily," says Wellington, "I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man." Why "luckily"? What difference would his lack of knowledge have made? The Duke was hardly the type of man to understand the powerful personality whose style, "so vain and silly, surprised and almost disgusted" him. That view does not stand to _his_ credit, and no one else held it. But let us see what a greater man than either Wellington or Nelson says of both. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high terms of Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one stigma on his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he attributed entirely to his having been deceived by that wicked woman Queen Caroline, through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence which the latter had over him. He says of the Duke: "Judging from Wellington's actions, from his dispatches, and, above all, from his conduct towards Ney, I should pronounce him to be a poor-spirited man, without generosity, and without greatness of soul ('Un homme de peu d'esprit, sans générosité, et sans grandeur d'âme'). Such I know to be the opinion of Benjamin Constant and of Madame de Staël, who said that, except as a general, he had not two ideas. As a general, however, to find his equal amongst your own nation, you must go back to the time of Marlborough, but as anything else, I think that history will pronounce him to be a man of limited capacity ('Un homme borné')."[10] "Nelson is a brave man. If Villeneuve at Aboukir and Dumanoir at Trafalgar had had a little of his blood, the French would have been conquerors. I ought to have had Dumanoir's head cut off. Do you not think more highly of Nelson than of the best engineers who construct fortifications? Nelson had what a mere engineer officer can never acquire. It is a gift of nature." The Emperor, in his eulogy of Nelson, is not unmindful of the terrible crime he was led to commit at the instigation of that human viper, Queen Caroline, and the licentious Emma Hamilton. He, to some extent, whittles down Nelson's share of the responsibility by putting the whole blame on them. But who can read the gruesome story of the trial and hanging of the aged Prince Carraciolli without feeling ashamed that a fellow-countryman in Nelson's position should have stamped his career with so dark a crime? At the capitulation of St. Elmo, Carraciolli made his escape. He commanded a Neapolitan warship called the _Tancredi_, and had fought in Admiral Hotham's action on the 14th March, 1795, and gained distinction, accompanying the Royal Family to Palermo. He was given permission by the King to return for the purpose of protecting his large property. The French had entered Neapolitan territory and seized his estates, on the ground that he was a Royalist, and the only way he could recover them was by agreeing to take command of the Neapolitan fleet. The French were obliged to evacuate the country, and left their friends to settle matters for themselves as best they could. Carraciolli concealed himself, but was discovered in disguise and put on board the _Foudroyant_ with his hands tied behind his back. Captain Hardy, who was a man with a heart, was indignant when he saw the old man subjected to such gross indignity, and immediately ordered his hands to be liberated. Nelson committed him for trial, which commenced at ten o'clock, and at twelve he was declared guilty. At five o'clock he was hanged at the yardarm of the Neapolitan frigate _Minerva_. This poor old man was tried solely by his enemies without being allowed to have counsel or call witnesses. A miscreant called Count Thurn, a worse enemy than all, presided over the court. Carraciolli asked Lieutenant Parkinson to obtain for him a new trial. Nelson, who had ordered the first, could not or would not grant a second. Carraciolli asked to be shot, and this also was refused. On the grounds of former association, he sought the aid of Lady Hamilton, but she, being an approving party to the execution, only came from her concealment to enjoy the sight of the old Prince's dead body dangling at the yardarm. "Come, Bronte, come," said she, "let us take the barge and have another look at Carraciolli"; and there they feasted their eyes on the lifeless remains of their former associate, who had assuredly cursed them both with his last dying breath. It is the custom when sailors are buried at sea to weight their feet so that the body may sink in an upright position. The same course was adopted with Carraciolli; shot was put at his feet, but not sufficient, and he was cast into the sea. In a few days the putrified body rose to the surface head upwards, as though the murdered man had come again to haunt his executioners and give them a further opportunity of gazing at the ghastly features of their victim.[11] The sight of his old friend emerging again terrified Ferdinand, and he became afflicted with a feeling of abiding horror which he sought to appease by having the body interred in a Christian burial-ground. But the spirit of his executed friend worried him all his remaining days, and the act of burial did not save Naples from becoming a shambles of conflict, robbery, and revolution. Neither did Emma Hamilton escape her just deserts for the vile part she played in one of the most abominable crimes ever committed. Her latter hours were made terrible by the thought of the mockery of a trial, and the constant vision of the Prince's ghost glowering at her from the _Minerva's_ yardarm and from the surface of his watery tomb from which he had risen again to reproach her with the inhuman pleasure she had taken in watching the dreadful act. Nor did her shrieking avowal of repentance give the wretched Jezebel of a woman the assurance of forgiveness. She sought for distractions, and found most of them in wickedness, and passed into the presence of the Great Mystery with all her deeds of faithlessness, deceit, and uncontrollable revenge before her eyes. It is sad to read of and hear the insensate rubbish that is talked of new earths that are to evolve from war, as though it could be divorced from wounds and death, unspeakable crime, suffering in all its varied forms, and the destruction of property which must always be a direct result. The spectacle of it can never be other, except to the martially-minded, than a shuddering horror. I would ask any one who is imbued with the idea that out of wars spring new worlds to name a single instance where a nation that has engaged in it has not been left bleeding at its extremities, no matter whether it emerges as victor or vanquished. I would further ask the writer or orator who talks in this strain if he imagines that the sending of myriads of men to death can contribute to the making of new earths. The consequences are much too tragically serious to the nation, and indeed to the world, to be played with by smug diplomatists who seek to excite the populace into support of their calamitous efforts at statesmanship by shallow bursts of eloquence about the new conditions of life which are to accrue from their imitation of Germanism. No doubt Nelson thought, when he had poor old Prince Carraciolli hung, that he would create a new earth by striking terror into the hearts of the Neapolitan race, but natural laws are not worked out by methods of this kind, and Nelson had the mortification of seeing his plan of regulating human affairs create a new and more ferocious little hell on earth. His judgment at this time was very much warped through the evil influence of the Court of Naples and more especially by his infatuation for Lady Hamilton. Greville, and subsequently Sir William Hamilton, had taken great pains to educate Emma Hart. Hamilton writes to his nephew: "I can assure you her behaviour is such as has acquired her many sensible admirers, and we have good man society, and all the female nobility, with the Queen at their head, show her every mark of civility." Hamilton writes further: "Hitherto, her behaviour is irreproachable, but her temper, as you must know, unequal." Lady Malmesbury (with a decidedly sly scratch) says of her: "She really behaves as well as possible, and quite wonderfully, considering her origin and education." Sir George Elliot says: "Her manners are perfectly, unpolished, very easy, but not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid; excessively good-humoured, wishing to please and be admired by everybody that came in her way. She has acquired since her marriage some knowledge of history and of the arts, and one wonders at the application and pains she has taken to make herself what she is. With men her language and conversation are exaggerations of anything I ever heard anywhere; and I was wonderfully struck with these inveterate remains of her origin, though the impression was very much weakened by seeing the other ladies of Naples." A naval lieutenant at Naples stated he "thought her a very handsome, vulgar woman." There is no stabbing with a sneer about this opinion. It expresses in a few words the candid opinion of the sailor. Mrs. St. George thinks her "bold, daring, vain even to folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much more strongly than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty and lived in good company fifteen years. Her dress is frightful. Her waist is absolutely between her shoulders. Her figure is colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. The shape of all her features is fine, as is the form of her head, and particularly her ears; her teeth are a little irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes light blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes nothing away from her beauty or expression. Her eyebrows and hair, which, by the bye, is never clean, are dark and her complexion coarse. Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her movements in common life ungraceful, her voice loud, yet not disagreeable." This female critic seems to have been overburdened with the weight of Emma's defects, mental and physical! Elliot says: "Her person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity, and is growing every day. Her face is beautiful." The latter view tones down the apparent desire not to say too much in her favour. We are persuaded, in fact, that the foregoing views of Lady Hamilton's personal appearance are not correct. They give the impression that the opinions of her critics are based on the woman's lowly origin, and that they assume that because she was the offspring of poor parents she ought to be described as a fat hoyden with the manners of the kitchen. The people who knew her intimately do not make her out to be a stout, unwholesome, East-End Palestiner. The sister of Marie Antoinette, be it remembered, was her close companion, and many English ladies living in Naples and visiting there were scarcely likely to associate with a person who could not display better looks and manners than those set forth. Nelson, the Prince of Wales, and her many other men admirers, were hardly likely to tumble over each other in competition for her smiles and favours if "her dress was frightful," "her waist between her shoulders," "her hair dirty," "her feet hideous," "her bones large," "her complexion coarse," and "her person monstrous for its enormity, growing every day." We are inclined to place little dependence on the accuracy of people who seem to have described her according to their moods or perhaps according to the manner of her admirers towards themselves. That she was clever and attractive there can be no doubt, and it is equally certain that she won for herself the mortal enmity of many ladies who saw her powerful influence over prominent men and women whom they themselves bored. Some importance must be given to her husband's position as British representative; his influence must have been great, especially in Neapolitan circles. This would help her natural gifts of fascination, even though her breeding and education did not reach the standard of her blue-blooded critics. She had something that stood her in greater stead than breeding and education: she had the power of enslaving gallant hearts and holding them in thrall with many artful devices. They liked her Bohemianism, her wit, her geniality, her audacious slang, and her collection of droll epithets that fittingly described her venomous critics of a self-appointed nobility. When she could not reach the heights of such superior persons she proceeded to ridicule them with a tongue that rattled out vivid invective which outmatched anything they could say of _her_. It probably made her more enemies, but it satisfied her temper and pleased her admirers. She never appears to have been conscious of any inferiority in herself. We are inclined to agree with the opinion expressed by the naval lieutenant at Naples, who said "She was a very handsome, vulgar woman." All her portraits confirm what the sailor says about her beauty, and the most reliable records are confirmatory so far as his view of her vulgarity is concerned. But in any case, whatever may have been her physical dimensions, they were not understated by the crowd who gave vent to their aversion in this and in many other deplorable ways. There are only a few evidences of Nelson being aware of and resenting some of the disparaging remarks made about his "wife in the sight of Heaven," and these do not seem to have diminished his infatuation for her. He was accustomed to say in connection with his professional duties that whenever he followed his own head he was in general much more correct in his judgment than by following other people's opinions. He carried this plan into his private life so far as Emma was concerned, but men and women who were his intimate friends would not support the view that by following his head in _this_ particular case his judgment was sound. We may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but _he_ was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto him while he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing into the shadows, he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We shall have something to say hereafter as to how the British Government dealt with their great Admiral's dying injunction. The Neapolitan atmosphere was vile enough, and might well have made even men and women who knew the loose side of life shrink from it, but it can never be claimed that it had a demoralizing influence on Emma, who at an early age became familiar with unspeakable vices which left her little to learn at the time Greville sold her to his uncle, who took her to a centre of sordid uncleanness, there to become his wife after a brief association as his mistress. We may have no misgiving as to her aptitude in acquiring anything she chose that was left for her to learn from a community of debauchees and parasites. The wonder is that her brain did not succumb to the poisonous influences by which she was surrounded, and that the poor girl did not sink into the depths of that luxurious sensuality which characterized Neapolitan society at that time. It was a more distinguished and fascinating type of debauchery than that which she had known in other days in England, and from which Greville had rescued her. The temptation to plunge into the boisterous merriment of a higher order of depravity than that to which she had been accustomed must have been very great to such a temperament as hers. But she worthily kept her wild, wayward spirit under restraint, and, according to Sir William Hamilton, she conducted herself in a way that caused him to be satisfied with his reforming guidance. She adapted herself to the ways of the more select social community of her new existence, and at the time Nelson made her acquaintance she had really become a creditable member of the society in which she moved. In every respect she was congenial to him. He never lost a chance of applauding her gifts and brazenly exempting himself from all moral restrictions, except, as I have said before, when he was seized with a spontaneous fit of goodness. He would then clumsily try to conceal the passion that obsessed him. He did not brood long over trifles of this kind, merely because he had lost, if ever he possessed, the power of consecutive reasoning in matters of moral convention. His Neapolitan associates were a cunning, lying, luxury-loving, depraved lot, and however strongly his principles were fixed, there can be but one opinion--that such an atmosphere was harmful to him. He speaks of Naples himself as being a country of poets, whores, and scoundrels; and Southey does not attempt to mince words, for in vigorous terms he describes England's "alliances to superannuated and abominable governments of the Continent." These are the states that we shed British blood and squandered British money over, and in truth Southey describes them as they were! The King of Naples was a great hero to stand up against the bravest, best-trained troops the world! He shivered at the thought of Nelson going out of his sight, and whimpered him into staying to guard him and his rotten kingdom. It was at this period of his gallant activity that Nelson became the victim of fulsome flattery and the associate of the most cunning, knavish charlatans in the world. These creatures never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs they were suffering for the uplifting of human rights, and because their great British ally was in need of their disinterested and distinguished co-ordination. Nelson was well aware of all this, but could not shake himself free. He loathed the slavering way in which flattery was extended to him, because it had a sickly resemblance to weeping. He declares of the Neapolitan officers, "They are boasters of the highest order, and when they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and home, their courage ends in vapour." He avers that they "cannot lose honour, as they have none to lose," and yet he makes no serious effort to unshackle himself from a detestable position. Emma, the Queen, and King of Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he cannot give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans. He persuades himself that the whole thought of his soul is "Down, down, with the French," and that it shall be his "constant prayer." Throughout the whole course of his brilliant career it was never doubted that the French were his great aversion, because they were his country's enemies. But the hysterical tears of Lady Hamilton and those of the Neapolitan Queen proved too strong for him. The King's beseeching fears were also added to an already difficult situation, which, he persuaded himself, could not be ignored without damaging the interests he was sent to protect; so his stay in the reeking cesspool of Neapolitanism was prolonged, but there is no reason for supposing that his "constant prayer" for the extinction of the French was any the less ardent. The fatal day of their catastrophe was only postponed. The praying went on all the same, with more or less belief in the Almighty's preference for Englishmen. VIII This is a form of cant to which those whom we regard as great men are a prey. But this pride of race is not confined to the mighty men of valour. The humble soldier and sailor, and poorest and richest of civilians, have the same inherent belief in British superiority. They talk to the Great Giver of all power in the most patronizing way, and while they profess to believe in His ordinances they treat them as though He were their vassal and not their Lawgiver. They call upon Him to break His own laws and help them to smite those whom they regard as enemies, never doubting the righteousness of their cause. The enemy, on the other hand, believe that _they_ have a monopoly of God, and avow that _their_ cause is His, and _being_ His, they grimly ask Him to settle the dispute by coming down on their side; but should they win the fight, the glory of it is seldom given to the Power whose assistance is implored, but ascribed to their own genius. Cromwell is a singular and distinguished exception. He always gave all the glory to God. Take as an example the battle of Dunbar (though there are many instances of a similar character that could be quoted during the Civil War). The battle-cry of the Parliament forces was "The Lord of Hosts," and at the opportune moment the commander of the Parliament army shouted, "Now let God arise, and His enemies shall be scattered." The Ironsides made a fearless and irresistible rush at their foes, and almost immediately Cromwell saw the Covenanters in confusion; again he shouted, "They run! I profess they run!" The quotation from the 68th Psalm was always an inspiration to these religious warriors. Old Leslie, the Scotch Covenanting general, with the patience of stupidity, had been mumbling petitions for hours to the God of the Anointed to form an alliance with him to crush the unholy rebellion against King and Covenant. "Thou knowest, O God, how just our cause is, and how unjust is that of those who are not Thy people." This moth-eaten crowd of canting hypocrites were no match for the forces who believed that they were backed by the Lord of Hosts, and they were completely routed. Sir Jacob Astley, another Royalist, on one occasion during the Civil War breathed a simple prayer with uplifted eyes. "O Lord," said he, "Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me." Then he gave the word of command to "March." He was nevertheless defeated at Stow, and seems to have been offended at the Deity for His forgetfulness, as he bitterly reproached his conquerors by telling them that they might go to play unless they fell out amongst themselves. Napoleon carried on warfare under a sterner and more self-reliant code. He had confidence in and depended on his own genius and on nature's laws. There are shoals of instances in his short and terrific career that indicate this belief in himself. He said to a regiment of horse chasseurs at Lobenstein two days before the battle of Jena, "My lads! you must not fear death; when soldiers brave death, they drive him into the enemy's ranks." On another occasion he said: "You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you teach him all your art of war." This is a thrilling truth which always tells in war, and yet behind all the apparent indifference to the great mysterious force that holds sway over human affairs there was a hidden belief in the power of the Deity to guide aright and give aid in the hour of need, even to men of unequalled talents like Napoleon himself. His spontaneous exclamations indicate that he did not doubt who created and ruled the universe, but how much he relied on this power he never really disclosed, and it can only be a supposition gathered from utterances recorded by some of his contemporaries that he had a devout belief in the great power of Christianity. "Ah!" said he one day, "there is but one means of getting good manners, and that is by establishing religion." At that time the spiritual life of France was at a low ebb, and the subject of religion was one of the most unpopular and risky topics to raise, but Napoleon knew that it would have to be tackled in the open sooner or later, and it is a matter of authentic history that he struggled to bring and ultimately succeeded in bringing back religious ordinances to France. He declared that no good government could exist for long without it. His traducers proclaimed him an atheist, and we hear the same claptrap from people now who have not made themselves acquainted with the real history of the man and his times. We do not say he was a saint, but he was a better Christian, both in profession and action, than most of the kings that ruled prior to and during his period. In every way he excels the Louis of France, the Georges of Great Britain and Hanover, the Fredericks of Prussia, and the Alexanders of Russia. The latter two he puts far in the shade, both as a statesman, a warrior, and a wise, humane ruler who saw far into futurity, and fought against the reactionary forces of Europe, which combined to put an end to what was called his ambition to dominate the whole of creation. He foretold with amazing accuracy that from his ashes there would spring up sectional wars for a time, and ultimately the selfsame elements of vicious mediocrity that destroyed him would bring about a world-conflict which would destroy itself. The laws of life are simple, but at the same time very terrible in their consequences if ignored or disobeyed. What folly to imagine that any great figure or great tragedy comes into existence by chance! Napoleon was just as necessary to the world as was Cromwell. Both had the righting of wrongs and the clearing away of the accumulation of centuries of chaos and misgovernment, and it was not to be expected that they could carry out the necessary reforms without making the authors of such an intolerable state of things angry and resentful at their iron methods of discipline. Napoleon and Cromwell possessed the combined arts of war and statesmanship to a higher degree than any of their contemporaries. Cromwell excelled Napoleon in professional Christianity. The latter never paraded his ideas of religion, though he acted on them silently and gave occasional expression to the thoughts of his soul. Indeed, he was too much given to publicly disavowing the very principles he believed in privately. This plan or habit was said to be for the purpose of creating controversy. Be that as it may, when the natural spirit moved him he would declare his views in the most robust way. On one of many occasions he startled the Council of State by reminding them that a man did not risk being killed for a few pence a day or for a paltry distinction. "You must speak to the soul," he declared, "to electrify the man." Another very notable expression is here worth referring to, as it instances how practical and human were his views. "The heart," said he, "warms the genius, but in Pitt the genius withers the heart, which is a very different thing"; and so it is that Cromwell and he were not dissimilar in many of their attributes. Indeed, it is said that Napoleon never tired of quoting or having quoted to him some striking characteristic of Cromwell. We could hardly, with any degree of good judgment, put Leslie the Covenanter or Sir Jacob Astley the Royalist, or Nelson the matchless naval strategist and national hero, on a par with either Cromwell or Napoleon. They are only here referred to in connection with the two unequalled constructive statesmen and military generals as representing a type of peculiarly religious men who have occupied high military and naval positions in the service of the State. Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Blake in Cromwell's time, Nelson in Napoleon's, were all fire-eating religious men, always asking favours and guidance in their perilous undertakings from the great mystic Power in whom they believed. Collingwood was a great admiral and a Christian gentleman, who never mixed religion with hysterical or dramatic flashes of quarterdeck language. He was ostentatious in nothing, and seemed to observe a strictly decorous attitude. Nelson, on the other hand, resembled a restless squirrel, always swift in his instincts, with an enthusiasm which was contagious. In many ways he did not adhere to what is called cricket in sporting phrase. He was accustomed to say, "Never mind the justice or the impudence of this or that, only let me succeed." Then he would proceed to ask the Almighty in feverish zeal to aid him in the object he had in view. He would scatter a profusion of curses about in relation to the treatment of the Admiralty towards himself, or at his disappointment in not getting to grips with the French fleet, and then proceed to ask Lady Hamilton if they had a nice church at Merton, so that they may set an example of goodness to the under-parishioners, and "admire the pigs and poultry," etc. He finds on several occasions that a picture of Emma is much admired by the French Consul at Barcelona, and feels sure it would be admired by Bonaparte, and then he continues, "I love you most dearly, and hate the French most damnably." Sometimes he said he hated the French as the devil hated holy water, which at that time was considered to be the orthodoxy of a true Briton. It was quite a pro-British attitude to patronize the maker of kings who had kept the world in awe for nearly a quarter of a century, by expecting him to admire a portrait of a loose woman to whom he referred in the most scathing manner while at St. Helena. Her reputation and Nelson's connection with her seems to have been known to him, as was also her connection with the Neapolitan Court. His indictment was terrible. Nelson had a weary, anxious time on the Toulon station. He called it his home, and said they were in fine fighting trim and wished to God the ships were the same, but they were in a very dilapidated condition, not fit to stand the bad weather they were sure to encounter. The British Minister at Naples wished to send a Frenchman who could be relied on with information as to the whereabouts of the French fleet. Nelson replied that he would not on any account have a Frenchman in the British fleet except as a prisoner. He would be grateful to him for any information he could give, but not a Frenchman would be allowed to come to him, and adds that "his mother hated the French." He was enraged at the report spread by a fussy French Admiral named M. la Touche-Treville, who was in command at Toulon. It was said that he was sent to beat Nelson as he had done at Boulogne. But he was shy about coming out and trying a tussle. Nelson said he was a miscreant, a poltroon, and a liar. The Frenchman had boasted in a publication that he had put the British fleet to flight. The British Admiral took the charge so seriously to heart that he sent a copy of the _Victory's_ log to the Admiralty to disprove the statement of the lying Admiral la Touche, and in a letter to his brother Nelson says, "You will have seen La Touche's letter of how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and by God if I take him, he shall eat it." La Touche cheated Nelson of a sweet revenge by dying like a good Christian before the outraged British Admiral could get hold of him. The newspapers of France said he died of fatigue caused by walking so often to the signal post at Sepet, to watch the British fleet; and Nelson stated "that he was always sure that would be the death of him, and that if he had come out to fight him it would have added ten years on to his life." Poor Nelson was very sensitive when his professional qualities were assailed. He thought, and thought rightly, that the blockade at Toulon was an unparalleled feat of human patience and physical endurance. He had only been out of his ship three times from May 1803 to August 1805. We may write and speak about this wonderful devotion to duty, but it is only if we take time to think of the terrific things which the central figure who commanded, and the crews of the fleet of rickety, worn-out, leaky baskets--proudly spoken of as the "wooden walls of Old England"--had to contend with and actually did, that we comprehend the vast strain and task of it all. It was because Nelson was ever being reminded by some clumsy act of the Admiralty or thoughtless, ignorant criticism on the part of the politicians and civilian public generally that the work he and the men under him were doing was not appreciated as it should be, that he gave way to outbursts of violent resentment. But so far as the present writer has been able to discover, his love of approbation was so strong that an encouraging word of praise soon put him in love for the time being with those whom he had lately cursed. He never shrank from disobeying the instructions of whatever authority was over him if his judgment led him to the conclusion that he would serve his country better by disobedience and by following his own judgment; whenever he was driven to do this he was right and those above him were wrong, and in each case he was so conclusively right that no authoritative power dare court-martial him, or even censure his conduct, since the public believed more in him than in them. When the spirit of well-balanced defiance was upon him, he seemed to say to the public, to himself, and to those who were responsible for his instructions, "Do you imagine yourselves more capable of judging the circumstances, and the immeasurable difficulties surrounding them, than I am, whose business it has been to watch minutely every changing phase? Or do you think my love of country or glory so incomparably inferior to yours that I would risk any harm coming to it, or to myself and the men under me, if I was not sure of my ground? For what other reason do you think I disobeyed orders? Do you suppose I did it in order that some disaster should be the result? Or do you still think that your plan, right or wrong, should have been carried out, even though it would be accompanied with appalling consequences to life and property? If these are your views, I wish to remind you that I am the Indomitable Nelson, who will stand no damned nonsense from you or from the enemy when I see that my country, or the interests that I represent, are going to be jeopardized by your self-assertive instructions, and I wish to intimate to you that there is only one way of dealing with a Frenchman, and that is to knock him down when he is an enemy. You have obviously got to learn that to be civil to a Frenchman is to be laughed at, and this I shall never submit to." The Admiralty censured Nelson for disobeying Lord Keith's orders and, as they claimed, endangering Minorca, and also for landing seamen for the siege of Capua, and told him "not to employ the seamen in any such way in future." The Admiralty were too hasty in chastising him. He claimed that his success in freeing the whole kingdom of Naples from the French was almost wholly due to the employment of British sailors, whose valour carried the day. Nelson sent the First Lord a slap between the eyes in his best sarcastic form. He said briefly, "I cannot enter into all the detail in explanation of my motives which led me to take the action I did, as I have only a left hand, but I may inform you that my object is to drive the French to the devil, and restore peace and happiness to mankind"; and he continues, "I feel I am fitter to do the action than to describe it." And then he curtly and in so many words says to his Chief, "Don't you be troubled about Minorca. I have secured the main thing against your wish and that of Lord Keith, and you may be assured that I shall see that no harm comes to the Islands, which seems to be a cause of unnecessary anxiety to you." Incidentally, the expulsion of the French from Naples and seating Ferdinand on the throne was, as I have previously stated, not an unqualified success, nor was he accurate in his statement that he had restored happiness to millions. The success was a mere shadow. He had emancipated a set of villains. Troubridge says they were all thieves and vagabonds, robbing their unfortunate countrymen, selling confiscated property for nothing, cheating the King and Treasury by pocketing everything that their sticky fingers touched, and that their villainies were so deeply rooted that if some steps were not taken to dig them out, the Government could not hold together. Out of twenty millions of ducats collected as revenue, only thirteen millions reached the Treasury, and the King had to pay four ducats instead of one. Troubridge again intimates to his superior that Ferdinand is surrounded with a nest of the most unscrupulous thieves that could be found in all Europe. "Such damned cowards and villains," he declared, "he had never seen or heard of before." IX The French did not mince matters when their opportunity came. They, too, regarded them as vermin, and treated them according to the unrestrained edicts of the Reign of Terror, organized and administered by their late compatriots Sardanapalus, Danton, Maximilian Robespierre, and their literary colleague, the execrable Marat, who, by the way, was expeditiously dispatched by the gallant Charlotte Corday.[12] This method of bestowing the blessings of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was received by the Neapolitans with a frenzy from which there sprang a demoniac retaliation. Societies were formed to carry out the most atrocious crimes against the Neapolitan revolutionists, whom the Royalists hated more than they did the French. The fishermen and other miscreants came to a solemn conclusion that it was clearly their duty as a Christian people to combine, and each choose one whom they should privately guillotine when the opportunity offered. With the idea of paying a high compliment to Troubridge, who had so splendidly protected the Royalists, fought the French, and subdued the revolutionists, they made him the recipient of a decapitated head which had proudly sat on the shoulders of a revolutionist. This trophy was actually sent to him with his basket of breakfast grapes. In making the present the gallant fisherman conveyed his compliments to the Admiral, and reminded him that it was a token of his high appreciation of the Admiral's brilliant services to the Royalist cause. The Court was infested with traitors who would first carry out their vengeance against their rebellious compatriots and then cunningly lay the blame on those under whose protection they were. One of their judges informed Troubridge that he must have a Bishop to excommunicate some of the traitor priests before he could have them executed, and the fine sailor, who was sick of the crafty devils and the task he had been allocated to carry out, replied, "For the love of God hang the damned rascals first, and then let the Bishop deal with them if he did not think hanging was a sufficient degradation." Nothing in the annals of history can surpass the effrontery of these intriguers, which throws a lurid light on the class of administrators who associated with the British nation and spilt the blood of the flower of our land in bolstering up a government that was a disgrace and put all human perfidy in the shade. These allies of ours, who were joyously butchering and robbing each other, demanded a British warship to take the priests to Palermo, so that they might be degraded in a proper, Christian fashion and then brought to Naples for execution. Troubridge was audaciously requested to appoint a hangman (it may be he was asked to combine this with his other naval duties), and knowing the fine sense of noble dignity in the average sailor, we can easily imagine the flow of adjectives that accompanied the refusal, and how he would relate the outrage to which he had been subjected in quarterdeck language, that need not be here repeated, to his superior officer, Admiral Nelson, who must have felt the degradation of being selected to carry out as dirty a piece of work as ever devolved upon a public servant. To fight for his King and country was the joy of his soul, but to be selected as wet-nurse to the kingdom of Naples and the dignitaries that were at the head of it would have been an unbearable insult to his sense of proportion had it not been for the fulsome flattery, to which he was so susceptible, which was adroitly administered by the ladies of the Court, headed by the Queen and supplemented by the wife of Sir William Hamilton. There is always some fatal weakness about a great man that lures him into littleness, and this was an overwhelming tragedy in Nelson's career. The approbation of men was gratefully received and even asked for, but the adoration of women reduced him to helplessness. He was drugged by it, and the stronger the doses, the more efficacious they were. They nullified the vision of the unwholesome task he was set to carry out until his whole being revolted against the indignity of it, when he would pour out his wrath to Lady Hamilton as he did at the time when Troubridge would report to him his own trials. No doubt this caused him to realize the chaotic condition of public affairs, for he writes to the lady that "politics are hateful to him, and that Ministers of Kings are the greatest scoundrels that ever lived." The King of Naples is, he suspects, to be superseded by a prince who has married a Russian Archduchess. This, presumably, had been arranged by the "great political scoundrels." He stands loyally by Ferdinand, but soon all the work of that part of his life that gave him socially so much pleasure and professionally so much misery is to be left for evermore, and his great talents used in other and higher spheres. He had retaken Naples from the French, who had set up the Parthenopean Republic in 1799, and placed the tyrant King on his throne again; after a few more chequered years a treaty of neutrality was signed between France and Naples, which was treacherously broken by Naples. Ferdinand had to fly to Sicily, the French troops entered the capital, and Bonaparte, who had been marching from one victory to another, cleared out deep-rooted abuses and introduced reforms wherever he could. He had become the terror and the enemy of the misgoverning monarchs of that period, and the French nation had proclaimed him Emperor in 1804. He placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples in February 1806; Joseph ruled with marked moderation and distinction, sweeping away much of the foul canker of corruption and introducing many beneficent reforms during his two years of kingship. He then, much against his own wishes, became King of Spain, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Prince Joachim Murat, the dashing cavalry officer, whose decorative exterior awed friend and foe, and helped to win many a battle. His reign lasted from 1808 until 1815, and was no less distinguished than that of Joseph's. The fall of the Napoleonic régime was followed by the fall of Murat, and the despicable and treacherous Ferdinand became again the king, and brought back with him the same tyrannical habits that had made his previous rule so disastrous to the kingdom and to himself. No whitewasher, however brilliant and ingenious, can ever wipe out the fatal action of the British Government in embarking on so ill-conceived a policy as that of supporting the existence of a bloodsucking government, composed of a miscreant ruling class headed by an ignoble king, all living on the misery and blood of a semi-civilized population. It is a nauseous piece of history, with which, under sagacious administration, we should never have been connected. The main idea was to humble the pride of France, that thenceforth there might be peace in Europe. The Neapolitan revolutionists believed that the French intention was to set up a free government and deliver them from an unbearable despotism. Quite naturally, the Court took an opposite view in believing that it foreshadowed deportation, so they lost no time in proclaiming it to be conquest and merciless plunder. Nelson urged the vacillating King to advance against the French, to trust in God's blessing being bestowed upon him, his army, and his cause, and to die like a hero, sword in hand, or lose his throne. The King, always dauntless in the absence of danger, replied that he would do this, trusting in God and Nelson. His Majesty, in tickling the Admiral's susceptible spot by associating his name with that of the Deity, doubtless made a good shot, and had Nelson's sense of humour been equal to his vanity, he might not have received the oily compliment with such delightful complacency. We can imagine the scorn with which Troubridge would have received the potentate's reply had he given the same advice as Nelson. It is highly probable that had it been given on the quarterdeck of his ship, the King would have been treated to a vocabulary that would have impressed him with the necessity of scrambling quickly over the side. Nelson, it is stated, turned the French out of Naples, and they were subsequently overpowered by a plan put in force by Nelson and Troubridge, and carried into effect by men from the fleet. Captain Hallowell was ordered to proceed to Civita Vecchia and Castle St. Angelo to offer terms of capitulation. He reported the position to Troubridge, who ordered a squadron in command of Captain Louis to proceed and enforce the terms. The French, on the other hand, offered terms, but Troubridge, like Drake on another occasion, said that he had no time to parley, that they must agree to his terms or fight. The French Ambassador at Rome argued that the Roman territory belonged to the French by conquest, and the British commander adroitly replied "that it was his by reconquest." The inevitable alternative was impressive--capitulation. This was arranged, and the Roman States came under the control of the victors. Captain Louis proceeded in his cutter up the Tiber and planted the British colours at Rome, becoming its governor for a brief time. The naval men had carried out, by clever strategy and pluck, an enterprise which Sir James Erskine declined to undertake because of the insurmountable difficulties he persisted in seeing. General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops, said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent them from being annihilated by 15,000 French, when General Championnet evacuated Rome. The King entered with all the swagger of an Oriental potentate. The Neapolitans followed the French to Castellana, and when the latter faced up to them they stampeded in disordered panic. Some were wounded, but few were killed, and the King, forgetting in his fright his pledged undertaking to go forth trusting in "God and Nelson," fled in advance of his valiant soldiers to the capital, where they all arrived in breathless confusion. General Mack had been introduced to Nelson by the King and Queen, the latter exhorting him to be on land what the Admiral had been on sea. Nelson seems to have formed an adverse opinion of Mack, who was extolled by the Court as the military genius who was to deliver Europe from the thraldom of the French. He had expressed the view that the King and Queen's incomparable general "could not move without five carriages," and that _he_ "had formed his opinion" of him, which was tantamount to saying that Mack was both a coward and a traitor. Perhaps it was undue consideration for the feelings of Caroline, sister to the late Marie Antoinette, that caused him to restrain his boiling rage against this crew of reptiles, who had sold every cause that was entrusted to their protection. Nelson was infatuated with the charms of Caroline, and as this astute lady knew how to handle him in the interests of the Neapolitan Court, he reciprocated her patronage by overlooking misdeeds that would, under different circumstances, have justified him in blowing swarms of her noble subjects out of existence. "I declare to God," he writes, "my whole study is how to best meet the approbation of the Queen." An open door and hearty reception was always awaiting their Majesties of Sicily on board Nelson's flagship when they found it necessary to fly from the wrath of their downtrodden subjects or the aggressive invasions of the French troops. The anxiety of Nelson in conveying them to their Sicilian retreat was doubly increased by the vast treasure they never neglected to take with them, and neither the sources from which it came nor the means of spending it gave trouble to their consciences. The British Government, always generous with other person's money, fed these insufferable royal personages by bleeding the life's blood out of the British public, though it is fair to say that the Government did not carry out to the full the benevolent suggestions Nelson consistently urged in their behalf. "His heart was always breaking" at some act of parsimony on the part of the Government in so tardily giving that which he pleaded was an urgent necessity for them to have. He frankly avowed that he would prefer to resign if any distinction were to be drawn between loyalty to his rightful sovereign and that of his Sicilian Majesty, who was the faithful ally of his King. The solemn audacity of this statement reveals a mind so far fallen to pieces by infatuation that it has lost the power of discrimination. It will be remembered that this gracious ally promised Nelson that he would go forth at the head of his troops and conquer or die, and then scampered off in front of his army through Rome to Naples, and, after a few days' concealment from the mob, secretly bundled into boats with his retinue on a stormy night of great peril, embarked on the Admiral's ship, and sailed for Palermo. Lady Hamilton is credited with planning (with heroic skill) means by which the Royal Family could be taken to the shore, where Nelson was to receive and convoy them in barges to the _Vanguard_. Lady Hamilton had explored a subterranean passage which led from the palace to the beach, and pronounced it a fairly safe and possible means of exit. The plan apparently succeeded, and the royal party, after a few days' precautionary stay in the Bay of Naples, were conveyed in safety to Palermo, notwithstanding the hurricane that was encountered and only weathered by a perfection of seamanship that was unequalled in our naval and merchant services at that period of our trying history. The voyage was not made without tragedy, for the youngest of the princes became ill, and as it is always inevitable to attach a heroine to circumstances that are sensational (when there is one at hand), their Majesties in their grief fixed on her who had braved the perils of investigating the possibilities of the subterranean tunnel which had proved a safe though hazardous passage for the conveyance of themselves and their vast treasure. Nor do they appear to have been unmindful of her devotion to themselves during the storm, which was the severest that Nelson said he had ever experienced--though this is a platitude, as sailors are always prone to regard the last storm as the most terrific of all! But that it was severe there can be no doubt. We may be assured that the royal parents were not in a condition to give succour to their stricken son, so he was vouchsafed to pass beyond the veil in the arms of Lady Hamilton, who had bravely defied the tempest and behaved with a compassion that must always stand to her credit. They arrived at Palermo the day after the young Prince's death, and soon settled down to their gambling and other pleasures in which Nelson, as already stated, was involved. Troubridge, with touching fidelity, pleads with him to shun the temptations by which he is beset. "I dread, my Lord," he says, "all the feasting, etc., at Palermo. I am sure your health will be hurt. If so, all their saints will be damned by the Navy"; and then he goes on to say, "The King would be better employed digesting a good Government; everything gives way to their pleasures. The money spent at Palermo gives discontent here; fifty thousand people are unemployed, trade discouraged, manufactures at a stand. It is the interest of many here to keep the King away; they all dread reform."[13] Troubridge was wellnigh driven to distraction by the terrible straits he was put to at Naples. The people were faced with the ravages of famine. Already there were scenes of unspeakable misery. His appeals to the Sicilian Court to send immediate relief was ignored. Nelson, to whom he had appealed, was absorbed in his attentions to Lady Hamilton, and refused to see the vicious indifference of the Court, who were hemmed round with a set of knaves and vagabonds, if that be not too moderate a term to use of them. Troubridge beseeches him to come to the rescue in the following terms:-- My Lord, we are dying off fast for want. I learn that Sir William Hamilton says Prince Luzzi refused corn, some time ago, and Sir William does not think it worth while making another application. If that be the case, I wish he commanded this distressing scene, instead of me. Puglia had an immense harvest: near thirty sail left Messina, before I did, to load corn. Will they let us have any? If not, a short time will decide the business. The German interest prevails. I wish I was at your Lordship's elbow for an hour. All, all, will be thrown on you: I will parry the blow as much as in my power; I foresee much mischief brewing. God bless your Lordship! I am miserable, I cannot assist your operations more. Many happy returns of the day to you (it was the first of the New Year). I never spent so miserable a one. I am not very tender-hearted, but really the distress here would even move a Neapolitan. Shortly after he writes, again pouring out fresh woes:-- I have this day saved thirty thousand people from starvation; but with this day my ability ceases. As the Government are bent on starving us, I see no alternative but to leave these poor people to perish, without our being witness of their distress. I curse the day I ever served the Neapolitan Government. We have characters, my Lord, to lose; these people have none. Do not suffer their infamous conduct to fall on us. Our country is just, but severe. Such is the fever of my brain this minute, that I assure you, on my honour, if the Palermo traitors were here, I would shoot them first, and then myself. Girgenti is full of corn; the money is ready to pay for it; we do not ask it as a gift. Oh! could you see the horrid distress I daily experience, something would be done. Some engine is at work against us at Naples, and I believe I hit on the proper person. If you complain, he will be immediately promoted, agreeably to the Neapolitan custom. All I write to is known at the Queen's. For my own part, I look upon the Neapolitans as the worst of intriguing enemies; every hour shows me their infamy and duplicity. I pray your Lordship be cautious; your honest open manner of acting will be made a handle of. When I see you and tell you of their infamous tricks, you will be as much surprised as I am. The whole will fall on you. Nelson must have known the position set forth in this feverish communication from a man whose judgment and affection he had no reason to suspect. It is a deplorable example of infatuation that every one who knew the Court and the rascals that surrounded it was aware of its shameless tricks except Nelson himself. They protested that they had withdrawn the restrictions on the exportation of corn so far as they could, and he swallowed their lies with the simplicity of a child. He must have been the victim of mesmeric influence not to see through their vile knavery in pleading poverty when they were asked to carry out an act of common humanity. All very well for him to groan over what he had to endure, and to complain that the burden of it had broken his spirit! Troubridge diagnosed the malady when he implored Nelson to relinquish the infatuation which was leading him into trouble. Why, instead of spending his time with Lady Hamilton and fawning over the King and Queen, did he leave the right thing to be done by Captain Ball (who took the bull by the horns)? All very well for him to pour out his wrath to the Duke of Clarence, that his "constant thought was down, down with the damned French villains"! and that his "blood boiled at the name of a Frenchman"! But except that we were at war with the French, were they in any degree such "damned villains" as the Neapolitans and the whole crew of Court knaves, with whom he was so blindly enamoured, who were, in reality, ready to sell their own country and his to the French whenever they saw it was to their material advantage to do so? Captain Ball did not waste time in the use of adjectives about the French and the daily "anxieties" that bore so heavily on himself and others, "breaking his heart." He gave peremptory orders to his first lieutenant to proceed off Messina and seize the ships that were lying there loaded with corn, and bring them to Malta. He defied the abominable Court of Sicily and their edicts prohibiting exportation, and his instructions were carried out. He awaited the consequences to himself with a manly consciousness that humanity must take precedence of orders dictated by a sentimental fear lest the feelings of a set of cowardly despots should be hurt. This single act of real courage and decision saved the lives of thousands of starving people, and prevented the siege from being removed. The Court of Naples dared not utter a word of condemnation against Captain Ball, but the Governor of Malta became the object of their nervous enmity, which they dare not put into practice. Lord Minto, many years after the events of which I am writing, said of Nelson, for whom he had an affectionate regard, that "he was in many points a really great man, but in others he was a baby." No one who has studied his career will ever doubt his greatness, but his peevish childishness, even when he was responsible for the carrying out of great deeds that did not come so quickly as his eager spirit craved, ofttimes tried the patience of those who set high value on his matchless talents and his otherwise lovable disposition. He was never known to take credit to himself that was due to others, but, like most great men, he took for granted that all those above or below him in rank and station should be subordinate to his whims and actions. He could only accommodate himself to being subordinate to his King, the King and Queen of Naples, and to the exhilarating influence of Lady Hamilton. Almost immediately after the seizure of the grain-laden ships, Nelson sailed for Malta, and had the good fortune to sight a French squadron, the _Généreux_, three frigates, and a corvette; after an exciting and hard chase, he came up to them, knocked their masts over the side, and captured the _Généreux_ and a frigate. X Nelson hit on a simple though ingenious plan that was frequently adopted in subsequent years by captains in the merchant service when racing, which always created excitement amongst the crew; the order was given to knock the wedges out of the deck coamings, ease the strain off the fore and aft stays, and when it was judicious to do it the pinch on the main rigging was also eased to give the masts more play. The windjammer seamen knew when this order was given that they were in for a time of "cracking on," and really enjoyed both the sport and the risk that it involved, even in the hands of skilful commanders. By this means the speed was always increased, and it was quite a common practice on tea-clippers, Australian passenger vessels, and American packets. The commander rarely left the quarterdeck on those occasions, unless his officers were really first-class men. The writer has often attained successful results when racing by putting invigorating life into his ship by these old-time methods which were handed down to each generation of sailors. No class of seamen knew more dainty tricks in manipulating sails and rigging than those who manned the slave-runner, the smuggler, and the pirate schooner. Their vessels were designed for speed, but ofttimes when they were in a tight place they were saved from being destroyed by the superb nautical dodges which they alone knew so well how and when to put in use so that their pursuers might be outwitted and outdistanced. It is more than probable that the _Généreux_ would have got away had Nelson not been a past-master in all kinds of dodges to make his ship sail faster. He knew that some of the French ships were notoriously equal to the British in sailing qualities, but he left nothing to chance. Every drop of water was ordered to be pumped out of the hold; the wedges were removed from the masts' coaming; the stays slackened; butts of water were hung on them; hammocks were piped down; every available sail was crowded on to her; the most reliable quartermasters were stationed at the wheel. The _Foudroyant_ is gaining--she draws ahead. The stump of the "heaven-born" Admiral's right arm is working with agitation as his ship takes the lead. It is now all up with the _Généreux_. She surrenders after a terrific, devastating duel, and Nelson avows that had he acted according to Lord Keith's instead of his own strategy, she would never have been taken. The _Guillaume Tell_ had been locked up in Malta Harbour for some time, and the commander decided to run the gauntlet, his reason being, it is stated, to relieve the starving garrison from having to feed his ship's company, which consisted of from 1,000 to 1,200 men. She was intercepted, engaged, and ultimately taken by the _Foudroyant_, _Lion_, and _Penelope_ after all her masts had been shot away. The thrilling story of this sea battle takes high rank in naval warfare. The French ship was fought with the fury of courage and genius that Nelson himself could not have failed to admire. The _Penelope_ and _Lion_ had been mauled off when the _Foudroyant_ came on the scene and shot away her main and mizzen masts, when a French sailor, like Jack Crawford of Sunderland at the battle of Camperdown, nailed the ensign to the stump of the mizzen mast. The foremast was the only mast now remaining, and it was soon sent flying over the side by the terrific firing from the British ship. She then took her colours down, ceased firing, and became the prize of the heroes who had fought and conquered. Nelson might and ought to have had the glory of taking the last of the Nile fleet, had he not allowed a perverse spirit to rule his will. He nursed and inflamed his imagination against Lord Keith being put over him, until that fine zeal that was so natural to him slackened. He writes to Hamilton that his "situation is irksome." "Lord Keith is commander-in-chief, and he (Nelson) has not been kindly treated." He tells Spencer that he has written to Lord Keith, asking for permission to come to England, when he (the First Lord) will "see a broken-hearted man," and that his "spirit cannot submit to it." The Admiralty may have been inspired to place Lord Keith in supreme command owing to Nelson's association with the Court party at Palermo and the growing scandal attached to it. But in that case they should have frankly told him that they feared the effect his dallying at Palermo might have on the service in many different ways. Troubridge and Captain Ball urged him with all the sincerity of devotion not to return to Sicily, but to remain at Malta, and sign the capitulation which was near at hand; but they could not alter his resolve to leave the station, which Troubridge said was due to the passion of infatuation and not to illness, which he had ascribed as the reason. Nelson tried the patience of the First Lord (who was his friend) so sorely that he wrote him a private letter which was couched in gentle though, in parts, cutting reproaches. He obviously believed that the plea of ill-health was groundless, or at all events not sufficiently serious to justify him giving up. He very fairly states that he is quite convinced that he will be more likely to recover his health in England than by an inactive stay at the Court of Sicily, however pleasing the gratitude shown him for the services he has rendered may be, and that no gratitude from that Court can be too great in view of the service he had bestowed upon it. Lord Minto, who was Ambassador at Vienna, says he has letters from Nelson and Lady Hamilton which do not make it clear whether he will go home or not. He hopes he will not for his own sake, for he wants him to take Malta first; and continues, "He does not seem conscious of the sort of discredit he has fallen into, or the cause of it, for he still writes, not wisely, about Lady Hamilton and all that," and then generously states, "But it is hard to condemn and use ill a hero, as he is in his own element, for being foolish about a woman who has art enough to make fools of many wiser than an Admiral." It is hardly possible to doubt that Nelson felt keenly mortified at losing the opportunity of personally taking the _Guillaume Tell_; but whether he did or not, he managed to subdue all appearance of envy and paid a high, sportsmanlike tribute to those who had earned the honour He could not help flavouring it, however, with some words of Nelsonian self-approbation. He said, "He gloried in them, for they were his children, they served in his school, and all of them, including himself, caught their professional zeal and fire from the great and good Earl St. Vincent." Then he goes on to say that it is a great happiness to have the Nile fleet all taken under his orders and regulations. He slyly claimed the glory of training and inspiring, though he had deprived himself of added fame by nourishing a morose feeling of jealousy against Lord Keith, who had been sent out after a few months' leave to take up his position as commander-in-chief. Owing to his absence, Nelson had acted in that capacity, and he could not bear the thought of being superseded by his old chief. In fact, Nelson could not tolerate being placed in a secondary position by any one. As I have already stated, he put Keith's authority at defiance and took responsibilities upon himself, boasting that had they failed he would have been "shot or broke." After the capture of the _Généreux_ he struck, and wrote to Keith that his health would not permit of his remaining at his post, that without "rest he was done for," and that he could "no more stay fourteen days longer on the station than fourteen years." At the same time, Captain Ball wrote to Lady Hamilton that "he had dined with him, and that he was in good health," that he did not think a short stay would do his health harm, and that "he would not urge it, were it not that he and Troubridge wished him to have the honour of the French ships and the French garrison surrender to him." Nelson's vision and good judgment at this time must have been totally at fault, and his general attitude emphasizes the splendid forbearance of his amiable commander-in-chief and distinguished subordinates who were the very cream of the Navy. I wonder what would have happened to any of the other brilliant commanders in the Royal Navy if any of them had, like Nelson, refused to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief and left his post off Malta, which was being closely besieged and the garrison daily expected to capitulate! Supposing Nelson had been the commander-in-chief and his second in command had acted as he did towards Lord Keith, there _would_ have been wigs on the green! The insubordinate officer would have been promptly court-martialled and hung at the yardarm like the Neapolitan Admiral, Francesco Caracciolo, or treated like the Hon. Admiral John Byng, who was tried for neglect of duty in an engagement off Minorca in 1756, and condemned for committing an error of judgment and shot aboard the _Monarch_ at Spithead in 1757. Nelson was a stern disciplinarian, who could never brook being under discipline himself. Nor was he ever a day without a grievance of one kind or another. It must have been a happy deliverance to Keith when he heard the last of him in the Mediterranean, for his mental capacity at this particular stage of his history was quite defective. No doubt Lady Hamilton and the Queen jabbered into his ears the injustice of the wrongs imposed upon him. After the battle of Marengo the whole of Northern Italy was given up to the French by convention signed by General Milas. The British Commander-in-Chief proceeded to Leghorn with the fugitives, to be bored, as he fretfully declared, "by Nelson craving permission to take the Queen to Palermo, and the prince and princesses to all parts of the world." The Queen was panic-stricken at the French successes, and besought him to allow her to sail in the _Foudroyant_; but Keith could not be prevailed upon to release any of his ships for such a purpose, notwithstanding Nelson's supplications and her flow of tears. He told Nelson that the royal lady should get off to Vienna as quickly as she could and abandon the idea of Palermo, supplementing his refusal to employ the _Foudroyant_ in any such way. He would only allow a frigate to escort her own frigates to Trieste. Lady Minto wrote to her sister from Florence that Keith told the Queen that "Lady Hamilton had had command of the fleet long enough," and then she adds, "The Queen is very ill with a sort of convulsive fit, and Nelson is staying to nurse her, and does not intend going home until he has escorted her back to Palermo. His zeal for the public service," she continues, "seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they all sit and flatter each other all day long." Nelson, steady in his attachment to the Queen declared that he would see her through and then continue his journey home with the Hamiltons. They all left Leghorn together, arrived at Florence safely, were taken from Ancona to Trieste on two Russian frigates, and landed at Trieste. The Queen of Sicily accompanied them to Vienna, and Nelson and the Hamiltons continued their triumphant journey through Germany to Hamburg. His association with the Court of Naples was now at an end, and his real friends, believing that it had corrupted and sapped his better nature, were glad of it. His mind at this time was filled with delusions about his future. He repeatedly declared that he would never serve again, and from a mixture of motives he acquired happiness in the belief that he would avenge his keenly-felt wrongs by achieving oblivion. The idea that fate held in store for him a higher and a sterner destiny never occurred to him, and he little realized that he would soon be removed from a sphere where his presence would be no longer needed. He was, in fact, combating the very destiny he had so often sought in which he would achieve immortal glory. XI The benighted policy of keeping in power a mawkish Sicilian Court, saturated with the incurable vices of cowardice, falsehood, dishonesty, and treachery, failed; and the Government of the day was saddled with the crime of squandering human life, wealth, and energy without receiving any commensurate return. If it was in the national interest to involve the country in war with France, it could have been carried on with greater credit and effect by not undertaking the hopeless task of bolstering up a Court and a people that were openly described by our own people who were sent to fight for them as "odious damned cowards and villains." We had no _real_ grounds of quarrel with France nor with her rulers. The Revolution was their affair, and was no concern of ours, except in so far as it might harmfully reflect on us, and of this there was no likelihood if we left them alone. The plea of taking the balance of power under our benevolent care was a sickly exhibition of statesmanship, and the assumption of electing ourselves guardians of the rights of small nations mere cant. It was, in fact, the canker of jealousy and hatred on the part of the reactionary forces against a man, a principle, and a people. Had those who governed this country then held aloof from the imbroglio created by the French Revolution, observed a watchful, conciliatory spirit of neutrality towards the French Government, and allowed the Continental Powers to adjust their own differences, the conditions of human existence and the hurtful administration of autocratic governments would have been reconstituted, and the world would have been the better for it; instead of which we helped to impose on Europe twenty years of slaughter and devastation. Our dismal, plutocratic rulers, with solemn enthusiasm, plunged England with all her power and influence on the side of Prussia and her continental allies, and, in conjunction with the Holy Alliance, pledged themselves never to lay down arms until France was mutilated and the master-mind which ruled her beaten and dethroned. Their task was long, costly, and gruesome. What a ghastly legacy those aggressively righteous champions of international rights have bequeathed to the world! But for their folly and frenzy we should not be engaged in a European war to-day. Poor Napoleon! He foreshadowed and used his gigantic genius to prevent it; now the recoil has come. There are always more flies caught by treacle than by vinegar, a policy quite as efficacious in preventing international quarrels as it is in the smaller affairs of our existence, provided the law which governs the fitness of things is well defined. Had we approached Napoleon in a friendly spirit and on equal terms, without haughty condescension, he would have reciprocated our cordiality and put proper value on our friendship. By wisdom and tact the duration of Napoleon's wars would have been vastly shortened, and both nations would have been saved from the errors that were committed. We did not do this, and we are now reaping the consequence. It is hardly to be expected that if hostility be shown towards an individual or a nation either will mildly submit to it. Who can estimate the passionate resentment of an emotional people at Nelson's constant declamatory outbursts against the French national character, and the effect it had throughout France? An affront to a nation, even though it is made by a person in a subordinate position, may bring about far-reaching trouble. Reverse the position of the traducer of a prominent man or his nation, and it will be easy to arrive at a correct conclusion as to the temper that would be aroused, say, in this country. We know that during a war passions are let loose and charges made by the combatants against each other which are usually exaggerated, but one thing is certain, that our soldiers and sailors have always had the well-deserved reputation of being the cleanest fighters in the world. There have never been finer examples of this than during the present war. But in justice to ourselves and to the French during the Napoleonic wars, I think it was grossly impolitic to engender vindictiveness by unjustifiable acrimony. Up to the time that Nelson left the Mediterranean for England, except for the brilliant successes of the Nile and the equally brilliant capture of the balance of the French Mediterranean fleet, and subsequently the capitulation of Malta on the 5th September, 1800, our share in the war was an exhausting and fruitless failure. The responsibility for this clearly lies at the door of the Government who planned it, and in no way attaches to Nelson and his coadjutors, whose naval and also shore exploits could not be excelled. First, it was a blink-eyed policy that plunged us into the war at all; and secondly, it was the height of human folly to waste our resources in the erroneous belief that the highly trained military men of France could be permanently subjugated in the Mediterranean by the cowardly, treacherous villains of which the Roman States armies and Governments were composed. History is not altogether faithful to the truth in its honeyed records of the ministerial pashas who tranquilly increased the national debt, inflicted unspeakable horrors on the population, and smirched our dignity by entering into a costly bond of brotherhood with an inveterate swarm of hired bloodsucking weasels. Such, forsooth! was the mental condition of the wooden souls who managed the nation's affairs, that they allowed Nelson to add another blot to our national history escutcheon by taking Ferdinand Bourbon's throne under his protection. It is true that Ferdinand "did not wish that his benefactor's name should alone descend with honour to posterity," or that he should "appear ungrateful." So the Admiral was handsomely rewarded by being presented with the Dukedom of Bronte and a diamond-hilted sword which had been given to the King by his father when he became Sicilian King. It would be nonsense even to suspect Nelson of accepting either gifts or titles as a bribe to sacrifice any interest that was British. Nelson's devotion to the Court did not express itself by seeking material recompense for the services bestowed on their Sicilian Majesties. There were various reasons for his elaborate and silly attentions. First, his range of instructions were wide in a naval sense; second, his personal attachment to the King and his Consort (especially his Consort), for reasons unnecessary to refer to again, became a growing fascination and a ridiculous craze. His fanatical expressions of dislike to the French are merely a Nelsonian way of conveying to the world that the existence of so dangerous a race should be permissive under strictly regulated conditions. He had a solemn belief in his own superiority and that of his fellow-countrymen. All the rest were to him mere human scrap, and his collection of epithets for them was large and varied. His Mogul air in the presence of aliens was traditionally seamanlike. If they failed to shudder under his stern look and gleaming eyes, it affected him with displeasure and contempt. The Neapolitans were fulsomely accommodating, though Nelson, except from the Court party and a few nobles, does not appear to have attached much value to their servile tokens of appreciation. It cannot be said that either Nelson, his Government, or his country were in any way rewarded by the sacrifices made ostensibly in the interests of human rights. Under Ferdinand Bourbon, the Neapolitan States and Sicily had no settled government. He was a contemptible poltroon, whose throne was supported for years by British money, men, and ships, and even with our strong support; he was alternately fleeing to Sicily and returning again under the formidable protection of British frigates, and, like all perfidious cowards, his short intervals of government were distinguished by a despotism that soon made it necessary for him to fly from the feelings of vengeance he had called out. Not even the power of Great Britain could prevent the kingdom of Naples from passing from one vicissitude into another. The French took possession of it in January 1799, and established what they called the Parthenopean Republic. Nelson helped to retake it in June of the same year, and put the itinerant King on the throne. The Neapolitans occupied Rome on the 30th September, 1799. In October 1805 a treaty of neutrality between France and Naples was carried into effect. Ferdinand fled to Sicily again on the 23rd January of the next year, when the master-mind came to close quarters and put an end, as I have previously stated, to Ferdinand's kingship and tyrannical rule by placing his brother Joseph on the throne; two years later Joseph became King of Spain, and his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, succeeded him as ruler of Naples. The Neapolitans were never better governed than during the reign of these two kings. Many wise laws were made and enforced by a just and rigid discipline. Incompetent, weak despotism had disappeared, and any attempt at licence was promptly subdued. The people were put through a course of transforming education, and gradually became law-abiding citizens. Even then, methods of carrying on commerce took a marked change for the better, and predatory habits were relaxed into comparative honesty, not, it may be supposed, from virtue, but from fear of the inevitable, harsh consequences. The public, in a general way, quickly distinguish between a strong, capable ruler and a weak, incompetent one; and no matter how indulgent the latter may be, they prefer the strong wholesome-minded man to the mediocrity. Ferdinand had none of the qualities that are essential to a man occupying a position of authority. When the French came to take over the government of Naples, he flew, as usual, to Sicily, and under the continuous protection of British men-of-war was with great difficulty kept reigning there until the end of war, when he was again put on the throne of Naples in 1815, and forthwith commenced again his rule of incompetency and despotism, reversing the beneficent rule of his two able predecessors. The old reprobate died on the 4th January, 1825, having reigned off and on for sixty-five years, largely owing to the indulgent and costly support of the British Government. Caroline died on the 7th September, 1814, and to her abiding credit she condemned the action of the Court of Vienna for severing the bond of union between the Emperor Napoleon and her granddaughter, Marie Louise. She declared vehemently that it was the duty of the latter to break the prohibition by assuming disguise and tie her bed-sheets together and lower herself out of the window, and make her way quickly, in face of all obstacles, to where her husband was. Marie Louise was not a lady of unyielding morals, and at that particular time her Hapsburg, licentious mind was not centred on the misfortunes of her husband, but on Neipperg, who was employed to seduce her. Caroline told Baron Claude François de Meneval, Napoleon's private secretary, that she had reason at one time to dislike the Emperor, but now that adversity had come to him, she forgot the past. Had this same spirit of rightness and wisdom been adopted by Marie Louise's father and his allies, as was so nobly advocated by the sister of Marie Antoinette, there would have been a clean sheet in history about them, though it is obvious in many quarters that the historians have extended all the arts of ambiguity and delusion to make them appear flawless benefactors. Therefore one has to take all the circumstances handed down from many varied sources, reliable and unreliable, and after mature thought form conclusions as one's judgment may direct as to the merits and demerits of every phase that is recorded. Hence exhaustive research and long-reasoned views lead me definitely to the conclusion that there is not much that we can put to the credit of either their wisdom or humanity. My plain opinion is that they acted ferociously, and although always in the name of the Son of God, that can never absolve them from the dark deeds that stand to their names. Nor is it altogether improbable that all the nations that were concerned in the dreadful assassination are now paying the natural penalty of their guilt. Natural laws have a curious roundabout way of paying back old scores, though the tragic retribution has to be borne more often than not by the innocent descendants of those who have, in the name of the Deity, violated them. The Duke of Thunder was proud of the Sicilian meaning of his title, and so were his sailors, who loved the thrilling effect of anything that conveyed the idea of being associated with a formidable power that devastated every other force that stood in its way. For the most part, Nelson's sailors had great faith in his naval genius. He had led them many times to victory, and they did not forget the glory that attached to themselves. He planned the strategy, but it was they that fought and won the battles. The Duke of Thunder was a fine title to fight under. A name has frequently done more damage to a foe than glittering bayonets. But Nelson in no degree had the thunder element in him, so far as we are able to judge by the descriptions given to us of him. He was a dashing, courageous, scientific genius, gifted with natural instincts, disciplinary wisdom, deplorable sentimentality, and an artificial, revengeful spirit of hatred that probably became real under the arbitrary circumstances of war, but, I should say, was rarely prominent. His roaming attacks on the French were probably used more for effect, and had, we hope, only a superficial meaning. But be that as it may, it detracts from the dignity of an officer occupying, as he did, a distinguished position to use language and phrases such as are common in the forecastle or on the quarterdeck of a sailing merchantman in the early days before the introduction of steamers. Here are a few quite amusing outbursts which do not produce the impression of coming from a person known to fame as the Duke of Thunder:--On the 1st October, 1801, the preliminaries of peace with France were signed. When Nelson heard of it he thanked God, and went on to say, "We lay down our arms, and are ready to take them up again if the French are insolent." He declares there is no one in the world more desirous of peace than he is, but that he would "burst sooner than let any damned Frenchman know it." But it was too much for his anti-French sentiments when he heard that their Ambassador's carriage had been dragged by the London mob. He wrote to his medical man, and asked if he could cure madness, for he had gone mad to learn "that our damned scoundrels dragged a Frenchman's carriage." And he hoped nevermore to be dragged by such a degenerate crowd; which was exhibiting in a characteristic way his high opinion of himself. "Would our ancestors have done it?" he asks, and then continues: "The villains would have drawn Buonaparte if he had been able to get to London to cut the king's head off." The writer has a definite opinion that Bonaparte would have had a boisterous reception, and that it might have cemented a friendship that would have been a blessing to the tired world, and especially to the two warring nations. The ruler of the French nation, in spite of Nelson's views, would have made a better ally than enemy. But it often happens that nations, as well as individuals, lose their psychological opportunity. And we will risk a belief that if Nelson and Bonaparte met they would have found an affinity between them that would have made the two men friends. Southey says that the title "Duke of Thunder" is essentially applicable to Nelson, but the writer has failed to find anything to warrant such an opinion. Nelson's professional pride was for ever being needlessly hurt by Admiralty tactlessness. He had good reason on many occasions to take offence at their clumsiness. One of numerous grievances was Sir Sydney Smith being, to all appearances, put over him. He wrote to Lord St. Vincent, and reminded him that he was a man, and that it was impossible for him to serve in the Mediterranean under a junior officer. St. Vincent prevailed on him not to resign, but Sir Sydney Smith wished to carry out a policy towards the French in Egypt which Nelson hotly disapproved, and he commands him on no account to permit a single Frenchman to leave the country. He considered it would be madness to permit a band of thieves to return to Europe. "To Egypt," he says, "they went of their own accord, and they shall remain there while he commanded the squadron. Never will he consent to the return of one ship or Frenchman. I wish them to perish in Egypt, and give an awful lesson to the world of the justice of the Almighty." It will be observed how characteristically sailorly he is in his leanings on Divine monopoly in punishing the "bloody Corsican" for his wickedness in waging war against Britain. His profound belief was that the Almighty presided over our destinies then, just as the German Kaiser claims that He is presiding over his national affairs now; and, as I have pointed out before, each of the belligerents calls upon Him in beseeching reverence as a Divine compatriot, to give this Almighty power to aid in demolishing their common foe, who has broken every law of God and man. This form of blasphemy is as rampant now as it ever was. It is not a hungry belief in God that gives the initial impulse for human slaughter. It is a craving lust for the invention of all that is devilish in expeditiously disposing of human life. The international democracies who are devoting so much attention to political ascendancy should distribute their power in a way that would make it impossible for weak Governments, composed of mediocrities and bellicose rulers of nations, to make war whenever their impertinent ambitions are impressed with the sanguinary rage of conflict. All wars mutilate civilization, and put back by many generations any advance that may have been made in the interval between one butchery and another. The working people of all nations could and should combine to stop the manufacture of every implement of warfare, and make it a treasonable offence for any ruler or Government again to advocate war as a means of settling disputes. This law must of necessity be binding upon all the Powers, big and little. What a mockery this gospel of brotherhood has been in all ages! Is it an ideal ambition to bring it about? Of course it is, but we cannot catch the spirit of Christ and preach the gospel of pity, and commit hideous murder at one and the same time! hence the impudence of expecting a Divine benediction on warfare. All sorts of public and private honours and testimonials were conferred upon Nelson during his stay at Hamburg on his way home after the mortifications caused by the elusive French fleet, Calabrian brigands, and the alluring attractions of the Court of Naples and Sicily. One hundred grenadiers, each six feet high, waited at table when he was being banqueted. The owner of a Magdeburg hotel where he stayed made money by setting up a ladder outside Nelson's sitting-room and charging a fee for mounting it and peeping at the hero inside the room. An aged wine merchant at Hamburg offered him through Lady Hamilton six dozen bottles of Rhenish wine of the vintage of 1625. It had been in his own possession for fifty years, and he hoped that some of it would be allowed to flow with the blood of the immortal hero, as it would then make the giver happy. Nelson shook hands with the old man, and consented to receive six bottles, provided he would dine with him next day. A dozen were sent, and Nelson put aside six, saying that it was his hope to win half a dozen more victories, and that one bottle would be drunk after each. Another aged man, whose ideals were of a different and higher order, came along. He was a German pastor who, at eighty years of age or thereabouts, had travelled forty miles with the object of getting Nelson to write his immortal, name in his Bible. The venerable Lutheran prelate, with a grateful heart, asked to be allowed to record his blessing and admiration for the gallant British Admiral by stating to him, amongst other modestly selected phrases, that "he was the Saviour of the Christian world." The pastor's fervent testimony of his work and his mission touched Nelson on a tender spot. In his rough-and-ready way, he believed in the efficacy of prayer, and he knew when the old man, bowed down by age, parted from him that he would be steadfast in his petitions to the Giver of all mercies that he should be held in His holy keeping, body and soul. The story is an example of fine healthy devotion, free from sickly cant, though the logic of successfully squandering rich lives or even bravely sacrificing your own (as every commander risks doing) is a mysterious reason for the person who is successful in casting away human lives--even though they be those of an enemy--having the title of "the Saviour of the world" conferred upon him! The writer's idea of how to establish and advance the Christian faith is to keep out of war, and the best method of doing this is for the electorate to choose men to govern who are highly gifted with diplomatic genius. Nearly all wars are brought about through incompetent negotiators, and the wastage of life and property in carrying on a war is certainly to be attributed to men who are at the head of affairs being mere politicians, without any faculty whatever for carrying out great undertakings. They are simply mischievous shadows, and merely excel as intriguers in putting good men out of office and themselves in. It is the selection of men for the posts they are eminently suited to fill that counts in any department of life, but it is more manifestly important in affairs of Government. For instance, nothing but disaster can follow if a man is made Chancellor of the Exchequer who has no instinct for national finance, and the same thing applies to a Foreign Secretary who has no knowledge of or natural instinct for international diplomacy. At the same time, an adroit commercial expert may be utterly useless in dealing with matters of State that are affected by trade. The two positions are wide apart, and are a business in themselves. The writer's view is that to fill any department of State satisfactorily the head should have both political and commercial training, combined with wholesome instinct. I don't say that trade is altogether affected by the kind of Government that is in power, but bad trade and bad government combined make a terrific burden for any nation to carry. Service men, in the main, measure and think always from a military or naval point of view. Some of them have quite a genius for organizing in matters concerning their different professions. Take the late Lord Kitchener. In Army matters he was unequalled as an organizer but abominably traduced. Then there is Lord Fisher, who easily heads everybody connected with the Navy, as a great Admiral who can never be deprived of the merit of being the creator of our modern fleet. He combines with a matchless genius for control a fine organizing brain. The politician, with his amateurish antics, deprived the British Empire of the services of an outstanding figure that would have saved us many lives and many ships, without taking into account the vast quantity of merchandise and foodstuffs that have perished. It is not by creating confusion that the best interest of the nation is served, either in peace-time or during war. Those robust rhetoricians who massacre level-headed government and substitute a system of make-shift experiments during a great national crisis do a wicked public disservice. I have no time to deal with these superior persons in detail, but I cannot keep my thoughts from the terrible bitterness and anguish their haphazard experiments may have caused. The destroying force will eat into the very entrails of our national life if some powerful resolute personality does not arise to put an end to the hopeless extemporizing and contempt for sober, solid, orderly administration. The truth is that, if a government or anything else is wrongly conceived, natural laws will never help it to right itself, and it ends in catastrophe. Such governments are inflicted on us from time to time as a chastisement, it is said, for our national sins, and the process of disintegration is deadly in its effects. The only consoling feature of it is that history is repeating itself with strange accuracy, as may be verified by a glance into the manuscripts of Mr. Fortescue at Dropmore. Herein you will find many striking resemblances between the constitution of the Government then and the tribulation we are passing through at the present time. One important event of that period has been avoided up to the present; none has demanded a settlement of his differences by means of a duelling contest, as did Castlereagh and Canning.[14] They had a coalition of all the talents then as they presume to have now, though there has been no real evidence of it, either in or out of Parliament. XII Poor Nelson had a terrible time with one and another of them, as they had with him, if history may be relied on. His periodical defiances and his contempt for his superiors is quite edifying. He laid down the law like a bishop when his moods were in full play. The great naval, commercial, and military figure to which Nelson comes nearest is Drake, and the nearest to Nelson in versatility is Lord Fisher, who must have had an engaging time with those who wished to assume control of the Navy over his level head. I question whether any man holding a high position in the British Navy, at any time, could combine naval, military, and administrative genius, together with sound common sense, as Nelson did. We have devoted so much attention to the study of his naval accomplishments that many of his other practical gifts have been overlooked. It is common belief, in civilian circles at any rate, and there is good ground for it, that both the naval and military men do not realize how much their existence depends on a well-handled and judiciously treated mercantile marine. I have too much regard for every phase of seafaring life to criticize it unfairly, but, except on very rare occasions, I have found naval and military men so profoundly absorbed in their own professions that they do not trouble to regard anything else as being essential. The present war will have revealed many things that were not thought of in other days. One of Nelson's outstanding anxieties was lest any harm should befall our commerce, and he protected it and our shipping with fine vigilance and with scant support from the then Government, which would not supply him with ships; this at times drove him to expressions of despair. Privateering was more rampant then than it is now, and the belligerents had great difficulty in enforcing neutrals to observe neutrality. Indeed, the circumstances were such that it became impossible to prevent leakage. The British Admiral was continually protesting to the neutrals against the system of smuggling and privateering, but it was hardly consistent, seeing that we were obliged to make breaches of neutrality in order to get our supplies. Small privateers, consisting sometimes of mere longboats, infested every swatch and corner they could get into on the Spanish shores, the Ionian Islands, the Barbary coast, the Balearic Islands, and Sicily. We indicted France for enforcing subsidies from Spain, compelling the Neapolitans to provide for her soldiers occupying Neapolitan territory. We, on the other hand, were obliged to make use of neutral ports for supplies required for the Gulf of Lyons fleet. It was a curious position, and both France and England were parties to the anomaly, and each accused the other of the impiety of it. The British Admiral and his officers never lost an opportunity of destroying the marauders when caught within neutral limits, and Nelson never flinched from supporting his officers in the matter. "The protection," he writes, "given to the enemies' privateers and rowboats is extremely destructive of our commerce," and then he goes on to give reasons why these vermin should be shot or captured. He was driven frantic by the demands made for convoys by captains and merchants, and his appeals to the Admiralty for more cruisers were unheeded. He expresses himself strongly averse from allowing even fast sailing vessels to make a passage unprotected. Perhaps no human mind that has been given grave responsibilities to safeguard was ever lacerated as was Nelson's in seeing that our commercial interest did not suffer, and that on the seas he guarded a free and safe passage should be assured to our shipping carrying food and other merchandise to the mother-country. The responsibility of carrying out even this special work in a satisfactory way was an amazing task, and no evidence is on record that he left anything to chance. Results are an eloquent answer to any doubts on that subject. In addition to policing the seas, he had the anxiety of watching the tricky manoeuvres of the French fleet, and planning for their interception and defeat should they weaken in their elusive methods. Of course, they were playing their own game, and had a right to, and it was for their opponents, whom Nelson so well represented, to outwit and trap them into fighting; but as for having any grounds for complaint, it was not only silly, but inopportune, to give expression to having a grievance against the French admirals because they cutely slipped out of his deadly grasp from time to time and made him weary of life! His grievances were easier to establish against the Board of Admiralty, who were alternately paying him compliments or insulting him. Instructions were given that could not be obeyed without involving the country in certain loss and complication. Officers, his junior in rank, were given appointments that had the appearance of placing them independent of his authority. Seniors of inferior capacity were given control over him which, but for his whimsical magnanimity, might have cost us the loss of the fleet, their crews, and our high honour and superb fighting reputation. Take for example Sir Hyde Parker's command of the Baltic fleet, or Sir John Orde's clumsy appointment to a squadron in the Mediterranean. Nothing could be so harassing to the nerves of a man sure of his own superiority as to be burdened, not only with Orde's arrogance, but his mediocrity. He was obliged to resort to subterfuge in order to get his dispatches sent home, and here again the action of the Admiralty compelled him to break naval discipline by ordering a nephew of Lord St. Vincent, a clever young captain of a frigate, to whom he was devoted, to take the dispatches to Lisbon. He told the young captain that Sir John Orde took his frigates from him, and sent them away in a direction contrary to his wishes. "I cannot get my dispatches even sent home," he said; adding, "You must try to avoid his ships." Nelson had not signed his orders, because Sir John Orde was his superior officer, but should it come to a court-martial, Hardy could swear to his handwriting, and he gave him the assurance that he would not be broken. "Take your orders, and goodbye," said he, "and remember, Parker, if you cannot weather that fellow, I shall think you have not a drop of your uncle's blood in your veins." Other Nelsonian instructions were given, and the gallant captain carried them out with a skill worthy of his ingenious, defiant chief and of his distinguished uncle. It was not only a slap in the face to Sir John Orde, but to those whose patronage had placed in a senior position a man who was not qualified to stand on the same quarterdeck with Nelson. He smarted under the treatment, but unhappily could not keep his chagrin under cover. He was always pouring his soul out to some one or other. His health is always falling to pieces after each affront, and for this reason he asks to be relieved. Here is an example of his moods. "I am much obliged to your Lordships' compliance with my requests," he says, "which is absolutely necessary from the present state of my health," and almost immediately after he tells a friend he "will never quit his post when the French fleet are at sea as a commander-in-chief once did." "I would sooner die at my post than have such a stigma upon my memory." This is a nasty dig at Lord St. Vincent, presumably for having a hand in the appointment of Sir John Orde. Then he writes to Elliot that nothing has kept him at his post but the fear of the French fleet escaping and getting to Naples or Sicily. "Nothing but gratitude for the good sovereigns would have induced him to stay a moment after Sir John Orde's extraordinary command, for his general conduct towards them is not such as he had a right to expect." I have heard that snobbishness prevails in the service now only in a less triumphant degree to what it did in Nelson's time. If that be the case, it ought to be wrestled with until every vestige of the ugly thing is strangled. The letters of Nelson to personal friends, to the Admiralty, and in his reported conversations, are all full of resentment at the viciousness of it, though he obviously struggles to curb the vehemence of his feelings. No one felt the dagger of the reticent stabber more quickly and sensitively than he. Invisible though the libeller might be, Nelson knew he was there. He could not hear the voice, but he felt the sinister action. Making full allowance for what might be put down to imagination, there is still an abundance of material to justify the belief that the first naval authority of his time was the target of snobs, and that, but for his strong personality and the fact that he was always ready to fight them in the open, he would have been superseded, and a gallant duffer might have taken his place, to the detriment of our imperial interests. It is a dangerous experiment to put a man into high office if he has not the instinct of judging the calibre of other men. This applies to every department of life nowadays. Take the Army, the Navy, departments of State, commercial or banking offices, manufacturing firms, and the making of political appointments. The latter is more carelessly dealt with than any other department of life. The public are not sufficiently vigilant in distinguishing between a mere entertaining rhetorician and a wholesome-minded, natural-born statesman. What terrible calamities have come to the State through putting men into responsible positions they have neither training, wit, nor wisdom to fill efficiently! Providence has been most indulgent and forbearing when we have got ourselves into a mess by wrong-headedness. She generally comes to our aid with an undiscovered man or a few men with the necessary gifts required for getting us out of the difficulty in which the Yellow Press gang and their accomplices may have involved the country. We know something of how the knowledge of these anomalies in public life chafed the eager spirit of Nelson, but we can never know the extent of the suffering it caused except during the Neapolitan and Sicilian days. This lonely soul lived the life of a recluse for months at a time. The monotony of the weird song of the sea winds, the nerve-tearing, lazy creak of the wooden timbers, the sinuous crawling, rolling, or plunging over the most wondrous of God's works, invariably produces a sepulchral impression even on the most phlegmatic mind, but to the mystically constituted brain of Nelson, under all the varied thoughts that came into his brain during the days and nights of watching and searching for those people he termed "the pests of the human race," it must have been one long heartache. No wonder that he lets fly at the Admiralty in some of his most passionate love-messages to the seductive Emma. His dreary life, without any exciting incident except the carrying away of sails or spars, and the irritation of not being able to get what he regarded as life or death requests carried into effect owing to the slothfulness or incompetent indifference of the Admiralty was continual agony to him. He writes in one of his dispatches to the Admiralty: "Were I to die this moment, _want of frigates_ would be found stamped on my heart. No words of mine," he continues, "can express what I have suffered and am suffering for want of them." No person could write such an unconsciously comic lament to a department supposed to be administered with proficiency unless he were borne down by a deep sense of its appalling incompetency. It is quite likely that the recipients of the burning phrases regarded them in the light of a joke, but they were very real to the wearied soul of the man who wrote them. I do not find any instances of conscious humour in any of Nelson's letters or utterances. It is really their lack of humour that is humorous. He always appears to be in sombre earnest about affairs that matter, and whimsically affected by those that don't. The following lines, which are not my own, may be regarded as something akin to Nelson's conception of himself. If he had come across them, I think he would have said to himself, "Ah! yes, these verses describe my mission and me." "Like a warrior angel sped On a mighty mission, Light and life about him shed-- A transcendent vision. "Mailed in gold and fire he stands, And, with splendours shaken, Bids the slumbering seas and lands Quicken and awaken." Nelson never attempted to carry out a mere reckless and palpably useless feat for the purpose of show. His well-balanced genius of caution and accurate judgment was the guiding instinct in his terrific thrusts which mauled the enemy out of action at the Nile, St. Vincent, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, and enthralled the world with new conceptions of naval warfare. He met with bitter disappointments in his search for the illusive French fleet, which wore him, as he says, to a skeleton, but never once was he shaken in his vigorous belief that he would catch and annihilate them in the end. They cleverly crept out of Toulon, with the intention, it is said, of going to Egypt. Villeneuve was no fool at evasive tactics. His plan was practically unerring, and threw Nelson completely off the scent and kept him scouring the seas in search of the bird that had flown weeks before. Once the scent is lost, it takes a long time to pick it up. Villeneuve no doubt argued that it was not his purpose to give the British Admiral an opportunity of fighting just then. He had other fish to fry, and if he wished to get away clear from Toulon and evade Nelson's ships, he must first of all delude him by sending a few ships out to mislead the enemy's watchdogs or drive them off; if that succeeded (which it did not), he would then wait for a strong fair wind that would assure him of a speed that would outdistance and take him out of sight of the British squadron, and make sure that no clue to his destination was left. The wind was strong NNW.; the French fleet were carrying a heavy press of canvas and steering SSW. The British ships that were following concluded that they were out for important mischief, and returned to convey the news to Nelson, who quickly got under weigh and followed them. Meanwhile, Villeneuve's squadron, after getting from under the shelter of the land into the open sea, lost some of their spars and sails, and one vessel, it is recorded, was dismasted, which means, in seafaring interpretation, that all her masts were carried away; as she succeeded, however, in getting into Ajaccio, she can only have lost her royal topgallant, and possibly a topmast or two. If her lower masts had been carried away, she could not have got into refuge without assistance, and the rest of the fleet apparently had enough to do in looking after themselves, as they lost spars and sails too, and became somewhat scattered, but all appear to have got safely into Toulon again to refit and repair the damage done by the heavy gale they encountered. Meanwhile, Nelson, in dismay at losing touch with them, searched every nook and cranny in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and making sure that none of them were in hiding and that the sea was clear, he proceeded to act on his fixed opinion that their objective must be Egypt. So to Egypt he went, and the bitter disappointment at not finding them stunned his imagination, so sure had he been that his well-considered judgment was a thing to which he might pin his faith, and that his lust for conflict with the "pests of the human race" could not escape being realized in the vicinity of his great victory at the battle of the Nile. His grievance against Villeneuve for cheating him out of what he believed would result in the annihilation of the French Power for mischief on the seas brought forth expressions of deadly contempt for such astute, sneaking habits! But the Emperor was as much dissatisfied with the performances of his admirals as Nelson was, though in a different way. Napoleon, on the authority of the French historian, M. Thiers, was imperially displeased. He asks "what is to be done with admirals who allow their spirits to sink _into their boots_ (italics are the author's) and fly for refuge as soon as they receive damage. All the captains ought to have had sealed orders to meet at the Canary Islands. The damages should have been repaired _en route_. A few topmasts carried away and other casualties in a gale of wind are everyday occurrences. The great evil of our Navy is that the men who command it are unused to all the risks of command." This indictment is to a large extent deserved, and had his fleet been out in the Atlantic or outside the limits of the vigilance of Nelson's ships, the putting back to Toulon or anywhere to refit the topmasts, sails, or rigging would have been highly reprehensible. But in any case, I question whether the British would have shown the white feather or lack of resource under any circumstances. On a man-of-war they were supposed to have refits of everything, and men, properly qualified, in large numbers to carry out any prodigious feat. On the other hand, the British have always excelled in their nautical ability to guard against deficiency in outfit, which was not overtested unless there were sufficient cause to demand such a risk. This applies especially to the sailing war vessels in Nelson's time. I think there can be no question that the French vessels were both badly officered and manned with incapable sailors and that the damage which led them back to Toulon was caused by bad judgment in seamanship. What they called a severe gale would have been regarded by an Australian clipper or Western Ocean packet-ship in the writer's early days as a hard whole-sail breeze, perhaps with the kites taken in. It was rare that these dashing commanders ever carried away a spar, and it was not because they did not carry on, but because they knew every trick of the vessel, the wind, and the sea. It was a common saying in those days when vessels were being overpowered with canvas, "The old lady was talking to us now," i.e. the vessel was asking to have some of the burden of sail taken off her. I have known topmasts to be carried away, but it generally occurred through some flaw in a bolt or unseen defect in the rigging. So much depends on the security of little things. But when a catastrophe of this kind occurred on board a British merchantman or war vessel the men had both the courage, skill, training, and, above all, the matchless instinct to clear away the wreck and carry out the refitting in amazingly short time. That was because we were then, and are now under new conditions, an essentially seafaring race. And it was this superiority that gave Nelson such great advantages over the French commanders and their officers and seamen, though it must be admitted they were fast drilled by the force of circumstances into foes that were not to be looked upon too lightly. The elusive tactics of the French admirals then were in a lesser degree similar to those practised by the Germans now, if it be proper to speak or think of the two services at the same time without libelling them. The French were always clean fighters, however much they may have been despised by Nelson. They were never guilty of cowardly revenge. They would not then, or now, send hospital ships to the bottom with their crews and their human cargoes of wounded soldiers and nurses. Nor would they indiscriminately sink merchant vessels loaded with civilian passengers composed of men, women, and children, and leave them to drown, as is the inhuman practice of the German submarine crews of to-day. The French in other days were our bitterest enemies, and we were theirs. We charged each other with abominations only different from what we and our Allies the French are saying about Germany to-day, who was then our ally. We regarded Germany in the light of a downtrodden nation who was being crushed and mutilated under the relentless heel of the "Corsican Usurper." "Such is the rancorous hatred of the French towards us," says Collingwood in January 1798, "that I do not think they would make peace on any terms, until they have tried this experiment (i.e. the invasion of England) on our country; and never was a country assailed by so formidable a force"; and he goes on to say, "Men of property must come forward both with purse and sword, for the contest must decide whether they shall have anything, even a country which they can call their own." This is precisely what we are saying about Germany with greater reason every day at the present time (1918). It has been the common practice for German submarine commanders to sink at sight British, neutral cargo, and passenger vessels, and hospital ships loaded with wounded troops and nurses. They have put themselves outside the pale of civilization since they forced the whole world into conflict against them. Nothing has been too hideous for them to do. They have blown poor defenceless fishermen to pieces, and bombarded defenceless villages and towns, killing and maiming the inhabitants. Nelson's ardent soul must have been wearied with the perversity of the "dead foul winds" (as he described his bitter fate to Ball) that prevented him from piercing the Straits of Gibraltar against the continuous easterly current that runs from the Atlantic and spreads far into the Mediterranean with malicious fluctuations of velocity. Many a gallant sailing-ship commander has been driven to despair in other days by the friendly levanter failing them just as they were wellnigh through the Gut or had reached the foot of the majestic Rock, when the west wind would assert its power over its feebler adversary, and unless he was in a position to fetch an anchorage behind the Rock or in the bay, their fate was sealed for days, and sometimes weeks, in hard beating to prevent as little ground being lost as possible. But ofttimes they were drifted as far back as Cape de Gata in spite of daring feats of seamanship in pressing their vessels with canvas until every spar, sail, and rope was overstrained. A traditional story of sailors of that period was that only a fast clipper schooner engaged in the fruit trade and a line-of-battle ship which fired her lee guns on every tack was ever known to beat through this channel, which mystified the sailors' ideas of God. They could not understand how He could have committed such an error in planning the universe which so tried the spirits of His loyal believers! We know how catholic Nelson was in his religious views; and his feats of expressive vocabulary, which was the envy of his class at the time, became their heritage after he had accomplished his splendid results and passed into the shadows. Such things as the strength of the adverse sea winds, his experience of the capriciousness of the official mind--a capriciousness which might be reflected in the public imagination were he not to be wholly successful in getting hold of the French fleet, and the indignity of having a man like Sir John Orde put over him, all filled his sensitive nature with resentment against the ordinances of God and man. His complaints were always accompanied with a devotional air and an avowal of supreme indifference to what he regarded as the indecent treatment he received at the hands of the amateurish bureaucrats at the Admiralty. At times they were out of humour with the great chieftain, and perhaps at no time did they make him feel their dissatisfaction more than when adverse winds, a crazy fleet, and deadly current were eating deep into his eager soul at a time when the genius of seamanship was unavailing in the effort to get through into the Atlantic in pursuit of the French fleet, which his instinct told him was speeding towards the West Indies. Sir John Orde, who was an aversion to him (as well he might be), had seen the French fleet off Cadiz, and failed to procure him the information as to their course. Nelson believed, and properly believed, that an alert mind would have found a way of spying out the enemy's intentions, but Sir John's resource did not extend to anything beyond the fear of being attacked and overpowered. He obviously was devoid of any of the arts of the wily pirate or smuggler. A month after the French had passed through the Gut, Nelson got his chance. A change of wind came within five hours after a southerly slant brought his ships to anchor in Gibraltar bay for water and provisions. He immediately gave the signal to heave the anchors up, and proceeded with a fair wind which lasted only forty-eight hours. He anchored his fleet to the east of Cape St. Vincent, and took on board supplies from the transports. He received from different sources conflicting accounts as to the objective of the French, but the predominating opinion was that they had gone to the West Indies. Nelson was in a state of bewilderment, but decided to follow his own head, and pinned his faith on the instinct that told him to follow westward "to be burnt in effigy if he failed, or Westminster Abbey if he succeeded." The adventure was daring, both in point of destination and the unequal strength of the relative fleets. Nelson had ten ships of the line and three frigates, against Villeneuve's eighteen and two new line-of-battle ships. But the British Admiral's genius and the superiority of his commanders, officers, and men, should they come to battle, would more than match Villeneuve's superiority in ships. Nelson, always sure of his own powers, could also depend upon the loyalty of men of every rank under him. He knew that the terrible spirit which shattered and scattered Spanish Philip's armada was an inheritance that had grown deep into every fibre of the generations of seamen that followed Hawkins and Drake's invincibles. When Nelson delivered himself of death-or-glory heroics, he did so with the consciousness that _he_ was the spirit that enthused masses of other spirits to carry out his dominating will. On the 14th May, 1805, anchors were picked up and the fleet left Lagos Bay under full sail for the West Indies. The trade-winds were soon picked up, and every stitch of canvas that would catch a breath of wind was spread. The speed ranged from six to nine knots, according to the strength of the wind, the Admiral taking any available opportunity of conveying to the commanders the plan of attack and action should they fall in with the Frenchmen. The task of keeping his own ships together was not easy, as some were faster than others, and many had foul bottoms. There was much manipulation of yards and sails in order to keep the line in order, and Nelson even went out of his way to have a note of encouragement and kindness sent aboard the _Superb_ (seventy-four guns) for Commander Keats, whose ship had been continuously in commission since 1801, and was in bad condition. Her sailing qualities were vexatious. Keats implored that he should not be disconnected from the main fleet now that the hoped-for battle was so near at hand, and being a great favourite of Nelson's, he was given permission constantly to carry a press of canvas; so the gallant captain carried his studding sails while running before the trade-winds, but notwithstanding this effort, the lazy, dilapidated _Superb_ could not keep pace with the others, even though he was granted the privilege of not stopping when the others did. His urgency not to be dropped out on this occasion caused him the hard luck of not being at the battle of Trafalgar. The British fleet arrived at Barbadoes after a twenty-four days' passage from Lagos Bay. The French took thirty-four from Cadiz to Martinique, so that Nelson had a gain of ten days on them, and although his zeal yearned for better results, he had performed a feat that was not to be despised, and of which he and his comrades in quest of battle were deservedly proud. The French had been three weeks in the West Indies, but had done no further mischief than to take the Diamond Rock, a small British possession situated off the south end of Martinique. The whereabouts of the elusive enemy was uncertain. General Brereton, who commanded the troops at Santa Lucia gave information that they had passed on the 28th May, steering south. The admirals decided that they had proceeded to Tobago and Trinidad. Nelson was doubtful, but was obliged to pay some regard to intelligence coming from such a quarter. Accurate information received on the 9th June, 1805, confirmed the Admiral's doubts as to their objective, for they had passed Dominica on the 6th. Brereton had unintentionally misled him. Nelson was almost inarticulate with rage, and avowed that by this slovenly act the General had prevented him from giving battle north of Dominica on the 6th. "What a race I have run after these fellows!" he exclaimed, and then, as was his custom, leaning on the Power that governs all things, he declares, "but God is just, and I may be repaid for all my moments of anxiety." His belief in the advent of Divine vengeance on those who doubted or threatened the awful supremacy of British dominion on land or sea was stimulating to him. Like the Domremy maiden, who saved her king and country, he had "visions and heard voices." Whatever the mission of the French fleet may have been, there was certainly no apparent lust for aggrandizement. We may be certain that Napoleon's orders were to carry out vigorous bombardments on British possessions, and instead of doing so, Villeneuve seems to have been distractedly and aimlessly sailing about, not knowing what to do or whither to go. Apparently without any definite object, he arrived off Antigua on the 9th June, and had the good fortune, whether he sought for it or not, of capturing fourteen British merchant vessels; but he would appear to have been quite phlegmatic about making the haul. He was more concerned about the news the crews were able to give him of Nelson's arrival at Barbadoes; not that he was constrained to give him the opportunity of measuring strength with his now twenty-six of the line, but as a guide to the best means of making his escape; this may have been a strategical move of wearing down; or he may have been carrying out a concerted plan for leaving Nelson in bewilderment and proceeding with all speed to some British European point where resistance would be less and success assured, since there was no outstanding naval figure, bar Collingwood, who could stand up against so powerful a combination of ships of the line. It is questionable whether Villeneuve ever took this man of great hidden power and foresight into account. It was Nelson, his chief, who put terror into the fleet. In any case, whatever his plans may have been, the intelligence he gleaned from the seized merchant seamen caused him to make arrangements to sail from Antigua the next day for Europe. The present writer's opinion is that he may have had secret orders from Napoleon to make an attack on Ireland, as the Emperor never faltered in his view that this was the most pregnable spot in which to hazard an invasion and strike a crushing blow at the main artery. He little knew the real loyalty of the great mass of Irishmen to their own and to the motherland, and only realized later that his way to England was not through Ireland. The exit of the French was hard fate for Nelson, who had fired his enthusiasm with the hope of a great conflict and a sure victory. It was a creeping nightmare to him which was only relieved by his resolute opinion that his fame and the terror of his name had caused Villeneuve to fly from inevitable destruction. The idea of strategy did not enter into his calculations. A further consolation to him was that his arrival had saved the islands and two hundred ships loaded with sugar from being captured, so that the gain was all on his side. So far as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other purpose. But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one's intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe obscurity and make their way back to European waters. The evasion of Nelson's scouts in any case was a matter of adroit cunning. Had a man of Nelson's nimble wits and audacious courage commanded the enemy's fleet, the islands would have been attacked and left in a dilapidated condition. Nelson's opinion was that the Spanish portion of the expedition had gone to Havana, and that the French would make for Cadiz or Toulon, the latter he thought most likely, with the ultimate object of Egypt. And with this vision floating in his mind, he determined to make for the Straits. On the 13th June, 1805, he sailed from Antigua, and was almost merry at the thought of getting close at their heels, and toppling them into ruin before they had got into the Mediterranean. He regarded them in the light of miserable naval amateurs that could be whacked, even with the odds against him. Five days after sailing, one of his scout ships brought the news given by a vessel they spoke that she had sighted them steering north on the 15th, and as the colours of each dying day faded away and brought no French fleet in view or intelligence of them, he grew restive and filled with apprehension. He had no delusions about the accuracy of his perceptions, or the soundness of his judgment, nor the virtue of his prudence. Without a disturbing thought he pursued his course towards the Mediterranean, and unless intelligence came to him that would justify a diversion, no wild fancies would be permitted to take possession of him. On the 18th July he sighted Cape Spartel, and any sailor will say that no grass had been allowed to grow under the bottoms of the ships that made so quick a passage. But Nelson was "sorrowful" that no results had accrued. Like a strong man who has opinions and carries them through to the bitter end, he did not "blame himself." He blew off some of the pent-up bitterness of an aching heart by writing to a friend, "But for General Brereton's damned information, I would have been living or dead, and the greatest man England ever saw, and now I am nothing and perhaps would incur censure for misfortunes which may happen and have. Oh! General Brereton! General Brereton!" This explosion was indicative of bitter disappointment. It is these outbursts of devotion to a great burning ideal that give an impulse to the world. His anxiety when he made his landfall and was informed by scouts sent to meet him that the allied squadrons had not been heard of was intense. It was not until then that his vigorous mind was smitten with the possibility of the French having cheated him by going to Jamaica. Orde had been superseded by Collingwood, and was stationed off Cadiz, the purpose of which was to watch the entrance to the Mediterranean. Nelson wrote and sent him the following letter:-- MY DEAR COLLINGWOOD,--I am, as you may suppose, miserable at not falling in with the enemy's fleet; and I am almost increased in sorrow in not finding them here. The name of General Brereton will not soon be forgot. I must now hope that the enemy have not tricked me, and gone to Jamaica; but if the account, of which I send you a copy, is correct, it is more than probable that they are either gone to the northward, or, if bound to the Mediterranean, not yet arrived. The vivid symptoms of disquietude in this communication to his old friend are distinctly pathetic. In parts he is comically peevish and decidedly restrained. He mixes his fierce wrath against the hapless General Brereton with the generalizing of essentials, and transparently holds back the crushing thoughts of misadventure for which he may be held responsible by the misanthropic, scurrilous, self-assertive experts. His impassive periods were always associated with whimsical sensitiveness of being censured if his adventures should miscarry. No one knew better than he that a man in his position could only be popular if he continued to succeed. He had many critics, but always regarded them as inferior to himself, and his record justified him. What he secretly quaked at and openly defied was a general outburst of human capriciousness. There are veiled indications of this in his letter to Collingwood, who replied in well-reasoned terms, interwoven with that charm of tender sympathy that was so natural to him. He says: "I have always had the idea that Ireland was the object the French had in view," and that he still believes that to be their destination; and then he proceeds to develop his reasons, which are a combination of practical, human, and technical inferences. His strongest point is one that Nelson did not or could not know, though it may be argued that he ought to have foreseen; even then it is one expert's judgment against another's. Collingwood affirms that the Rochefort squadron, which sailed when Villeneuve did in January, returned to Europe on the 26th May. Collingwood maintains that the West Indian trip was to weaken the British force on the European side, and states that the return of Rochefort's squadron confirmed him in this. He is too generous to his mortified comrade to detract in any degree from the view that, having escaped from the West Indies, they would naturally make for Cadiz or the Mediterranean. Here is one of the many wise sayings of Napoleon: "In business the worst thing of all is an undecided mind"; and this may be applied to any phase of human affairs. Nelson can never be accused of indecision. His chase to the West Indies was a masterpiece of prescience which saved the British possessions, and, but for the clumsy intelligence he received, the French would have been a hammered wreck and the projected ruse to combine it with the Rochefort squadron off Ireland blown sky-high. The present generation of critics can only judge by the records handed down to them, and after exhaustive study we are forced to the opinion that Nelson was right in following Villeneuve to the West Indies, nor was he wrong in calculating that they were impulsively making their way back to the Mediterranean. Consistent with his habit of never claiming the privilege of changing his mind, he followed his settled opinion and defended his convictions with vehement confidence. He had not overlooked Ireland, but his decision came down on the side of Cadiz or Toulon, and there it had to rest, and in rather ridiculous support of his contention he imputes faulty navigation as the cause of taking them out of their course, and finding themselves united to the Rochefort squadron off Cape Finisterre. The bad-reckoning idea cannot be sustained. The French were no match for the British under Nelson's piercing genius as a naval strategist, or in the flashes of dazzling enthusiasm with which he led those under his command to fight, but it must also be admitted, and has been over and over again, that Villeneuve was a skilled seaman who was not likely to allow any amateur navigators in his service, and we shall see that in the plan of defence this great French Admiral showed that he was fertile in naval skill when the time came for him to fight for existence against the greatest naval prodigy in the world. Whatever the reason was that caused Villeneuve not to make for the Mediterranean, it certainly cannot be ascribed to lubberly navigation, and Nelson should never have tried to sustain his perfectly sound belief by seeking refuge in that untenable direction. God bless him all the same. On his arrival at Gibraltar on the 20th July, 1805, he set foot on shore for the first time for two years less ten days. This in itself was a great feat of hard endurance for a man who had to carry so heavy a burden of continuous physical suffering and terrible anxiety. Maddened and depressed often, stumbling often, falling often, but despairing never, sorrow and sadness briefly encompassed him when fate ordained disappointments. But his heart was big with hope that he would accomplish complete victory before the sentence of death came, which he never ceased to forebode. He was a human force, not a phenomenon. On the 22nd July, Sir Robert Calder and Villeneuve fought a drawn or indecisive battle. Only two Spanish ships of the line were taken. The French Admiral put into Vigo on the 28th, and managed to slip out, and arrived at Ferrol without being intercepted. Nelson provisioned his ships for four months, and sailed from Tetuan on the 23rd. On the 25th he passed through the Straits with the intention of going to Ferrol, Ireland, or Ushant, whichever his information and judgment told him was the best course to pursue. He experienced strong northerly winds along the Portuguese coast, which prevented him from joining the Channel Fleet off Ushant until August 16th, and as no news had been received of the French being in the Bay of Biscay or off the Irish coast, he was ordered by Cornwallis to Portsmouth, and anchored at Spithead on the 18th August. His reception from every quarter was most cordial, as well it might be! But the thought of how much greater it would have been if he had not been misguided and thereby deprived of coming to grips with the foe that was still at large and outwitting every device of bringing them to close quarters, had eaten like a canker into his troubled mind. In his letters to friends (Davison and others) his postscripts were for ever being embellished with reference to it and the darting of an incidental "damn" to General Brereton, who, it is contended, was himself deceived. But Nelson, generous as, he always was to people who were encompassed by misfortune, never would allow that Brereton had any right to allow himself to be misled. One wonders how the immortal General Brereton worked it out. In any case, the great Admiral has given him a place in history by his side. Nelson first heard of Sir Robert Calder's scrap from the Ushant squadron, and was strong in sympathy and defence against the unworthy public attacks made on the Admiral for not succeeding as he would. In writing to Fremantle about Calder, he says, amongst other things: "I should have fought the enemy, so did my friend Calder; I only wish to stand upon my own merits, and not by comparison, one way or the other upon the conduct of a brother officer," etc. This rebuke to a public who were treating his brother officer ungenerously may be summarized thus: "I want none of your praises at the expense of this gallant officer, who is serving his country surrounded with complex dangers that you are ignorant of, and therefore it is indecent of you to judge by comparing him with me or any one else. I want none of your praises at his expense." This is only one of the noble traits in Nelson's character, and is the secret why he unconsciously endeared himself to everybody. His comical vanity and apparent egotism is overshadowed by human touches such as this worthy intervention on behalf of Sir Robert Calder, who he had reason to know was not professionally well disposed to him. But his defence of Calder did not close with Fremantle, for in a letter to his brother soon after he got home he says, "We must now talk of Sir Robert Calder. I might not have done so much with my small force. If I had fallen in with them, you might probably have been a lord before I wished; for I know they meant to make a dead set at the _Victory_." These lines alone show how reverently the writer adhered to the brotherly tie of the profession. He seems to say, "Let us have no more talk of puerilities. I am the stronger. I have recently been frustrated myself. I know this business better than Calder's traducers do, and therefore conceive it my duty to defend him. He also has rendered great services to his country." When it was known that he had arrived in England, he was overwhelmed with generous tokens of affection and gratitude from all classes. Thousands crowded into Portsmouth to see him land, and the cheering was long and lusty. In London the mob, drunk with excitement, struggled to get sight of him, many crushing their way so that they might shake him by the hand or even touch him. Lord Minto said he met him in Piccadilly, took him by the arm, and was mobbed also. He goes on to say: "It is really quite affecting to see the wonder, admiration, and love for him from gentle and simple the moment he is seen," and concludes by stating that it is beyond anything represented in a play or in a poem of fame. Commercial men everywhere passed resolutions of gratitude for the protection he had secured in their different interests. The West India merchants sent a deputation to express their never-to-be-forgotten thanks, and would have loaded him with material tokens of their goodwill had it been proper to do so. He lost no time in getting to Merton, which was the thought and happiness of his soul. He was invited here, there, and everywhere, and always replied that he could not accept, as all his family were with him. Lord Minto, who was a devoted friend, visited him on the 15th August, and says that he "found him in the act of sitting down to dinner with his brother the Dean, his wife, and their children, and the children of a sister. Lady Hamilton was at the head of the table, and her mother, Mrs. Cadogan, at the bottom. His welcome was hearty. Nelson looked well and was full of spirits. Lady Hamilton," he continues, "had improved, and had added to the house and place extremely well, without his knowing she was doing it. She is a clever being, after all the passion is as hot as ever." These glad moments of keen rapture, which filled Nelson with a sort of mystic joy, were soon to be cut short. Swiftly the sweet days were passing away, and the sombre parting from "dear Merton and loving hearts for evermore" was drawing near. In his day-dreams he saw more fame, more professional gladness, more triumph. He saw, too, as he pensively walked in his garden, the grave nearly ready to receive him and the day of his glory and brightness coming. These were his abiding premonitions, which were jerked out to his close friends, and even during his last sojourn at Merton, to those he loved so well. Even at this distance of time we cannot think with composure of this many-sided man declaring sadly that death had no terrors for him, and that he was ready to face the last great problem in the conflict which was to break the power at sea of the great conqueror on land. He had not been long in the plenitude of domestic bliss before Captain Blackwood called one morning at five o'clock with dispatches sent by Collingwood for the Admiralty. Nelson was already dressed, and in his quick penetrating way told him that "he was certain he brought news of the combined enemy's fleet," and, without waiting for an answer, exclaimed, "I think I shall have to beat them," and subsequently added, "Depend upon it, Blackwood, I shall yet give M. Villeneuve a drubbing." The latter had slipped out of Ferrol and elusively made his way to Cadiz without having been seen by the British. Nelson's services were again requested by the Government, and eagerly given, though he declared that he was in need of more rest and that he had done enough. But these were mere transient observations, probably to impress those with whom he talked or to whom he wrote with the importance of his position with the Cabinet, who now regarded him as indispensable, which was in reality quite true, though he was none the less proud of the high confidence they had in him and the popular approval their selection had with the public. The phrase "Let the man trudge who has lost his budget" was mere bluff. He wanted to go all the time, and would have felt himself grievously insulted had the Government regarded even his health unequal to so gigantic a task or suggested that a better man could be found. Nelson, always hungering for approbation, slyly hinted that it would be a risky thing for the Government's existence had they not placed full control of the fleet in his hands, so popular a hold had he on all classes of naval men and the entire public imagination. Nelson was often exasperated by the dull ignorance of the Government as to how naval policy should be conducted, and by their combined irresolution and impatience at critical periods, when success depended upon his having a free hand to act as circumstances arose. Of course, he took a free hand and never failed to succeed. But he frequently complained that he laid himself open to be shot or degraded by doing so, and it is only one man in a century that is possessed of sufficient audacity to ignore the authority over him and with supreme skill to carry out his own plans. In support of the views that were bound to be held by a man of Nelson's calibre as to the qualities of some of his superiors in the Government who wished to impose upon him a definite line of action, we quote a letter written to Captain Keats, which has appeared in almost every life of Nelson that has been published. It is pregnant with subtle contemptuous remarks which may be applied to the naval administration of the present time (March 1918). It is not only a danger, but a crime, in the process of any war, but especially during the present, to gamble with the safety of the nation by neglecting to have at the head of a great department a man who has not only a genius for administrative initiative in this particular sphere but an unerring instinct to guide and grapple with its everyday perplexities. It is colossal aptitude, not mechanicalness, that is needed. But here is the matchless sailor's opinion of the situation in this respect in his day: "The Secretary of State (Lord Castlereagh), which is a man who has only sat one day in his office, and, of course, knows but little of what is passed, and indeed the Prime Minister, Pitt, were all full of the enemy's fleet, and as I am now set up for a conjurer, and God knows they will very soon find out I am far from being one, I was asked my opinion, against my inclination, for if I make one wrong guess the charm will be broken; but this I ventured without any fear, that if Calder got close alongside their twenty-seven or twenty-eight sail, that by the time the enemy had beaten our fleet soundly, they would do us no harm this year." Though Nelson did not and could not say all that was in his mind, we can read between the lines that he had no use for the theories of ministers, and would obviously have liked to have said in brutal English, "Here I am, gentlemen, do not encumber me with your departmental jargon of palpable nothings. You continue to trust in Providence; give me your untrammelled instructions as to what you wish me to do, and leave the rest to me." Here is another letter from Lord Radstock: "No official news have been received from Lord Nelson since July 27th. He then hinted that he might go to Ireland; nevertheless, we have no tidings of him on that coast. I confess I begin to be fearful that he has worried his mind up to that pitch, that he cannot bear the idea of showing himself again to the world until he shall have struck some blow, and that it is this hope that is now making him run about, half frantic, in quest of adventure. That such unparalleled perseverance and true valour should thus evaporate in air is truly melancholy." What balderdash to write about a man ablaze with reasoning energy and genius of the highest order! The noble Lord is disillusioned on his arrival in Portsmouth, and writes again in another a strain: "He (Nelson) was received in town almost as a conqueror, and was followed round by the people with huzzas. So much for a great and good name most nobly and deservedly acquired"! The previous letter indicates the mind of a fireside colossus, and shows how dangerously a big man's reputation may be at the mercy of a little one or a coterie of them. One can only describe them as portentous human snipes, whose aggressive mediocrity spreads like an attack of infectious fever, until the awful will of Heaven, for the safety of humanity, lays hands on their power for mischief. The popularity of a public servant is always in danger of a tragical end if he lives long enough. One slip of inevitable misfortune seals his doom when the pendulum swings against him. And it is generally brought by a rhetorical smiling Judas who can sway a capricious public. The more distinguished a popular man may be, the greater is the danger that the fame and reputation for which he strove may be swiftly laid low. "Who has lived as long as he chose? Who so confident as to defy Time, the fellest of mortals' foes Joints in his armour who can spy? Where's the foot will not flinch or fly? Where's the heart that aspires the fray? His battle wager 'tis vain to try-- Everything passes, passes away." The gallant and strenuous patriot whose fame will pass on to distant ages is now summoned to fulfil his destiny. He owns that he needs one more rest, but his "duty was to go forth." He "expected to lay his weary bones quiet for the winter," but he is "proud of the call," and all gallant hearts were proud to own him as their chieftain. He bargains for one of the _Victory's_ anchors to be at the bows before he arrives at Portsmouth. All his belongings are sent off on the 5th October. Lord Barham, an aged man of eighty-two years, asks him with pride to select his own officers. "Choose yourself, my Lord. The same spirit actuates the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong." He told the Cabinet what was wanted in the "annihilation of the enemy," and that "only numbers could annihilate"--presumably ships and men. The conversations he had with the authorities and the spoken words and letters sent to his friends are ablaze with inspiring, sharp-cut sentences. But those who had intimate knowledge of his tender side felt he was ill at ease, and not free from heartache at the prospect of parting. I think, in connection with _this_, Lady Hamilton's version of what passed between them when he was walking the "quarterdeck" in his garden may be true in substance, as he was still madly in love with her, and she knew how to wheedle him into a conversation and to use words that might serve a useful purpose if need be. Nor were her scruples so delicate as to prevent suitable additions being made to suit any emergency that might occur. Her account is that she saw he was looking downcast, and she told him so. He smiled, and then said, "No, I am as happy as possible"; he was surrounded by his family, his health was better since he had "been on shore, and he would not give sixpence to call the King his uncle." She replied that she did not believe him, that she knew he was longing to get at the combined fleets, that he considered them as his property, that he would be miserable if any man but himself did the business, and that he ought to have them as the price and reward of his two years' long watching and his hard chase. "Nelson," said she, "however we may lament your absence, offer your services; they will be accepted, and you will gain a quiet heart by it; you will have a glorious victory, and then you may return here and be happy." He looked at her with tears in his eyes, and said, "Brave Emma! Good Emma! If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons." It puts a heavy strain upon our credulity to believe that such words were ever used by Nelson, even though we know that he was so hopelessly enamoured of this untamed creature. That he needed to be coaxed into offering his services or that he ever demurred at accepting the distinguished honours the Government had conferred upon him may be regarded as one of Emma's efforts at triumphant self-glorification and easy dramatic fibbing. She was ever striving to thrust her patriotic ardour forward in some vulgar form or other, and this occasion gave her a chance that could not be resisted. The day before Nelson's departure for Portsmouth the scalding tears flowed from her eyes continuously, she could neither eat nor drink, and her lapses into swooning at the table were terrible. These performances do not bear out the tale of Nelson's spontaneous and gushing outburst in the garden at Merton of her bravery and goodness in urging him to "go forth." It is possible that her resolution and fortitude could not stand the responsibility of pressing him to undertake a task that might be fatal to himself and foredoomed to failure. In that case she does not bear herself like a heroine, and strengthens the suspicion, as we have said, that the story of pleading with Nelson to offer his services is an impudent fabrication. Minto says that the tears and swooning is a strange picture, and assures him as before that nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame; and _she_ might have added that they had in reality exchanged souls. Napoleon, in conversing on one occasion with his brother Lucien about one of his love affairs, said "that Madame Walewska's soul was as beautiful as her face." In nearly all his letters to Lady Hamilton, Nelson plunged into expressions of love abandonment only different from those sent by Napoleon to Josephine when he was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. Neither of these extraordinary men could do anything by halves, and we are not left in doubt as to the seventh heaven of happiness it would have been to the less flowery-worded sailor had he been given the least encouragement to pour out his adoration of Emma's goodness and beauty. He would have excelled Napoleon's picture of Madame Walewska. Amidst the many cares that surrounded these last active days, when the dockyards were humming with the work of getting his ships refitted so that they might be put quickly into commission, he grudged every moment of forced separation from her while he was in consultation with the Government and attending to his own private preparations, which were sedulously attended to. Nothing of moment seems to have been left to chance. Not even the coffin that Captain Hallowell had given him was overlooked, for he called to give instructions to the people who had it in safe keeping, and gave them instructions to have the history of it engraved on the lid, as he might want it on his return, which is further evidence that he was permanently impressed with the fate that awaited him. The story of this strange incident of the coffin is this: After the battle of the Nile a portion of the _Orient's_ mainmast was drifting about, and was picked up by order of Captain Hallowell of the _Swiftsure_, who had it made into a coffin. It was handsomely finished, and sent to Admiral Nelson with the following letter:-- Sir,--I have taken the liberty of presenting you a coffin made from the mainmast of _Orient_, that when you have finished your military career in this world, you may be buried in one of your trophies. But that that period may be far distant is the earnest wish of your sincere friend, Benjamin Hallowell. Nelson received the weird gift in good spirits, and had it placed in his cabin. It was hardly a pleasant piece of furniture for his visitors to be confronted with, so he was prevailed upon to have it put below until it was required. A few more raging battles, and a few more years of momentous anxieties, and the prodigious hero was to become its occupant. It seems to have been landed and put in charge of a firm of upholsterers. Before leaving his home he went to the bedside where his child Horatia lay sleeping, and offered up a heart-stirring prayer that those who loved him should be a guardian spirit to her, and that the God he believed in should have her in His holy keeping. On the 13th September, 1805, he writes in his private diary:-- At half-past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world, to go to serve my King and country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of His mercy. If it is good Providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will protect those so dear to me that I may leave behind. His will be done. Amen, Amen. No more simple, fervent, and touching appeal and resignation to the will of Him Who governs all things has been seen in the English language. It is quite unorthodox in its construction, and impresses us with the idea that he is already realizing the bitterness of death, and that he is in the presence of a great Mystery, speaking to his own parting soul. The desire to live is there, but he does not ignore the almost unutterable submission of "Thy will be done." XIII Nelson joined the _Victory_ at Portsmouth on the morning of the 14th September, and met with a great public ovation. He tells Captain Hardy, as he was being rowed to the _Victory_, that he had "their huzzas when he landed" (after his prolonged period in commission), "but now," he proudly remarked, "I have their hearts." His send-off was magnificent. The contagious flow of tears, the shouting of blessings, and the fervent petitions that the God of battles should give him the victory over the enemies of human suffering and liberty were symptoms of admiration and gratitude which went hot into his blood as he sat in his barge, the object of reverence. And with a calm air of conscious power he acknowledged the honour that was showered upon him by baring his head and bowing gracefully his thanks. It was manifestly his day of paradise, and with the plaudits still ringing in his ears the _Victory's_ anchor was weighed on the following day, and he sailed from St. Helen's Roads to the great conflict and victory for which he panted, and to the doom that awaited him. He experienced foul winds until he passed Cape Finisterre, and on the 28th September he joined the fleet of twenty-nine of the line. The 29th September was the anniversary of his forty-seventh year. He says: "The reception I met with on joining the fleet caused the sweetest sensation of my life. The officers who came on board to welcome my return forgot my rank as commander-in-chief in the enthusiasm with which they greeted me. As soon as these emotions were past, I laid before them the plan I had previously arranged for attacking the enemy; and it was not only my pleasure to find it generally approved, but clearly perceived and understood." In a further communication he explains to them the "Nelson touch," and all agree that it must succeed, and that he is surrounded with friends. Then he adds: "Some may be Judas's, but the majority are certainly pleased at the prospect of my commanding them." These are joyous days for him, which are marked by the absence of any recorded misgivings. His mind is full of making preparations in every detail to cope with the advent of Villeneuve from Cadiz and for the plan of attack, of which a long memorandum was circulated to the fleet. He had planned the form of attack at Trafalgar during his stay at home, and some time before leaving Merton he confided it to Lord Sidmouth. He told him "that Rodney broke the enemy's line in one place, and that _he_ would break it in two." One of the Nelson "touches" was to "close with a Frenchman, and to out-manoeuvre a Russian," and this method of terrific onslaught was to be one of the devices that he had in store for the French at Trafalgar, and which ended fatally for himself. But it gave the enemy a staggering blow, from which they never recovered so long as the action lasted. In the General Orders he says: "Captains are to look to their particular line as a rallying point, but in case signals cannot be seen or clearly understood, _no captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy_." The feeling against Sir Robert Calder for not having beaten or forced another battle on the allied fleets in July did not abate. The public were out for impeachment, and the Government did nothing to discourage it; and when Nelson was on the point of leaving England the First Lord instructed him to convey to Calder the Government's condemnation of his evident negligence or incapacity. They gave him permission to ask for the inquiry, but should he not do so, it would be ordered. Nelson wrote to Barham that he had delivered the message to Sir Robert, and that it would doubtless give his Lordship pleasure to learn that an inquiry was just what the Vice-Admiral was anxious to have, and that he had already sent a letter by the _Nautilus_ to say so, but that he (Nelson) had detained it. Nelson, in his goodness of heart, urged Sir Robert to remain until after the action, the result of which would inevitably change the feeling of the Government and the public in his favour, and he could then, without any fear, demand an inquiry. Sir Robert was so crushed with the charge hanging over him, that he insisted on being allowed to proceed to England at once, and Nelson, to ease the humiliation and suffering he was passing through, sent him off in his ninety-gun ship, instead of a frigate. The inquiry was held in due course, and judgment given against him. The finding is, in our opinion, based more on prejudice than on any fault he committed, and as to "committing an error of judgment," it is always difficult to know what is an error of judgment in circumstances such as he was confronted with. In any case, it is evident that the Government were terrified of the effect that public opinion would have on themselves if they failed to take steps to appease it. We think the Government would have been serving their country better by keeping this unfortunate officer in active service when its fleet was on the verge of a life-or-death struggle for naval supremacy than by dispensing with his services, which they had thought fit to retain from July to October. Nelson's attitude was the more patriotic and noble, and under such circumstances the verdict, however mild, was bound to be given against the man whose heart they had broken because they were afraid of public opinion. Nelson was a better judge than they. Discreet reprimand, combined with a few kindly words of encouragement, was the proper course at such a time, when every man and ship was so essential. On a previous occasion, when a "seventy-four" had stranded, the officer whose skill and efforts had refloated her was told by Nelson that he had spoken favourably of him to the Admiralty. The officer showed in suitable terms his gratitude, but added that he did not regard what he had done as meriting any notice or praise. The Admiral pointed out that a battle might easily be lost by the absence of a line-of-battle ship. When Nelson conveyed the ill-considered and stupid instructions of the Government to Sir Robert Calder to return home to be court-martialled, and the latter replied that his letter "to do so cut him to the soul and that his heart was broken," Nelson was so overcome with sympathy for Calder that he sacrificed his own opinions already expressed, and also took the risk of bringing upon himself the displeasure of the Comptroller of the Navy by giving the unfortunate man permission to proceed home in a vessel that would have been so valuable an asset to his fleet. This worthy act, had he lived and the battle of Trafalgar been drawn or lost, might have laid him open to impeachment. Nelson's fine courage and sense of proportion when he thought an injustice or undue severity was being imposed was never allowed to be trifled with by any official, no matter how high or subordinate his position might be, and his contempt for men whom he knew were miserable cocksparrow amateurs was openly avowed. Whatever the consequences, he would have sooner lost a victory than have gained one by lending himself to an act that was to injure or break his brother in arms. Calder left the fleet a few days before the action, and when it began Nelson remarked to Hardy, "What would poor Sir Robert Calder give to be with us now!" Even on the eve of a great encounter the stress of preparation did not dim his sympathy for the afflicted man, who, on more than one occasion, had allowed envy to rule his conduct towards him. After the battle of St. Vincent, for instance, Calder, in conversation with Jervis, criticized Nelson's action in departing from the plan of attack laid down by the Admiral. Jervis admitted it to be a breach, and added "if ever Calder did the same thing under similar circumstances, he would forgive him." Nelson knew Calder was envious of his growing fame, but this did not prevent him from acting as though he had always been a loyal friend. On the morning of the 19th October, 1805, the signal was passed from ship to ship acting as lookouts to the main fleet that the combined fleet were putting to sea, and it was soon discovered that their force consisted of eighteen French line-of-battle ships, seven large frigates, and two brigs. The Spanish numbered fifteen sail of the line. The British had twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates, so that Nelson was outnumbered by five of the line, three frigates, and two brigs. The whole of the allied fleet did not get clear of the port until the 20th. The commander-in-chief was Villeneuve, and his obvious intention was to get the Straits open and, by a cunning evasion of the British fleet, make a dash through. His elusive tactics had hitherto been skilfully performed, but the British Admiral, always on the alert, anticipated that an effort would again be made to cheat him of the yearning hope of his heart, and had mentally arranged how every contingency should be coped with to prevent escape and to get to grips with the enemy. "I will give them such a shaking as they never before experienced," and at least he was prepared to lay down his life in the attempt. It is pretty certain that, after all his ships had got into the open sea, Villeneuve's intention was to see how the land lay as to the British strength, and his manoeuvring indicated that instructions had been given to hoodwink the British and slip through the Straits of Gibraltar; but seeing that the entrance was cut off for the moment, he headed westward, possibly to mislead, but always with the intention of getting into the Mediterranean. When this information was signalled by Blackwood, instructions were sent back to him that the Admiral relied on the enemy being kept in sight. Here is a letter to Lady Hamilton, dated the 19th October, 1805:-- CADIZ, BEARING E.SE. 50 MILES. MY DEAREST BELOVED EMMA: THE DEAR FRIEND OF MY BOSOM,--The signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleet are coming out of port. We have very little wind, so that I have no hopes of seeing them before to-morrow. May the God of battles crown my endeavours with success; at all events, I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle. May Heaven bless you, prays your This was found unsigned on his desk. These are the last lines he wrote to the woman he called his "wife in the sight of God." There is none of the robust assurance of blazing deeds that he has in store for the enemy which characterize some of his earlier letters to Emma, nor is there any craving for continued existence or for extinction. But who can read this melancholy farewell without being impressed with the feeling that there is a subdued restraint to avoid uttering his thoughts on inevitable fate and eternal sleep, lest it gives anxiety and disheartens the woman he loved so well? On the same day he wrote an affectionate letter to his daughter, which is clearly intended as a supplementary outpouring of a full heart to the mother whom he knew would have to read it. The tone and wording is what a father might have written to a girl of fifteen instead of five. There is a complete absence of those dainty, playful touches that would delight a child of her age. In reality, it rather points to the idea that it was intended not only as a further farewell to mother and child, but as an historical epistle and a legacy to Horatia which she would read in other days in connection with the great battle in which he was to be engaged only a few hours after he had written it. MY DEAREST ANGEL,--I was made happy by the pleasure of receiving your letter of September the 19th, and I rejoice to hear you are so very good a girl, and love my dear Lady Hamilton, who most dearly loves you. Give her a kiss for me. The combined fleets of the enemy are now reported to be coming out of Cadiz; and therefore I answer your letter, my dearest Horatia, to mark to you that you are ever uppermost in my thoughts. I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest, and speedy return to dear Merton and our dearest good Lady Hamilton. Receive, my dearest Horatia, the affectionate blessing of your Father, NELSON AND BRONTE. The importunities of Horatia's mother were continuously being forced upon Nelson in one way or another, but he seems to have stood firm, in an apologetic way, to the instructions laid down by himself, that no women were to go to sea aboard his ship; for, having been a party to the embargo, it would have been impossible for him to make her an exception. He anticipates, as her other lovers had done, that she can be very angry, like Horatia, when she cannot have her own way, but he soothingly says that he knows his own dear Emma, if she applies her reason, will see that he is right. He playfully adds an addendum that "Horatia is like her mother, she will have her own way, or kick up the devil of a dust." He reminds Emma that she is a "sharer of his glory," which settles the question of her being allowed to sail with him, and from encountering the heavy gales and liquid hills that are experienced off Toulon week after week. He warns the lady that it would kill her and himself to witness it. Emma was too devoted to all the pleasures ashore to risk losing her life in any such uncomfortable fashion at sea, so the project was abandoned, if it was ever seriously contemplated. This astute actress knew where to touch Nelson's weak spot, and that it would send him into a frenzy of love to think of her yearning to be beside him. She would know that the rules of the Service prohibited, except under special circumstances, even the highest in rank from having their wives sail with them, and that the rule would apply more rigidly to herself, who was not Nelson's wife. She knew, in fact, that her request would flatter him, and that she would be compensated by receiving a whirlwind of devotion in reply. After the Gulf of Lyons days, no further request appears to have been made of that kind. The combined fleets had been dodging each other on the 20th, light westerly winds and calms prevailing. At daylight on the 21st the belligerent fleets were within twelve miles of each other. Nelson was on deck early, and at 7.40 a.m. made the signal "To form the order of sailing," and "To prepare for battle." Then the signal was made to "Bear up," the _Victory_ and _Royal Sovereign_ leading the way in two lines; Nelson took the weather line with his ships, and the other division followed, but the wind being light, many had barely steerage way. Fourteen vessels followed Collingwood, who was to attack the enemy's rear, while Nelson slashed into the van and centre. Villeneuve, seeing by the British formation that his number was up and that he would have to give battle, manoeuvred to keep Cadiz open, which was about twenty miles NE. of him, but the wind, being light, made it as difficult for the French Commander-in-Chief to carry out the disposition as it was for the quick-witted British Commander to prevent it. Hence the development was a lazy process, and prevented, as varying circumstances always do, any rigid plan being adhered to. Had there been a fresh breeze before the battle commenced, the chances are that the French would have secured a position that would have enabled more of the crippled ships to get into Cadiz, but even this is doubtful, as only a fluke of wind could have saved them from the strategy of the British Commander-in-Chief before the fighting began. Between eleven and twelve o'clock on the 21st October every humanly possible, detailed arrangement had been completed. Each captain knew that, so far as it was possible, he was to follow where his admiral and vice-admiral led. The spirits of all those who manned the fleet were high of hope, and the inspiring spirit said he could do no more. Nelson then went to his cabin and on his knees wrote a prayer that throbbed and will continue to throb through the universe. It exhales the spirit of bravery, and triumphant assurance of the eternal justice of the cause for which he is about to sacrifice himself, for a sombre document it is; but the soul that is in it is imperishable, and who can peruse it without vividly picturing the writer kneeling before the Omnipotent, pleading for his country's cause, and offering himself piously as a willing sacrifice! May the great God, whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity, after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet. For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me; and may His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen, Amen, Amen. Then, as though apprehension of the inevitable passing was growing, the thought of the woman who is the mother of his child, and for whom he had an unquenchable love, blinds him to all sense of propriety. It puts a severe strain on our imagination to realize how a man could composedly write such a request on the verge of the greatest naval conflict in history. It is dated "21st of October, 1805, in sight of the combined fleets of France and Spain, distant ten miles":-- Whereas the eminent services of Emma Hamilton, widow of the Right Honourable Sir William Hamilton, have been of the very greatest service to my King and country to my knowledge, without ever receiving any reward from either our King and country; First, that she obtained the King of Spain's letter, in 1796, to his brother, the King of Naples, acquainting him of his intention to declare war against England, from which letter the Ministry sent our orders to the then Sir John Jervis, to strike a stroke, if opportunity offered, against either the arsenals of Spain or her fleets. That neither of these was done is not the fault of Lady Hamilton; the opportunity might have been offered. Secondly: The British fleet under my command could never have returned the second time to Egypt, had not Lady Hamilton's influence with the Queen of Naples caused letters to be wrote to the Governor of Syracuse, that he was to encourage the fleets being supplied with everything, should they put into any port in Sicily. We put into Syracuse, received every supply; went to Egypt, and destroyed the French fleet. Could I have rewarded these services, I would not now call upon my country; but as that has not been in my power, I leave Emma, Lady Hamilton, therefore a legacy to my King and country, that they will give her an ample provision to maintain her rank in life. I also leave to the beneficence of my country my adopted daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson; and I desire she will use in future the name of Nelson only. These are the only favours I ask of my King and country at this moment when I am going to fight their battle. May God bless my King and country, and all those I hold dear! My relations, it is needless to mention, they will, of course, be amply provided for. NELSON AND BRONTE. _Witness_, HENRY BLACKWOOD. T.M. HARDY. It is of little importance whether this codicil was written at the same time as the prayer or a couple of hours before; that neither adds to nor detracts from the object of it. No definite opinion of the time is given. Blackwood and Hardy, as witnesses, would know. In any case it is an extraordinary document, and indicates unusual mental control of which few human beings are possessed. His mind must have been saturated with thoughts of the woman when the great battle was within a few minutes of commencing. Early in the morning, when he was walking the poop and cabin fixings and odds and ends were being removed, he gave stern instructions to "take care of his guardian angel," meaning her portrait, which he regarded in the light of a mascot to him. He also wore a miniature of her next his heart. Unless Captain Hardy and Captain Blackwood and others to whom he confided his love potions were different from the hearty, unconventional seamen of the writer's early sea-life, a banquet of interesting epithets could have been left to us which might have shocked the severely decorous portion of a public who assume a monopoly of inherent grace but do not understand the delightful simple dialect of the old-time sailor-men. There can be small doubt that Nelson's comrades had many a joke in private about his weird and to them unnecessarily troublesome love wailings, which would be all the more irksome when they and he had serious business in hand. Poor Sir Thomas Troubridge appears to have been the only one to have dealt frankly with him about carrying his infatuation to such lengths--especially at a time when the public service was in need of his undivided attention--and Nelson never had a kindly feeling towards him afterwards. This gallant officer and loyal friend was in command of the _Blenheim_ (seventy-four guns) when she and the _Java_ (twenty-three guns) foundered with all hands near the island of Rodriguez, in the East Indies, on the 1st February, 1807. Nelson harboured a childish bitterness against Admiral Troubridge because of his plain speaking, and especially after the latter was appointed a Lord of the Admiralty. He always believed the "hidden hand" to be that of his former friend, to whom he delighted at one time to give the term "Nonpareil." In a letter to a friend he says: "I have a sharp eye, and almost think I can see it. No, poor fellow," he continues, "I hope I do him injustice; he surely cannot forget my kindness to him," He boasts of how he spoke to St. Vincent, the former "Nonpareil." In another eloquent passage he complains that Troubridge refuses to endorse his recommendations of officers for promotion, that he has been so rebuffed that his spirits are broken and the great Troubridge has cowed him (this, of course, in derision), and if he asked for anything more he would not get it. He would never forget it. No wonder he was not well. The Admiralty are "beasts" for not allowing him to come to London, which would only deprive him of a few days' comfort and happiness, and they have his hearty prayers. He continues in the same ludicrous strain, "I have a letter from Troubridge urging me to wear flannel shirts, as though he cared for me. He hopes that I shall go and have walks ashore, as the weather is now fine." "I suppose he is laughing at me, but never mind." He suffers from sea-sickness and toothache, and "none of them care a damn about my sufferings," and so on. These misdirected outbursts of feverish antipathy to poor Troubridge were frequent, and always inconceivably comical as well as distressingly peevish. But behind it all there was a consciousness of unequalled power which every one who knew him recognized, and they therefore patiently bore with his weaknesses, trying as they sometimes were. Lord St. Vincent believed, and stated to Nelson, that the only other man who possessed the same power of infusing into others the same spirit as his own was Troubridge, and no doubt this innocent praise of a noble and gallant sailor rankled in Nelson's mind, and was the beginning of the jealousy that grew into hate. He could not brook any one being put on an equality with himself, and he clung tenaciously, though generously, to this idea of authority and superiority when he requested in his last dying gasp that he should not be superseded. After signing what is called the codicil to his will, Captains Hardy and Blackwood joined him on the poop to receive his instructions. He was calmly absorbed with the enemy's plan of defence and his own of attack. He asked Blackwood what he would consider a victory, and the latter replied, "Considering the disposition of both fleets, he thought fourteen captures would be a fine result." Nelson said he would not be satisfied with less than twenty, and that nothing short of annihilation was his object. Soon afterwards he gave orders to Mr. Pasco to make the memorable signal that ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY, which sent a thrill of fiery enthusiasm throughout the whole fleet. Then the signal for "Close action" went up, and the cheering was renewed, which created a remarkable effect. Collingwood, whose attention was wholly on a Spanish three-decker that he had selected to engage, is reported to have been irritated, and spontaneously expressed the wish that "Nelson would cease signalling, as they all knew what to do." At noon the French ship, the _Fougeux_, fired the first shot of the battle. The belligerent admirals saluted in the good old pious style, like professional boxers shaking hands before the attempt to knock each other out, and in a few more minutes were engaged in deadly conflict, hurling death at each other. Nelson, in his courageous melancholy way, confident of his own powers and trusting reverently in the continuance of the lavish bounty of God, resigned his fate to Him who had given him the opportunity of doing his duty. The conspicuous splendour of the decorations which he wore on the breast of his admiral's frocker was apprehensively looked upon by his comrades, who loved him with touching loyalty. They muttered their disappointment to each other, but shrank from hurting his feelings by warning him of the danger of the sharpshooters, to whom he would be a target, remembering how he had sharply replied to some anxious soul who on a previous occasion had cautioned him with regard to his prominent appearance, "that in honour he had gained his orders, and in honour he would die with them." The battle quickly developed into a carnage. The _Bucentaure_ had found her range soon after twelve o'clock, when some of the shots went over the _Victory_. Blackwood was at this time ordered to rejoin his ship. He shook hands with his chief, and in some brief parting words expressed the "hope that he would soon return to the _Victory_ to find him well and in possession of twenty prizes"; and Nelson is reported to have calmly answered, "God bless you, Blackwood, I shall never speak to you again." His habit was to refer to death with eager frankness, and as though he were in love with it, without in the least showing any lack of alertness or detraction from the hazardous objects he had set himself to fulfil. His faith in the powerful aid of the Omnipotent was as unvarying in his sphere of warfare as was Cromwell's when he had the stern realities of human unruliness to steady and chastise. Nelson, like the latter, had in his peculiar way a deep-rooted awe and fear of God, which must have made him oblivious to all other fear. The magnificent fellow never showed greater mastery of the science of strategy, nor did he ever scan with greater vigilance the manner of carrying out the creation of his genius. Collingwood, who was first in the thick of the fight, set his heart throbbing with pride and admiration when he observed the _Royal Sovereign_ dash through the lines of the enemy, spreading devastation and death with unerring judgment. "See," said Nelson to Captain Blackwood, "how that noble fellow, Collingwood, takes his ship into action!" Then he paused for a moment, and continued, "How I envy him!" And as though the spirits of the two men were in communion with each other, Collingwood, knowing that the Commander-in-Chief's eager eye was fixed upon him in fond admiration, called out to the flag-captain near him, "Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here?" One of those fine human touches of brotherhood which Nelson knew so well how to handle with his faultless tact had occurred the day before. Collingwood and some officers paid a visit to the _Victory_ for the purpose of receiving any instructions he might have to give. Nelson asked Collingwood where his captain was, and when he replied that they were not on friendly terms, Nelson sharply answered, "Not on good terms," and forthwith gave orders for a boat to be sent for Rotherham; and when he came aboard he took him to Collingwood and said, "Look! there is the enemy, shake hands," and they renewed their friendship by gratefully carrying out his wishes. But for this, perhaps we should have been cheated of knowing the charming anecdote, which denotes the veneration the two old friends had for each other. There is no need to make any apology for this digression, for it is to record one more of the many acts of wisdom and tenderness that were so natural to this man of massive understanding. The incalculable results that he was destined to accomplish may well be allowed to obscure any human weakness that sadly beset him. Nelson, with blithe courage, sailed right into the centre of the French fleet, which in disorder surrounded their Commander-in-Chief's ship, his intention being to capture her and take Villeneuve prisoner. Never a gun was fired from the _Victory,_ although many of her spars, sails, and her rigging had suffered severely, until she had rounded as close as it was possible under the stern of the _Bucentaure_ and got into position. Then a terrific broadside was let fly from her double-shotted guns, which raked the _Bucentaure_ fore and aft, and the booming of cannon continued until her masts and hull were a complete wreck. Many guns were dismounted and four hundred men killed. The _Victory_ then swung off and left the doomed _Bucentaure_ to be captured by the _Conqueror_, and Villeneuve was taken prisoner. After clearing the _Bucentaure_, the _Victory_ fouled the _Redoubtable_, and proceeded to demolish her hull with the starboard guns, and with her port guns she battered the _Santissima Trinidad_, until she was a mass of wreckage, and the _Africa_ and _Neptune_ forced her to surrender. Meanwhile, the _Victory_ kept hammering with her starboard guns at the _Redoubtable_ until her lower deck cannon were put out of action. Then she used her upper deck small guns and muskets from aloft. Nelson was too humane a man to use this method of warfare from the lower tops, and too practical, lest the ropes and sails should be damaged. The writer is of opinion that he was wrong in this view, as was clearly shown by the deadly execution the French musketeers did from aloft before their masts were shot away by the British big artillery. It can never be wrong to outmatch an enemy in the methods they employ, no matter what form they take. Although the victory was all on the British side at Trafalgar, it would have been greater and with less loss of life on our side had musketeers been employed in the same way as the French and Spanish employed them. The men on the upper deck of the _Victory_ were shot down by these snipers without having an equal chance of retaliating. The _Redoubtable's_ mizzen-top was full of sharpshooters when the two ships fell alongside of each other, but only two were left there when Nelson was shot and dropped on his left side on the deck a foot or two from Captain Hardy. The Frenchman who shot him was killed himself by a shot fired from the _Victory's_ deck, which knocked his head to pieces. His comrade was also shot dead while trying to escape down the rigging, and fell on the _Redoubtable's_ poop. The other sharpshooters had been previously killed by the musketry from the _Victory's_ deck. Nelson told Hardy, when he expressed the hope that he was not seriously hurt, that "they had done for him at last, and that he felt his backbone was broken." He was hit on the left shoulder; the ball had pierced his left lung. The snipers from the tops of the other enemy ships killed a large number of the _Victory's_ officers and men who were on deck. The French made an attempt to board, but were thrown back in confusion and with tremendous loss. The instinct of domination and the unconquerable combativeness of our race is always more fiercely courageous when pressed to a point which causes others to take to their heels or surrender. It was not an exaggeration on the part of the French and Spanish to declare that the British sailors and soldiers were not ordinary men but devils, when the real tussle for mastery began, and when they were even believed to be beaten. The French and Spanish conclusions were right then, and the ruthless Germans, stained with unspeakable crimes, should know they are right now, for they have had many chances in recent days of realizing the power of the recuperating spirit they are up against, just at a time when they have become imbued with the idea that they have beaten our forces on land and destroyed our ships and murdered their crews at sea. The Kaiser and his advisers, military and naval, have made the German people pay dearly for the experiment of stopping our supplies by sea, for the loss of life by the sinking of their own submarines must have been enormous. But only those to whom they belong will ever know that they have not returned, and that they must have been sent to the bottom of the sea. We can only judge by written records and authoritative paintings or prints of the period what the naval battles of the beginning of the last century were like. But it is only those who have studied minutely the naval battles of St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar who can depict the awful character and thrilling nature of these ocean conflicts. While the author was serving as an apprentice aboard a sailing vessel during the Prussian-Danish war in 1864 a dense fog came on, and continued the whole of one night. When it cleared up the next forenoon we found that the vessel had been sailed right into the centre of the Danish fleet, which had defeated the Prussians and Austrians off Heligoland. There were other merchantmen there, and the cheering as we passed each of the Danish warships was hearty and long, while they gracefully acknowledged by saluting with their flags. I am quite sure there were few British seamen who would not have gladly volunteered to serve in the Danish navy against the Prussians, so universal was their bitter dislike to the Hun bullies who had set themselves to steal by force the possessions to which they had not an atom of right. The sight of these fine frigates and line-of-battle ships manoeuvring to come to grips with their cowardly antagonists who were assailing their national rights has been revivified during a long course of study of Nelson's naval warfare, and makes the awful vision of Trafalgar appear as it really was, and makes me wish that I were gifted with the art of words so that I might describe it in all its gruesome wreckage and magnitude, as the recollection of the majestic sight of the Danish ships before they even went into action makes it appear to me. My mind's eye pictures one after another of the French and Spanish ships surrendering, the hurricane of cheers that followed their defeat, and the pathetic anxiety of the dying chieftain for the safety of Captain Hardy, who was now in charge of the flagship acting as commander-in-chief. Hardy is long in coming; he fears that he may be killed, and calls out, "Will no one bring Hardy to me?" At last the gallant captain sees an opportunity of leaving the deck, for the _Victory_ is shielded by two ships from the enemy's gunfire. "Well, Hardy," says Nelson to him, "how goes the battle?" "Very well, my Lord," says Hardy; "fourteen or fifteen of the enemy's ships are in our possession." "That is well," said Nelson, "but I bargained for twenty"; and then followed the memorable order, "Anchor, Hardy, anchor." "If I live," he says, "we will anchor"; and in answer to Hardy's supposition that Collingwood should take charge, he impulsively resents the suggestion and expresses the hope that this will not happen while he lives, and urges again on Hardy that the fleet may be anchored, and asks him to make the signal. He hopes that none of our ships have struck, and his devoted friend reassures him that none have and never will. He commissions Hardy to give "dear Lady Hamilton his hair and other belongings," and asks that his "body shall not be thrown overboard." Hardy is then asked in childlike simplicity to kiss him, and the rough, fearless captain with deep emotion kneels and reverently kisses Nelson on the cheek. He then thanks God that he has done his duty, and makes the solemn thoughts that are troubling his last moments manifest in words by informing Doctor Scott, with a vital sailorly turn of speech, that "he had _not_ been a _great_ sinner," and then bids him remember that he leaves Lady Hamilton and his daughter Horatia as a legacy to his country, and that Horatia is never to be forgotten. Even at this distance of time one cannot help regretting that nature's power did not sustain him to see the total debacle of the enemy fleets. He knew that he had triumphed, and that his task had ended fatally to himself, but his sufferings did not prevent his spirit sallying to and fro, making him feel the joy of living and wish that he might linger but a little longer. He was struck down at a critical stage of the battle, though there was never any doubt as to how it would end, thanks to the adroit skill and bravery of Collingwood and those who served under him. It is a happy thought to know that our hero, even when the shadows were closing round him, had the pleasure of hearing from the lips of the faithful Hardy that fifteen of the enemy ships had struck and not one of ours had lowered a flag. But how much more gladsome would the passing have been had he lived to know that the battle had ended with the capture of nine French vessels and ten Spanish, nineteen in all. He died at 4.30 p.m. on the 21st October, 1805, just when the battle was flickering to an end. Villeneuve had given himself up, and was a prisoner on board the _Mars_. Dumanoir had bolted with four of the line, after committing a decidedly cowardly act by firing into the captured Spanish ships, the object being to put them out of the possession of the British. They could not succeed in this without killing large numbers of their allies, and this was all they were successful in doing. It was a cruel, clumsy crime, which the Spanish rightly resented but never succeeded in avenging. Meanwhile the Spanish Admiral Gravina, who had lost an arm, took command of the dilapidated combined fleets, and fled into Cadiz with five French and five Spanish ships, and by 5 p.m. the thundering of the guns had ceased, and the sea all round was a scene of death, dismasted ships, and awful wreckage. The Rear-Admiral Dumanoir was sailing gaily towards the refuge of Rochefort or Ferrol when he came into view of, and ultimately had to fight on the 4th November, a squadron under Sir Richard Strachan. Dumanoir and his men are said to have fought with great fierceness, but his ships were beaten, captured, and taken in a battered condition, and subsequently sent to England, so that now twenty-three out of the thirty-three that came out of Cadiz with all the swagger of confidence and superiority to match themselves against Nelson and his fiery coadjutors were tragically accounted for. Collingwood was now the commander-in-chief of the British fleet, and to him fell the task of notifying the victory. I insert the documents in full. LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY. ADMIRALTY OFFICE, _6th November, 1805._ Despatches, of which the following are copies, were received at the Admiralty this day, at one o'clock a.m. from Vice-Admiral Collingwood, Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's ships and vessels off Cadiz. "EURYALUS", OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR, _October 22, 1805._ SIR,--The ever-to-be-lamented death of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, who, in the late conflict with the enemy, fell in the hour of victory, leaves me the duty of informing my lords commissioners of the Admiralty, that on the 19th instant, it was communicated to the Commander-in-Chief, from the ships watching the motions of the enemy in Cadiz, that the combined fleet had put to sea. As they sailed with light winds westerly, his Lordship concluded their destination was the Mediterranean, and immediately made all sail for the Straits' entrance, with the British squadron, consisting of twenty-seven ships, three of them sixty-fours, where his Lordship was informed, by Captain Blackwood (whose vigilance in watching and giving notice of the enemy's movements has been highly meritorious), that they had not yet passed the Straits. On Monday, the 21st instant, at daylight, when Cape Trafalgar bore E. by S. about seven leagues, the enemy was discovered six or seven miles to the eastward, the wind about west, and very light; the Commander-in-Chief immediately made the signal for the fleet to bear up in two columns, as they are formed in the order of sailing; a mode of attack his Lordship had previously directed, to avoid the delay and inconvenience in forming a line of battle in the usual manner. The enemy's line consisted of thirty-three ships (of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish, commanded in chief by Admiral Villeneuve, the Spaniards under the direction of Gravina), bore with their heads to the northwards and formed their line of battle with great closeness and correctness. But as the mode of attack was unusual, so the structure of their line was new; it formed a crescent convexing to leeward; so that in leading down to their centre I had both their van and rear abaft the beam before the fire opened; every alternate ship was about a cable's length to windward of her second ahead and astern, forming a kind of double line, and appeared, when on their beam, to leave a very little interval between them, and this without crowding their ships. Admiral Villeneuve was in the _Bucentaure_ in the centre, and the _Prince of Asturias_ bore Gravina's flag in the rear, but the French and Spanish ships were mixed without any apparent regard to order of national squadron. As the mode of our attack had been previously determined upon, and communicated to the flag officers and captains, few signals were necessary, and none were made except to direct close order as the lines bore down. The Commander-in-Chief in the _Victory_ led the weather column, and the _Royal Sovereign_, which bore my flag, the lee. The action began at twelve o'clock by the leading ships of the column breaking through the enemy's line; the Commander-in-Chief about the tenth ship from the van; the second-in-command about the twelfth from the rear, leaving the van of the enemy unoccupied; the succeeding ships breaking through in all parts, astern of their leaders, and engaging the enemy at the muzzles of their guns. The conflict was severe; the enemy's ships were fought with a gallantry highly honourable to their officers; but the attack on them was irresistible, and it pleased the Almighty Disposer of all events to grant his Majesty's arms a complete and glorious victory. About three p.m., many of the enemy's ships having struck their colours, their line gave way; Admiral Gravina, with ten ships joining their frigates to leewards, stood towards Cadiz. The five headmost ships of their van tacked, and standing to the southward, to windward of the British line, were engaged, and the sternmost of them taken; the others went off, leaving to his Majesty's squadron nineteen ships of the line (of which two are first-rates, the _Santissima Trinidad_, and the _Santa Anna_), with three flag officers, viz. Admiral Villeneuve, the Commander-in-Chief; Don Ignacio Maria D'Alava, Vice-Admiral; and the Spanish Rear-Admiral Don Baltazar Hidalgo Cisneros. After such a victory it may appear unnecessary to enter into encomiums on the particular parts taken by the several commanders; the conclusion says more than I have language to express; the spirit which animated all was the same; when all exert themselves zealously in their country's service, all deserve that their high merits should stand recorded; and never was high merit more conspicuous than in the battle I have described. The _Achille_, a French seventy-four, after having surrendered, by some mismanagement of the Frenchmen, took fire and blew up; two hundred of her men were saved by the tenders. A circumstance occurred during the action, which so strongly marks the invincible spirit of British seamen, when engaging the enemies of their country, that I cannot resist the pleasure I have in making known to their Lordships: the _Téméraire_ was boarded, by accident or design, by a French ship on one side, and a Spaniard on the other; the contest was vigorous; but in the end the combined ensigns were torn from the poop, and the British hoisted in their places.[15] Such a battle could not be fought without sustaining a great loss of men. I have not only to lament in common with the British Navy and the British nation in the fall of the Commander-in-Chief, the loss of a hero whose name will be immortal, and his memory ever dear to his country; but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend, to whom, by many years of intimacy, and a perfect knowledge of the virtues of his mind, which inspired ideas superior to the common race of men, I was bound by the strongest ties of affection; a grief to which even the glorious occasion in which he fell does not bring the consolation which perhaps it ought. His Lordship received a musket ball in his left breast, about the middle of the action, and sent an officer to me immediately, with his last farewell, and soon after expired. I have also to lament the loss of those excellent officers, Captain Duff of the _Mars_, and Cooke of the _Bellerophon_; I have yet heard of none others. I fear the numbers that have fallen will be found very great when the returns come to me; but it having blown a gale of wind ever since the action, I have not yet had it in my power to collect any reports from the ships. The _Royal Sovereign_ having lost her masts, except the tottering foremast, I called the _Euryalus_ to me, while the action continued, which ship, lying within hail, made my signals, a service which Captain Blackwood performed with very great attention. After the action I shifted my flag to her, so that I might the more easily communicate my orders to, and collect the ships, and towed the _Royal Sovereign_ out to seaward. The whole fleet were now in a very perilous situation; many dismasted; all shattered; in thirteen fathom water off the shoals of Trafalgar; and when I made the signal to anchor, few of the ships had an anchor to let go, their cables being shot. But the same good Providence which aided us through such a day preserved us in the night, by the wind shifting a few points, and drifting the ships off the land, except four of the captured dismasted ships, which are now at anchor off Trafalgar, and I hope will ride safe until these gales are over. Having thus detailed the proceedings of the fleet on this occasion, I beg to congratulate their Lordships on a victory, which I hope will add a ray to the glory of his Majesty's crown, and be attended with public benefit to our country. I am, etc., (_Signed_) C. COLLINGWOOD. William Marsden, Esq. GENERAL ORDER. "EURYALUS", _October 22, 1805._ The ever-to-be-lamented death of Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, the Commander-in-Chief, who fell in the action of the 21st, in the arms of Victory, covered with glory, whose memory will ever be dear to the British Navy and the British nation, whose zeal for the honour of his King, and for the interest of his country will be ever held up as a shining example for a British seaman, leave to me a duty to return my thanks to the Right Honourable Rear-Admiral, the captains, officers, seamen, and detachments of Royal Marines, serving on his Majesty's squadron now under my command, for their conduct on that day. But where can I find language to express my sentiments of the valour and skill which were displayed by the officers, the seamen, and marines, in the battle with the enemy, where every individual appeared a hero, on whom the glory of his country depended! The attack was irresistible, and the issue of it adds to the page of naval annals a brilliant instance of what Britons can do, when their King and country need their service. To the Right Honourable Rear-Admiral the Earl of Northesk, to the captains, officers, and seamen, and to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the Royal Marines, I beg to give my sincere and hearty thanks for their highly meritorious conduct, both in the action and in their zeal and activity in bringing the captured ships out from the perilous situation in which they were, after their surrender, among the shoals of Trafalgar in boisterous weather. And I desire that the respective captains will be pleased to communicate to the officers, seamen, and Royal Marines, this public testimony of my high approbation of their conduct, and my thanks for it. (_Signed_) C. COLLINGWOOD. To the Right Honourable Rear-Admiral the Earl of Northesk, and the respective Captains and Commanders. GENERAL ORDER. The Almighty God, whose arm is strength, having of his great mercy been pleased to crown the exertions of his Majesty's fleet with success, in giving them a complete victory over their enemies, on the 21st of this month; and that all praise and thanksgiving may be offered up to the throne of grace, for the great benefit to our country and to mankind, I have thought it proper that a day should be appointed of general humiliation before God, and thanksgiving for his merciful goodness, imploring forgiveness of sins, a continuation of his divine mercy, and his constant aid to us, in defence of our country's liberties and laws, and without which the utmost efforts of man are nought; and therefore that [blank] be appointed for this holy purpose. Given on board the "Euryalus," off Cape Trafalgar, October 22, 1805. (_Signed_) C. COLLINGWOOD To the respective Captains and Commanders. N.B.--The fleet having been dispersed by a gale of wind, no day has yet been able to be appointed for the above purpose. Against the desire of his dead comrade, Collingwood carried into practice his own sound and masterful judgment not to anchor either his conquests or any of his own vessels on a lee ironbound shore. Even had his ground tackle been sound and intact, which it was not, and the holding ground good instead of bad, he acted in a seamanlike manner by holding steadfastly to the sound sailor tradition always to keep the gate open for drift, to avoid being caught, and never to anchor on a lee shore; and if perchance you get trapped, as hundreds have been, get out of it quickly, if you can, before a gale comes on. But in no case is it good seamanship to anchor. There is always a better chance of saving both the ship and lives by driving ashore in the square effort to beat off rather than by anchoring. The cables, more often than not, part, and if they do, the ship is doomed, and so may lives be. Hundreds of sailing vessels were saved in other days by the skill of their commanders in carrying out a plan, long since forgotten, called clubhauling off a lee shore. Few sailors living to-day will know the phrase, or how to apply it to advantage. It was a simple method, requiring ability, of helping the vessel to tack when the wind and sea made it impossible in the ordinary way. A large kedge with a warp bent on was let go on either the port or starboard quarter at an opportune moment to make sure the vessel would cant the right way, and then the warp was cut with an axe. In the writer's opinion, it would have been just as unwise to anchor at Trafalgar after the battle, in view of the weather and all circumstances, as it would be to anchor on the Yorkshire or any part of the North-East Coast when an easterly gale is blowing. But apart from the folly of it, there were none of the ships that had ground tackle left that was fit to hold a cat. Without a doubt, Nelson's mind was distracted and suffering when he gave Hardy the order to anchor. The shadows were hovering too thickly round him at the time for him to concentrate any sound judgment. Some writers have condemned Collingwood for not carrying out the dying request of his Commander-in-Chief. It was a good thing that the command of the fleet fell into the hands of a man who had knowledge and a mind unimpaired to carry out his fixed opinions. When Hardy conveyed Nelson's message, he replied, "That is the very last thing that I would have thought of doing," and he was right. Had Nelson come out of the battle unscathed, he would assuredly have acted as Collingwood did, and as any well-trained and soundly-balanced sailor would have done. Besides, he always made a point of consulting "Coll," as he called him, on great essential matters. If it had been summer-time and calm, or the wind off the land, and the glass indicating a continuance of fine weather, and provided the vessels' cables had been sound, it might have paid to risk a change of wind and weather in order to refit with greater expedition and save the prizes, but certainly not in the month of October in that locality, where the changes are sudden and severe. Collingwood acted like a sound hardheaded man of affairs in salving all he could and destroying those he could not without risk of greater disaster. Collingwood's account of his difficulties after the battle was won is contained in the following letter to his father-in-law:-- "QUEEN," _2nd November, 1805._ MY DEAR SIR,--I wrote to my dear Sarah a few lines when I sent my first dispatches to the Admiralty, which account I hope will satisfy the good people of England, for there never was, since England had a fleet, such a combat. In three hours the combined fleet were annihilated, upon their own shores, at the entrance of their port, amongst their own rocks. It has been a very difficult thing to collect an account of our success, but by the best I have twenty-three sail of the line surrendered to us, out of which three, in the furious gale we had afterward, being driven to the entrance of the harbour of Cadiz, received assistance and got in; these were the _Santa Anna_, the _Algeziras_, and _Neptune_ (the last since sunk and lost); the _Santa Anna's_ side was battered in. The three we have sent to Gibraltar are the _San Ildefonso_, _San Juan Nepomuceno_, and _Swiftsure_; seventeen others we have burnt, sunk, and run on shore, but the _Bahama_ I have yet hope of saving; she is gone to Gibraltar. Those ships which effected their escape into Cadiz are quite wrecks; some have lost their masts since they got in, and they have not a spar or a store to refit them. We took four admirals--Villeneuve the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral D'Alava, Rear-Admiral Cisneros, Spanish, and Magon, the French admiral, who was killed--besides a great number of brigadiers (commanders). D'Alava, wounded, was driven into Cadiz in the _Santa Anna_; Gravina, who was not taken, has lost his arm (amputated I have heard, but not from him); of men, their loss is many thousands, for I reckon in the captured ships we took twenty thousand prisoners (including the troops). This was a victory to be proud of; but in the loss of my excellent friend, Lord Nelson, and a number of brave men, we paid dear for it; when my dear friend received his wound, he immediately sent an officer to me to tell me of it, and give his love to me. Though the officer was directed to say the wound was not dangerous, I read in his countenance what I had to fear; and before the action was over Captain Hardy came to inform me of his death. I cannot tell you how deeply I was affected, for my friendship for him was unlike anything that I have left in the Navy, a brotherhood of more than thirty years; in this affair he did nothing without my counsel; we made our line of battle together, and concerted the mode of attack, which was put into execution in the most admirable style. I shall grow very tired of the sea soon; my health has suffered so much from the anxious state I have been in, and the fatigue I have undergone, that I shall be unfit for service. The severe gales which immediately followed the day of victory ruined our prospect of prizes; our own infirm ships could scarce keep off the shore; the prizes were left to their fate, and as they were driven very near the port, I ordered them to be destroyed by burning and sinking, that there might be no risk of their falling again into the hands of the enemy. There has been a great destruction of them, indeed I hardly know what, but not less than seventeen or eighteen, the total ruin of the combined fleet. To alleviate the miseries of the wounded, as much as in my power, I sent a flag to the Marquis Solano, to offer him his wounded. Nothing can exceed the gratitude expressed by him, for this act of humanity; all this part of Spain is in an uproar of praise and thankfulness to the English. Solano sent me a present of a cask of wine, and we have a free intercourse with the shore. Judge of the footing we are on, when I tell you he offered me his hospitals, and pledged the Spanish honour for the care and cure of our wounded men. Our officers and men, who were wrecked in some of the prize ships, were received like divinities; all the country was on the beach to receive them; the priests and women distributing wine, and bread and fruit among them; the soldiers turned out of their barracks to make lodging for them, whilst their allies, the French, were left to shift for themselves, with a guard over them to prevent their doing mischief. After the battle I shifted my flag to the _Euryalus_ frigate, that I might the better distribute my orders; and when the ships were destroyed and the squadron in safety, I came here, my own ship being totally disabled; she lost her last mast in the gale. All the northern boys, and Graydon, are alive; Kennicott has a dangerous wound in his shoulder; Thompson is wounded in the arm, and just at the conclusion of the action his leg was broken by a splinter; little Charles is unhurt, but we have lost a good many youngsters. For myself, I am in so forlorn a state, my servants killed, my luggage, what is left, is on board the _Sovereign_, and Clavell[16] wounded. I have appointed Sir Peter Parker's[17] grandson, and Captain Thomas, my old lieutenant, post captains; Clavell, and the first lieutenant of the _Victory_, made commanders; but I hope the Admiralty will do more for them, for in the history of our Navy there is no instance of a victory so complete and so great. The ships that escaped into Cadiz are wrecks; and they have neither stores nor inclination to refit them. I shall now go, as soon as I get a sufficient squadron equipped, and see what I can do with the Carthagenians; if I can get at them, the naval war will be finished in this country. Prize-money I shall get little or none for this business, for though the loss of the enemy may be estimated at near four millions, it is most of it gone to the bottom. Don Argemoso, who was formerly captain of the _Isedro_, commanded the _Monarca_, one of our captures; he sent to inform me he was in the _Leviathan_, and I immediately ordered, for our old acquaintance sake, his liberty on parole. All the Spaniards speak of us in terms of adoration; and Villeneuve, whom I had in the frigate, acknowledges that they cannot contend with us at sea. I do not know what will be thought of it in England, but the effect here is highly advantageous to the British name. Kind remembrances to all my friends; I dare say your neighbour, Mr.---- will be delighted with the history of the battle; if he had been in it, it would have animated him more than all his daughter's chemistry; it would have new strung his nerves, and made him young again. God bless you, my dear sir, may you be ever happy; it is very long since I heard from home. I am, ever, your most truly affectionate, CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD. I have ordered all the boys to be discharged into this ship; another such fight will season them pretty well. Brown is in perfect health. We had forty-seven killed, ninety-four wounded. Great efforts were made to get all the people out of the disabled vessels before they drifted ashore. It is really splendid to read the official account of the deeds of bravery of our fine fellows risking their own lives to save the lives of those they had defeated. Seven days after the battle, the _Victory_ arrived at Gibraltar, and although her masts had been shot away and her hull badly damaged, she was refitted and sailed for England on the 4th November, the same day that the straggling Dumanoir and his ships fell into the hands of Sir Richard Strachan in the Bay of Biscay. XIV On the _Victory's_ arrival at Spithead with Nelson's remains aboard, preserved in spirits, the body was taken out and put in a leaden coffin filled with brandy and other strong preservatives. On the arrival of the _Victory_ at the entrance of the Thames, the body was removed, dressed in the Admiral's uniform, and put into the coffin made out of the mainmast of _L'Orient_ and presented to Nelson some years before by Captain Hallowell. It was then put into a third case, and on the 9th January, 1806, after lying in state for three days, the remains were buried in St. Paul's. The imposing demonstrations of sorrow could not be excelled. Parliament voted a monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, and others were erected in all the principal towns in England and Scotland. There were neither material honours nor eulogies great enough to express the gratitude that was felt throughout the United Kingdom for the late Admiral's achievements. His widow, whom he had not seen for years, and from whom he was definitely parted, was granted £2,000 per annum for life. His brother was made an Earl, with a perpetual income of £6,000 a year, and £15,000 of national money was voted to each of the sisters, while £100,000 was given for an estate to be attached to the title. The human legacy left by Nelson of Emma Hamilton and their daughter Horatia were not mentioned, though he seems to have implored Heaven and earth in their behalf. Obviously, the Government felt that they dare not be generous to everybody, even though it were Nelson's dying injunction. Collingwood, who had as much to do with the triumph of Trafalgar as Nelson himself, without making any ado about it, was treated pretty much like a provincial mayor. The mayor, of course, may and often does adopt a luxurious Roman style of living in order that his local deeds may not escape observation, but such self-advertisement was entirely foreign to Collingwood's character. It was fitting that every reasonable honour should have been paid to the memory of a great Englishman, whose deeds, in co-operation with others, have never been surpassed. But to make grants and give honours of so generous a character to Nelson's relatives, and especially to his wife, who had been a torment to him, and to measure out Collingwood's equally great accomplishments with so mean a hand, is an astonishing example of parsimony which, for the sake of our national honour, it is to be hoped rarely occurs. Even the haughty, plethoric nobles of a fourth-rate town council (if it be not a libel to mention them in connection with so discreditable an affair) would have judged the manifest fitness of things better than to make any distinction between Admiral Collingwood and his lifelong friend Nelson. Surely this famous and eminently worthy public servant was as deserving of an Earldom as was Nelson's brother, and his wife and daughters of a more generous allowance than that of his dead chief's widow and sisters!--this distinguished man, who helped to plan the order of battle at Trafalgar and was the first to take his ship into action in a way that inflamed the pride and admiration of the Commander-in-Chief, and made him spontaneously exclaim, "See, Blackwood, how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into battle! How I envy him!" No one knew as well as Nelson that his comrade, next to himself, was to play the leading part in not only assuring a victory, but in completely annihilating the French and Spanish fleets. Yet the British Government of that day only counted the services he had rendered to the nation worthy of a peerage, plus the same pension as Nelson's widow; i.e. he was to have a pension of £2,000 a year, and after his death Lady Collingwood was to have the munificent sum of £1,000 per annum and each of his two daughters £500 a year. He never drew his pension, as they kept him in the service he had made so great until he was a physical wreck. He died on his way home aboard the _Ville de Paris_ on the 7th March, 1810, and was laid to rest in St. Paul's Cathedral alongside of his distinguished friend Lord Nelson. I have already drawn attention to Nelson's blind prejudice to and hatred of the French. Collingwood was tainted with the same one-sided views, but tempered them with more conventional language. In his letters to Lady Collingwood he expresses delight at receiving a letter written to him in French by his daughter, and exhorts the mother to see that she converses when she can in that language, and to remember that she is never to admire anything French but the language. On another occasion he enjoins his daughter Sarah to write every day a translation of English into French, so that the language may soon become familiar to her; and then, as though he regarded these instructions as unpatriotic, he qualifies them by reminding her "that it is the only thing French that she needs to acquire, because there is little else in connection with that country which he would wish her to love or imitate." A kinsman of his, after the battle of Trafalgar, wrote to inform him that his family were descended from, and allied to, many great families, Talebois amongst the rest. He brushed the intended compliment aside, and in his quaint manner remarked that "he had never troubled to search out his genealogy but all he could say was, that if he got hold of the French fleet, he would either be a Viscount or nothing." This is one of the very rare symptoms of vaunting that he ever gave way to; and though his dislike of the French was as inherent as Nelson's, he never allowed his chivalrous nature to be overruled by passion. In a letter to Lord Radstock in 1806 he closes it by paying a high tribute to the unfortunate French Admiral Villeneuve by stating "that he was a well-bred man, and a good officer, who had nothing of the offensive vapourings and boastings in his manner which were, perhaps, too commonly attributed to the Frenchmen." Collingwood was a man of high ideals with a deeply religious fervour, never sinning and then repenting as Nelson was habitually doing. Physical punishment of his men was abhorrent to him, and although he enforced stern discipline on his crew, they worshipped him. "I cannot understand," he said, "the religion of an officer who can pray all one day and flog his men all the next." His method was to create a feeling of honour amongst his men, and he did this with unfailing success, without adopting the harsh law of the land made by English aristocrats. In a letter to his wife, dated September, 1806, Collingwood informs her that the Queen of Naples expected to be put on the throne of Naples again and had intimated the desire of showing her gratitude to himself by creating him a Sicilian Duke and giving him an estate. "If a Dukedom is offered to me," he tells her, "I shall return my thanks for the honour they wish to confer upon me, and show my estimate of it by telling them that I am the servant of my sovereign alone, and can receive no rewards from a foreign prince." Napoleon denounced Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples, as "a wicked shameless woman, who had violated all that men held most sacred." She had ceased to reign, and by her crimes she had fulfilled her destiny. Collingwood, who knew her public and private character to be notoriously untrustworthy and loose, looked upon the proposed honour from such a person as an affront, and refused to accept it if offered. Nelson, on the other hand, who had a passion for window-dressing and flattery, accepted with a flowing heart both a Dukedom and an estate from their Sicilian Majesties. His close intimacy with the Royal Family, and especially with the Queen, was a perpetual anxiety to his loyal and devoted friends. There were no two men in the Service who had such an affectionate regard for each other as Nelson and the amiable Northumbrian Admiral, and certainly none equalled them in their profession or in their devotion to their King and country. Each was different from the other in temperament and character, but both were alike in superb heroism--the one, egotistically untamed, revelling at intervals in lightning flashes of eternal vengeance on the French fleet when the good fortune of meeting them should come; and the other, with calm reticence elaborating his plans and waiting patiently for his chance to take part in the challenge that was to decide the dominion of the sea. Each, in fact, rivalled in being a spirit to the other. Nelson believed, and frequently said, that he "wished to appear as a godsend"; while Collingwood, in more humble and piercing phrase, remarked that "while it is England, let me keep my place in the forefront of the battle." The sound of the names of these two remarkable men is like an echo from other far-off days. Both believed that God was on their side. Neither of them knew the character or purpose of the exalted man on whom their Government was making war. Like simple-minded, brave sailors as they were, knowing nothing of the mysteries of political jealousies and intrigue, and believing that the men constituting the Government must be of high mental and administrative ability, they assumed that they were carrying out a flawless patriotic duty, never doubting the wisdom of it; and it was well for England that they did not. Men always fight better when they know and believe their cause is just. Collingwood, like most of his class, gave little thought to money matters. He had "no ambition," he says, "to possess riches," but he had to being recognized in a proper way. He wished the succession of his title to be conferred on his daughters, as he had no son. This was a modest and very natural desire, considering what the nation owed to him, but it was not granted, and the shame of it can never be redeemed. In one of his letters to Mr. Blackett he says to him, "I was exceedingly displeased at some of the language held in the House of Commons on the settlement of the pension upon my daughters; it was not of my asking, and if I had a favour to ask, money would be the last thing I would beg from an impoverished country. I am not a Jew, whose god is gold; nor a Swiss, whose services are to be counted against so much money. I have motives for my conduct which I would not give in exchange for a hundred pensions." These lines speak eloquently of the high order of this illustrious man. He despises money, but claims it as his right to have proper recognition of his services, which the Government should have given him generously and with both hands. In so many words he says, "Keep your money, I am not to be bought, but confer on me if you will some suitable token that will convince me that you do really, in the name of the nation, appreciate what I have done for it." Services such as he had rendered could never have been adequately rewarded by either money or honours, no matter how high in degree. In the affairs of money these two great Admirals were pretty similar, except that Collingwood knew better how to spend it than Nelson. Both were generous, though the former had method and money sense, while the latter does not appear to have had either. He was accustomed to say "that the want of fortune was a crime which he could never get over." Both in temperament and education Collingwood was superior to Nelson. The former knew that he had done and was capable of doing great deeds, but he would never condescend to seek for an honour reward; while Nelson, who also knew when he had distinguished himself in the national interest, expected to be rewarded, and on occasions when it was too tardily withheld, he became peevish, whimpered a good deal about his illtreatment, and on more than one occasion showed unbecoming rage at being neglected. After Copenhagen, the wigs were fairly on the green because he was created a Viscount instead of an Earl. He talked a good deal about the Tower, a Dukedom, or Westminster Abbey, and had ways of demanding attention for which Collingwood had neither the aptitude nor the inclination, though his naval qualities were quite equal to Nelson's. But with all their faults and virtues, there was never any petty jealousy between the two heroes, who lie at rest side by side in the tombs at St. Paul's. Faithful to their naval orthodoxy that it was incumbent for every Christian sailor-man to wash clean his conscience when he was passing from time into eternity, Nelson on the 21st October, 1805, and Collingwood five years later, avowed to those who had the honour of closing their eyes for evermore that they "had not been great sinners," and then slipped into eternal sleep; each of them leaving behind a name that will live and descend into distant ages. We left Villeneuve, the unfortunate but distinctly brave French Commander-in-Chief of the allied fleet at Trafalgar, aboard the _Mars_. He was subsequently sent a prisoner to England, and after a short stay, he was allowed to go to France, and broke his journey at Rennes on his way to Paris. The poor broken-hearted fellow was found dead in his room, having committed suicide. There is not the remotest foundation for the unworthy report that was spread that he was put to death by Napoleon's orders. The Emperor was much too big a man, occupied with human projects too vast, to waste a moment's thought or to stain his name over an unfortunate admiral who had brought his fleet to grief by acting against his instructions. It is only little men who write, not that which is founded on fact but that which they imagine will appeal to the popular taste of the moment; and so it was with the French Emperor; a lot of scandal-mongers were always at work hawking hither and thither their poisonous fabrications. A great many people get their living by appealing to the lowest passions. Napoleon, when in captivity, referred incidentally to the misfortunes of Villeneuve, and made the following statement to Dr. O'Meara:-- "Villeneuve," said he, "when taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat, that he studied anatomy on purpose to destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France I ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and consequently losing the fleet, for I had ordered him _not to sail or to engage the English_, determined to destroy himself, and accordingly took his plates of the heart, and compared them with his breast. Exactly in the centre of the plate he made a mark with a large pin, then fixed the pin as near as he could judge in the same spot in his own breast, shoved it in to the head, penetrated his heart and expired. When the room was opened he was found dead; the pin in his breast, and a mark in the plate corresponding with the wound in his breast. He need not have done it," continued he, "as he was a brave man, though possessed of no talent."[18] I have given this communication in full as it appears in O'Meara's book, because the scribes would have it that Villeneuve was destroyed by the Emperor's orders. There was not at the time, nor has there ever appeared since, anything to justify such a calumny on a man who challenged the world to make the charge and prove that he had ever committed a crime during the whole of his public career. No one has taken up the challenge except in sweeping generalities of slander, which are easily made but less easy to substantiate. If the Emperor had really wished to take Villeneuve's life, it would have been more satisfactory to have him condemned to death by a court-martial composed of his countrymen than to have the already ruined man secretly destroyed for mere private revenge. The common sense of the affair compels one to repudiate the idea of the Emperor's complicity in so stupid a crime. It is more likely that Napoleon wished to save him from the consequences of a court-martial, so ordered him to remain at Rennes. He rarely punished offenders according to their offences. After the first flush of anger was over, they were generally let down easily, and for the most part became traitors afterwards. We need not waste time or space in dilating on what would have happened to Nelson had he put at defiance the authority that controlled him and the irreparable disaster that would have followed. Villeneuve has been belauded for his gallantry in the fight at Trafalgar; indeed, we learn, from sources that may be relied upon, that his bravery, dispositions in battle, and art of enthusing his followers could not be surpassed. His signals to the fleet were almost identical with Nelson's. Here is one: "Celui qui ne serait pas dans le feu ne serait pas à son poste"; the literal translation of which is: "He who would not be in the fire would not be at his post"; or, "The man who would hold his post must stand fire," which is quite an inspiring signal. But I wonder what the eulogists of Villeneuve would have written of him had he been the victor instead of the defeated. It is generous to give praise to the unfortunate Admiral for whom Nelson had such an aversion and who was constantly threatened by him with vigorous chastisement when he caught him; but generosity was not the motive--it was only part of the loose-lipped, unclean policy of decrying Napoleon. It is horrible, ungrateful, and foul brutishness of the Corsican tyrant to court-martial so amiable and brave a man as Villeneuve because he proceeded out of Cadiz against orders and suffered a crushing defeat! It is quite permissible for a French admiral to put authority at defiance if doing so complies with the sentiments of anti-Napoleon writers, who were either ill-informed, purblind critics or eaten up with insincerity or moral malaria! But it is the maintenance of discipline to have men like Sir John Byng court-martialled and shot after being tried, it is said, by a not entirely impartial court, on the supposition that he had neglected his duty in an engagement with the French off Minorca on the 20th May, 1756, and committed an error of judgment. A rather remarkable method of enforcing discipline, to shoot an admiral for an error of judgment! Take another case of high-ordered, solemn devotion to discipline: Sir Robert Calder, who had gained an important victory over the French at Finisterre, was court-martialled, condemned and ruined, ostensibly because he did not achieve a greater victory. The decisions of both cases were crimes, not desire for the maintenance of discipline. It was, and ever will be, a stain on the name of justice. I need not carry this further, except to say that according to the solemn logic of some writers, it was murder for Napoleon or some of his ministers to have the Duc d'Enghien shot for having conspired with others for the overthrow of the established French Government, but it is the saintly enforcement of discipline to have a British admiral shot and another ruined for no other reason than an error of judgment on the one hand and an insufficient victory on the other. Sir Robert Calder's heart was broken by cruelty. Villeneuve lost his fleet and killed himself, not that he had anything to fear from the decision of the court-martial--so it is said on the authority of an English writer of note. Certainly he had nothing to fear from the Emperor, who has indicated that he had no intention of dealing severely with him. It was fitting that he should be reprimanded, and no doubt he would have been, after which, as was his custom, the Emperor would have conferred some kindly favour upon him. Serene authors have entangled themselves a good deal over this matter in their efforts to take up the impossible position of making the Emperor and not Villeneuve responsible for the disaster at Trafalgar to the Spanish and French fleet. Of course, Napoleon was badly chagrined, and so would the King of England have been, if it were thinkable that such a calamity could possibly have befallen any British fleet. The head of the French nation would have been less than human had he not felt the full force of the terrific blow to his country, and especially to himself. Disposition of Fleets at TRAFALGAR TRAFALGAR, 21ST OCTOBER, 1805. DETAILED LIST OF SHIPS ENGAGED. (_A_) BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE, WITH THE NAMES OF THE FLAG OFFICERS AND CAPTAINS. VAN, OR WEATHER COLUMN. Ships. Guns. Commanders. Killed. Wounded. _Victory_ 100 Vice-Ad. Visc. Nelson 51 75 Captain T.M. Hardy _Téméraire_ 98 Eliab Harvey 47 76 _Neptune_ 98 T.F. Freemantle 10 34 _Conqueror_ 74 Israel Pellew 3 9 _Leviathan_ 74 H.W. Bayntun 4 22 _Ajax_ 74 Lieut. J. Pilfold -- 9 _Orion_ 74 Edward Codrington 1 23 _Agamemnon_ 64 Sir Edward Berry 2 7 _Minotaur_ 74 C.J.M. Mansfield 3 22 _Spartiate_ 74 Sir F. Laforey, Bart. 3 20 _Britannia_ 100 Rear-Ad. Earl Northesk 10 42 Captain Charles Bullen _Africa_ 64 Henry Digby 18 44 --- --- 154 383 --- --- FRIGATES. Ships. Guns. Commanders. _Euryalus_ 36 Hon. H. Blackwood _Sirius_ 36 William Prowse _Phoebe_ 36 Hon. T.B. Capel _Naiad_ 38 T. Dundas _Pickle_ 12 Lieut. J.R. Lapenotiere _Intreprenante_ 12 Lieut. R.B. Young (cutter) REAR, OR LEE COLUMN. Ships. Guns. Commanders. Killed. Wounded _Royal Sovereign_ 100 Vice-Ad. Collingwood 47 94 Captain E. Rotherham _Mars_ 74 George Duff 29 69 _Belleisle_ 74 William Hargood 33 93 _Tonnant_ 80 Charles Tyler 26 50 _Bellerophon_ 74 John Cooke 27 133 _Colossus_ 74 J.N. Morris 40 160 _Achille_ 74 Richard King 13 59 _Polyphemus_ 64 Robert Redmill 2 4 _Revenge_ 74 R. Moorsom 28 51 _Swiftsure_ 74 W.G. Rutherford 9 7 _Defence_ 74 George Hope 7 29 _Thunderer_ 74 Lieut. J. Stockham 4 16 _Prince_ 98 Richard Grindall -- -- _Defiance_ 74 P.C. Durham 17 53 _Dreadnought_ 98 John Conn 7 26 --- --- 263 794 --- --- NOTE.--Lieutenants Pilfold and Stockham were acting for Captains W. Brown and Lechmere, absent on Sir R. Calder's trial; the Lieutenants, W.P. Camby, of the _Bellerophon_, and W. Hannah, of the _Mars_, having their Captains killed, the whole of these officers, with Lieutenant Quillam, first of the _Victory_, were made Post immediately. (_B_) A LIST OF THE COMBINED FLEET OF FRANCE AND SPAIN, SHOWING HOW THEY WERE DISPOSED OF. 1. Spanish ship, _San Ildefonso_, 74 guns, Brigadier Don Joseph de Varga, sent to Gibraltar. 2. Spanish ship, _San Juan Nepomuceno_, 74 guns, Brigadier Don Cosme Cherruca, sent to Gibraltar. 3. Spanish ship, _Bahama_, 74 guns. Brigadier Don A.D. Galiano, sent to Gibraltar. 4. French ship, _Swiftsure_, 74 guns, Monsieur Villemadrin, sent to Gibraltar. 5. Spanish ship, _Monarca_, 74 guns, Don Teodoro Argumosa, wrecked off San Lucar. 6. French ship, _Fougeux_, 74 guns, Monsieur Beaudouin, wrecked off Trafalgar, all perished, and 30 of the _Téméraire's_ men. 7. French ship, _Indomitable_, 84 guns, Monsieur Hubart, wrecked off Rota, all perished, said to have had 1,500 men on board. 8. French ship, _Bucentaure_, 80 guns, Admiral Villeneuve, Commander-in-Chief, Captains Prigny and Magendie, wrecked on the Porques, some of the crew saved. 9. Spanish ship, _San Francisco de Asis_, 74 guns, Don Luis de Flores, wrecked near Rota. 10. Spanish ship, _El Rayo_, 100 guns, Brigadier Don Henrique Macdonel, taken by _Donegal_, and wrecked near San Lucar. 11. Spanish ship, _Neptuno_, 84 guns, Brigadier Don Cayetano Valdes, wrecked between Rota and Catalina. 12. French ship, _Argonaute_, 74 guns, Monsieur Epron, on shore in the port of Cadiz. (By subsequent account not lost.) 13. French ship, _Berwick_, 74 guns, Monsieur Camas, wrecked to the northward of San Lucar. 14. French ship, _Aigle_, 74 guns, Monsieur Courage, wrecked near Rota. 15. French ship, _Achille_, 74 guns, Monsieur de Nieuport, burnt during the action. 16. French ship, _Intrepide_, 74 guns, Monsieur Infernet, burnt by the _Britannia_. 17. Spanish ship, _San Augustin_, 74 guns, Brigadier Don Felipe X. Cagigal, burnt by the _Leviathan_. 18. Spanish ship, _Santissima Trinidad_, 140 guns, Rear-Admiral Don Baltazar H. Cisneros, Brigadier Don F. Uriate, sunk by the _Prince_ and _Neptune_. 19. French ship, _Redoubtable_, 74 guns, Monsieur Lucas, sunk astern of the _Swiftsure_; _Téméraire_ lost 13, and _Swiftsure_ 5 men, in her. 20. Spanish ship, _Argonauta_, 80 guns, Don Antonio Parejo, sunk by the _Ajax_. 21. Spanish ship, _Santa Anna_, 112 guns, Vice-Admiral Don Ignacio D'Alava, Captain Don Joseph de Guardequi, taken, but got into Cadiz in the gale, dismasted. 22. French ship, _Algeziras_, 74 guns, Rear-Admiral Magon (killed), Captain Monsieur Bruaro, taken, but got into Cadiz in the gale, dismasted. 23. French ship, _Pluton_, 74 guns. Monsieur Cosmao, returned to Cadiz in a sinking state. 24. Spanish ship, _San Juste_, 74 guns, Don Miguel Caston, returned to Cadiz, has a foremast only. 25. Spanish ship, _San Leandro_, 64 guns, Don Joseph de Quevedo, returned to Cadiz, dismasted. 26. French ship, _Le Neptune_, 84 guns, Monsieur Maistral, returned to Cadiz, perfect. 27. French ship, _Le Heros_, 74 guns, Monsieur Poulain, returned to Cadiz, lower masts standing, hoisted Admiral Rossily's flag. 28. Spanish ship, _Principe de Asturias_, 112 guns, Admiral Gravina, Captain Don Antonio Escano, returned to Cadiz, dismasted. 29. Spanish ship, _Montanez_, Don Francisco Alcedo, returned to Cadiz. 30. French ship. _Formidable_, 80 guns, Rear-Admiral Dumanoir, escaped to the southward, with the three following. 31. French ship, _Montblanc_, 74 guns, Monsieur Villegries. 32. French ship, _Scipion_, 74 guns. Monsieur Berouger. 33. French ship, _Du Guay Trouin_, 74 guns. Monsieur Toufflet. ABSTRACT At Gibraltar 4 Destroyed 15 In Cadiz 10 Escaped 4 -- 33 -- FOOTNOTES: [1] BATTLE OF ABOUKIR. At the battle of Aboukir Bay the British losses were reported to be 896 killed and wounded. Only one captain fell. 5,225 of the French perished, and 3,105, including wounded, were sent on shore. When the battle was over, Nelson gave instructions that thanksgiving aboard every ship should be offered to Almighty God for giving His Majesty's forces the victory. It is the author's opinion that but for a good deal of slashing genius and not a little of the devil on the part of Nelson and his men the French would not have fared so badly. [2] Portraits painted by poor Romney for £40, or less, sell for many thousands at Christie's in these days. [3] Italics are the author's. [4] Italics are the author's. [5] Some authorities speak of Sir William Hamilton as being an amiable, accomplished man, who left on record a letter which reads as follows:--"My study of antiquities has kept me in constant thought of the perpetual fluctuation of everything. The whole art is really to live all the _days_ of our life. Admire the Creator and all His works, to us incomprehensible, and do all the good you can on earth; and take the chance of eternity without dismay." [6] Sir Harris Nicolas is inclined to believe in the purity of Nelson's attachment and Southey says there is no reason to believe that it was more than platonic. But these views are certainly not borne out by those who knew Nelson and his connection with the Hamiltons intimately. [7] The name by which Nelson speaks of her occasionally in his correspondence with Lady Hamilton. His daughter bore this name before his death, but he desired that afterwards she should drop the name of Thompson. [8] "Correspondence and Diaries of John Wilson Croker," vol. ii. p. 233. [9] O'Meara, vol. i. p. 308. [10] O'Meara, "Voice from St. Helena," vol. ii. p. 229. "Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena," Gourgand, p. 118. [11] The body was first seen floating by a Neapolitan fisherman, who reported the matter, but his story was ridiculed. Finally, in order to verify the statement, the principal actors in the shameful tragedy went for a sail in Naples Bay and soon met the body borne along by the swift current as though to meet them. The incident created a profound impression at the time. [12] This girl of twenty-two, who is known to fame and immortality, purchased a dagger, and called on Marat, who was the most infamous arch-butcher of the Reign of Terror. He was in his bath at the time, but this did not prevent her from making her way to him. He wrote down the names of the conspirators she told him of having seen in Normandy, and he told her he would swiftly have them guillotined. The assurance had scarcely left his lips when in an instant she thrust the instrument of death through his heart. She repudiated the stigma of being thought a murderess, and believed that her act would be the means of saving thousands of lives. She was dragged through the streets, taken to the executioner, and asked for the loan of his shears and cut off a lock of her hair. When asked if she found the journey long, she replied with perfect composure, "Oh no, I am not afraid of being too late." Subsequently one of the Girondin deputies said of her, "She has killed us, but she has taught all how to die." [13] TROUBRIDGE'S BLUFF LETTER TO LORD NELSON. "Pardon me, my Lord, it is my sincere esteem for you that makes me mention it. I know you have no pleasure in sitting up all night at cards; why then sacrifice your health, comfort, purse, ease, everything, to the customs of a country where your stay cannot be long? I would not, my Lord, reside in this country for all Sicily. I trust the war will soon be over, and deliver us from a nest of everything that is infamous, and that we may enjoy the smiles of our countrywomen. "Your Lordship is a stranger to half that happens, or the talk it occasions; if you knew what your friends feel for you, I am sure you would cut all the nocturnal parties. Gambling of the people at Palermo is publicly talked of everywhere. I beseech your Lordship leave off. I wish my pen could tell you my feelings, I am sure you would oblige me. "I trust your Lordship will pardon me; it is the sincere esteem I have for you that makes me risk your displeasure." No reply, so far as is known, was ever sent to this outspoken letter. [14] Castlereagh and Canning fought a duel. Canning was wounded by a bullet in the leg, and it prevented Castlereagh from being an unpopular figure. Indeed, he became for a time, in limited circles, popular. Percival was assassinated. Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister for fifteen years, and departed this life insane. Canning was brilliant, witty, and eloquent, and his outlook was large. It was said that he was spoiled by Pitt, and was consumed by vanity, and was broken by Tory calumniation. Political, commercial, or social intrigue success is always followed by the most deadly reaction on those who practise or encourage it, and I trust that a merciful Providence will shield from the tragedies and maladies that came to some members of this former coalition those of the present, which apparently excels every other in its colossal efforts at doing harm. The best brains are needed now, not romancers. [15] Subsequent information has proved this statement wanted confirmation. [16] Captain John Clavell, then first lieutenant of the _Royal Sovereign._ [17] The lamented Sir Peter Parker, Bart., who fell in the _Chesapeake_ in 1814, when captain of the _Menelaus_, leading his men against the Americans. [18] "Napoleon in Exile," vol. i. p. 56. NAPOLEON AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE WORLD-WAR (1914-1918) NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL FROM THE FRENCH Farewell to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory Arose and o'ershadowed the earth with her name-- She abandons me now--but the page of her story, The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame. I have warred with a world which vanquished me only When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely, The last single Captive to millions in war. Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me, I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee, Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth. Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted In strife with the storm, when their battles were won-- Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted, Had still soar'd with eyes fixed on victory's sun! Farewell to thee, France!--but when Liberty rallies Once more in thy regions, remember me then,-- The violet still grows in the depths of thy valleys; Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again-- Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us, And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-- There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us, Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice! I Napoleon, when at the height of his fame, was looked upon by the European Powers as a man whose lust of conquest was a terrible menace to all constituted authority. The oligarchies thought themselves bound to combine against him in order to reseat the Bourbons on the throne of France and restore law and order to that distracted country. What a travesty of the actual facts! The people of France had risen against the tyranny and oppression of the French kings and nobles, and out of the welter of the Revolution Napoleon rose to power and, by his magnetic personality, welded the chaotic elements into unity, framed laws which are still in operation, and led his country to wonderful heights of glory. Well may the crowned heads of Europe have feared this man, whose genius put all their mediocre and unenlightened achievements in the shade. Had they been blessed with the same vision as he, they would not have opposed but co-operated with him, by introducing into their own constitutions saner laws such as some of those in the Code Napoleon. But instead of this, they began a campaign of Press vilification, and Napoleon's every act was held up as the deed of a monster of iniquity. Plots, open and secret, to dethrone him were continually in progress, only to be frustrated by the genius of the man of the people. As an instance of this, and of the one-sided view taken by all ranks and classes of Napoleon's opponents, let us contrast two cases which are in some respects parallel. The many plots to assassinate the First Consul--especially the one that very nearly succeeded when he was on his way to the opera--and the knowledge that an organized band of conspirators were in red-hot activity and, headed by the Duc d'Enghien, Cadoudal, Moreau, and Pichegru, were determined to kill the head of the State, overthrow the Government, and re-establish the Bourbon dynasty, caused the Duc to be arrested, tried by his fellow-countrymen, and found guilty of the charges brought against him, and, by the blundering of Savary, afterwards Duke of Rovigo, and the persistence of Murat, the death penalty was carried out and he was shot. Had he been permitted to live another twenty-four hours, Napoleon would unquestionably have pardoned him, though he never doubted the justice of the sentence. Much political capital has been made in this country against Napoleon for even sanctioning his arrest and in not preventing the capital sentence of the court from being carried out.[19] Unquestionably Napoleon regretted the execution, and would have granted a free pardon had some one not blundered or been too zealous in what they conceived to be his and the country's best interests. Almost every writer on this subject is strong in his condemnation of the execution and of Napoleon for not taking surer steps to prevent it. But in judging him in regard to this matter, it is only fair to take into account that he was the ruler of a great empire. Whether he became so by force or not, does not matter; he saved the Revolution, and had already brought some form of order out of bloody chaos. He had already become the popular head of the French nation, and it devolved upon him to take the most minute precautions against the disturbing effects of the secret and avowed conspirators who directed their operations against his life and the overthrow of his government from London. The precautions taken were drastic, skilfully organized, and far-reaching, and his agents kept him advised of the danger that continually beset him. Even though he had no thought of reprieving the Duc, and deliberately allowed him to be shot, the act of self-preservation, extreme though it may appear, can hardly be termed, under the circumstances, unwarranted. It was a period of wild, uncontrollable passion, and the survivors of the old aristocracy hated the man of genius who had risen to power from the ranks of the people to take the place of the Bourbons. This was the canker that stimulated their enmity. Had the Duc d'Enghien kept himself aloof from conspirators, and been willing to recognize the facts he would never have been molested. He took the risk of co-operating with desperate men, and paid the penalty by being shot on the 24th March, 1804, at 6.0 a.m., at Vincennes. Had the ruler of any state in Europe carried out a death-sentence for the same reason and under the same circumstances, it would have been regarded as well-merited punishment, and the Press would have preached the gospel of warning to evil doers. But with Napoleon it was different. He was an interloper who had nothing in common with the galaxy of monarchs who ruled Europe at that time. Subsequently they licked his boots, not for love, but through fear. The shooting of the Duc was a fine opportunity for his enemies. They sedulously nursed the Press, published books and pamphlets in every language, and employed the most poisoned pen that could be bought to portray the future ruler of kings in terms of obloquy. The performance of the scribes who direct the pen, which is said to be mightier than the sword, is enough to kill any one with a real sense of humour. Some of the literary productions which were to send the greatest of living men off the face of the earth are quite grotesque in their feminine, shrill advocacy of force towards the "eater of pigs"; the "Anti-Christ"; and the murderer of a kindly-disposed gentleman who was on an innocent visit to the frontier of France for the purpose of negotiating a few private matters that had no political significance; what if he were one of the leaders of a band of fine, desperate fellows who had combined, and sworn to rid France of the Usurper, even at the risk of death! This being their aim and heroic determination, they had no ground of complaint if the iron hand which ruled the country took measures to prevent them from carrying out their beneficent intentions. Of course, I give the sense and not the actual words of the gallant writers of that time who, with a glare in their lion eye (judging from the style of their vapourings), thought that Napoleon could never survive so vigorous a stream of invective! What loose fabrications have been scattered over the earth about this regrettable incident, and what abominable cant has been sent forth extolling the virtues of men like the unfortunate Duc, who put the law at defiance by secretly carrying out a purpose that he knew was pregnant with danger to himself! Let us contrast, if we can, the Duc d'Enghien's reckless gamble, the consequences of which have been used so consistently to blacken the fame of the Emperor Napoleon, with Nelson's connection with the hanging of the rebel prince Carraciolli; of the latter little has been said, though the shooting of the Duc seems to have been more justifiable than the hanging of the prince, who was an old man. Both were tried and condemned to death by men who, it is said, were prejudiced against them. Nelson could have saved the aged Admiral had his heart been free from revenge and his mind free from the influence of Emma Hamilton. The guilt of the Admiral's death must eternally lie at his door. The outrage can never be effaced, and must for all time be associated with the mean executioners who, to begin with, had naught but vengeance in their minds. Nelson was an Englishman entrusted with England's high sense of honour and love of compassion, and in its name he stained its reputation for fair dealing. On entering the Bay of Naples, a flag of truce was flying at the mast-head of the _Seahorse_ and at the castles of Nuovo and Uovo. The treaty had been ratified by Captain Foote, a high-minded officer.[20] Nelson did not approve of the truce, nor did Lady Hamilton, who was aboard the _Foudroyant_. One can almost see this brazen figure standing on the quarterdeck of this British ship of war calling out to Nelson, "Haul down the flag of truce, Bronte. There must be no truce with rebels." It almost takes one's breath away to think that a man in Nelson's position should have allowed private feelings to enter into and influence his professional duty. Every now and again we get glimpses of this blatant paramour of his being allowed to assert herself in matters which involved the honour of Great Britain. We are anxious to believe that Nelson put some limit to this lady's interference in matters of high naval policy, but he seems to have been such a fool with women that almost anything ridiculous can be believed of him where they were concerned. Both of them figure badly in the Uovo and Nuovo and Carraciolli affair. The garrison there was so vigorously bombarded that it was driven to capitulate, but only on condition that the safety of the garrison would be guaranteed. Captain Foote at once agreed to this, and to see that it was duly carried out. One of the reasons that led Captain Foote so readily to agree to the conditions submitted to him was the extreme strength of the forts, which could have pounded the city to pieces. The other was the desire to spare human life. What need was there for Nelson to take umbrage at and violate the treaty made by Foote in the British name? Foote had made a good bargain by getting possession of the forts, and a better and nobler one in making it part of his policy to save human life. We wonder whether Nelson's anger did not arise from his being deprived of some of the glory himself. He was desperately fond of it! In any case, he let down England's name badly over the whole transaction. Fox made a speech on it in the House of Commons which was, and will ever continue to be, an awful indictment. There is nothing in the French Revolution, or in the whole of Napoleon's career, that can be compared with it for ferocity. Great efforts were made to fix the responsibility for breach of faith on Captain Foote, but they failed, since there was not a vestige of foundation on which a case could be made against him, as the documents conclusively proved. He demanded a court-martial, but his friends prevailed upon him to let his case rest on the conclusive facts which were produced and made public and which have never been questioned. There cannot be found a more astonishing revelation of perfidy or inhuman violence in the archives of Europe than that related by Mr. Fox. Here is an extract from his amazing speech:-- When the right honourable gentleman speaks of the last campaign, he does not mention the horrors by which some of these successes were accompanied; Naples, for instance, has been, among others (what is called) delivered; and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and cruelties so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital. It has been said, that not only were the miserable victims of the rage and brutality of the fanatics savagely murdered, but that in many instances their _flesh_ was _devoured_ by the cannibals, who are the advocates, if the rumours which are circulated be true. I will mention a fact to give Ministers the opportunity, if it be false, to wipe away the stain that must otherwise affix on the British name. It is said that a party of the Republican inhabitants at Naples took shelter in the fortress of Castle del Uovo. They were besieged by a detachment from the royal army, to whom they refused to surrender, but demanded that a British officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated. They made terms with him under the sanction of the British name. _It was agreed that their persons and property should be safe, and that they should be conveyed to Toulon._ They were accordingly put on board a vessel, but before they sailed, their property was confiscated, numbers of them taken out, _thrown into dungeons_, and some of them, I understand, notwithstanding the British guarantee, _absolutely executed_.[21] This appalling narrative, which was never refuted, is really too horrible to ponder over. It puts in the shade any responsibility Napoleon had for the death of the Duc d'Enghien. It is needless to enlarge on the silly and altogether baseless attacks that were not only allowed to be made, but, we have good grounds for stating, were manufactured by members of the Government and their agents, and circulated for the purpose of distracting the public mind from their own iniquities, and inflaming bitter passions and prejudices by accusing Napoleon of deeds of blood for which he was in no greater degree responsible than were they. The nations were all out for blood at that period (just as they are now), and each claimed a monopoly of all the virtues. "Down, down, with the French is my constant prayer," shouts our greatest hero, and by way of addendum, he announces in Christ-like accents that he hates a Frenchman as he hates the devil. "Down, down, with the British is our constant prayer" shout back the French, who are at present our Allies against another nation who were our Allies against them at that time, showing that Fraternity is decidedly a possible consummation, though it fluctuates from one to another with amazing eccentricity. In the name of this fraternal spirit, we see the great Napoleon surrounded by a hotbed of assassins demanding his life in the name of the Founder of our faith. He was the ruler, as I have said, of a vast Empire, sworn to protect its laws, its dignity, and its citizen rights by defending himself and his country against either treachery, plotters against his life, or open enemies, no matter from what quarter they came. The Duc d'Enghien violated the law, and was therefore as liable to suffer the consequences as any peasant or middle-class person would have been. But this did not meet with the approval of the international oligarchy, so they set up a screaming factory and blared this murderous deed into the minds of all the Western world. These fervent professors of the Christian faith were in no way particular as to the form or authenticity of their declamatory ebullitions. But what of Nelson? He was a subject of his King, employed by the King's Government under certain plenary powers to fight the country's battles, defend its right, uphold its dignity, guard its honour, and commit no violence. That is, in plain English, he was to play the game. But he assumed an authority that no Government of England would have dared to have given him by revoking the word of honour of a distinguished officer who had pledged England's word that the lives of the beleaguered men would be spared. I think the writer of the gospel of "Let brotherly love continue," and the rhetoricians who claim that Britons have no competitors in the science of moral rectitude, will have a hard task to square the unworthy declamations against Napoleon's responsibility in the Duc d'Enghien affair with their silence on Nelson's in breaking the truce already referred to, and the awful consequences set forth in Mr. Fox's speech, which is reminiscent of the powerful disciplinary methods of that manly martinet Ivan the Terrible, who was responsible for the massacre of men by the thousand, flaying of prisoners alive, collecting pyramids of skulls, slaughtering of innocent men, and the free use of other ingenious forms of refined scientific torture which tires the spirit to relate. It is hard to forgive Nelson for having smirched his own and England's name with atrocities so terrible. But more humiliating still to British honour is the fact that his part in the breaking of the treaty was dictated to him from the quarter deck of the _Foudroyant_ by a woman whom my vocabulary is unable to describe in fitting terms. I shall emphasize this masculine female's orders to Nelson by quoting them again. Were it not for the comic impertinence of the order, I think it would almost make me feel the bitterness of death. Nelson seems to have been the victim of her dominating spirit, though the evidence in support of him swallowing the whole dose of medicine is quite feeble. That he swallowed too much of it will always detract from his fame. "Haul down the flag of truce, Bronte. No truce with rebels." Nelson lost a great opportunity of adding romance to his naval glory by neglecting his imperative duty in not putting Sir William Hamilton's wife in irons or having her thrown into the sea. A story of this kind would have sounded better, and its effect would have electrified the world in subsequent days, and have given scope to the talents of actors and authors who are eager for dramatic copy. I think Cardinal Ruffo would have been a supporter of imposing some form of disciplinary restraint on Emma Hamilton. He did strongly insist on the treaty being honourably adhered to, but his view was overruled, and he retired in consequence in bitter indignation. So much for the vaunted fairness and impartiality of our treatment of Napoleon! It is only when we come to study the life of this man that we realize how he towered above all his contemporaries in thought, word, and deed. Napoleon's authentic doings and sayings are wonderful in their vast comprehensiveness and sparkling vision, combined with flawless wisdom. When we speak or think of him, it is generally of his military genius and achievements and of what we term his "gigantic ambition"; and in this latter conclusion the platitudinarians, with an air of originality, languidly affirm that this was the cause of his ruin, the grandeur of which we do not understand. But never a word is said or thought of our own terrible tragedies, nor of the victories we were compelled to buy in order to secure his downfall. His great gifts as a lawgiver and statesman are little known or spoken of. Nelson's views of him were of a rigid, stereotyped character. He only varied in his wild manner of describing him as a loathsome despot, whose sole aim was to make war everywhere and to invade England and annihilate her people. II In the light of what is happening now in the world-war 1914-1917, and the world-wide views expressed about the German Kaiser, it may be interesting to write Pitt's opinion of Napoleon, though they are scarcely to be mentioned in the same breath. The former, who is the creator of the world-tragedy, is a mere shadow in comparison to the great genius of whom Müller, the Swiss historian, says: "Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me." But I give another authority, Wieland, the German author, who was disillusioned when he had the honour of a conversation with Napoleon on the field of Jena. Amongst the many topics they spoke of was the restoration of public worship in France by Napoleon. In his reply to the German writer as to why religion was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of the times, Napoleon replied, "My dear Wieland, religion is not meant for philosophers! They have no faith either in me or my priests. As to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or leave them too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a religion for philosophers, it would be just the reverse of that of the credulous part of mankind." Wieland's testimony of Napoleon is quite as appreciative as that of Müller, and coming from him to the great conqueror of his native land makes it an invaluable piece of impartial history which reverses the loose and vindictive libels that were insidiously circulated by a gang of paid scoundrels in order to prejudice public opinion against him. Wieland, among other eulogies of him, says: "I have never beheld any one more calm, more simple, more mild or less ostentatious in appearance; nothing about him indicated the feeling of power in a great monarch." He conversed with him for an hour and a half, "to the great surprise of the whole assembly." Here we have a brief but very high testimony from two men of literary distinction, who had formed their impressions by personal contact. The present writer's belief is that had members of the British Government been guided by reason and sound judgment instead of blind, wicked prejudice; had they accepted overtures made to them from time to time by the head of the French nation during his rule, we should not have been engaged during the last five years in a world-war watering the earth with the blood of our race with reckless extravagance. The great soldier-statesman foretold what would happen. What irony that we should be in deadly conflict with the Power which, as an ally, helped to destroy him and is now engaged in frantic efforts to destroy us! Had Pitt and those who acted with him been endowed with human wisdom, he would not have written the following lines, but would have held out the olive-branch of peace and goodwill to men on earth:-- I see (says Pitt in a scrap of MS. found amongst his papers) various and opposite qualities--all the great and all the little passions unfavourable to public tranquillity united in the breast of one man, and of that man, unhappily, whose personal caprice can scarce fluctuate for an hour without affecting the destiny of Europe. I see the inward workings of fear struggling with pride in an ardent, enterprising, and tumultuous mind. I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, and obeyed, the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success, the arrogance, the presumption, the selfwill of unlimited and idolized power, and more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority, the restless and incessant activity of guilt, but unsated ambition. This scrap of mere phrases indicates a mind that was far beneath the calibre of that of a real statesman. It was a terrible fate for Great Britain to have at the head of the Government a man whose public life was a perpetual danger to the state. Had Pitt been the genius his eloquence led his contemporaries to believe he was, he would have availed himself of the opportunities the Great Figure, who was making the world rock with his genius, afforded the British Government from time to time of making peace on equitable terms. But Pitt's vision of the large things that constituted human existence was feeble and narrowed down to the nightmare of the "tumultuous mind" whose sole aim was the conquest of the Continent of Europe and the invasion of these Islands. The "usurper" must be subdued by the force of arms, the squandering of British wealth, and the sanguinary sacrifice of human lives. That was the only diplomacy his mental organism could evolve. He used his power of expression, which was great, to such good purpose that his theories reflected on his supporters. Had Pitt been talented in matters of international diplomacy, as he was in the other affairs of Government, he would have seized the opportunity of making the Peace of Amiens universal and durable. It is futile to contend that Napoleon was irreconcilable. His great ambition was to form a concrete friendship with our Government, which he foresaw could be fashioned into a continental arrangement, intricate and entangled as all the elements were at the time. Napoleon never ceased to deplore the impossibility of coming to any reciprocal terms with England so long as Pitt's influence was in the ascendant, and he and a large public in France and in this country profoundly believed that Fox had not only the desire but the following, and all the diplomatic qualities to bring it about. Any close, impartial student of history, free from the popular prejudices which assailed Napoleon's origin and advent to power, cannot but concede the great possibilities of this view. It was only statesmen like Fox who had unconfused perception, and inveighed against the stupidity of ministers acclaimed by an ignorant public as demigods. Napoleon's starting-points were to "Surmount great obstacles and attain great ends. There must be prudence, wisdom, and dexterity." "We should," he said, "do everything by reason and calculation, estimating the trouble, the sacrifice, and the pleasure entailed in gaining a certain end, in the same way as we work out any sum in arithmetic by addition and subtraction. But reason and logic should be the guiding principle in all we do. That which is bad in politics, even though in strict accordance with law, is inexcusable unless absolutely necessary, and whatever goes beyond that is criminal." These were briefly the general principles on which he shaped his ends, and they are pretty safe guides. His mentality, as I have said, was so complete that it covered every subtle and charming form of thought and knowledge, even to the smallest affairs of life. No theologians knew more than he or could converse so clearly on the many different religions; and he was as well versed in the intricacies of finance and civil law as he was in the knowledge of art, literature, and statecraft. His memory was prodigious, and a common saying of his was that "A head without a memory was like a fort without a garrison." He never used a word that was not full of meaning. The unparalleled amount of literature that surrounds his name teems with concise, vivid sentences on every conceivable subject, and the more they are read and studied, the more wonderful appears their wisdom. On the eve of a great battle, his exhortations to his soldiers were like magic, burning hot into their souls, making them irresistible. The popular idea in the country in his time, when passion ran rampant, and indeed, in a hazy way, affects some people's minds now, was that he and his family were mere perfidious Corsicans without mental endowments or character, and unworthy of the stations in life in which his genius had placed them. His sisters have been caricatured as having the manners of the kitchen, and loose morals, and his brothers as mediocrities. A great deal of the same stuff is now written about other people who have occupied and do occupy high stations in life. Here is Napoleon's own version of each of his brothers and sisters and of his mother. It was given in course of conversation to Las Cases at St. Helena. "The Emperor," he says, "speaks of his people; of the slight assistance he has received at their hands, and of the trouble they had been to him; he goes on to say that for the rest, we should always, as a last resort, endeavour to form a judgment by analogy. What family, in similar circumstances, would have done better? And, after all, does not mine furnish, on the whole, a record which does me honour? Joseph would be an ornament to society wherever he might happen to reside; Lucien, an ornament to any political assembly; Jerome, had he come to years of discretion, would have made an excellent ruler; I had great hopes of him. Louis would have been popular, and a remarkable man anywhere. My sister Elisa had a man's intellect, a brave heart, and she would have met adversity philosophically. Caroline is a very clever and capable woman. Pauline, perhaps the most beautiful woman of her day, has been, and will be until the end, the most charming creature living. As for my mother, she is worthy of every respect. What family as numerous could make a finer impression?" If unprejudiced history counts for anything, this testimony is true, and it is doubtful whether any of the ruling families of France who preceded them, or even those of other countries, who took part in bringing about their downfall (taking them as a whole), could tabulate a better record of worthiness. Certainly no previous ruler of France ever made the efforts that the head of the Bonaparte family did to fashion his brothers and sisters into filling the positions he had made for them in a way that became princes and princesses. The fact is, the political mind was whirling and permeated with the idea of his ambition only, and the human aversion to the introduction of new and improved conditions of life. The ruling classes were seized with alarm lest the spirit of the French Revolution would become popular in this country, and that not only their possessions might be confiscated, but that their lives would be in peril if the doctrines he stood for were to take hold of the public imagination. They were afraid, as they are now, of the despotism of democracy, and so they kept the conflict raging for over twenty years. Then came the fall of the greatest genius and most generous warrior-statesman who has ever figured in the world's history; he had staggered creation with his formidable power, and the instruments of his downfall flattered themselves that the day of Divine vengeance had arrived. III Only a few short months had elapsed when the indomitable hero, well informed of the Allies' squabbling deliberations, at the seat of Conference over the division of their conquest, and their vindictive intentions towards himself, startled them by the news of his landing and uninterrupted march on Paris, and was everywhere acclaimed by the cheers of the Army and the civilian population. Louis XVIII, whom the conquerors had set on the throne, flew in panic when he heard that the man of destiny was swiftly nearing his palace to take his place again as the idol and chief of a great people. Meanwhile, the Allies had somewhat recovered from their apoplectic dismay, and one and all solemnly resolved to "make war against Napoleon Bonaparte," the disturber of the peace, though he was the welcomed Emperor of the French. It was they who were the disturbers of the peace, and especially Great Britain, who headed the Coalition which was to drench again the Continent with human blood. Napoleon offered to negotiate, and never was there a more humane opportunity given to the nations to settle their affairs in a way that would have assured a lasting peace, but here again the ruling classes, with their usual impudent assumption of power to use the populations for the purpose of killing each other and creating unspeakable suffering in all the hideous phases of warfare, refused to negotiate, and at their bidding soldiers were plunged into the last Napoleonic conflict though many other conflicts have followed in consequence. Nothing so deadly has ever happened. The French were defeated and their Emperor sent to St. Helena with the beneficent Sir Hudson Lowe as his jailer. What a cynical mockery of a man this creature of Wellington, Castlereagh, and Lord Bathurst was! He carried out their behests, and after the ugly deed of vindictiveness, rage and frenzy had wrought the tragic end, they shielded their wicked act by throwing the guilt on him, and he was hustled off to a distant colony to govern again lest his uneasy spirit should put them in the dock of public opinion. He pleaded with them to employ the law officers of the Crown to bring an action against Doctor Barry O'Meara, whose "Voice from St. Helena" teemed with as dark a story as was ever put in print, in which he and his coadjutors figured as the base contracting parties. And the more he urged that the book was a libel against himself, the more O'Meara demanded that the action against him should be brought, and for very substantial reasons it never was. The Duke of Wellington said of Sir Hudson, "He was a stupid man. A bad choice and totally unfit to take charge of Bonaparte." And the great French Chieftain has left on record his contemptuous opinion of the Duke, as I have already said. "Un homme de peu d'esprit sans générosité, et sans grandeur d'âme." (He was a poor-spirited man without generosity, and without greatness of soul.) "Un homme borné." (A man of limited capacity.) His opinion of Nelson was different, although our Admiral had hammered the French sea power out of existence and helped largely to shatter any hope Napoleon may have had of bringing the struggle on land to a successful conclusion. But these tragic happenings did not bring repose to the nations. Pitt died in 1806, so he missed seeing the fulfilment of his great though mistaken ambition. Who can doubt, as I have said, that the lack of diplomatic genius in preventing the spreading of the Napoleonic wars has been the means of creating other wars, and especially the greatest of all, in which the whole world is now engaged! That Napoleon himself was averse to a conflict which would involve all Europe and bring desolation in its train is shown by the following letter, written by his own hand, to George III. How different might the world have been to-day had the letter been received in the same spirit in which it was conceived. SIR AND BROTHER,--Called to the throne of France by Providence, and the suffrages of the Senate, the people, and the Army, my first sentiment is a wish for peace. France and England abuse their prosperity. They may contend for ages, but do their Governments well fulfil the most sacred of their duties, and will not so much bloodshed uselessly, and without a view to any end, condemn them in their own consciences? I consider it no disgrace to adopt the first step. I have, I hope, sufficiently proved to the world that I fear none of the chances of war, which presents nothing I have need to fear; peace is the wish of my heart, but war has never been inconsistent with my glory. I conjure your Majesty not to deny yourself the happiness of giving peace to the world, or leave that sweet satisfaction to your children; for certainly there never was a more fortunate opportunity nor a moment more favourable than the present, to silence all the passions and listen only to the sentiments of humanity and reason. This moment once lost, what bounds can be ascribed to a war which all my efforts will not be able to terminate. Your Majesty has gained more in ten years, both in territory and riches, than the whole extent of Europe. Your nation is at the highest point of prosperity, what can it hope from war? To form a coalition with some Powers on the Continent? The Continent will remain tranquil; a coalition can only increase the preponderance and continental greatness of France. To renew intestine troubles? The times are no longer the same. To destroy our finances? Finances founded on a flourishing agriculture can never be destroyed. To wrest from France her colonies? The colonies are to France only a secondary object; and does not your Majesty already possess more than you know how to preserve? If your Majesty would but reflect, you must perceive that the war is without an object; or any presumable result to yourself. Alas! What a melancholy prospect; to fight merely for the sake of fighting. The world is sufficiently wide for our two nations to live in, and reason sufficiently powerful to discover the means of reconciling everything, when a wish for reconciliation exists on both sides. I have, however, fulfilled a sacred duty, and one which is precious to my heart. I trust your Majesty will believe the sincerity of my sentiments, and my wish to give you every proof of the same, etc. (_Signed_) NAPOLEON. This letter indicates the mind and heart of a great statesman. The thinking people, and therefore the most reliable patriots, would receive a similar appeal to-day from the Kaiser in a different spirit than did the King and the Government of George III. We believe that the war with Germany was forced upon us, and that Mr. Asquith's Government, and especially Sir Edward Grey (his Foreign Secretary) used every honourable means to avoid it, but the cause and origin of it sprang out of the defects of managing and settling the wars that raged at the beginning of the last century, and Pitt, aided by those colleagues of his who were swayed by his magnetic influence, are responsible to a large degree in laying the foundation of the present menace to European concord. Napoleon's plan of unification would have kept Prussian militarism in check. He looked, and saw into the future, while Pitt and his supporters had no vision at all. They played the Prussian game by combining to bring about the fall of the monarch who should have been regarded as this country's natural ally, and by undoing the many admirable safeguards which were designed to prevent Prussia from forcing other German States under her dominion. Napoleon predicted that which would happen, and has happened. He always kept in mind the cunning and unscrupulous tricks of Frederick and knew that if _his_ power were destroyed, that would be Prussia's opportunity to renew the methods of the Hohenzollern scoundrel, the hero of Thomas Carlyle, and the intermittent friend of Voltaire, who made unprovoked war on Marie Theresa with that splendid Prussian disregard for treaty obligations, and who then, with amazing insolence, after the seven years' butchery was over, sat down at Sans Souci in the companionship of his numerous dogs to write his memoirs in which he states that "Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about him carried the day, and he decided for war;" he might have added to the majestic Hohenzollern creed, incurable treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy, and cowardice! But the law of retribution comes to nations as well as to individuals, and after the disappearance of Frederick, Prussian ascendancy came to an end and sank to the lowest depths of hopelessness before the terrible power of Napoleon; after his fall, the old majestic arrogance natural to their race began to revive. It took many years for the military caste to carry their objectives to maturity, and had we stood sensibly and loyally by our French neighbours, the tragedy that gapes at us now could never have come to pass. Possibly the Franco-German war would never have occurred had our foreign policy been skilfully handled and our attitude wisely apprehensive of Germany's ultimate unification and her aggressive aims. The generations that are to come will assuredly be made to see the calamities wrought by the administrators of that period, whose faculties consisted in hoarding up prejudices, creating enmities, and making wars that drained the blood and treasure of our land. We do not find a single instance of Pitt or Castlereagh expressing an idea worthy of statesmanship. What did either of these men ever do to uplift the higher phases of humanity by grappling with the problem that had been brought into being by the French Revolution? When we think of responsible ministers having no other vision or plan of coming to an understanding with the French nation except by their screams, groans, and odour of blood, it makes one shudder, and we wish to forget that the people allowed them to carry out their hideous methods of settling disputes. A galaxy of brilliant writers has sung their praises in profusion, but while the present writer admires the literary charm of the penmen's efforts, he does not find their conclusions so agreeable or so easy to understand. There was never a time, in our opinion, even during the most embarrassing and darkest phases of the Napoleonic struggle, in which our differences with France were insoluble. Napoleon, as I have said, never ceased to avow his willingness to make vital sacrifices in order that peace between the two peoples should be consummated. The stereotyped cant of maintaining the "Balance of Power" is no excuse for plunging a nation into gruesome, cruel, and horrible wars. It is when our liberties are threatened that circumstances may arise when it would be a crime not to defend them. But where and when were any of our interests threatened by Napoleon until we became the aggressors by interfering with the policy of what he called his "Continental system"? Even before Napoleon became Consul, First Consul, and subsequently Emperor of the French, it was deemed high policy on the part of our statesmen to take sides against the French Directorate in disputes that were caused and had arisen on the Continent out of the Revolution, and once involved in the entanglement which it is hard to believe concerned us in any degree, the nation was committed to a long and devastating debauch of crime which men who understood the real art of statesmanship would have avoided. Many of the famous statesmen who have lived since their time would have acted differently. Fox, with a free hand, would have saved us, and but for the senseless attitude of the Pitt-Castlereagh party, the Grey, Romilly, Horner, Burdett and Tierny combination would have prevented the last of Napoleon's campaigns between his return from Elba and his defeat at Waterloo, which proved to be the bloodiest of all the Emperor's wars. Amongst a certain section of the community the belief is that they who can steer the State along peaceful lines are mediocrities, and they who involve us in war are geniuses and earn the distinction of fame and Westminster Abbey, though it may be that they are totally void of all the essentials that are required to keep on good terms, not only with other Powers, but with our own masses. Take, first of all, the unostentatious old Scotsman, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was regarded in the light of a mediocrity by the bellicose-minded people. Had he lived and been in power at the time of Pitt and Castlereagh, his finely constituted, shrewd brain and quiet determined personality would have guided the State in a way that would have brought it credit and kept it out of the shambles. Another personality who is possessed of attributes that have been scantily recognized is that of Lord Rosebery who, during his Foreign Secretaryship under Mr. Gladstone, and when he became Premier himself, saved this country more than once from war with Germany, leaving out of account the many other services rendered to his country. It is a tragedy to allow such merits to be wasted because of some slight difference of opinion in matters that do not count compared with the advantage of having at the head of affairs a man with an unerring tactful brain who can deal with international complexities with complete ease and assurance. Although Mr. Gladstone must always be associated with those who were responsible for the guilt of dragging this country, and perhaps France, into the Crimean war in defence of a State and a people whom he declared in other days should be turned out of Europe "bag and baggage" because of her unwholesome Government and hideous crimes to her subject races, _he_ had the courage and the honesty to declare in later life that the part he took in allowing himself to acquiesce in a policy he did not approve, would always be a bitter thought to him. Had he been at the head of the Government then, and had he lived at the time of the continental upheaval that followed the French Revolution, all the evidences of his humane spirit and prodigious capacity lead us to the belief that there were no circumstances affecting our vital national interests that would have led him to take up arms against France. Nor do we think that a statesman of Lord Salisbury's stamp would have failed to find a way out. Disraeli was a different type. He lived in a picturesque world, and thirsted for sensation. The enormity of war was meaningless to him. He was not a constitutional statesman, but merely a politician who liked to arouse emotions. Mr. Asquith, whose head is free from the wafting of feathers, would, with strong and loyal backers, have applied his inimitable powers of persuasion and tact in accomplishing his ends without a rupture; and Lord Morley would as soon have thought of dancing a hornpipe on his mother's tomb as have yielded to the clamour for war by any number of the people or any number of his colleagues, no matter how numerous or how powerful they might be; even though his opinion of the French Emperor were strongly adverse, he would have angled for peace or resigned. I would rather place the guidance of the country through intricate courses in this man's hands than in that of a man mentally constituted as was Pitt. The present Viscount Grey would have taken the line his namesake took in 1815 by strongly advocating a peaceful solution. Take another man of our own time, the Right Hon. Arthur Balfour. He would have parleyed and schemed until the time had passed for any useful object to be gained by our joining in the war, always provided that the Jingo spirit were not too irrepressible for him to overpower and bewilder with his engaging philosophy. If George III had been blessed with these types of statesmen to advise him instead of the Castlereaghs, he might not have lost his reason. Napoleon would never have gone to Egypt, and our shores would never have been threatened with invasion. Nor would British and neutral trade have been paralysed in such a way as to bring in its wake ruin, riots, bankruptcies, and every form of devastation in 1811. And as a natural corollary, we were plunged into a war with America which lasted from 1812 to 1814, and which left, as it well might, long years of bitter and vindictive memories in the minds of a people who were of our race and kindred. Our people as a whole (but especially the poorer classes) were treated in a manner akin to barbarism, while their rulers invoked them to bear like patriots the suffering they had bestowed upon them. But the canker had eaten so deeply into their souls that it culminated in fierce riots breaking out in Lancashire and London which spread to other parts and were only suppressed by measures that are familiar to the arrogant despots who, by their clumsy acts, are the immediate cause of revolt. Pitt and Castlereagh were the High Commissioners of the military spirit which the Whigs detested, and when the former died in 1806 the latter became the natural leader. Pitt was buried peaceably enough in the Abbey, but when his successor's tragic end came in 1822, the populace avenged themselves of the wrongs for which they believed he was responsible by throwing stones at the coffin as it was being solemnly borne to its last resting place beside William Pitt. Both men made war on Napoleon because they believed him to be the implacable disturber of peace and a danger to their country. Pitt, as we have seen, left among his MS. his opinion of the great soldier, and here is the latter's opinion of Pitt, expressed to his ministers on the eve of his leaving Paris for his last campaign against his relentless foes. "I do not know," he said (to his ministers in speaking to them of the new constitution he had granted), "how in my absence you will manage to lead the Chambers. Monsieur Fouché thinks that popular assemblies are to be controlled by gaining over some old jobbers, or flattering some young enthusiasts. That is only intrigue, and intrigue does not carry one far. In England, such means are not altogether neglected; but there are greater and nobler ones. Remember Mr. Pitt, and look at Lord Castlereagh! With a sign from his eyebrows, Mr. Pitt could control the House of Commons, and so can Lord Castlereagh now! Ah! if I had such instruments, I should not be afraid of the Chambers. But have I anything to resemble these?"[22] This piece of pathetic history is given to us by the French historian, M. Thiers, the lifelong enemy of his Imperial master, Napoleon III. We are faced now with the Power that we helped to build up against ourselves at the expense of the wreck of the First French Empire. The political situation then and now bears no comparison. We made war on the French without any real justification, and stained our high sense of justice by driving them to frenzy. We bought soldiers and sailors to fight them from impecunious German and Hanoverian princes. We subsidized Russia, Prussia, Austria, Portugal, Spain, and that foul cesspool, Naples, at the expense of the starvation of the poorest classes in our own country. The bellicose portion of the population, composed mainly of the upper and middle classes, shrieked their deluded terrors of extinction into the minds of the people and believed that if we did not make common cause with the downtrodden sanctified allies who were fighting a man-eating ogre who was overrunning their respective countries, putting every one to the sword, we should become the objects of his fierce attention, be invaded and ground down to slavery for ever and ever. Our statesmen, hypocritically full of the gospel of pity, could not speak of our ally of other days without weeping, while at the same time pouring further subsidies into their greedy traitorous laps, in order that they might secure their co-ordination. It is futile for historian apologists to attempt to vindicate men who obviously were afflicted with moral cupidity, begotten of intellectual paralysis. It is merely an unwholesome subterfuge to state that they were free from enmity against the French nation, and that their quarrel was with the head of it. There would be just as much common sense in contending that the French Government had no hostile feeling against the British people, and that their quarrel was only against George III. Devices such as these, under any circumstances, are not only unworthy, but childish, and their sole object is to throw dust in the eyes of those they flippantly call the common people. As a matter of fact, it was not only the Emperor Napoleon whom they made it their policy to charge with being a public danger to the world, but the principles of the Revolution which he sprang from obscurity to save, which was slyly kept at the back of their heads. But the Republic, which was the outcome of the Revolution, was an approved ordinance of the people, and in addition to Napoleon being their duly elected representative, he was regarded by them as the incarnation of the Republic. The difference between him and the other monarchs of Europe was, that while they inherited their position, his election was democratically ratified by millions of votes. These votes were given by the people with whom a foreign Government declared it was at peace while at the same time it was at war with their Chief, whom they had from time to time duly elected. This is a method of warfare which represents no high form of thought or action, and to the everlasting credit of the French people be it said, they not only resented it, but stood loyally by their Emperor and their country until they were overpowered by the insidious poison of treason and intrigue from within and without. What a howl there would have been if the German Kaiser had sent out a proclamation that he was not at war with the British nation, but with their King and Government! Suppose he had committed the same act of arrogance towards the President of the United States, the revulsion of feeling would be irrepressible in every part of the world. We recognize at the same time that Napoleon's position was made insecure by an important element of his own countrymen, composed of the Bourbons and their supporters, who never ceased to intrigue for their return. Besides, there was a strong Republican element who never forgave him for allowing himself to become Emperor. But the most serious defection was that of some of his most important Generals, amongst whom were Marmont and Bertheur. The former subsequently became the military tutor of his son, the King of Rome, who died at Schonbrunn on the 22nd July, 1832, eleven years after his father's death at St. Helena. A notable fact is that there were very few of his common soldiers and common people who did not stand by him to the last, and who would not have continued the struggle under his trusted and revered generalship, had he elected to fight on. He implored the Provisional Government to give their sanction to this, and had they done so, he has stated that he could have kept the Allies at bay and would have ultimately made them sue for peace. Most authorities declare that this would have been impossible, but his genius as a tactician was so prodigious and unrivalled, his art of enthusing his soldiers so vastly superior to that of any general that could be brought against him, his knowledge of the country on which he might select to give battle so matchless that one has substantial grounds for believing that his assertion was more than a mere flash of imagination, and that even with the shattered, loyal portion of his army, he might have succeeded in changing defeat into a victory which would have changed the whole political position of Europe. He frequently reverted to his last campaign and his last battle at Waterloo, when he was in captivity at St. Helena, and declared he should never have lost it, as his plan of battle at every point was never better devised, and that by all the arts of war he ought to have defeated the Allies; then he would lapse into sadness and soliloquize, "It must have been fate." In the effort to crush a cause and a nation which had been brought out of the depths of anarchy and raised to the zenith of power by the advent of a great spirit, the British Government of that period made their country parties to the slaughter of thousands of our fellow-creatures, which, in the light of subsequent events, has left a stain upon our diplomacy that can never be effaced, no matter what form of excuse may be set forth to justify it. Never, in the whole history of blurred diplomatic vision, has there evolved so great a calamity to the higher development of civilization. By taking so prominent a part in preventing Napoleon from fulfilling the eternal purpose for which all nature foreshadowed he was intended, we made it possible for Germany to develop systematically a diabolical policy of treason which has involved the world in war, drenching it with human blood. The Allies pursued Napoleon to his downfall. Their attitude during the whole course of his rule was senselessly vindictive. They gloated over his misfortune when he became their victim, and they consummated their vengeance by making him a martyr. The exile of St. Helena acted differently. When he conquered, instead of viciously overrunning the enemy's country and spreading misery and devastation, he made what he wished to be lasting peace, and allowed the sovereigns to retain their thrones. How often did he carry out this act of generosity towards Prussia and Austria, and who can deny that he did not act benevolently towards Alexander of Russia, when at Austerlitz and Tilsit, he formed what he regarded as lasting personal friendship with the Czar! It is all moonshine to say that he broke the friendship. The power of Russia, Prussia, and Austria were hopelessly wrecked more than once, and on each occasion they intrigued him into war again, and then threw themselves at his feet, grovelling supplicants for mercy, which he never withheld. Well might he exclaim to Caulaincourt, his ambassador in 1814, when the congress was sitting at Chatillon: "These people will not treat; the position is reversed; they have forgotten my conduct to them at Tilsit. Then I could have crushed them; my clemency was simple folly." The nations who treated him with such unreasonable severity would do well to reflect over the unfathomable folly of the past, and try to realize, at the present stage of their critical existence, that it may be possible that human life is reaping the agonies of a terrible retribution for a crime an important public in every civilized country believed, and still continues to believe, to have been committed. It is a natural law of life that no mysterious physical force ever dies, but only changes its form and direction. Individuals and vast communities may dare to mock at the great mystery that we do not understand. But it is a perilous experiment to defy its visitations. What incalculable results may arise through taking the wrong attitude towards the great laws that govern our being! The autocratic rulers at the beginning of the last century were never right in their views as to how the vastly greater image than their own should be treated. They measured Napoleon and his loftier qualities by their own tumultuous limitations, which prevented them from seeing how wide the gulf was between him and the ordinary man. He was a magical personality, and they failed to comprehend it. Heinrich Heine, the great German writer, who was pro-Napoleon, has told a vivid story of how he visited the East India Docks, while he was in London, and there saw a large sailing vessel with a great number of coloured people on board, Mohammedans for the most part. He wished to speak to them but did not know their language. He was particularly anxious to show them some courtesy if even, as he says, in a single word, so he reverently called out the name "Mohammed." In an instant the countenance of these strange people beamed with pleasure, and with characteristic Eastern devotion bowed themselves and shouted back to him "Bonaparte." I have no thought, in writing of Napoleon, to draw a comparison between him and the ex-Kaiser and his guilty coadjutors in crime, who forced a peaceful world into unspeakable war. They have been guilty of the foulest of murders, which will outmatch in ferocity every phase of human barbarity. There can be no pardon or pity for them. They must pay the penalty of their crimes, as other criminals have to do. The following letter, addressed by William II to his late colleague in guilt, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, is enough in itself to set the whole world into a blaze of vengeance:-- "My soul is torn," says this canting outcast, "but everything must be put to fire and sword, men, women, children, and old men must be slaughtered, and not a tree or house be left standing. With these methods of terrorism, which are alone capable of affecting a people so degenerate as the French, the war will be over in two months, whereas if I admit humanitarian considerations, it will last years. In spite of my repugnance, I have, therefore, been obliged to choose the former system." It is hard to believe that a document of this kind could be written by any one that was not far gone in lunacy, but in any case, I repeat it is to be hoped that St. Helena will not be desecrated by sending him to that hallowed abode. It is never a difficult performance to become involved in war, and it is always a tax on human genius to find a decent way out of it; whether it be honourable or dishonourable does not matter to those who believe in conflict as a solution of international disputes. History can safely be challenged to prove that anything but wild wrath and ruin is the unfailing outcome of war to all the belligerents, whether few or many. More often than not, it is brought about by the exulting chatter of a few irrepressible and also irresponsible individuals who have military or political ambitions to look after, and no other faculty of reason or vocabulary than the gibberish "that war will clear the air." They ostentatiously claim a monopoly of patriotism; and convey their views on war matters with a blustering levity which is a marvel to the astonished soul. Their attitude towards human existence is that you cannot be a patriot or create a great nation unless you are bellicose and warlike. This was the deplorable condition of mind that involved us in the wars subsequent to the French Revolution. But the diplomatists (if it be proper to call them such) and the oligarchy were responsible for the ruptures at that period, and certainly not the general public. In fact, it is doubtful whether the _general public_ are ever in favour of breaking the peace. A minority may be, but they are the noisy and unreflecting section. There is a wide difference between the Napoleonic wars and that which was waged against the civilized world by the German Kaiser and his military myrmidons, who have acted throughout like wild beasts. There never has been perpetrated so atrocious a crime as the deliberately planned military outrage on the peace of the world. The brief comparison between Kaiser William and Napoleon Bonaparte is that the one, like Frederick, the hero of Thomas Carlyle, is a shameless traitor to every act of human decency, and the other, in spite of what biassed writers have thought it their duty to say of him, was an unparalleled warrior-statesman, and his motives and actions were all on the side of God's humanity and good government. From the time he was found and made the head of the French nation, he was always obliged to be on the defensive, and, as he stated, never once declared war. The continental Great Powers always made war on _him_, but not without his thrashing them soundly until they pleaded in their humility to be allowed to lick his boots. You may search English State papers in any musty hole you like, and you will find no authoritative record that comes within miles of justifying the opinions or the charges that have been stated or written against him. Let us not commit the sacrilege, if he is ever made prisoner and is not shot for the murders and cruelties he and his subjects have committed on British men and women at sea and on land, of deporting the Kaiser to St. Helena to desecrate the ground made sacred for all time because of the great Emperor who was an exile there. Force of circumstances made Louis Philippe declare the truth to the world's new generations (doubtless to save his own precious skin) that "he was not only an emperor, but a king from the very day that the French nation called upon him to be their ruler." The kingly Louis would have given worlds not to have been compelled to say this truth of him, but his crown was at stake. The Senate voted with enthusiasm that he should be First Consul for ten years, and he replied to the vote of confidence that "Fortune had smiled upon the Republic; but Fortune was inconstant; how many men," said he, "upon whom she has heaped her favours have lived too long by some years, and that the interest of his glory and happiness seemed to have marked the period of his public life, at the moment when the peace of the world is proclaimed." Then with one of those spasmodic impulses that compel attention, he darts an arrow right on the spot; "If," he says, "you think I owe the nation a new sacrifice, I will make it; that is, if the _wishes of the people_ correspond with the command authorized by their suffrages." Always the suffrages, you observe, and never the miserable, slandering, backbiting dodges of the treasonists. The mind of this remarkable man was a palatial storehouse of wise, impressive inspirations. Here is one of countless instances where a prejudiced adversary bears testimony to his power and wisdom. A few Republican officers sought and were granted an audience, and the following is a frank admission of their own impotence and Napoleon's greatness: "I do not know," their spokesman says, "from whence or from whom he derives it, but there is a charm about that man indescribable and irresistible. I am no admirer of his." Such persons always preface any statement they are about to make by asserting their own superiority in this way, and the officers, who, with others, had many imaginary grievances against Napoleon, determined to empty their overburdened souls to him. This gallant person emphasizes the fact that he dislikes "the power to which he (Napoleon) had risen," yet he cannot help confessing (evidently with reluctance) that there is something in him which seems to speak that he is born to command. "We went into his apartment to expostulate warmly with him, and not to depart until our complaints were removed. But by his manner of receiving us we were disarmed in a moment, and could not utter one word of what we were going to say. He talked to us with an eloquence peculiarly his own, and explained with clearness and precision the importance of pursuing the line of conduct he had adopted, never contradicting us in direct terms, but controverted our opinions so astutely that we had not a single word to offer in reply, and retired convinced that he was in the right and that we were manifestly in the wrong." It is a common delusion with little men to believe that they are big with wisdom and knowledge, even after they have been ravelled to shreds by a man of real ability. The French Republican officers were condescendingly candid in giving the First Consul a high character, and he, in turn, made these self-assertive gentlemen feel abashed in his presence, and sent them about their business without having made any unnatural effort to prove that they had had an interview with a majestic personality, who had made articulation impossible to them. I might give thousands of testimonies, showing the great power this superman had over other minds, from the highest monarchical potentate to the humblest of his subjects. The former were big with a combination of fear and envy. They would deign to grovel at his feet, slaver compliments, and deluge him with adulation (if he would have allowed them), and then proceed to stab him from behind in the most cowardly fashion. There are always swarms of human insects whose habits of life range between the humble supplicant and the stinging, poisonous wasps. It would have been better for the whole civilized world had there been more wisely clever men, such as Charles James Fox, in public life in this and other countries during Napoleon's time. He was the one great Englishman who towered above any of the ministers who were contemporary with him in this country, and certainly no public man had a finer instinct than he as to the policy Great Britain should observe towards a nation that was being dragged out of the cesspool of corruption and violence into a democratic grandeur of government that was the envy of Continental as well as British antiquarians. Fox saw clearly the manifest benefit to both countries if they could be made to understand and not to envy each other. In 1802, Fox was received in Paris like a highly popular monarch. The whole city went wild with the joy of having him as the guest of France. He was the great attraction at the theatres next to the First Consul, whom Fox declared "was a most decided character, that would hold to his purpose with more constancy and through a longer interval than is imagined; his views are not directed to this, i.e. the United Kingdom, but to the Continent only." "I never saw," he says, "so little indirectness in any statesman as in the First Consul." Had Fox been supported by sufficient strong men to counteract the baneful influence of the weeds who were a constant peril to the country over whose destinies George III and they ruled, we should have been saved the ghastly errors that were committed in the name of the British people. The King's dislike to Fox was openly avowed. He used to talk incessantly of going back to Hanover whenever he was thwarted in his disastrous policy of giving the country a stab, or when the inevitable brought Fox into office. Everything that emanated from the great statesman was viewed with aversion and as being unjust and indecent by the royal Lilliputian, while Fox's estimate of the King could not be uttered on a lower plane. He says, in speaking of His Majesty, "It is intolerable to think that it should be in the power of _one_ blockhead to do so much mischief"--meaning, I presume, amongst many other blunders, the mess he was persisting in making over American affairs. Had there been capable statesmen during that crisis, the Continent of Europe and the vast dominions of Great Britain would not have been at war this day with the pernicious Power that we, more than any other nation, as has been previously stated, helped to create and foster. V Fox was the only genius in our political life at that time, while Pitt was a mere shadow in comparison, though it is fair to state that the former always believed that he and Pitt would have made a workable combination. As to the rest, they were pretty much on the level of the Lilliputians with whom the late traveller, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, had such intimate and troublesome relations. The book by the Dean of St. Patrick's, "Gulliver's Travels," is a perfect caricature of the political dwarfs of his time, and vividly represents the men who misruled this country in George III's reign. But the Dean's laughable history of the pompous antics of the Lilliputians is a picture which describes the constitution of our present administration who are managing the critical affairs of the nation so ill that disaster is inevitable in many forms, seen and unseen. The administrative machine is clogged with experimental human odds and ends who have neither wit, knowledge, nor wisdom to fill the post allotted to them, and the appalling thought is that the nation as a whole is being blustered by the intriguers who are forcing every national interest into certain destruction. Truly the Lilliputians are a plague on all human interests, _real_ patriotism, and capacity: always mischievous, always incapable, just the same now as when, in the eighteenth century, their type forced a peaceful and neutral Power into war because they refused to yield their fleet to them; always seeing things that do not exist, and foreboding perils that would never have come but for their dwarfish interference. They discovered in their flights of frenzy and fancy that Napoleon intended to take possession by force of the Danish fleet, when, as a matter of fact, he had never shown any indication, by word or thought, of committing an act so unjust and hostile to his own interests. A strong point in his policy was to keep Denmark on terms of friendly neutrality. Moreover, he was not, as many writers have said (in loyalty to fashion), an unscrupulous breaker of treaties. It was an unworthy act of the British Government to send Mr. Jackson as their representative to bully the Danes into giving up their fleet to the British, on the plea that they had learned by reports through various channels what Napoleon's intentions were. Count Bernsdorf, to whom Jackson insolently conveyed the nightmare of his Government, very properly raged back at him that "the Danish Government had no such information, and that he was adducing false reports and mere surmises quite unworthy of credit to fill the measure of British injustice in forcing Denmark into a ruinous war. It was folly to suppose that Napoleon could gain anything by throwing Norway and Denmark into an alliance with England and Sweden." Then he adds, with a dignified sense of wrong, "that the Regent knew how to defend his neutrality." "It might be possible," retorts Mr. Jackson, "though appearances are against that supposition, that the Danish Government _did not wish_ to lend itself to hostile views; still, it could not resist France." Then Bernsdorf, who has right on his side, said in accents of crushing anger, "So! because you think Napoleon has the intention of wounding us in the tenderest part, you would struggle with him for priority and be the first to do the deed?" "Yes," responds the distinguished representative of the upholders of the rights of nations, "Great Britain would insist upon a pledge of amity." "What pledge," demands the Count. "The pledge of uniting the Danish forces to those of Great Britain," is the reply. It will be seen that nothing short of vassalism will satisfy the policy laid down by the stupid emancipationists of downtrodden nations, as represented by the impressive effrontery of the noble Jackson. What a terrible piece of wooden-headed history was the effort to force Denmark to break her neutrality or make war on her! They seized Zealand, and because the Prince Regent refused to agree to their perfidy, they kept possession of it. The Prince sent written instructions to burn all the ships and stores, but the messenger was captured and the faithful person to whom the delivery of the document was entrusted swallowed it (i.e. swallowed the instructions). Copenhagen had been bombarded and practically reduced to destruction by Nelson, who had settled with the Danes on favourable British terms, one of the conditions being that they were to leave with their booty in six weeks. The Regent subsequently declared war and outwitted the British designs (so it is said) on Zealand. Castlereagh sought the aid of Lord Cathcart to find a dodge by which his Government could inveigle the Danes to commit a breach of the Convention, but the latter stood firm by the conditions, and the commanders, being disgusted with the whole affair, declined to aid their Chiefs in the Government in any act of double dealing. But they had the Emperor Alexander of Russia to deal with. He offered to act as intermediary between Great Britain and France in order to bring about an honourable peace. The British Government refused, and it is stated on incontrovertible authority that Alexander was furious, and upbraided the British with having used troops, which should have been sent to Russia's aid, to crush Denmark. The outrage of attacking a small State which was at peace and with which she had no quarrel was powerfully denounced by Alexander. He accused the British Government "of a monstrous violation of straight dealing, by ruining Denmark in the Baltic, which it knew was closed to foreign hostilities under a Russian guarantee." This caused Alexander to break off relations with Great Britain and annul all treaties he had with her. Canning feebly replied to the Russian Emperor's taunts, and, amongst other things, accused him of throwing over the King of the Huns. No wonder that Russia and some of the other Powers resented the perfidious conduct of British statesmen, employing British military and naval forces to overthrow and destroy not only a friendly Power, but one of the smallest and most strictly neutral States in Europe! Alexander jibed at them for using their resources for this unjust purpose, instead of sending them to help him when he was being so desperately driven to defeat by Napoleon. What a loutish trick it was to imagine that any real political or practical benefit could be derived from it! The seizure of the Danish fleet was a low-down act, for which those who were responsible should have been pilloried. The reasons given could not be sustained at the time, and still remain entirely unsupported by fact. There is no more disgraceful proceeding to be found in the pages of history than our raid on this small and highly honourable, inoffensive, and brave people. This bad statesmanship was deplorable. It set the spirit of butchery raging. It made a new enemy for ourselves, and in an economic sense added hundreds of thousands to our national debt, without deriving a vestige of benefit from either a military or political point of view. It undoubtedly prolonged the war, as all those squint-eyed enterprises are certain to do. It made us unpopular and mistrusted, and had no effect in damaging Napoleon's activities, nor of taking a single ally from him. There are occasions when nations have forced upon them cruel stratagems and alternatives, revolting in their abominable unworthiness, but in the case I am discussing I have found no substantial justification, nor has the deed been backed up to now or supported by a single _real_ authority. Nothing but condemnation still hangs round the memory of those hapless ministers who made the world so full of misery. I repeat, the greatest of all perils is to have a Government composed of men whose brains are full of kinks, and who do not reach beyond the bounds of basing their policy on the idea that some foreigner or other has designs on our national wealth, our trade, or our vast protectorates. In recent years that view has been dissipated, and the plan of broadening the national goodwill to men has been adopted and encouraged by a body of sound, unpretentious thinkers who have taken pains to train important gifts in the art of good government in all its varied aspects and international complexities. The whole public have had to pay appalling penalties in the past because an impulsive handful of the population is of opinion that self-advertising, harum-scarum politicians, in and out of office, are the geniuses who make and keep prosperity. This uncontrolled, emotional trend of thought comes in cycles and is unerringly followed by bitter disillusionment. It was so during the wars at the beginning of the last century, and it is so now. We always reflect after the tragedy has been consummated. Safe and astute administrators are always termed the "old gang" by the political amateurs, and the calamity is that a large public is so often carried away by the flighty delusions of the real cranks who style themselves the saviours of their country. At the present time we have as sure an example as ever the known world has witnessed of the awful disaster the resignation of the "old gang" has been to the whole of the Powers interested in this world-war, especially to our own country. We shall realize this more fully by and by when the naked truth presents itself. The very people who are conspicuously responsible for the destruction of unity always bellow the loudest to maintain it after they have been the high conspirators in breaking it, aided by their guilty followers. What bitter lessons this land of ours has been subjected to in other days! For twenty years the country was kept in the vortex of a raging war, with no more justification than giving Mr. Jackson instructions that the one imperative idea to keep in his mind was to take possession of the Danish fleet. Nothing was to stand in the way of this great adventure, shameless though it might be. Lord Malmesbury writes in his diary: "Capture of Danish fleet by surprise on account of most undoubted information received from the Prince Regent of Portugal of Bonaparte's intention to use the Portuguese and Danish fleets for invasion of England. First hint of the plan given by the Prince of Wales to the Duke of Portland. The Portuguese refused the demand, and told the British Government of it; the Danes accepted, kept silence, and afterwards denied it." The entry in Malmesbury's diary has been proved to be a string of pure inventions, for which he or some other informants are responsible. I have said no record has been left to show that Napoleon ever had any intention of occupying the ports of Holstein or of using the Danish fleet for the invasion of Great Britain and Ireland. Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and members of the House of Lords proved beyond question that ministers' statements, taking the dates into account, were entirely erroneous. Canning defended the sending of the expedition, which was natural, as he was one of the principal advocates of it. But the House would stand none of his tricks of evasion or repudiation. He, like some more modern ministers, ventured on the hazardous plan of deceiving Parliament, and, as was said at the time, setting fair dealing at defiance. Canning, like all tricksters, read extracts from documents, authentic and otherwise, to prove that Denmark was hostile to Britain, but when a demand was made for their inspection, he impudently refused to allow the very documents he had based his case of justification on to be scrutinized, and in consequence no other conclusion could be arrived at than that he was unscrupulously misleading the country. In fact, the Government's case was so bad it would not bear the light of God's day! I venture to say that Mr. Fox knew more of the character, political intricacies, and ambitions of the French race than any public man or writer of history of his own or in subsequent years. He always based his conclusions on a sound logical point. He was an accurate thinker, who refused to form his judgments on light, faulty and inaccurate newspaper paragraphs about what was going on around him. He was opposed to Pitt and his supporters' policy of carrying on war with France. He wanted peace, but they wanted the Bourbons, because the Bourbon section in France and the old autocracy in his own and other kingly countries were opposed to the new ruler the masses in France had chosen. He ridiculed the folly of our mental nonentities for "making such a fuss about acknowledging the new Emperor. May not the people give their own Magistrate the name they choose?" he asks. "On what logical grounds did we claim the right to revoke by the force of arms the selection by the French people of a ruler on whom they wished to bestow the title of Emperor?" Fox poured lavishly his withering contempt on those miscreants who arrogantly claimed the right to be consulted (for that is practically what their war policy amounted to) as to who the French should put on the throne and what his title should be. They had acknowledged Napoleon in the capacity of First Consul, but they shuddered at the consequences to the human race of having an Emperor sprung upon them whose glory was putting kingship into obscurity. Besides, an Emperor who combined humble origin with democratic genius and ambition created by the Revolution was a challenge to the legitimacy of the Divine Right of Kings and a reversal of the order of ages. George III raged at Pitt for including Fox in his Ministry when he was asked to form a Government. "Does Mr. Pitt," said he, "not know that Mr. Fox was of all persons most offensive to him?" "Had not Fox always cheered the popular Government of France, and had he not always advocated peace with bloodstained rebels? And be it remembered the indecorous language he had frequently used against his sovereign, and consider his influence over the Prince of Wales. Bring whom you like, Mr. Pitt, but Fox never." George III, King by the Grace of God, relented somewhat in his dislike of Fox before the latter died, and his wayward son, the Prince of Wales, said "that his father was well pleased with Mr. Fox in all their dealings after he came into office." It is an amazing form of intelligence that commits a nation to join in a war against another for having brought about a revolution and for creating their first soldier-statesman an "Emperor," and ranks him and his compatriots as "bloodstained rebels." To class Napoleon as a bloodstained rebel and to put him on a level with the Robespierres and the Dantons is an historic outrage of the truth. He had nothing whatever to do with bringing about the Revolution, though his services saved it, and out of the terrible tumult and wreck superhumanly re-created France and made her the envy of the modern world. The great defender of the Rights of Kings and of the colossal European fabric was appealed to by the man whom George III associated with the "bloodstained rebels" to come to some common understanding so that the shedding of blood might cease, but that robust advocate of peace (!) contemptuously ignored his appeals to negotiate. In 1805 he was raised to the Imperial dignity, and one of his first acts was to write with his own hand that famous letter which I have previously quoted, pleading, with majestic dignity, for the King of England, in the name of humanity, to co-operate with him in a way that will bring about friendly relations between the two Governments and the spilling of blood to an end. The King "by the Grace of God" and his horde of bloodsucking, incompetent ministers insulted the French nation and the great captain who ruled over its destinies by sending through Lord Mulgrave an insolent, hypocritical reply to the French ministers. The rage of war continued for another decade. If George III yearned for peace as he and his ministers pretended, why did the King not write a courteous autograph letter back to Napoleon, even though he regarded him as an inferior and a mere military adventurer? The nation had to pay a heavy toll in blood and money in order that the assumptions and dignity of this insensate monarch might be maintained, whose abhorrence of "bloodstained rebels" did not prevent him and his equally insensate advisers from plunging the American colonists into a bloody rebellion, which ended so gloriously for them and so disastrously for the motherland. They had asked for reforms that were palpably reasonable and necessary, and received insulting replies to their courteous demands, which compelled them to take up arms against the King of England, with a vow that they would not sheathe the sword until they had won complete independence from the arrogant autocracy that had driven them to war. They were led by the noble genius of George Washington and Dr. Franklin, who were in turn strongly supported by and united to colleagues of high constructive and administrative talents. Their task was long and fierce, but the gallant, elusive Washington led them through the tremendous struggle to victory, which culminated in founding the greatest and best constituted of all republics, whose sons are fighting side by side with the descendants of those who were forced into fighting their own race, through the maladministration of the King and his guilty Government, at the head of which was the genial but ultra-reactionary Lord North, who was a special favourite of George because he was accommodating; and indeed, all the King's friends were reactionary and dangerous to the real interests of the State when in power. The King's terrific responsibility for the great calamities that befell the country during his reign can only be absolved by the knowledge that he was subject to fits of prolonged lunacy; in fact, it may be said that even in his saner periods his acts were frequently those of an idiot. Though he cannot be accused of lacking in integrity, he disliked men who were possessed of that virtue, coupled with enlightened views, having anything to do with the government of the State. In short, he was totally unsuited to govern at any time, but especially when the atmosphere was charged with violent human convulsions. He loved lick-spittles, because they did his will for value received in various sordid forms, and, as I have said, he loathed the incorruptible and brilliant Charles James Fox, because he refused to support his fatal policies and that of the cocksparrow members of his Government, who from time to time threatened the very foundations of our national existence. The more George persisted, the louder became Fox's protests. Posterity can never accurately estimate how much it owes to statesmen who acted with Fox, but the influences the King had behind him were too formidable for Fox to grapple with. He would have saved us from the fratricidal war with America, and from the unpardonable wickedness of involving the country in the wars with France, who was fighting out her own prodigious destiny on the Continent, which was no concern of ours, except that the sane policy of the King and his Government should have been to encourage the democratizing of the Continental States. It was no love of liberty, or for the people, or for reforms of any kind, that led George III and his satellites to wage war against the man of the French Revolution. It was the fear of placing more power in the hands of the people and allowing less to remain in his own. But the main fear of the King and his autocratic subjects was lest Napoleon would become so powerful that he would destroy the whole monarchy of Europe! It was the view of small-minded men. Even Napoleon had his limitations, even if this had been his object. But there was no symptom, except that of panic, to justify the assertion that he ever intended to include war on the United Kingdom in his policy. There never was a truer statement made by the Emperor than "C'est avec des hochets qu'on mène les hommes"; which is, "Men are led by trifles." Hence we went to war with him, and the result of it is that the race that he mistrusted most and saw the necessity of keeping severely within limits has risen up against civilization and created a world-war into which we and our Allies have been obliged to enter in self-defence. That is the inevitable penalty we are having to pay for the action we took in helping the Germans to destroy France. I know it is asserted it was not France but Napoleon whose power they aimed at breaking, but the one could not be broken without the other. FOOTNOTES: [19] There are many conflicting accounts of Napoleon's part in the arrest, trial, and his intention of pardoning the Duc d'Enghien. It has been stated that he gave Murat his word that the Duc would be pardoned, and when Murat heard that the Prince had been shot, he exclaimed, "There has been treachery!" On the other hand, Bertrand was steadfast in his belief that Murat urged his immediate execution on the grounds that if it was not done at once, Napoleon would grant clemency. [20] The terms of capitulation were agreed to and signed by Ruffo, the Russian and Turkish commanders, and by Captain Foote, representing the British Government. Thirty-six hours afterwards Nelson arrived in the Bay of Naples, and cancelled the treaty. Captain Foote was sent away, and the shocking indefensible campaign of Nelson's carried out. Nothing during the whole of Napoleon's career can match this terrible act of Nelson's. [21] Italics are the author's. [22] "History du Consulat et de l'Empire," vol. xix. p. 619, published August, 1861. SEA SONGS EXPLANATORY NOTE These quaint old doggerel songs are taken from an admirable selection of sailor songs published by John Ashton. The names of the writers are not given, but their strong nautical flavour and queer composition indicate their origin. No landsman can ever imitate the sailor when the power of song or composition is on him. He puts his own funny sentiment and descriptive faculty into his work, which is exclusively his own. Many of the songs in Mr. Ashton's book I have heard sung with great fervour in my early days, by a generation of men ahead of my own, who must have long since passed away. Sometimes the audiences in the forecastle or on deck were appreciative of the efforts of the singer, but if they were not, they always had a boot or some other handy implement ready to throw at him. The reception given to some of my own singing efforts in boyhood on these merry occasions was mixed. Sometimes I forgot both words and tune, and had, therefore, to pass good-humouredly through the orthodox process of disapproval that was regarded as part of the entertainment. Any song or recital concerning Nelson, Collingwood, or the later sea hero, Charley Napier, was eminently popular, and to break down in the rendering of any one of these was an offence to their exalted memories. "The Sailor's Grave," which I regret is not included in Mr. Ashton's collection, was in great demand when the sailors were in a solemn mood. Both the words and the tune were ridiculously weird, and when it came to the details of the hero's illness, his looks after death, the sewing up in his hammock, and the tying of two round shots at his feet for sinking purposes, the artist always sang with his hands linked in front of him and his eyes cast heavenward gazing fixedly at a spot on the ceiling. Then came the burial verse:-- A splash and a plunge, and his task was o'er, And the billows rolled as they rolled before, And many a wild prayer followed the brave, As he sunk beneath a sailor's grave. This verse always drew tears from the sentimentalists in the audience, and if the singer had pleased by his efforts the song ended in a roar of tumultuous applause. I have thought it appropriate to add to these doggerel rhymes "The Battle of Copenhagen," "The Death of Nelson," and "The _Arethusa_." These are sea songs, not sailor's songs, and are of distinctly greater merit, but as two of them deal with Nelson, and as all three have always been most popular, they may not be out of place here. I THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 'Twas on the forenoon, the first day of August, One thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, We had a long pursuit after the Toulon fleet; And soon we let them know that we came for to fight. We tried their skill, it was sore against their will, They knew not what to think of our fleet for a while, But, before the fray began, we resolved to a man, For to conquer or to die at the mouth of the Nile. When our guns began to play, with many a loud huzza, Resolving to conquer, or die, to a man, And when our sails were bending, Old England was depending, Waiting our return from the Mediterranean. Our bull dogs they did roar, and into them did pour, With rattling broadsides made brave Nelson to smile, Gallant Nelson gave command, altho' he'd but one hand, British sailors jumped for joy at the mouth of the Nile. Night drawing on, we formed a plan To set fire to one hundred and twenty guns, We selected them with skill, and into them did drill, We secured all our shipping, and laughed at the fun. About ten o'clock at night, it was a broiling fight, Which caused us to muzzle our bull dogs for a while, The _L'Orient_ blew up, and round went the cup, To the glorious memorandum at the mouth of the Nile. Kind Providence protected each minute of the night, It's more than tongue can tell, or yet a pen can write, For 'mongst the jolly tars, brave Nelson got a scar, But Providence protected him thro' that cruel fight. The French may repine, we took nine sail of the line, Burnt and sunk all but two, which escaped for a while, Brave Nelson gave command, altho' he'd but one hand, British sailors fought like lions at the mouth of the Nile. But now the battle's o'er, and Toulon's fleet's no more, Great news we shall send unto George our King, All the Kingdoms in Europe shall join us in chorus, The bells they shall ring, and bonfires they shall blaze, Rule Britannia shall be sung, through country and town, While sailors, hand in hand, round the can do sing, Bonaparte got the pledge of Europe for his wage, And he'll ne'er forget bold Nelson at the mouth of the Nile. II A NEW SONG ON LORD NELSON'S VICTORY AT COPENHAGEN Draw near, ye gallant seamen, while I the truth unfold, Of as gallant a naval victory as ever yet was told, The second day of April last, upon the Baltic Main, Parker, Nelson, and their brave tars, fresh laurels there did gain. With their thundering and roaring, rattling and roaring, Thundering and roaring bombs. Gallant Nelson volunteered himself, with twelve sail form'd a line, And in the Road of Copenhagen he began his grand design; His tars with usual courage, their valour did display, And destroyed the Danish navy upon that glorious day. With their, etc. With strong floating batteries in van and rear we find, The enemy in centre had six ships of the line; At ten that glorious morning, the fight begun, 'tis true, We Copenhagen set on fire, my boys, before the clock struck two. With their, etc. When this armament we had destroyed, we anchor'd near the town, And with our bombs were fully bent to burn their city down; Revenge for poor Matilda's wrongs, our seamen swore they'd have, But they sent a flag of truce aboard, their city for to save. With their, etc. For the loss of his eye and arm, bold Nelson does declare, The foes of his country, not an inch of them he'll spare; The Danes he's made to rue the day that they ever Paul did join, Eight ships he burnt, four he sunk, and took six of the line. With their, etc. Now drink a health to gallant Nelson, the wonder of the world, Who, in defence of his country his thunder loud has hurled; And to his bold and valiant tars, who plough the raging sea, And who never were afraid to face the daring enemy. With their thundering and roaring, rattling and roaring, Thundering and roaring bombs. III THE BATTLE OF BOULOGNE On the second day of August, eighteen hundred and one, We sailed with Lord Nelson to the port of Boulogne, For to cut out their shipping, which was all in vain, For to our misfortune, they were all moored and chained. Our boats being well mann'd, at eleven at night, For to cut out their shipping, except they would fight, But the grape from their batteries so smartly did play, Nine hundred brave seamen killed and wounded there lay. We hoisted our colours, and so boldly them did spread, With a British flag flying at our royal mast head, For the honour of England, we will always maintain, While bold British seamen plough the watery main. Exposed to the fire of the enemy she lay, While ninety bright pieces of cannon did play, Where many a brave seaman then lay in his gore, And the shot from their batteries so smartly did pour. Our noble commander, with heart full of grief, Used every endeavour to afford us relief, No ship could assist us, as well you may know, In this wounded condition, we were tossed to and fro. And you who relieve us, the Lord will you bless, For relieving poor sailors in time of distress, May the Lord put an end to all cruel wars, And send peace and contentment to all British tars. IV THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR Arise, ye sons of Britain, in chorus join and sing, Great and joyful news is come unto our Royal King, An engagement we have had by sea, With France and Spain, our enemy, And we've gain'd a glorious victory, Again, my brave boys. On the 21st of October, at the rising of the sun, We form'd the line for action, every man to his gun, Brave Nelson to his men did say, The Lord will prosper us this day, Give them a broadside, fire away, My true British boys. Broadside after broadside our cannon balls did fly, The small shot, like hailstones, upon the deck did lie, Their masts and rigging we shot away, Besides some thousands on that day, Were killed and wounded in the fray, On both sides, brave boys. The Lord reward brave Nelson, and protect his soul, Nineteen sail the combin'd fleets lost in the whole; Which made the French for mercy call; Nelson was slain by a musket ball. Mourn, Britons, mourn. Each brave commander, in tears did shake his head, Their grief was no relief, when Nelson he was dead; It was by a fatal musket ball, Which caus'd our hero for to fall. He cried, Fight on, God bless you all, My brave British tars. Huzza my valiant seamen, huzza, we've gain'd the day, But lost a brave Commander, bleeding on that day, With joy we've gain'd the victory, Before his death he did plainly see I die in peace, bless God, said he, The victory is won. I hope this glorious victory will bring a speedy peace, That all trade in England may flourish and increase, And our ships from port to port go free, As before, let us with them agree, May this turn the heart of our enemy. Huzza, my brave boys. V NELSON AND COLLINGWOOD Come all you gallant heroes, and listen unto me, While I relate a battle was lately fought at sea. So fierce and hot on every side, as plainly it appears, There has not been such a battle fought, no not for many years. Brave Nelson and brave Collingwood, off Cadiz harbour lay, Watching the French and Spaniards, to show them English play, The nineteenth of October from the Bay they set sail, Brave Nelson got intelligence, and soon was at their tail. It was on the twenty-first my boys, we had them clear in sight, And on that very day, at noon, began the bloody fight. Our fleet forming two columns, then he broke the enemy's line, To spare the use of signals, was Nelson's pure design. For now the voice of thunder is heard on every side, The briny waves like crimson, with human gore were dy'd; The French and Spanish heroes their courage well did show, But our brave British sailors soon brought their colours low. Four hours and ten minutes, this battle it did hold, And on the briny ocean, men never fought more bold, But, on the point of victory brave Nelson, he was slain, And, on the minds of Britons, his death will long remain. Nineteen sail of the enemy are taken and destroyed, You see the rage of Britons, our foes cannot avoid: And ages yet unborn will have this story for to tell, The twenty-first of October, our gallant Nelson fell. I hope the wives and children will quickly find relief, For the loss of those brave heroes, their hearts are filled with grief, And may our warlike officers aspire to such a fame, And revenge the death of Nelson, with his undying name. VI GIVE IT TO HIM, CHARLEY Arouse, you British sons, arouse! And all who stand to Freedom's cause, While sing of the impending wars, And England's bluff old Charley. I'll tell how British seamen brave, Of Russian foes will clear the wave, Old England's credit for to save, Led on by gallant Charley. Our gallant tars led by Napier, May bid defiance to the Bear, While hearty shouts will rend the air, With, Mind, and give it to him, Charley. Our jolly tars will have to tell, How they the Russian bears did quell, And each honest heart with pride will dwell, For our jackets blue, and Charley. For they'll never leave a blot or stain, While our British flag flies at the main, But their foes they'll thrash again and again, While led on by gallant Charley. Our gallant tars, etc. Tyrant Nicky, you may fume and boast, And with threats disturb each peaceful coast, But you reckoned have without your host, For you're no good to our tars and Charley. From our wooden walls warm pills will fly, Your boasted power for to try, While our seamen with loud shouts will cry, Let us give it to him, Charley. Our gallant tars, etc. For your cowardly tricks at Sinope Bay, Most dearly we will make you pay, For our tars will show you bonny play, While commanded by brave Charley. For tho' brave Nelson, he is dead, Our tars will be to victory led. By one brave heart we have instead, And that brave heart is Charley's. Our gallant tars, etc. England and France they will pull down The Eagle and Imperial Crown, And his Bear-like growls we soon will drown, With, Let us give it him, Charley. For while England and France go hand in hand They conquer must by sea and land, For no Russian foe can e'er withstand, So brave a man as Charley. Our gallant tars, etc. Despotic Nick, you've been too fast, To get Turkey within your grasp, But a Tartar you have caught at last, In the shape of our tars and Charley. Then here's success with three times three, To all true hearts by land or sea, And this the watchword it shall be, Mind, and give it to them, Charley. Our gallant tars led by Napier, May bid defiance to the Bear. While hearty shouts will rend the air, With, Mind, and give it to him, Charley. VII THE _ARETHUSA_ Come all ye jolly sailors bold, Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould, While England's glory I unfold, Huzza to the _Arethusa_. She is a frigate tight and brave, As ever stemmed the dashing wave; Her men are staunch To their fav'rite launch, And when the foe shall meet our fire, Sooner than strike we'll all expire, On board of the _Arethusa_. 'Twas with the spring-fleet she went out, The English Channel to cruise about, When four French sail, in show so stout, Bore down on the _Arethusa_. The fam'd _Belle Poule_ straight ahead did lie, The _Arethusa_ seem'd to fly, Not a sheet, or a tack, Or a brace did she slack, Tho' the Frenchman laugh'd, and thought it stuff, But they knew not the handful of men, so tough, On board of the _Arethusa_. On deck five hundred men did dance, The stoutest they could find in France, We, with two hundred, did advance On board of the _Arethusa_. Our captain hail'd the Frenchman, ho! The Frenchman then cried out, hallo! "Bear down, d'ye see To our Admiral's lee." "No, no," said the Frenchman, "that can't be"; "Then I must lug you along with me," Says the saucy _Arethusa_. The fight was off the Frenchman's land, We forc'd them back upon their strand; For we fought till not a stick would stand Of the gallant _Arethusa_. And now we've driven the foe ashore, Never to fight with Britons more, Let each fill a glass To his favourite lass! A health to our captain, and officers true, And all that belong to the jovial crew, On board of the _Arethusa_. VIII COPENHAGEN Of Nelson and the North, Sing the day, When, their haughty powers to vex, He engaged the Danish decks; And with twenty floating wrecks Crowned the fray. All bright, in April's sun, Shone the day, When a British fleet came down Through the island of the Crown, And by Copenhagen town Took their stay. In arms the Danish shore Proudly shone; By each gun the lighted brand In a bold determined hand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on. For Denmark here had drawn All her might; From her battleships so vast She had hewn away the mast, And at anchor, to the last Bade them fight. Another noble fleet Of their line Rode out; but these were nought To the batteries which they brought, Like Leviathans afloat In the brine. It was ten of Thursday morn By the chime; As they drifted on their path There was silence deep as death, And the noblest held his breath For a time-- Ere a first and fatal round Shook the flood. Every Dane looked out that day. Like the red wolf on his prey, And he swore his flag to sway O'er our blood. Not such a mind possessed England's tar; 'Twas the love of noble game Set his oaken heart on flame, For to him 'twas all the same, Sport and war. All hands and eyes on watch As they keep; By their motion light as wings, By each step that haughty springs, You might know them for the kings Of the deep. 'Twas the _Edgar_ first that smote Denmark's line As her flag the foremost soared, Murray stamped his foot on board, And an hundred cannons roared At the sign. Three cheers of all the fleet Sung Huzza! Then from centre, rear, and van, Every captain, every man, With a lion's heart began To the fray. Oh, dark grew soon the heavens-- For each gun, From its adamantine lips, Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like a hurricane eclipse Of the sun. Three hours the raging fire Did not slack; But the fourth, their signals drear Of distress and wreck appear, And the Dane a feeble cheer Sent us back. The voice decayed; their shots Slowly boom. They ceased--and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail, Or in conflagration pale Light the gloom. Oh, death--it was a sight Filled our eyes! But we rescued many a crew From the waves of scarlet hue, Ere the cross of England flew O'er her prize. Why ceased not here the strife, Oh, ye brave? Why bleeds old England's band By the fire of Danish land, That smites the very hand Stretched to save? But the Britons sent to warn Denmark's town: Proud foes, let vengeance sleep! If another chain-shot sweep-- All your navy in the deep Shall go down. Then, peace instead of death Let us bring! If you'll yield your conquered fleet, With the crews, at England's feet, And make submission meet To our King. The Dane returned, a truce Glad to bring: He would yield his conquered fleet, With the crews, at England's feet, And make submission meet To our King. Then death withdrew his pall From the day; And the sun looked smiling bright On a wide and woeful sight Where the fires of funeral light Died away. Yet, all amidst her wrecks And her gore, Proud Denmark blest our chief That he gave her wounds relief, And the sounds of joy and grief Filled her shore. All round, outlandish cries Loudly broke; But a nobler note was rung When the British, old and young, To their bands of music sung "Hearts of Oak." Cheer! cheer! from park and tower, London town! When the King shall ride in state From St. James's royal gate, And to all his peers relate Our renown. The bells shall ring! the day Shall not close, But a glaze of cities bright Shall illuminate the night, And the wine-cup shine in light As it flows. Yes--yet amid the joy And uproar, Let us think of them that sleep Full many a fathom deep All beside thy rocky steep, Elsinore! Brave hearts, to Britain's weal Once so true! Though death has quenched your flame, Yet immortal be your name! For ye died the death of fame With Riou. Soft sigh the winds of Heaven O'er your grave! While the billow mournful rolls And the mermaid's song condoles, Singing--glory to the souls Of the brave. IX THE DEATH OF NELSON O'er Nelson's tomb, with silent grief oppressed, Britannia mourns her hero now at rest; But those bright laurels will not fade with years, Whose leaves are watered by a nation's tears. 'Twas in Trafalgar's bay We saw the Frenchmen lay, Each heart was bounding then, We scorn'd the foreign yoke, For our ships were British oak, And hearts of oak our men! Our Nelson mark'd them on the wave, Three cheers our gallant seamen gave, Nor thought of home and beauty. Along the line this signal ran, England expects that ev'ry man This day will do his duty. And now the cannons roar Along th' affrighted shore, Our Nelson led the way, His ship the _Victory_ nam'd! Long be that _Victory_ fam'd, For vict'ry crown'd the day! But dearly was that conquest bought, Too well the gallant hero fought, For England, home, and beauty. He cried as 'midst the fire he ran, "England shall find that ev'ry man, This day will do his duty!" At last the fatal wound, Which spread dismay around, The hero's breast received; "Heaven fights upon our side! The day's our own!" he cried; "Now long enough I've lived! In honour's cause my life was passed, In honour's cause I fall at last, For England, home, and beauty." Thus ending life as he began, England confessed that every man That day had done his duty. APPENDIX SOME INCIDENTS OF NELSON'S LIFE (_Chronologically arranged_) 1758. On 29th September he was born. 1767. On 26th December his mother died. 1771. On 1st January a Midshipman aboard the _Raisonable_. 1771. On 22nd May sent a voyage in merchant ship to West Indies, possibly as cabin-boy. 1772. On 19th July was Midshipman on _Triumph_. 1773. On 7th May was Midshipman on _Carcass_. 1773. On 15th October was Midshipman on _Triumph_. 1773. On 27th October was Midshipman on _Seahorse_. 1774. On 5th April becomes Able Seaman on _Seahorse_. 1775. On 31st October is again Midshipman on _Seahorse_. 1776. On 15th March becomes Midshipman on _Dolphin_. 1776. On 24th September is paid off from _Dolphin_. 1776. On 26th September becomes Acting-Lieutenant on _Worcester_. 1777. On 9th April passed examination. 1777. On 10th April is Lieutenant of _Lowestoft_. 1778. On 2nd July changes to Lieutenant of _Bristol_. 1778. On 8th December is appointed Commander of _Badger_. 1779. On 10th June is made Captain of _Hinchinbroke_. 1780. In January joins expedition to San Juan and Grenada, Nicaragua. 1780. On 2nd May he is made Captain of the _Janus_. 1780. On 1st September is invalided from _Janus_. 1780. On 4th September sailed in the _Lion_ for home 1780. On 24th November arrived at Spithead and went to Bath. 1781. On 23rd August he became Captain of _Albemarle_. 1782. On 17th April sailed in _Albemarle_ to North America. 1783. On 3rd July paid off from _Albemarle_. 1783. On 23rd October visited France. 1784. On 17th January back in England. 1784. On 18th March Captain of _Boreas_. 1784. On 15th May at Leeward Islands in _Boreas_. 1787. On 12th March married Widow Nesbit. 1787. On 4th July arrived Spithead in _Boreas_. 1787. On 30th November paid off, put on half pay, and resided mainly at Burnham Thorpe while on shore. 1793. On 26th January joined _Agamemnon_ as Captain. 1793. On 6th June sailed for the Mediterranean. 1793. On 13th July blockaded Toulon. 1793. On 24th August Toulon is occupied and _Agamemnon_ is ordered to Naples. A very full year's work. 1794. On 4th April, Siege of Bastia begun. 1794. On 22nd May, Bastia surrendered: 1794. On 19th June, Siege of Calvi. 1794. On 10th July wounded in the right eye. 1794. On 10th August, Calvi surrendered. 1795. On 13th March Hotham's first action. 1795. On 13th July Hotham's second action. 1795. On 15th July sent with a squadron to co-operate with the Austrians on the coast of Genoa. 1795. On 29th November Sir John Jervis took command of fleet. 1796. On 4th April he is ordered to hoist a distinguishing pennant. 1796. On 4th June shifted his broad pennant to the _Captain_. 1796. On 11th August appointed Commodore of the first class. 1796. On 10th December joined the _Minerva_. 1796. On 20th December captured the Spanish frigate _La Sabina_. 1797. On 13th February rejoined the _Captain_. 1797. On 14th December joined the _Irresistible_ at the BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT. 1797. On 20th December is Rear-Admiral of the Blue. 1797. On 17th March was created Knight of the Bath. 1797. On 24th March joined the _Captain_ again. 1797. On 1st April news of his promotion. 1797. On 24th May hoisted his flag on _Theseus_. 1797. On 24th July his right arm badly wounded while leading attack on Santa Cruz, which was repulsed. Arm amputated. 1797. On 20th August joins _Seahorse_, bound for England. 1797. On 1st September arrived at Spithead, lowers his flag, and proceeds to Bath to recoup his health. 1797. On 27th September has the Order of the Bath conferred on him. 1798. On 29th March joined the _Vanguard_. 1798. On 30th April arrived off Cadiz. 1798. On 7th June Troubridge reinforces Nelson's squadron of observation by adding ten sail of the line. 1798. On 17th June is off Naples in search of the French fleet. 1798. On 18th June, arrives off Alexandria. 1798. August 1st and 2nd, BATTLE OF THE NILE. 1798. On 22nd September arrives at Naples and is received with great rejoicing. On the 29th Sir William and Lady Hamilton give a grand fête in honour of him. The great battle establishes his fame as the greatest Admiral in the world. 1798. On 6th November he is created Baron Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe. 1798. On 23rd December he sailed for Palermo with the King of Naples and his family aboard. 1798. On 26th December arrives at Palermo and is much gratified by his reception as a popular hero. 1799. On 5th April he changed his flag from blue to red. 1799. On 8th June joins the _Foudroyant_. 1799. On 24th June arrives off Naples and cancels the agreement of capitulation of the forts. 1799. On 29th June has the aged Admiral Prince Carraciolo hung at the _Minerva's_ fore yardarm at the instigation of Lady Hamilton and the royal profligates of Naples. This act remains a blot on his name. 1799. July 13th to 19th disobeyed Admiral Keith's orders to proceed to Minorca. 1799. On 29th July becomes Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. 1799. On 8th August returns again to Palermo. 1799. On 13th August he is created Duke of Bronte. 1799. On 5th October sails for Port Mahon, Minorca. 1799. On 22nd October again returns to Palermo. 1800. On 6th January is officially notified that Lord Keith is reappointed to command in Mediterranean, which gives him offence. 1800. On 18th February he captures _Le Généreux_. 1800. On 30th March also captures _Le Guillaume Tell_. 1800. On 13th July hauls his flag down at Leghorn and proceeds home, visiting Trieste, Vienna, Dresden, and Hamburg. Is received everywhere as a monarch. 1800. On 6th November he arrives at Yarmouth. 1801. On 1st January becomes Vice-Admiral of the Blue. 1801. On 13th January he is separated from his wife. 1801. On 17th January hoists his flag on the _San Josef_. 1801. On 29th January Lady Hamilton gives birth to his daughter Horatia. 1801. On 12th February joins the _St. George_. 1801. On 12th March sails from Yarmouth Roads for the Sound. 1801. On 29th March joins the _Elephant_. 1801. On 2nd April the BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN. He again rejoins the _St. George_. 1801. On 5th May appointed Commander-in-Chief in the Baltic. 1801. On 22nd May is created Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe. 1801. On 19th June resigns command and sails in the brig _Kite_ for Yarmouth, where he arrives on July 1st. 1801. On 2nd July is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the squadron defending the South-East Coast. 1801. On 16th August attacked Boulogne flotilla unsuccessfully. 1802. On 10th April hauled his flag down and took up his residence at Merton. 1802. On 26th April his father died. 1803. On 6th April his friend, Sir William Hamilton, died in Emma's arms. 1803. 16th May, Commander-in-Chief again in the Mediterranean. 1803. On 20th May sailed from Spithead in _Victory_. 1803. On 21st May his flag shifted to the _Amphion_. 1803. On 8th July arrives off Toulon. 1803. On 30th July rejoins the _Victory_ and keeps up a steady blockade of Toulon until April 1805, and is troubled in body and soul. 1804. On 23rd April Vice-Admiral of WHITE SQUADRON. 1804. On 18th August death of his aversion, the immortal Admiral La Touche-Treville. 1805. On 17th January the French fleet sailed from Toulon, and falling in with stormy weather, their ships were disabled and put back for repairs. 1805. On 8th February Nelson arrives off Alexandria in search of French. 1805. On 9th March is off Toulon again, and 1805. On 1st April is in Pula Roads. 1805. On 4th April gets news that the Frenchmen have sailed again from Toulon, on the 30th April. 1805. On 4th May came to anchor at Tetuan. 1805. On 9th May came to anchor in Lagos Bay. 1805. On 11th May sailed for the West Indies. 1805. On 4th June arrived at Barbadoes. 1805. On 7th June arrived at Trinidad. 1805. On 12th June arrived off Antigua. 1805. On 13th June sails for Europe in search of the elusive French fleet. 1805. On 18th July joins Collingwood off Cadiz. 1805. On 15th August joins Cornwallis off Brest. 1805. On 18th August arrived at Spithead; joins Lady Hamilton and his little girl Horatia at Merton. 1805. On 13th September having heard from Captain Blackwood, who visited him at Merton, that the French fleet were at Cadiz, he prepares to leave Merton. 1805. On 15th September joins the _Victory_ and sails from Spithead. 1805. On 25th September joins British fleet off Cadiz. 1805. On 21st October, BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR and death of Nelson. 1806. On 9th January buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. INDEX Aboukir Bay, battle of (_see_ Nile, battle of the) Addington, Charles, 104 Alexander of Russia, 310, 321, 322 _Arethusa_, The (poem), 352 Armada, Spanish, 39 _et seq._, 43, 59 Asquith, H.H., 297, 303 Astley, Sir Jacob, 131, 134 Balfour, A.J., 303 Ball, Captain, 153, 154, 158, 160 Barham, Lord, 215 Bathurst, Lord, 295 Beatty, Admiral, 64 Bendero, Don Pedro, 47 Beresford, Lord Charles, 52 Bernsdorf, Count, 320 Berry, Captain. 66 Bertheur, General, 308 Blackett, Mr., 262 Blackwood, Captain, 210, 232, 235, 236, 237 Blake, Admiral, 134 Bonaparte, Caroline, 292 Bonaparte, Elisa, 292 Bonaparte, Jerome, 292 Bonaparte, Joseph, 144, 169, 292 Bonaparte, Louis, 292 Bonaparte, Napoleon (_see_ Napoleon) Bonaparte, Pauline, 293 Boulogne, battle of (sea song), 343 Brereton, General, 198, 199, 203, 207 Burleigh, Cecil, Lord (_see_ Cecil) Byng, Admiral Sir John, 161, 267 Cadiz, Drake's attacks on, 32, 39, 58 Cadogan, Mrs., 210 Calais, Armada at, 41 Calder, Sir Robert, 206, 208, 222 _et seq._, 267, 268 Calvi, siege of, 64 Campbell, Sir John, 108 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 301 Canning, 180 Capua, siege of, 139 Carlile, Christopher, 48, 51, 54 Carlscrona, Hyde Parker's departure to, 95 Carlyle, Thomas, 69, 78 Caroline (_see_ Naples, Queen of) Carraciolli, Prince, 118 _et seq._, 161, 279 Carribean Sea, Drake visits, 54 Carthagena, Drake's attacks on, 32, 54 Castlereagh, Lord, 180, 211, 295, 301, 303, 321 Caulaincourt, 310 Cecil, Lord, of Burleigh, 27, 32, 44, 58 Champernowne, Sir Arthur, 32 Championnet, General, 147 Cobham, Thomas, 32 Collingwood, Admiral Lord, 31, 63, 64, 83, 84, 134, 193, 200, 203, 204, 210, 229, 235, 237, 238, 243, 245 _et seq._, 257 _et seq._ Columbus, Christopher, 51, 53 Columbus, Diego, 51 Copenhagen, battle of, 89, 91 Copenhagen, battle of (sea-song), 340 Copenhagen (poem), 354 Corday, Charlotte, 141 Corunna, Drake's attack on, 39 Croker, J.W., 115 Cromwell, Oliver, 130, 133, 134, 237 Danton, 141 Davis, Sir John, 17 Death of Nelson (poem), 360 Denmark, Prince Regent of, 320, 321 Disraeli, 302 Domingo, San (_see_ San Domingo) Dominica, Drake's arrival at, 50 Doughty, Thomas, 24, 38 Drake, Sir Francis-- as prototype, 17 and Panama, 18, 56 and Elizabeth, 20, 21, 22, 23, 43 and War Fund, 20 Portuguese Expedition, 20 death at Puerto Bello, 21, 60 on _Pelican_, 22, 43 and Doughty, 24, 38 and discipline, 24, 38 at Cadiz, 32, 39, 58 at Carthagena, 32, 54 at Corunna, 39 West Indian Expedition, 44 at Vigo, 47, 48 and Spanish Gold Fleet, 49 at Santiago, 49, 50 at Dominica, 50 at San Domingo, 51, 53 at Bahamas, 57 rescues Roanoke settlers, 57, 58 connection with East India Company, 59 Newbolt's poem on, 60 and Fleet Tradition, 63 a religious man, 134 Nelson compared with, 180 "Drake's Drum" (poem), quotation from, 60 Dresden, Electress of, 83 Dropmore manuscript, 179 Dumanoir, 244, 245, 255 East India Company, 59 Edward VII of England, 82 Electress of Dresden, 83 Elizabeth of England, 20, 21, 22, 23, 32, 34, 35, 43, 44 Elliot, Sir George, 122, 123 Emma, Lady Hamilton, 65, 73 _et seq._, 95, 97, 98 _et seq._, 118, 119, 120 _et seq._, 143, 149, 159, 160, 161, 215, 216, 226, 243 d'Enghien, Duc, 268, 276 _et seq._ Erskine, Sir James, 147 Featherstonehaugh, Sir Henry, 73 Fisher, Admiral Lord, 64, 95, 178, 180 Fitzwilliam, George, 26 Foote, Captain, 280, 281, 282 Fortescue's Dropmore MS., 179 Fox, Charles James, 282, 290, 301, 317, 318, 326, 327, 330 Francis Joseph of Austria, 312 Franklin, Benjamin, 329 Fremantle, Admiral, 208 Frobisher, Martin, 17, 40, 63, 134 George III of England, 81, 93, 296, 303, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331 George, Prince Regent (afterwards George IV), 87, 88, 96 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 17 "Give it to him, Charley!" (sea-song), 349 Gladstone, W.E., 301, 302 Goethe (on beauty of Lady Hamilton), 76 Graham, James, 73 Graves, Rear-Admiral, 92 Gravina, Admiral, 244 Greville, Charles, 73, 74, 80, 122 Grey, Earl, 301 Grey, Sir Edward, 297 "Gulliver's Travels," 318 Hallowell, Captain, 146, 218 Hamilton, Sir William, 65, 74, 76, 88, 100 _et seq._, 122 Hamilton, Lady (_see_ Emma, Lady Hamilton) Hardy, Captain (of the _Victory_), 92, 119, 225, 232, 235, 240, 242, 243, 251 Hart, Emily (afterwards Lady Hamilton), 73 Hawkins, Sir John, 17, 20, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 63, 134 Heine, Heinrich, anecdote of, 311 Hood, Admiral, 72 Horatia (Nelson's daughter), 84, 87, 110 _et seq._, 219, 227, 243 Hotham, Admiral, 118 Howard, Admiral Lord, 17, 40 Inquisition, Spanish, 17, 22, 23, 34, 37 Jackson, Mr. (British representative to Denmark), 320, 324 Jellicoe, Admiral, 64 Jervis, Admiral (_see_ St. Vincent, Admiral Lord) Joseph of Austria (_see_ Francis Joseph of Austria) Joseph Bonaparte (_see_ Bonaparte, Joseph) Keats, Captain, 210 Keith, Lord, 139, 158, 160, 162 Kitchener, Lord, 178 Leslie, General, 130, 134 Louis XVIII of France, 294 Louis Philippe of France, 314 Louis, Captain, 146, 147 Lowe, Sir Hudson, 295 Lyon, Amy (afterwards Emma, Lady Hamilton), 73 Mack, General, 147 Malmesbury, Lady, 122 Malmesbury, Lord, 325 Marat, 141 Marengo, battle of, 162 Maria Carolina (_see_ Naples, Queen of) Marie Louise of Austria, 107, 170 Marlborough, Duke of, 104, 105 Marmont, General, 308 Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, 26 Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 35 Medina-Sidonia, Duke of, 19, 40, 41 Melbourne, Lord, 107 Meneval, Baron de, 171 Milas, General, 162 Minto, Lord, 103, 104, 155, 159, 209, 210, 217 Moreau, 276 Mulgrave, Lord, 328 Müller (Swiss historian), 287 Murat, 145, 169 Naples, Ferdinand, King of, 120, 128, 129, 140, 144, 145, 146, 147, 163 _et seq._ Naples, Maria Carolina, Queen of, 77, 79, 118, 129, 148, 162, 163 _et seq._, 260 Napoleon Bonaparte-- and Prussianism, 69, 298 aphorisms, 71, 131, 134, 205, 291, 314 comparison with Nelson, 94 and Marie Louise, 107, 170 his opinion of Nelson, 118 his opinion of Wellington, 117 Cromwell compared with, 133 and the French fleet, 191 and Villeneuve, 199, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268 and Madame Walewska, 217 comparison of his love letters with Nelson's, 218 his "Farewell to France" (poem), 274 as a statesman, 132, 133, 275 and plots against his life, 276 and Pitt, 287 _et seq._, 304 Müller's opinion of, 287 Wieland's opinion of, 288 and his family, 292 his return from Elba, 294 his letter to George III, 296 his son's death, 308 and Alexander of Russia, 310 and Treaty of Tilsit, 310 compared with William II of Germany, 313 contemporaneous testimony, 315 _et seq._ Neipperg, Count, 170 Nelson, Rev. Edmund, 64 Nelson, Horatia (_see_ Horatia) Nelson, Horatio, Admiral Lord-- and contemporary admiration, 31 and Fleet Tradition, 63 joins _Raisonable_, 64 joins _Triumph_, 64 joins _Agamemnon_, 64 loses right eye at siege of Calvi, 64 loses right arm at Santa Cruz, 65 created K.C.B., 65 at the court of Naples, 65, 76 _et seq._, 141 _et seq._, 163 _et seq._ at the Nile, 66 created Baron, 72 and gambling scandal, 80, 150 returns home after Nile, 81 and Lady Hamilton, 65, 73, 76 _et seq._, 95, 97, 98 _et seq._, 159, 210 _et seq._, 215, 216, 228, 231 at battle of Copenhagen, 91, compared with Napoleon, 94, 218 joins _St. George_, 95 returns home in _Kite_, 98 at Merton, 100, 210 _et seq._ letter to his niece, 111 incident of gipsy's prediction, 114 and Carraciolli, _118 et seq._, 279 hatred of the French, 135, 173 at Toulon, 136 at Palermo, 149 and starvation of Neapolitans, 151 and "cracking on," 155 as "Duke of Thunder," 167, 172 homecoming _via_ Magdeburg and Hamburg, 176 and Ministers of State, 139, 174, 180 _et seq._, 210 _et seq._ and privateering, 181 sails to West Indies, 197 returns to England, 207 gift of coffin to, 218 joins _Victory_, 220 and Calder, 221 _et seq._ at Trafalgar, 225 _el seq._ last letters, 226, 228, 231 last prayer before battle, 231 death in action, 240, 242 _et seq._ the nation's sorrow, 256 _et seq._ Collingwood, compared with, 261 chronological data, 363 Nelson and Collingwood (sea-song), 347 Nelson, Lady, 78, 84, 85, 86, 88 Newbolt, Sir H., 60 Nile, Battle of the, 66 _et seq._ Nile, Battle of the (sea-song), 337 North, Lord, 329 Norton, Hon. Mrs., 108 O'Meara, Dr., 265, 295 Oquendo, 42 Orange, _William the Silent_, Prince of, 34 Orde, Sir John, 184, 185, 195, 196, 203 Pahlen, Count, 97 Parker, Sir Hyde, 89, 90, 91, 92, 184 Parma, Duke of, 42 Pasco, _Yeoman of Signals_, 235 Paul of Russia, 97 Philip of Spain, 17, 18, 26, 28, 32, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42 Pichegru, 276 Pitt, William, 134, 213, 287, 289, 290, 296, 298, 299, 301, 303, 344, 318, 326, 327 Poems, 60, 274, 337 Pole, Sir Charles, 98 Radstock, Lord, 213, 214, 259 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 57 Recaldo, 42 Riou, Captain, 91 Roanoke, settlers of, rescue by Drake, 57, 58 Robespierre, 141 Rome, King of, 308 Romney, George, 73 Rosebery, Lord, 301 Rotherham, Captain, 237, 238 Ruffo, Cardinal, 286 Salisbury, Lord, 302 San Domingo, Drake's attack on, 32, 51, 53 San Philip, 58 Santa Cruz, action at, 65 Santa Cruz, Admiral, 18, 37, 39, 41 Santiago, Drake's attack on, 49, 50 Sardanapalus, 141 Scott, Dr., 243 Sea Songs, 333 Seymour, Admiral Lord, 40 Sidmouth, Lord, 221 Smith, Sir Sydney, 174 Southey, Robert, 128, 174 Strachan, Sir Richard, 245, 255 St. George, Mrs., 123 St. Vincent, battle of Cape, 65 St. Vincent, Earl, 63, 64, 65, 78, 92, 98, 174, 184, 185, 234 Suckling, Captain Maurice, 64 Thiers, M., 191, 305 Thurn, Count, 119 Tierny, 301 Touche-Treville, Admiral la, 136, 137 Trafalgar, battle of, 43, 225 _et seq._ Trafalgar, Battle of (sea-song), 345 Troubridge, Admiral, 80, 98, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 151, 158, 159, 233, 234 Ulloa, San Juan d', catastrophe of, 26 Valdes, Don Pedro de, 19 Verde, Cape de, pursuit of Spanish to, 48 Vigo, Drake's attack on, 47, 48 Villeneuve, Admiral, 116, 189, 190, 199, 200, 206, 210, 225, 229, 244, 259, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268 Walewska, Madame, 217 Washington, George, 329 Wellington, Duke of, 39, 114, 295 Wieland (German historian), 287, 288 William II of Germany, 52, 311, 313 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR WINDJAMMERS AND SEA TRAMPS SEA YARNS (FORMERLY ENTITLED "THE SHELLBACK'S PROGRESS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY") LOOKING SEAWARD AGAIN THE TRAGEDY OF ST. HELENA CHARACTER SKETCHES 
62184	----	FOR GOD AND GOLD BY JULIAN CORBETT AUTHOR OF 'THE FALL OF ASGARD' London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1900 All rights reserved _First Edition 1887_ _Reprinted 1900_ FOR GOD AND GOLD CALLING ON THIS AILING AGE TO ESCHEW THE SINS AND IMITATE THE VIRTUES OF MR. JASPER FESTING SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE, AND LATE AN OFFICER IN HER MAJESTY'S SEA-SERVICE BY THIS SHOWING FORTH OF Certain noteworthy passages from his Life in the said University and elsewhere, and especially his connection with the beginning of The Puritan Party Together with a particular relation of his Voyage to Nombre de Dios Under that renowned Navigator THE LATE SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, KNIGHT WRITTEN BY HIMSELF _AND NOW FIRST SET FORTH_ PREFACE It is not to be denied that the usual practice in ushering into the world a long-hidden manuscript has been to give some account of its existence in its former state, and of the manner in which it came to light. For sufficient reasons that course will not be followed in the present case. Should any one in consequence be brought to doubt the genuineness of these memoirs, it is hoped that it will be sufficient to refer him to a curious little work entitled _Sir Francis Drake Revived_, which contains a very sprightly account of that renowned navigator's so-called Third Voyage to the Indies, being that in which he attempted Nombre de Dios, and which, as the title-leaf recites, is 'faithfully taken out of the report of Master Christopher Ceely, Ellis Hixom, and others who were in the same voyage with him, by Philip Nichols, Preacher; Reviewed also by Sir Francis Drake himself before his death, and much holpen and enlarged by divers notes with his own hand here and there inserted, and set forth by Sir Francis Drake (his nephew), now living, 1626.' So closely do the present memoirs follow that account that it cannot reasonably be doubted that Mr. Festing was one of those 'others' who had a hand in Preacher Nichols's book, although neither he nor Mr. Waldyve are mentioned as being of the expedition. When we consider the circumstances under which they sailed, it is only natural to suppose that they made it a condition of their assistance that their names should be suppressed in the published narrative; and, in view of this supposition, it is not unworthy to be noted that Nichols makes no mention of a 'captain of the land-soldiers' or a 'merchant' as sailing with Drake, although it is known that these officials formed part of all well-ordered expeditions to the Spanish Main. Of course some small discrepancies will be found between the two accounts, but they are unimportant, and seem rather to confirm the general accuracy of Mr. Festing's memoirs than to cast any suspicion upon them. For instance, Nichols gives the name of the man who 'spoiled all' in the first attempt on the _recuas_ as Pike, but there can be no doubt that, by an obvious word-play which would commend itself to an Elizabethan punster, the name of the infantry weapon was substituted for that of Culverin out of tenderness for the old Sergeant's memory. Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but it appears better to suffer the curious to note and comment upon them for themselves. Should any such be tempted to pursue the subject farther, he will find an interesting account of Signor Giampietro Pugliano in a letter of Sir Philip Sidney's, who describes the esquire of the Emperor's stables in much the same terms as those which Sergeant Culverin was in the habit of using. In fact, Mr. Festing's memoirs receive confirmation from contemporary sources too numerous to set out here. He mentions indeed only one event of any historical or biographical importance which has not been found either related or referred to by other trustworthy writers, and that is the piratical attack of Drake upon the Antwerp caravel--an exploit about which all parties concerned no doubt took good care to keep their own counsel. These considerations, it is felt, will be enough to carry conviction to what Mr. Festing would have called 'all honest kindly readers.' To the merciful dealing of such his memoirs are now therefore committed without further excuse, defence, or apology. J. C. THAMES DITTON, _October_ 1887. FOR GOD AND GOLD CHAPTER I Erasmus, in his _Praise of Folly_, has uttered a sharp note against those scribbling fops who think to eternise their memory by setting up for authors, and especially those who spoil paper in blotting it with mere trifles and impertinences. Yet have I, that was none before, resolved to turn author, and set down certain passages in my life that I have thought not unworthy to be remembered. Many who share my respect for him who is rightly called the honour of learning of all our time, forgetting therein, as it must be said, all tenderness for me, have marvelled openly that I listen not to his wisdom, but will still be spending paper, time, and candles upon such trifles and impertinences as he condemns. It were better, say they, for a scholar to take in hand some weighty matter of religion, or philosophy, or civil government. But stay, good friends, till I bid you show me how it were better. Such treatises are ordnance of power; and are we sure that of late years scholars have not been forging too many weapons for dunces to arm themselves withal in these wordy wars that now be? A harquebuss is a dangerous toy in unskilled hands, and so I know may be a discourse of religion, or philosophy, or civil government to unlearned controversialists, of whom, God knows, there is a mighty company in this present time. So, I pray you, consider whether Erasmus has not here a little dishonoured his scholarship and sounded his note false. Should he not rather have placed amidst all other folly that he praises these very trifles and impertinences also with which a scholar may seek to comfort his solitude? I am the more moved to the part I have chosen because it is not clear that all I have to tell shall be found wholly trifling and impertinent. Indeed I think it may contain something noteworthy, not in respect of myself, or even of that noble gentleman whose story this is as much as mine, but rather in respect of that very mirror and pattern of manhood who was my good friend in those days, though now with God, and whom of all I ever knew or heard of I honour as in courage unsurpassed, in counsel unequalled, and in constancy passing all I ever deserved. So much by way of preface or apology; and now, with a good wish on all honest, kindly readers, let me to my tale. As with many others, my life, it may be said, began with my father's death. Till then I had been kept in so great subjection that, save in my books, I had hardly lived. For he was an austere, grave man of the Reformation party, and one whom the fires of Mary's reign had hardened against all Popery, so that towards the end of his life he became what is now called a Puritan, ay, and that of a strict sort too. Outwardly to his great friends in the county he was still good company. For, not to speak more, because of the honour I bear him, he was a worldly man, and not one to use a shoe-horn to drag ill-fitting opinions on to men of quality, nor in any way to seek a martyr's crown. His chiding and severity were kept for me and his servants and tenants, who were all hard-pressed, though, in truth, not beyond what justice would warrant were mercy laid aside. It was a hard case for me, because of my mother I had not even a memory. The same hour that I was born she died, leaving my father alone in the world save for me. It was then that he most changed, they told me, but in no respect showed his grief so much as in misliking me. Yet I think I loved him, for all his chiding and sharpness. Indeed I had so little else to love. At least I know that I was sobbing bitterly when my old nurse came to tell me that his short sickness had come suddenly to an end: for he had but a little time past been seized with a quartan ague, which carried off so many that same glorious year that our great Queen came to her throne. It was a cold, gray afternoon in January. I was sitting, hungry and forgotten, in my favourite nook in the dim old library. It was an ancient, low room, which my father had left standing when he had rebuilt the rest of the place in the new style soon after he had purchased it. It had been a house of Austin Canons which fell to the lot of some spendthrift courtier in King Henry's time, which gentleman, getting past his depth in my father's books with over much borrowing, was at last driven to release the place to him. So it was that the old monastery became our dwelling, but this, the Canons' refectory, was all that was left of the former buildings. At one end there was a deep recess, where I could sit and see the dreary darkness settling down on the distant Medway, and the Upchurch Marshes, and the Saltings. It was but a sad prospect at any time in winter, and made me sad, though I would never sit elsewhere with my books. I must have loved it because my father never came to chide me there, and because on that cold stone sill I could sit and sob undisturbed over the sorrows of men long dead, as I now sat sobbing over my own, when Cicely came hurriedly to me. 'The Lord has taken him, Master Jasper,' she cried, as well as her sobs would allow. 'The Lord has taken him, before I could call you to see how sweet an ending he made. God-a-mercy on him, for he was a just and upright gentleman, and one that dallied not with mercy, and died a good Reformation man. Ay, that he did, and would see never a priest of them all, with their hocus-pocus and Jack-in-the-box, and their square caps and their Latins. When the end was coming he cried out, "God-a-mercy on me and all usurers," once or twice he did, for the usurers seemed to trouble him. So I opened the windows, and bade him not trouble himself with the rogues at such a time, but get on sweetly with his dying. That was a comfort to him, I know, for he grew quiet then, and passed away with but one more cry for mercy on them. May the rogues be better for a good man's prayers, that he shall pray no more! For 'tis all passed, 'tis all passed; and you are Squire of Longdene now, Master Jasper; and maybe your worship would like to see how your father lies.' I dried my tears then, for I had been dreading the summons to see him die, and felt glad that I was spared the sight. I was able to follow Cicely into the great chamber where he lay, and look bravely for the last time on the wise, hard face. It was when I came out that I felt indeed my life had begun. For there stood old Miles, our steward, who had married my nurse, bowing respectfully. 'A wise man has gone this day, sir,' he said, 'and a godly and a rich. May the Lord in His mercy give your worship strength to bear his loss and walk in his footsteps.' It lifted me up strangely to hear him speak thus; for I was but fourteen years old, and had never been called 'your worship' before, except sometimes on Saturdays by the Medway fisher lads, who knew I had groats in my wallet then. To hear Miles thus call me was a thing I could hardly understand. He who had barely a word for me, except to scold when he caught me bird-nesting in the orchard, or swear after me in breathless chase when I flew my hawk at his pigeons, as happened more than once when Harry came to see me and my father was away. It is time I should tell of Harry, my friend and rival, my almost brother; for his life was, and, I thank God for His mercy, still is, in spite of all the wrong I did, so bound up in mine, that I cannot tell my tale without unfolding his. He was the only son of Sir Fulke Waldyve, a gentleman of good estate and ancient family near Rochester, in Kent, and a good neighbour of ours. Ever since my father had come to live at Longdene, Sir Fulke and he had been fast friends. Not that they had much to make them so. For Sir Fulke was an old soldier and courtier of King Henry's day, and had named his only son after him as the pattern of manhood. From the like cause he swore roundly rasping Tudor oaths at all that displeased him, ay, and much that he loved too, from mere habit, but above all at Puritans and those who thought Reformation should go further than his idol King Henry had carried it. In all ways the knight was a man of the old time, while my father was held one of the new men, whom many thought to be ruining the country. He had been a wool merchant in London, and had made much money at trading and by other ways that merchants use. Even I used to wonder to see them so friendly, and used to watch them by the hour together through a hole I knew of in the yew hedge, as they sat drinking in our orchard after dinner in the summer-time. Sir Fulke was so round and red, with his curly beard and his sunburnt face and his merry blue eyes, and my father was so pale and spare and grave. I wondered how men could be so little alike, and wondered how it would have been with me if that rough old knight had been my father instead of the courtly merchant by his side. 'By this light,' I have heard Sir Fulke burst out in the midst of their talk, 'I marvel every day what a God's name makes me love you, Nick. Your sour face should be as much a rebel in my heart as your damned French claret is in my stomach. Were it not that you are so good a tippler, I would say that at heart you were no better than a pestilent, pragmatical rogue of a Calvinist.' 'Nay, Fulke,' my father would say quickly in his courtly way, being, as it seemed, in no way offended that the old knight should speak to him so roughly, for they always said my father, like other merchants who have thriven, was slow to take offence with men of ancient lineage and good estate; 'what matter that our outward seeming is different? That is only because our lots were cast differently. Not what we are, but what we love, is the talk of friends.' 'Ay, by God's power,' Sir Fulke would cry, 'you have hit it now most nicely, Nick. You love a long fleece, and so do I. You love a fair stretch of meadowland, and so do I. You love a well-grown tree, and so do I; ay, and, you rogue, you love a full money-bag, and so, by this light, do I. Mass, but I run myself out of breath with our likings, and sack must run me back again.' 'Indeed,' my father would answer, 'were it only our delights that we share, I think it would be bond enough, without a common sorrow to help it.' 'Ay, ay, Nick; that is it,' the old knight would murmur, sad in a moment, for Harry's mother, too, had died in childbed. 'But speak not of that. God rest her sweet soul! What is there divided that she could not bring together?' And so they would fall into silence awhile, till Sir Fulke's eye was dry again, and his thoughts had wandered away from the beautiful woman whom, late in life, he had loved and married and lost, to some new plan he had for mending his estate upon which he wanted his friend's counsel. It is little to be wondered at, then, that a great friendship grew up also between Harry and me. We were little more alike, I think, than our fathers. For on Harry descended all the sunny beauty of his mother. Indeed, afterwards, when as a page at Court he personated the Princess Cleopatra in a masque before the Queen's grace, an old lord who was in presence swore it must be the gentle Lady Waldyve alive again. He was lithe and active too, and of quick and nimble wit, and as long as I can remember could always give the fisher lads more than he took, either with fist or tongue. But more than all this, it was his gentle, loving spirit that won and kept my love in spite of all our boyish quarrels, ay, and of a greater thing than that. When I think of his noble nature, which never allowed him to turn a span's breadth from the path of honour, the lofty patience wherewith he bore my shortcomings, the tender sympathy I won from him in all my troubles, I can still kneel down and thank God that gave me such a friend to carry a light before me in the way a gentleman should walk. So what wonder then that I loved him as I loved no one else--save one, of whom I shall forbear yet to speak, until my tale compels me. Then I must, seeing it was surely God's will that tried me so sore. Had Harry been other than he was, at the time at least of which I now speak, I must yet have loved him, for it was my father's will that I should. 'Jasper,' he would say to me sometimes when I had been reading at home, 'close your book and ride over to Ashtead to bid young Waldyve go a-hawking with you to-morrow. You must see more of him. For know, I would have you no merchant, or parson, or plain scholar, but a gentleman. You will have money, and he shall teach you how to spend it like a gentleman. Make him your friend, and be you his, or you shall smart for it.' So away I would go blithely enough; for those days with Harry were the only happy ones I knew, though it must be said they often ended sadly with a rebuke and even chastisement from old Miles, till one day my father, seeing him, told him he would not have gainsaid any prank I played in company with Sir Fulke's son. This I told Harry next day he came, thinking to strangely delight him; but instead he looked grave, and swore one of his father's oaths that he would never fly hawk at Miles's pigeons again. Such was my friend Harry Waldyve when, in the first year of our most glorious Queen's reign, whom God bless with fullest measure, my father died, and I began my life. CHAPTER II It was not till the morning after my father's death that Sir Fulke rode over from Ashtead with Harry. The old knight was redder in the face than ever. There were tears in his eyes, too, as he took my hand and sat down by the great hearth in the hall without speaking. As for Harry, he threw his arms about my neck and shyly pressed into my hand his set of gilded hawk bells--the most precious thing he had. I had long envied him the toys, and his kindness set my tears flowing fast again. 'Don't grieve, Jasper,' he said. 'You must not grieve. Dad will be your father now. He said he would as we rode along. He told me to tell you he was your guardian now, and we are really brothers at last, Jasper.' I looked at Sir Fulke, but he only nodded his head. His face was very red, and I knew he could not have spoken without sobbing. So Harry and I talked on in low tones till the old knight found his voice. He spoke angrily at last, but I did not mind his chiding, for somehow I knew it was only to hide his grief, lest we boys should see his weakness. 'Yes, I am your guardian, lad,' said he; 'and since I am, why, in God's name, did you not send for me before, instead of letting your father lie all night like a dog that none cares to bury?' 'Please you, sir,' said I, 'Miles rode out an hour after he died, as I thought, to bring the news to you.' 'An hour after his death!' cried Sir Fulke. 'On what devil's errand went he then, for he came not to me till six o'clock this morning?' 'Whither rode Miles last night?' I asked then of Cicely, who was sobbing hard by. 'Know you, and has he come back?' 'Nay, I know not, your worships,' she said, 'save that he went to your worship, as he said, and--and----' 'And what, woman?' cried Sir Fulke testily. 'On an errand of his dead master's, please your worships,' whimpered Cicely; 'an errand, by your worship's leave, into Chatham.' 'And what, o' God's name,' cried the knight, 'took him there?' 'Nay, I know not,' replied Cicely, with a look of that sort of humility, much used by her class, which is very near of kin to defiance. 'Unless it were to take order for his poor worship's funeral with the elect that be there.' 'What say you?' roared Sir Fulke, 'you pestilent, canting scrag-end of Eve's flesh! What, by the fat of the fiend, has your Calvinistic knave of a husband to do with a gentleman's funeral? Knows he not, the dog, that it is I who shall order his master's affairs? Is this all that comes of Festing's boasted discipline? I told him he was wrong, he was always wrong; and here's the end of it. The elect, too,--the elect knaves, the elect devils! Do you think, you canting jade, that because Mary is dead you shall play what pranks you like with a gentleman's body? By this light, you misjudge Henry's and Mistress Anne's daughter if your thick heads think that.' By this time Sir Fulke had railed himself clean out of breath, and as he ceased we could hear the sound of horses' feet in the courtyard. 'Run, lads,' said Sir Fulke, 'and if that be Miles bring him before me.' To the door we went, and sure enough found Miles had returned, but not alone. Dismounting from their shabby jades were two men, dressed all in black. One of them I knew by sight, having seen him about Chatham and Rochester. He had a round, red face, with a shrewd, solid look in it, and dancing blue eyes full of merriment, which even now, though I think he tried to look as grave as he could, he was unable to get master of. His companion was a grave, dark-eyed man, of dull complexion, whose look repelled me as much as the other's attracted. 'Peace be on this house,' the two men chimed when they had finished tumbling off their horses, which they did in so clumsy a manner as even then, almost made me laugh. 'Peace; and be its sorrow comforted.' The red-faced man then came forward up the steps, and took my hand so kindly that I felt at once that I had found a new friend. 'Master Festing,' said he, 'I know you, and desire your worship's better acquaintance. Me you know not, though I was your good father's friend. He would not have it so known; but let that pass. Know me for Master Drake, of Chatham, sometime preacher to his Majesty's fleet, and soon to be again, let us hope, now the evil times be overpast and joyful days be come again for all true Reformation men.' His black clothes were very shabby, and of old-fashioned cut, and there came with him up the steps and into the hall a savoury smell of tar and the sea. 'Yes, my lad,' went on Mr. Drake, for 'your worship' was quite out of tune with his kind, fatherly way, 'this is an hour of sorrow for you, but one of joy for England. A weight is lifted from England's heart, and yours shall rise with hers. For, saving a decent grief for your father's loss, no true Englishman should weep when his country claps her hands and leaps with gladness.' I did not well understand him then, though I knew he meant to comfort me. For in those days we knew little of what was coming, when such words as Mr. Drake's would be on every one's lips. England was crushed and broken then, shuddering still under the curse of Rome and Spain. I was no more a prophet than the rest, and could ill understand why this little red-faced preacher should draw himself up in his shabby clothes, with glittering eyes, till he almost looked as though he had come out of my Plutarch, best loved of books. I was glad when he stopped and turned to his friend. 'I had forgot,' said Mr. Drake. 'Be better acquainted with my right-worshipful and approved good friend, Mr. Death. One of the faithful flock, Mr. Festing, that through the bloody times, which now be past, has watched and prayed for England beyond the seas, in Frankfort; withstanding steadfastly all backsliders there, and helping Mr. Knox to file away the Popish rust that still clung to King Edward's service-book.' He seemed to think that because my father had been a secret but active Puritan, I must be one too, and well versed in all those unhappy controversies with which the English exiles made their banishment doubly hard, and laid the seeds of many troubles that even now grow each day ranker. 'Ay, that I did,' said Mr. Death, unfastening his hard lips, 'and should have prevailed at last against that bad, factious Erastian, Dr. Cox, had he not so traitorously procured us to be driven forth by the Gallios of that city.' 'If any man has dealt traitorously with you, Mr. Death,' said Harry, 'it were well you should come within and speak with my father, who is a Justice, and will see you righted, I doubt not.' 'Ay,' echoed I, 'come within and speak with my guardian, who will surely welcome all my father's friends.' Our words had quite another effect to that which we had expected. For both the preachers stopped short before the door, looking hard at each other. Mr. Death seemed to grow more pale than before, and to be at a loss what to do. But Mr. Drake's face I saw grow to so stern a look of resolution as only in one other have I seen equalled. 'Come, brother,' said he, 'we have a blow to strike, so let us strike quick and hard,' and with that he strode across the hall to where Sir Fulke was sitting, who sprang up fiercely when he saw the preachers. 'Drake!' cried he, 'what in the devil's name make you here?' 'In the devil's name I make nothing, Sir Fulke,' answered Drake unflinchingly; 'but come to stay you marring, in the devil's name, a dead man's wishes; and in God's name to charge you to deliver up to me the body of Nicholas Festing for burial.' I verily believe that had it been the sour-faced Mr. Death that had given their errand he would there and then have been sent forth with such a dish of blows seasoned with hot railing as would have kept him satisfied for many a day. But Sir Fulke, like King Henry and our blessed Queen, knew a man when he saw him, and surprised me by his quiet answer. 'You open your mouth wide, Drake,' said he; 'by what authority do you expect me to fill it?' 'Here is one,' answered Drake, 'that you will be the last to gainsay, if men know you for what you are,' and with that he took from his breast a paper and handed it to Sir Fulke. He carefully examined the signature and writing, and then gave it back to Drake. 'Nicholas Festing wrote that, I doubt not,' said he; and then, looking Drake hard in the face, went on, 'Read it to me, and read it truly, if you are a man.' Without wincing a jot under Sir Fulke's stare, Mr. Drake took the paper and read as follows:--'Know all men whom it may concern, and above all Sir Fulke Waldyve of Ashtead, knight, to whom I have given care of all my earthly affairs, that it is my last will that in all which concerns the spiritual and heavenly part of me no man shall meddle, save as my approved friend Mr. Drake, preacher, of Chatham, shall direct; and him I charge to deliver my soul to God, and my body to earth, after the manner of the reformed Church, and free from Popish, idolatrous, and superstitious ceremonies, saving always the laws of this realm. For I would have all men know that I die, as I have lived, in the purified and ancient Church of Christ, in testimony whereof, above all, I desire to be buried without jangling of bells, or mistrustful prayers, or conjuring with incense, as though my happy state with God were doubtful, and reverently laid in the earth, with thanks to God, in certain hope of a glorious resurrection.' For a moment Sir Fulke looked at me, as though he would ask me to read the paper too, but almost immediately he stared hard again at Mr. Drake, and was satisfied. 'Enough,' he said, plainly much pained. 'How will you bury him?' 'By the rites in use amongst the true English remnant at Geneva,' croaked Mr. Death, who, seeing all danger was over, now came forward. 'There alone is found the true law of God, there alone has the threshing-floor been swept clean of----' 'Peace, fool,' said Sir Fulke sharply. 'If Nicholas Festing wishes to be put under the sod like a canting Calvinistical knave, by God's head, he shall be, saving always, as he said, the laws of this realm. I want no pestilent, heretical sermons from you, but only information to lay before the Council, whither I ride this very day, according to my duty as a Justice of the Queen's most excellent Majesty. And, look you, Drake, promise me to do nothing till I return.' 'My hand on that, Sir Fulke,' said Drake, heartily holding out a hand not unstained with pitch, which my guardian, after a moment's hesitation, took. With that the preachers departed, and Sir Fulke soon after followed them on his way to London, much saddened, as I think, to see what manner of man his friend had been. Whether he was heard by the Council or not I cannot tell. Certain it is, however, that on his return he took no steps to prevent the funeral. I expect, if the truth were known, his zeal won little encouragement from the Council. For in the early days of our wise Queen's reign, in spite of an ordinance against using new doctrines or ceremonies without authority, and the proclamation against King Edward's service-book, which had been given out the month before, things were left to go on with as little mud-stirring as possible, until Parliament could be brought together. I doubt not the poor old knight lamented bitterly the high-handed days of his old master, King Henry; but he was helpless, and a day was fixed for the funeral to take place at our little church. Well I remember that sunny January morning, and how I dreaded what was to come. At an early hour great numbers of people came flocking out of Rochester, Sittingbourne, and the villages around to Longdene. For, since this was but the first year of the Queen's reign, no one knew as yet of a certainty what order would be taken in ecclesiastical matters, and the news that a gentleman was to be buried after a new and reformed manner attracted many, since these things, being the first that had been seen in Kent, were accounted strange at the time, and somewhat boldly done, when as yet the old religion was still in force. The people came rejoicing, with baskets of food, as though to a wedding or glutton mass rather than to a funeral. To me alone, in all that multitude, it was an occasion of sadness. It was the first time the people had had brought home to them that the days of England's shame and bondage were over, and when I looked upon the crowd, before the gate, eating and drinking and laughing, as they waited for the body to come forth, I began to know what Mr. Drake had meant, when he said that a weight was lifted from England's heart, though it only made heavier the load on mine. So brightly shone the sun, and so radiant were those happy people, scarce one of whom had not lost a friend or kinsman in poor Wyatt's mad attempt to do by force what God had now done so quietly by Mary's death, that I alone of all the world seemed sad, and in my utter loneliness I turned away and wept bitterly. Mr. Drake was in the room, talking in high spirits to a knot of preachers who had just arrived. Many, I was told, had come down from London to do honour to the great occasion, as they called it, but I forget their names, if I ever knew them. Good Mr. Drake must have heard my sobs, for he came forward out of the gloomy throng and spoke to me very kindly. 'Come, lad, come,' said he, with his tarry hand on my shoulder; 'have a stout heart. This is a proud day for you, a day of rejoicing in the Lord, that it is given you to bear witness of England's new life, and not, as was vouchsafed to me and others here, to bear witness of her slow cankering death. All England will praise you for this day's work. Ay, and beyond the seas too, many a poor Fleming, and Frenchman, and German who was losing heart will smile happily when he hears Nicholas Festing's name, and envy his son the part God gave him to play.' Hearing Mr. Drake's words, the preachers gathered round us and vied with each other in giving me drafts of comfort, rather, as it seemed to me, for their own glorification in each other's eyes, by showing their cunning in the brewing of such phrases, than from any desire to console me. 'Affliction, Master Festing,' said a fat, pale-faced man, 'is the mustard of the spirit; for even as that excellent sauce maketh the stomach lusty to receive meat, so doth sorrow stir up the heart to a desire for the Word,' and with that he smacked his lips and looked towards the sideboard, which Cicely was already furnishing with meat against our return. 'Rejoice, too, my boy, in your tears,' said Mr. Death, 'for they be the water to drive the mill which shall grind in pieces the stumbling-blocks of your soul.' 'And groaning, sir,' said another, 'is the portion of the elect, who, being predestined to the eternal company of God, must not defile their spirit with the joy of the world, which fills the stomachs of the eternally damned.' 'Softly, softly, sir,' interposed a heady-looking man; 'comfort the boy, if you will, but comfort him according to the Word.' 'And who are you,' retorted the other angrily, 'to teach me what is according to the Word, and what is not?' 'Brethren, brethren,' cried a mild, grave-looking man with a refined and scholarly face, 'I pray you remember on what errand you are. On a day of triumph like this, is it for the victors to quarrel? Moreover, it is time we departed. Mr. Drake, I pray you order our manner of proceeding.' With that we started, to my no small joy, for I was longing to be alone in the old library again, and none of those men, save Mr. Drake, brought any comfort to my aching heart. It must have been a strange sight, when I come to think of it now, as we crossed the sunlit court and sallied out between the crowds of eager faces that lined the way. Instead of the throng of clerks in gay attire who used to precede the coffin at burials of persons of note, swinging censers, and singing for the soul of the departed, there were none but the black company of preachers in their gowns and Geneva caps. The people joined in behind me where I walked with Miles and Cicely, and the long line wound down to the church in the valley between the frosty hedgerows and the young woods my father had planted. I knew the little moss-grown church well, for it was a favourite resting-place for Miles's pigeons. They, I think, were the only living things that cared for it, except a few ill-tempered jackdaws and one or two old bent women, who came to mutter prayers upon their beads amongst the mouldering stones. I do not think there had been a parson there since King Henry's time, certainly none that I could remember, except on rare occasions when one came out of Rochester to shiver through a homily or a funeral, as well as the jackdaws and the chilling damp would allow. It was a place all shunned for its ghostliness, unless they had a special call to go there, which indeed was seldom; for there was not even a door upon which the parish notices could be fixed. The wood had long ago gone to make fires, and the wide-spreading hinges, all bent and rusty, hung down with an air of mourning. But the pigeons and the jackdaws quarrelled for the place. It was a pleasant spot for them. All that savoured of Popery, which was all the church contained, had been torn down, I think, in Edward's days. Rood-screen and all were gone--perhaps to cook a Reformation pot with the door. Thus the birds could fly in and out as they liked, and rest out of the way of stones and hawks, till Harry hustled them out. The little painted windows still remained. They were very Popish things, with the Virgin and I know not what saints upon them. But it did not matter, for the spiders and the ivy--good reformers they--had nearly hidden them from sight, so, as it was thought too costly to replace them with white glass, they had been allowed to remain. A grave had been prepared for my father at the end of the north aisle, where once was a chapel of St. Thomas, and where were still to be seen, moss-grown and time-stained, two or three tombs of the Abbots of Longdene. There was great difficulty, I remember, in getting the coffin so far, because the pavement was all loose, and in some part quite thrust out of place by the rats and the fungus. As many of the people as there was room for thronged in after us, and jostled each other for the best places with many a rude jest. Such irreverence was very hard for me to bear, but I do not wish to condemn them for it. It was done from no ill-will to me or my father, but only from that same exuberant spirit of joy which was beginning to fill all men's hearts when each day they saw more clearly that England's night was done. The preachers alone seemed in earnest; for they, good men, had suffered much, and this thing that we were now upon must have seemed too serious and heaven-sent for idle gaiety. I was more at ease when the scholarly-looking gentleman began the service. His soft, full voice quieted the people directly, and the beautiful words he spoke kept them in rapt attention in spite of their crowding to see what was to be done. No wonder, for now they heard, many for the first time in God's House, the voice of prayer go up in their own sweet English tongue. The preacher began with a collect, in which he commended the dead man's soul to God, and prayed that his sins committed in this world might be forgiven him, that the gates of heaven might be opened to him, and his body raised up upon the last day. So lovely did the well-balanced, earnest words sound in our dear old speech that I saw tears in many an eye before he had done, and the amen, in which all joined at its end, was half choked with sobs. Incontinently they lowered then the coffin in the grave, and covered it with earth, while the old preacher read an epistle taken from 1 Thessalonians iv. Deeper and deeper grew the silence, and less and less my pain, as the heart-stirring words fell upon the listening throng. 'I would not, brethren, have you ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as other which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus is dead and is risen, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.' So the solemn periods marched on to the end. 'Wherefore comfort yourselves one another with these words,' and therewith the white-haired scholar kneeled down, and began with a loud, full voice to sing in English the Paternoster. A sound, as it seemed to me, like the rustle of angels' wings filled the mouldering church as the whole throng with one accord kneeled with the preacher and joined him as he sang, women and all. Neither I nor any there, I think, save the preachers, had heard such a thing before. And surely it was the sweet women's voices that made our singing sound so holy in my ears, and lifted up my heart with such a heaven-born content that at last I could feel indeed that it was not a day for sorrow, but one in which I too must rejoice with England. Our Paternoster was followed by a sermon, in which, after a few words on death and eternal life, the preacher fell to exhorting the people to be earnest in carrying out the work, and not to be content with a pretended evangelical reformation, suffering such things to be obtruded on the Church as should make easy the returning back to Popery, superstition, and idolatry. They had seen, he said, in Germany the evil of suffering, under colour of giving small offence, many stumbling-blocks, which after the first beginnings were hard to get removed at least not without great struggling. But, indeed, I remember little of what the good man said; for I was but a boy then, and my mind would ever be fixing itself on the jagged ends of the rood-screen, which had been left sticking from the wall when it had been hewn away. 'Pity it is,' I said to my thoughts, 'they were not clean rooted out. Even now they might wound a man's limbs who was passing unawares, and time will come when they will grow corrupt, and as they rot away make the arch unstable.' Little I thought then how true a type those same poor beam-ends would prove of all that was to come on England ere many years were gone. CHAPTER III It would be wearisome for me to relate all that passed in the weeks that followed my father's funeral, even if I could. But indeed I remember little, except confusedly about men of law who came from London and had long speech with my guardian. In the business of setting my father's affairs in order I too was a good deal mixed. 'You cannot know too soon,' Sir Fulke said to me, 'what your estate will be. I am one who thinks a lad cannot learn too early to be a good steward, and so thought your father too, Jasper. So from the first I would see you have a say in your own affairs.' Thus it came about that I was always present when the lawyers came, and though at first I found it irksome, I soon began to take interest in my estate. Yet one event of these days I must relate, seeing that it was the beginning of things which afterwards played so great a part in my life. I rode into Rochester one day to see a man of law who dwelt there. As we descended the steep hill that leads from off the downs to the low-lying ground, the whole district was stretched out like a map below us. We could see straight before us the compact little city of Rochester, a mass of red roofs girded with a soft belt of trees, and crowding round the Cathedral and the great Castle, still grim and solid in its decay. About it ran the yellow river in one grand sweep from the bridge to where it turned again between Upnor Castle and the dock at the growing village of Chatham. Right in front of us, where the road was swallowed up between the two round towers of the city gate, was a great crowd. It was no strange thing to see, for hither were wont to gather the mariners from the fleet which rode between the bridge and Upnor and the workmen from the dockyard, that they might gossip and drink at the taverns which lined the way without the gate. To-day, however, it was a greater crowd than usual; so great indeed that we could not pass and had to draw rein. 'What, in the fiend's name,' cried Sir Fulke, 'brings all these stockfish gaping here to block a gentleman's path?' ''Tis Drake, 'tis preaching Drake,' said a good-humoured, weather-beaten sailor who stood by. And sure enough it was; for no sooner were the words out of our friend's mouth than Mr. Drake's jolly red face appeared above the heads of the crowd, as he mounted a stool close to the gate. 'Come, hearken, mariners,' he cried, 'hearken to the Word of God and the whistle of the Lord's boatswain. For the Word of God is like unto a capstan. You can turn it about and about till you tear up the anchor that binds you to earth. Come, then, my lads, and turn it about with me till you tear up the crooked anchor of sin, whereby the devil would moor you to the things of this world.' This was as much as Sir Fulke could bear, and he cried out, 'What kennel preaching is this? Have you nothing better to liken the blessed Word of God to than a capstan?' 'And wherefore should I not?' cried Drake, not noticing from whom the interruption came. 'What ell of tar-yarn is this, that will take upon him to reprove the similitudes of a preacher to her Majesty's navy? Wherefore, I pray you, should not the Word of God be likened to a capstan, when that blessed servant of the Lord, even Hugh Latimer, did not himself scruple to liken the Mother of God to a saffron-bag?' 'Well, I'll grant you the similitude is right enough,' Sir Fulke called out again. 'For, by God's truth, it seems that a preacher nowadays can turn the Word about and about till he make it pull up anything he will.' This sally produced a laugh from the rougher part of Drake's audience, and many began to cry out, 'What say you to that, master preacher? Has he not got you now?' 'What have I to say to it?' said Drake, turning fiercely on them. 'Know you not your own trade, you lubberly, roeless sons of herrings? Know you not that when you man a capstan you go but one way, like asses, that you are, in a clay-mill? So it is with the Word. There is one right way, that shall profit you to turn it, and if you twist it another it shall spin you heels over ears in a heap, like the ungodly in the bottomless pit. My similitude was right enough, yet would I have defended it with greater courtesy had I known who challenged it. Make way, lads, make way for Sir Fulke Waldyve; for next under God you shall reverence our blessed Queen and all who hold her commission. Make way, and let me ask pardon for my discourtesy to our most worthy magistrate.' 'Enough, Drake, enough,' said Sir Fulke good-humouredly; 'you outrun me no less in courtesy than wit. Were all preachers such as you there would be little call from Injunctions against preaching without authority, but since such there be, I must even, in virtue of my office, bid you cease, and all this company disperse.' That they did contentedly, with three cheers for the old knight, who was well known, and loved as much as known, at Rochester. Mr. Drake was bidden to the 'Crown' by my guardian to take a cup of wine; for it was always his custom to try and part in friendship with those whom he had had occasion to chide. 'But what of the Injunctions about which you are so tender, Sir Fulke?' laughed Drake. 'You forget I am an ecclesiastical person, and may not haunt or resort to taverns or alehouses, _vide_ Injunction No. 7.' '"Save for your honest necessities,"' returned Sir Fulke. 'So run the words; and your peace-making I hold, in my capacity of Justice, to be a most honest necessity. So come, with no more words, and save your tenderness for less honest occasions.' So we went to the inn, and there they talked of the times quietly enough till the lawyer came in. Mr. Drake craved leave to carry me home with him when our business was done, that I might see his boys, of whom he seemed very proud, and fish with them on the morrow. Sir Fulke demurred at first, but when Mr. Drake urged that it would cheer me a little, and perhaps bring the colour back to me, for I was but very poorly after my days of sorrow, my guardian at last consented. Towards evening, then, Mr. Drake came back for me, and we sallied out together, Sir Fulke crying out as we left that Mr. Drake was not to send me back with any pestilent Calvinistic ideas in my head. I was surprised that we went across the road down to the landing-stage just below the bridge. For I knew not where Mr. Drake's house could be if we must go to it by water, but I did not say anything till we had taken his boat and were clear of the turmoil which the fast-ebbing tide caused as it fought its way angrily through the narrow arches of the noble bridge. 'Where is your house, Mr. Drake?' I asked, as we reached the stiller water. 'Where is it, my boy?' answered he, chuckling to himself, as if vastly tickled by my question. 'Where, but on no man's land.' 'And where may that be?' asked I, not at all understanding his merriment. 'Why, in God's free tide-way, my lad,' said Mr. Drake, chuckling more heartily than ever. 'Where could an Englishman, and above all a Devonshire man, live better than there, where there are no landlords and no taxes, and every one is his own king? You will know it some day, I hope. Frank knows it. My boys know it.' I could not quite make out what he meant, and least of all who Frank was, and what he had to do with it. And no wonder, for then I did not know his strange habit of speaking of his sons as 'Frank and my boys.' I did not like to question him more, and was content to listen to him as he told me the names and services of the Queen's ships which we passed. There were a good many of them moored between the bridge and Upnor Castle, whereof some came to great renown afterwards, but then they were few and ill kept compared with what a man may see in the reach to-day. Clean past Chatham and the one little dock that it then had we went, till we made the reach that runs toward Hoo. Here Mr. Drake stopped rowing and pointed down the river. 'Look, Master Festing,' cried he. 'There she lies, there ride her jolly old bones over no man's land. That is my house, that is my castle, that is where I live with Frank, when he is at home, and my boys.' I looked to where he pointed, and saw an old hulk, after the fashion of King Henry VII.'s time, moored just out of the fair-way. A handsome vessel she must have been once, but was dismasted and plainly very old. I noted this to Mr. Drake. 'Ay,' he said, 'she is old, but trim and staunch yet. They say Cabot sailed in her to the Indies once; the first man who touched the mainland, let the Spaniards say what they will. I know it, and Frank knows it, and so do my boys, and we are proud of it, as we ought to be, for he sailed from England in an English ship.' 'But why do you live there?' I asked. 'Well,' said he, 'I have a reason, and I may as well tell you now as later. I lived once near Tavistock, in beautiful Devon, on the banks of our sweet Tavy, and there I might be dwelling now, but that I began to smell the Word of God and know it from the stinking breath of the beast of Rome. Then the Lord sent me trials, which, I thank Him day and night, He gave me strength to bear. The Justices of Devon were, for the most part, very earnest for the old religion, and persecution grew hot for those who would not sign the Six Articles. I thank God I was one to whom He showed the filthy error of that first most pestilent and damnable doctrine concerning transubstantiation. For, look you, lad, they would have made us like unto themselves, who are worse than the cannibal savages of the Indies. They, in their devilish ignorance, do but eat the flesh of their enemies; but these, in their most pernicious self-will, would pretend to fill their lewd bellies with the flesh of their Redeemer. Even as I speak to you of it, lad, my words seem like poison that will blister my lips, and I shudder each time I think of it, that Christian men are found to set such wanton contumely upon their sweet Lord. Come what might, I was no man to sink my soul in the filth of such a hell-born superstition as that; so I rose up and fled from the destroyer hither to Kent, where I knew true men were to be found. Here God showed me yonder hulk, which I purchased with the store of money I had saved. There dwelt I in peace till, in the fulness of time, King Henry died, and the godly men who stood around the throne of his son made me a preacher to the Royal Navy. So I continued reaping plenteously in the harvest of the Lord, until Edward's death thrust England once more down into the black pit of papacy and superstition.' 'But the day has broken again, now,' I said, remembering his former words, and wishing to win him back to the genial mood from which he had talked himself. He had been getting more and more like a great boy as we neared the ship and he talked of his sons, and I was sorry to have made him gloomy by my foolish questions. 'So it has, lad, so it has,' he cried, looking up quickly with the twinkle in his eyes again. 'It is growing brighter every hour; you shall help to brighten it, with God's good will, and so shall Frank, so shall my boys. But here we are almost alongside. Ahoy! ahoy! ahoy!' No one answered to his shout, but as we came close alongside we could hear a strange commotion in the waist of the ship, into which, however, we could not see. 'They are about it again,' said Mr. Drake, with a chuckle; 'my boys are.' 'About what?' asked I. 'Fighting!' replied Mr. Drake, with increasing pride and delight. 'I know the sound. My boys fight as much as any man's sons in all Rochester. Not many days pass without them getting about it.' 'But what do they fight about?' I asked. 'Don't bother your head with that,' replied Mr. Drake; 'they don't.' With that we went aboard, and I saw the cause of all the hubbub. Stripped to the waist were two sturdy lads of about twelve and thirteen years of age. They were fighting furiously with their fists, to the great delight of nine other boys of all ages, varying from a little fellow not more than three years old to a lad of scarce less growth than the smaller of the two fighters. The onlookers were cheering each telling blow, and hounding on their brothers to further efforts. Each time the others shouted I noticed that the baby cried out too, as loudly as his little lungs would allow, and beat on the deck with an old sword-hilt, which seemed to be his favourite and only plaything. 'There, Master Festing,' said Mr. Drake to me, beaming all over his round face, 'there are boys for a father to be proud of. Well done, Jack! 'Tis Jack and Joe,' he went on. 'You could not have had better luck; they are pretty fighters both.' My answer was drowned in a fresh shout from the boys as they caught sight of their father. 'Come on, dad, come on,' they cried. 'Jack is winning again, but you shall still see some good sport before 'tis ended.' They crowded round Mr. Drake to drag him by his cloak to where the two boys were still belabouring each other. Thither I think he would have gone, for he seemed as excited over it as the baby, but just then a thin, weary-looking woman, with eyes red with weeping, came running out of the cabin in the poop, and took Mr. Drake wildly by the arm. 'Stop them, Ned,' she said, 'stop them, for God's sake; they have been fighting this hour. For what black sin has Heaven given me such sons?' 'Tut, tut,' answered Mr. Drake; 'would you have a nosegay of milksops to call you mother? Rejoice that God has given us sons with whom, when the time is come, we shall not fear to speak with our enemies in the gate.' 'I know, I know,' she pleaded again; 'but stop them, Ned, this once. Look at their bloody faces; and I am so a-weary. Frank would stop them if he were here.' 'Ay, though he loves to see them fight,' answered her husband; 'I think sometimes he cares too much for you, and not enough for the cause. Still, for his sake, I will stop them. Peace, lads, peace!' he cried then; 'enough for to-day. It has been well fought, but now I bring you a visitor. Look to him, while I shift my boots within.' The boys ceased fighting instantly, and after wiping their faces they shook hands, and then came up to where Mr. Drake had left me with the rest. John Drake, being the eldest there, welcomed me, but in a way that fell a good deal short of good manners. 'Can you fight?' said he, with a contemptuous look at my black broadcloth doublet. 'I can fight with sword and buckler,' I answered, 'a little.' 'Then you are a gentleman?' asked Joe. 'Yes.' 'Frank is going to be a gentleman. He says so. He is going to make all of us gentlemen, too.' 'Who is Frank?' asked I. 'Don't you know Frank?' said Joe, while all the rest laughed at my ignorance. 'Frank is our brother, our eldest brother. He is a sailor now. He's 'prentice to a shipmaster, who trades to Zeeland and France. He will be a master soon, and have a ship of his own. He says so. And then he will sail with us against Calais, and win it back, and the Queen will make us gentlemen.' 'That is much to do, and will take some doing,' said I, smiling, I am afraid; for I could not but be merry over the way they spoke of what a poor smack-lad was going to do. 'What are you grinning at?' cried Jack, firing up in a moment. 'Do you doubt Frank will do what he says? Take that, then,' and he struck me a hard blow on the chest that made me reel again. I am sorry it made me angry to be struck so, for I returned his blow so heartily that, being younger than I, he was spun over on the deck somewhat heavily. Yet I think he did not mind, for when he picked himself up from where he fell, he came to me quite quietly and felt my arm. 'Who would have guessed,' said he, 'that you could strike so shrewd a blow,--you with a pale face like that; but Frank could thrash you, and so he shall when he comes home, and then we will ask him to let you sail with us against Calais.' I could not laugh at him any more, for I began to take a great liking to the sturdy lad, with his broad, flat face and curly hair, since I had knocked him down, and could quite forgive him for talking so big about his brother Frank. 'I am sorry I struck so hard,' said I. 'Nay, sir,' answered he, 'be not sorry. It is not every one can fell me like an ox, and besides, dad says England will want strong arms ere long. Won't she, dad?' 'Ay, that she will,' said Mr. Drake, who now came out from under the poop; 'and Mr. Festing will use his for her. But come to supper now.' 'Art going to be a soldier, lad?' he said to me, as soon as we were seated. 'I think I shall be scholar,' answered I. 'Sir Fulke says I am to go to Cambridge soon. It was my father's wish.' 'Well, he was a wise man,' said Mr. Drake, 'and doubtless knew best. But it seems to me that England will need pikes and swords sooner than books. Still, let that pass.' 'Don't let him be a scholar, dad,' said Jack. 'He must be a sailor, and sail with us to the Indies, and find new kingdoms, like the Spaniards, and bring back a cargo of gold and pearls. Tell him about the Indies, dad.' So Mr. Drake, with a right good will, fell to talking of the wonders of the West, and we twelve boys sat round him, open-eyed, greedily devouring his words, while he spoke of the gilded king that was there, who ruled over mountains of gold; and of the Indians that hunted fish in the sea, as spaniels did rabbits; and of the great whelks that were three feet across; and of trees with leaves so big that one could cover a man, and almonds as large as a demi-culverin ball. I know not what other wonders he related, just as he heard them from the mariners who came thence, but we all grew greatly excited by his tales, and went to bed to dream things yet stranger than the truth. Such was my first meeting with the Drake family, and fast friends we boys became, and though continually fighting amongst themselves for the lightest causes, they never offered to attack me again. Francis I never saw at this time. He was nearly always abroad, and when he returned it so happened that I could not get to see him. Still, whenever we got a day away from our grammar, Harry and I always slipped off with our crossbows, to sail with the Drakes in their boat and fish and shoot wild-fowl. Those were our happiest days. So greatly did the Drake boys take to Harry, after a fight or two, and so much did we take to the sea, that all our old pleasures were forsaken, and the pigeons and the jackdaws were left in quiet possession of the crumbling old church. Nor were Mr. Drake's stories of the West the least cause of our love for the Medway and that aged hulk. Harry was never tired of questioning the old navy preacher about it, and soon we began to worry our old tutor to tell us more. For I must relate that I was now living almost entirely at Ashtead with Harry, that I might share with him the tutor whom Sir Fulke had secured for us. Poor old long-suffering Master Follet! How I wish I could know thee now! Surely when I look back to those days of patience, I know thou must have been the sweetest pedant that ever said his prayers to Aristotle. But then in my folly I knew thee not. I knew thee not for the gentle scholar thou wast, for the well-rounded compendium thou hadst made thyself of that old learning which is fast passing away,--the old, pure learning, which a man could seek so pleasantly when learning was books and naught but books, and he who knew them best was accounted wisest. If Eve had not tempted nor Adam sinned, God might have given us that richest gift--to see the hours of our youth, as they pass, with the eyes that we look back upon them withal when they are gone. Alas! such wit I lacked and knew thee not, my gentle master, nor the hours in which I was free to rifle the treasure-house of thy polished wisdom. Had I but known, I might have tasted, ere they were yet dead, the sweets of those days when he who sought wisdom and would be accounted wise might sit out his life in the window-seat of his library, drinking in the voice of the mighty dead, while the world without glimmered softly in through the painted lattices upon the folio before him, and wandered thence to kiss its sister volumes sleeping in the shelves. Now that has changed, with much besides. Now must not a scholar be content with the light that comes softened and tender-hued through a library window if he would pass for wise amongst men. Now must he plunge out into the day and seek for the new wisdom amongst the haunts of thronging men, where the sunlight beats fierce and bright upon the world to show to him who fears not all its beauty, and all its baseness too. Such wisdom was not our tutor's portion, and his want of it, instead of increasing our love for him, as now it would, was our chief ground of difference. We each day grew more full of the wonders of the West, not alone from what Mr. Drake told us, but also from what we heard direct from mariners, with whom groats could win us speech in Chatham and Rochester. Well I remember how he answered when, having drunk dry our other wells, we made bold to try what we could find in our tutor. 'I am glad, my boys,' said he, with an anxious look in his delicate, wizened face and clear, brown eyes, 'that you have come to me in your trouble; for I perceive you have been speaking with some ignorant fellows, who have filled your heads with the folly that is now everywhere afloat. Beware of it as you would beware the fiend. So strong is this madness that has seized on men, and even scholars (if indeed they still deserve the name), that in so great a place as Paris even Aristotle has been called in question.' He looked at us as he said this, pausing long with uplifted eyebrows to watch the effect which this announcement, to him so terrible, would have on us. I did not know what to say, so prayed him civilly to proceed. 'You may well be pained,' he continued, though it must be said that I don't think we were at all, 'but you will rejoice to hear that these things will not continue long. I have here a goad which will soon drive these dull-witted cattle back to the right path.' So saying he laid his hand on a bundle of manuscript, which we knew only too well, and leaning fondly over it read slowly, as though it were a sweetmeat in his mouth, the title-leaf at the top. Its name was in Greek, not because the work was written in that tongue, but merely out of a fashion used commonly amongst such men to increase their appearance of wisdom. 'It is a work,' the good old man said,--we had heard it a score of times before,--'upon which I am labouring, entituled, "'H Aristotéleia Apología; or, Ramus Ransacked, being a British Blast against Gaulish Gabies, wherein all the preposterous, fantastical opinions of late grown current amongst the Dunces of Paris are fully set forth, withstood, and refuted by Christoph: Follet." It begins with a sharp note against----' 'But, please you, sir,' Harry interrupted,--and I was glad he did, for I saw the old man was running out of his course, as he always did when he got astride his 'Apology,'--'were it not well first to show us how the knowledge of this New World, of which we were asking you, had so set things awry?' 'Knowledge of the New World, say you?' said our tutor, evidently a little pained. 'Know, my boys, there is no knowledge of this pretended New World. No man can know what does not exist: the New World does not exist, _ergo_, no man hath knowledge of it.' 'Far be it from me to dispute your syllogism,' said I, for logic was his chief delight to teach us, 'yet, saving your premises, I have many times spoken with them that have been there and seen it.' 'My boy, my boy,' answered Mr. Follet sadly, 'in what a perilous case do I find you! What hope can I have of your scholarship if you will set the eyes of moderns against the wits of the ancients? How can they have seen this New World of which they are so ready to prate? Had it existed, Aristotle would have written of it. Forget you for how many years, and for how many and great sages, the whole sum of human understanding has been contained within the compass of the writings of that great man, and will you seek to increase it by the babbling of drunken sailors?' 'But, please you,' said Harry, 'the honest mariners who told me were not drunk.' 'The greater liars they, then,' answered Mr. Follet, a little testily. 'Or rather, I should say, the more pitiable their ignorance; for let me not be carried beyond good manners, which are a sweet seasoning of scholarship too often forgotten nowadays in the dishes men compound of their wits.' 'Save you sir, for that most excellent conceited figure,' said Harry gravely; for the mad knave always knew how to bring his tutor back to a fair ambling pace when he grew restive. 'Well, lad, indeed I think it was not amiss,' answered Mr. Follet, with a complacent smile. 'It is an indifferent pretty trick I have, and one I could doubtless in some measure rear in you; but not if you suffer the vulgar to plant weeds in the gardens I am tilling with such labour, that I may in due course see you both bring forth a plenteous crop of the fruits of scholarship. If you have a desire to make yourself learned in cosmography, I myself, who have no small skill in it, will teach you. But listen no more to idle sailors' tales, whose only guide is experience, wherewith they foolishly seek to explain the hidden wonders of the world, seeing they have no skill to learn the truth from books.' 'Is it Aristotle, then, alone we must read?' asked Harry, a little disheartened at the prospect before us. 'I will not say that,' answered our tutor. 'Though for the wise the Stagirite is all-sufficient, yet it cannot be denied but that there be some authors who, having reverently and afar-off walked in the footsteps of the master, have in a manner amplified, extended, and explained, and as it were diluted his vast learning, so as to make it more palatable, medicinable, and digestible to the unlearned, such as you and Jasper. Therefore, because of your weakness, I would suffer you to read the works of Strabo, Seneca, and Claudius Ptolemæus, amongst the ancients; and among the moderns, the _Speculum Naturale_ of Vicenzius Bellovacensis, the _Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum_ of Albertus Magnus, together with certain works of our own Roger Bacon; but these with circumspection, and under my guidance, seeing he was a speculator who erred not from too little boldness, or too great respect for Aristotle.' With this we had to rest content, though I think Harry found little comfort in it, seeing that his love for books was never so great as mine. As for me, I laid aside my _Plutarch_, and devoured greedily all my tutor advised. Nor did I stop there; for, rummaging in the library at home, I found other works on cosmography, such as the _Imago Mundi_ of Honoré d'Autun, and that of Cardinal Alliacus, together with not a few others which some abbot of the later times had collected, being, as I imagine, interested in the science. In these I read constantly, and carried what I found there to Mr. Drake and his boys, and my friends amongst the sailors. Hour by hour I told them of the dread ocean, where was eternal night, with storms that never ceased; of the magic island of Antilia or Atlantis; of the marvellous hill in Trapobana, which had the property of drawing the nails from a ship which sailed near it, and so wrecking it; and, above all, of the Earthly Paradise, of which I loved best to muse. Again and again I poured into their wondering ears the tale of that blessed land which lay beyond the Indies, the first region of the East, where the world begins and heaven and earth are hand in hand; the land where is raised on high a sanctuary which mortals may not enter, and which everlasting bars of fire have closed since he who first sinned was driven forth. I told them of the wonders of that land; how in it there was neither heat nor cold, and four great rivers went forth to fill the place with all manner of sweetness and water the Wood of Life, the tree whereof if any man eat the fruit he shall continue for everlasting and unchanged. Some laughed at me, saying I was blinded by too much book-learning, but most of the mariners, and especially Drake's boys, listened with great respect, caring little, as I think, after the manner of seafaring folk, whether the tales they heard were true or not, so long as they were strange. CHAPTER IV So passed by the full days of my boyhood; I living, as I have said, chiefly at Ashtead in Harry Waldyve's company. It was not alone in devouring grammar, and such dry bones of cosmography as Mr. Follet allowed us to pick, that our time was spent. Sir Fulke was not a man to keep boys wholly to such work. Although he had managed to acquire some show of skill in theology when King Henry brought it into fashion at Court, yet even that I soon saw had fallen into sad confusion in his mind, and in no sense was he a scholar. Yet in all such pastimes and pleasant labours as are used in open places and the daylight, which in respect of peace or war are not only comely and decent, but also very necessary for a courtly gentleman to use--in these he still showed the remains of his former high skill, or at least a happy trick of imparting to us his great knowledge of their mysteries. Almost every day he would have us out and exercise us under his own eye at riding, running at the ring and tilt, and in playing with weapons, being especially careful of our fence with the sword and spiked target. Like his master King Henry, he had a great love and skill for using the bow. This he taught us to use, and less willingly also the harquebuss. We had little time for the sea--an element, as my guardian was wont to say, which sorted less with what pertained to a gentleman than the land. Yet he did not forbid it, and whenever he went up to the Court, which was not seldom, we laid aside awhile our courtly exercises, and were continually amongst the marshes and Saltings with Mr. Drake's boys, 'Isti dracones horrendi,' as Mr. Follet was wont to ease his mind by calling them. After Sir Fulke's returns from Court it was always our scholarship that had the upper hand. For he was wise enough to see how things were changing at Court, and came back overflowing with praises of the young Queen's beauty and learning. ''Slight, lads,' he would say, 'she puts you both to shame, and goes beyond all young gentlemen of her time in the excellency of her learning. I tell you it is a sight to make England weep for joy to see her stand up, so fair and courteous, and make her speech in Latin, or French, or Spanish, or Italian, to the jabbering foreigners that come. And as for the Greek; why, Mr. Roger Ascham tells me she reads more of it with him in a day at Windsor than any prebendary of the church doth Latin in a week; he should know, seeing he had the setting forward of all her most excellent gifts of learning.' 'Then must we be double courtiers, sir,' said Harry, 'and court learning and the Queen as well, if we want to keep the Court, or the Queen shall have but half-courtiers.' 'Half-courtiers or double courtiers,' said Sir Fulke, 'I know that he who is out of learning will soon find himself out of Court.' 'Then is he in an evil case,' laughed Harry, 'for he that is out of Court is out of his suit, and he that is out of his suit shall be shamed unless he quickly suit himself with another. Come, Jasper, let us get Mr. Follet to make us breeches to go to Court with.' And away he would run to his work, while Sir Fulke laughed at his boy's trick of turning words upside down. For he soon got the ways of that tripping wit which, it must be said, has since come to make far better passwords to places at Court than ever a hard-witted scholar could learn, did he read twice as much Greek as Mr. Ascham himself. I say not this in envy, though I was too hard-witted ever to come by the trick. Harry's gifts were dearer to me than my own, and, God knows, I loved him for them, and never in my life envied him anything, except once, but for the present time let that pass. Some three years after my father's death thus passed away before the sad day came when Harry and I were forced to separate, since our paths led diversely. It was high time that I should go to Cambridge, according to my father's wish. Sir Fulke's faith in scholarship was not large enough for him to suffer Harry to do the like. For him a place was found in the household of that most godly and warlike nobleman, Sir Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, who was godfather to Frank Drake, since his renowned father, the first earl, being very earnest for the Reformation party, had been a good friend of Mr. Drake's when he lived at Tavistock. Since my father's death I had known no day so sad as that on which I took my departure for Cambridge in company with Mr. Follet, who at my charges was to install me safely in Trinity College. Harry rode with us as far as Gravesend, where we were to take the river for London. Mr. Drake, too, joined us at Rochester, and, riding by my side on his shaggy cob, beguiled the way with much good advice as to how I should bear myself at the University. 'I am, in a great measure,' said he, 'out of my former opinion against your becoming a scholar, not only because of the excellent parts I can see in you, which it were a sin to swathe in a napkin, but also because you will find that certain stout hearts amongst the godly, to whom I have written concerning you, are fast getting the upper hand at Cambridge. So that, I doubt not, you shall find yourself set amongst many goodly plants, with whom you shall grow to bear fruit medicinable for the purging away of all the clogging papistical humours that still be left to fester in the stomach of Reformation.' 'He were but a bitter tree,' laughed Harry, 'did he bear but purges.' 'A most wrong conclusion, my malapert Hal,' answered Mr. Drake; 'for your bitter pill is a sovereign sweetening of the inwards; and you shall find, moreover, that much fruit which grows at Court, though sweet in the mouth, is, for the most part, most bitter in the belly.' 'Then,' cried Harry, 'have I learnt a most notable piece of science, and can henceforth tell why courtiers' tongues are sweet and scholars' bitter. Still, I will be a courtier with a tongue tuned to sweet courtesy, and leave bitter railing to scholars.' 'Go, thou madcap,' chuckled Mr. Drake, whom Harry could never offend; 'go cry "Words, come and play with me," for surely thou wast born their play-fellow.' Mr. Drake then fell to tell me, as he had a score of times before, that Trinity was the worthiest college in England, since it was that which his good friend, the renowned Earl of Bedford, had chosen for Frank's godfather, Lord Russell. So largely did he speak of this and of the shining light that the young Earl had proved himself there, that his talk carried us all the way to Gravesend, where, most sadly, we bade adieu to him and Harry. As the strong flowing tide carried us up the beautiful Thames my spirits grew lighter; for I was not without comfort to soften the grief of my first parting with my brother. As I never attained to his wit and skill in courtly exercises, being in no way apt thereto either by birth or nature, so I may say, since all men know it, in things pertaining to scholarship he was but a child beside me. I know not if I was unduly proud of all I had attained to under Mr. Follet's guidance, yet of a surety I know he was unduly proud to bring me to Cambridge. 'Were it not unworthy of a scholar, Jasper,' said the worthy man, as we sat in the tilt-boat that was carrying us to London, 'I could bring my heart to envy you the many and great delights that await you whither we are going. Most profitably have you attended to my precepts, and eschewing the light of experience, by which the vulgar walk, have trusted to books, which are the only true guide. Such well-fashioned vessels as I have made you it is now again the delight of _Alma Mater_ to fill with her choicest nectar.' 'Did she, then, once choose other vessels?' asked I. 'Alas, dear discipulus, yes,' answered Mr. Pellet, with a little flush on his wan cheek; 'and then it was that I was cast forth. It was when those Elysian days, whereof the memory is a sweet savour to me still, were ended--the days when it was my happy fortune to find a place amongst that unmatched garland of fellows and scholars with which Dr. Medcalfe crowned St. John's College when he was Master, and afterwards when I was chosen out to be a most unworthy member of the new-founded house of Trinity. It was an honour I had little hoped to win; for (not to speak too much, because of the love I still bear to my old and dear college) this royal Trinity which our glorious King Henry founded, that _colonia_ of St. John's, that _matre pulchra filia pulchrior_, to which you, I hope most humbly and reverently, are about to belong, I hold, above all foundations, learned or unlearned, that the world has ever seen, to be the most noble, princely, and magnificent.' 'What made you, then, leave so honourable a state?' asked I as he paused, as if lost in musing on the glories of our college. 'That is soon told,' said he sadly. 'The days I speak of ended with the most precious life of our scholar king. It was there, if I may make free with the fine figure of my most worthy friend, Mr. Roger Ascham, that the Hog of Rome passed over the seas into that most fair garden of Cambridge, and set to to root out the fair plants that were growing there, and tread them under his cloven feet. Then the blighting breath of idolatry carried seeds of tares thither, which, taking root, throve most rankly amidst the pollution that beast had made, till ignorance choked out scholarship, and I fled.' 'Surely, sir,' said I, for much talk with Mr. Drake had increased the hot opinions that were born in me; 'surely the breath of the beast of Rome is no better than the vapours from the mouth of hell.' 'Soft and fair, Jasper,' said the old scholar, 'soft and fair. Such words sit ill on a scholar's lips. Carry not the rancour of these present times into the holy shrine whither you go. The memory of the ruin that befell that fair-built fabric did somewhat carry me beyond the terms of good manners. Do not you follow me. As you love learning, help to guard the doors of yonder dear place against the savage turmoil of these shifting times.' 'Must a scholar, then,' said I, 'forget his religion and what he owes to his God?' 'No, not that, lad,' answered Mr. Follet, looking a little pained. 'Your most glorious college was, under the king's grace, as its charter recites, divinely appointed for the purpose of bringing the pure truth of Christianity into the realm, and repelling the nefarious and enormous abuses of the Roman papacy.' 'Then will I strive,' said I, 'with my college to do what King Henry said.' 'That is well, lad,' answered my poor tutor, without losing his troubled look. 'Still there is no need to forget your scholarship in doing parson's work. By learning shall you withstand Rome more than by controversy and railing. Love a scholar when you meet him, though he hate not Rome. Love him for his learning's sake, and forget Rome. Such was the way in the old days, when good Dr. Medcalfe was Master of St. John's.' I saw how pained he was to think that the cargo he had laden with such care might be wrecked on the stormy seas which he could perceive ahead. So I said no more then, but contented myself with watching the multitudes of swans that came about us and the shipping which we passed, and with asking a hundred questions about the towns and villages on the banks, as well as of the great city which lay before, till by dark our sturdy rowers ceased their work at Paul's Chain, and we landed. We lay but one night in London, and came to Cambridge on the fourth day. There Mr. Follet at once carried me to Dr. Beaumont, that I might be entered at Trinity. The Doctor, as I must call him, though at that time he was only admitted B.D., was a man of about forty years of age, of good breeding and presence. In my eyes he seemed a very great person indeed, and my respect for good Mr. Follet was never so great as when I saw with what honour and affection the Master of Trinity received him. 'I have brought you a scholar, Beaumont,' said Mr. Follet, after very hearty commendations had passed between them, 'after my own heart; one who has imbibed the true principles of Aristotle, and is untainted with any new empiric heresy. I have taught him well in our own faith--to love learning, and despise experience as the common school-house of fools.' 'Ah, Follet,' said Dr. Beaumont, laying his hand on my tutor's shoulder fondly, and speaking to him smilingly, as though he had been a child, 'happy are you to have kept your scholarship so pure. Let us hope your scholar will do no worse, though, God knows, these are tainting times, and Cambridge grows so full of railing that ere long, I think, there will be no room left for the gentle disputations of scholars.' With that he dismissed us to his brother, Mr. John Beaumont, the Vice-Master; who showed me where my lodging was to be in King's Hall, not far from the great gateway of King Edward. How proud I felt as I sat that afternoon looking out upon the little court, for that was before Dr. Neville had pulled down the old buildings to make the present great court, which is now the envy of every college in Europe! Cambridge seemed to me a hall of Paradise, and Trinity its daïs. In spite of what Dr. Beaumont had said, I looked forward to dwelling in it as in a realm where the pure quintessence of learning should reign over a quiet band of brothers, who in the impassive contemplation of wisdom should have lost all hate, and fear, and sorrow. Suddenly my meditation was disturbed by a loud shout, and I saw a number of students surge tumultuously out of an archway into the court. In their midst was an effigy with an ox's skull for a head, clearly made to counterfeit the devil. This they had clothed in a surplice, and crowned with a square cap. It seemed to delight them beyond measure; for while one held the thing the rest danced round it, laughing and shouting, and singing ribald verselets against it. Gradually they drew near the window of one of the fellows, named Saunderson, who was University Reader in Logic, and fell to crying, 'Fasting Johnnie, Fasting Johnnie, come and welcome your master, who is here to speak with you.' Therewith Mr. Saunderson ran at them with a cudgel, but they drove him back, so that he could not come at the devil in the surplice. By this time the uproar had brought a number of students to the gate, and Mr. Saunderson, seeing amongst them a number of King's College men, cried out, 'To me, to me, all lovers of the old faith, and stay this sacrilege.' There was a rush from the gate at the effigy in answer to his call, and in a few moments I could see my college was being worsted. That was enough for me in the first blush of my pride, and, without thinking, I rushed down and out into the court, just in time to seize the effigy as it was being carried out of the gate. What followed beyond a wild turmoil, in which I was fighting like the Drake boys themselves, I cannot say, but soon I knew I was standing in the midst of the court with the tattered effigy in my hands and my fellow-students shouting round me as if their lungs must burst. At every pause in their shouting I could hear the voices of the Vice-Master and Mr. Saunderson railing at each other in a corner of the court with such good will, that every moment I thought it would come to blows. I was feeling very proud of what I had done, though scarcely knew in the din what to do next, when all at once I saw a grave-looking young man standing in the gateway, which was now shut, and by his side my poor tutor looking at me as though his heart would break. Then at last it burst upon me what I had done. At one blow the fair fabric I had raised in my day-dreams, the oft-repeated resolution to lead the life of pure scholarship, to soar impassive on the wings of science above the little turmoils of the world--at one blow it was all gone. Ere one sun had set upon my new life I was the hero of a vulgar broil. In an agony of shame I cast down the detested cause of my grief, and, breaking passionately through the excited throng, fled to my rooms from the reproachful, heart-rending gaze of poor Mr. Follet. With my head buried in my arms I sat for some minutes sobbing in black despair at my table, when, as I thought, I heard him open my door and come towards me; but the step was young, firm, and resolute, as unlike as it could be to my dear old tutor's shuffle. A strong hand was laid gently on my shoulder, and I heard a deep, full-toned voice speaking to me. 'Be of good heart, Mr. Festing,' it said; 'I know why you weep, and had I not long ago hardened my heart to the battle, I could weep with you.' I looked up, and saw the same gentleman who had been standing with my tutor in the gateway. He was a somewhat ungainly, ill-favoured young man of some eight and twenty summers, but yet I felt drawn to him, as much by reason of his kindly words as of a look there was in his face of fearless resolution, and pure-strained intellect, which a certain aspect of weary melancholy softened into what was to me a most sweet and lovable expression. 'I am Mr. Thomas Cartwright,' he went on, still looking sorrowfully upon me, 'new-made major-fellow of Trinity, with whom you are to share this lodging. I have brought this about by the kindness of the Master, because Mr. Drake had written to me concerning you, with very hearty commendations.' 'Are you a friend of Mr. Drake's, then?' asked I, feeling greatly comforted. 'Yes, Mr. Festing,' answered he; 'and also of that most high-wrought scholar, Mr. Follet. I know more of you than you know of me, and I know why you grieve. It is not hidden from me that you were minded to make sacrifice to the Lord of the good parts He has given you, and by long hours of patient study to make them worthy His acceptance. Yet rejoice that He has shown you at your very going forth what His will is with you. Rejoice that we can say this day, as surely as Samuel did to Saul, that He has appointed you to go up with us against the Amalekites and destroy them utterly. Such is His will; and while men hearkened to Him the strong tide of Reformation flowed on in full flood under His mighty breath, till its living waters bid fair to fill the length and breadth of Christendom with their cleansing sweetness. But men wearied of the work, and spared the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and destroyed them not. And now the Lord's ears are vexed with the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen amongst the people. He turns His face from them, and the tide is fast running back. Rise up, then, and do the work of the Lord. Think not of the treasure you have been laying up for Him; for, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams!' 'Must I then abandon all scholarship,' I asked, when he had finished, 'to join in the din of these bitter controversies?' 'What could the son of Nicholas Festing wish for better?' Mr. Cartwright replied. 'For what you call bitter controversy is battle under the banner of the Lord of Hosts against the Amalekite. Moreover, you need not lay aside scholarship, but you must labour thereat, even as I have done, to make of it a weapon wherewith at last you shall hew Agag in pieces before the Lord.' With such words he encouraged me not only then, but daily, till ere a term was half over I was as hot a young Puritan as any in Cambridge. I cannot blame myself that I so quickly made surrender to that remarkable young man, whom St. John's and my college were bidding against each other to possess, and who has since made so great a stir in England, becoming the very head and heart of the Puritan party. I had not even good Mr. Follet's influence to help me, for he left Cambridge a few days after to take up his place as tutor to Harry and one or two other young gentlemen about the Court, to whom he had been commended by his good friend Mr. Ascham, a man who at that time was the very oracle of the nobility on all such matters. I was glad enough my tutor was spared any further sight of the ill-conditioned state of his university, and, above all, the hornets' nest which I soon found my unhappy exploit had stirred up. It was some days after his departure that I was sitting at the window of my lodging pretending to read, but in truth listening to the Vice-Master and Mr. Cartwright, who were talking over Mr. Saunderson's recent expulsion from his fellowship. 'And how think you the Vice-Chancellor will take it?' said Mr. Cartwright thoughtfully. 'Who cares how?' said Mr. Beaumont hotly. 'Who cares what a Romish mule like Baker thinks? If he cannot stomach it, so much the worse for his Cretan belly.' 'And yet I think he is like to take some order in the matter,' said Mr. Cartwright, 'seeing how sturdy a papist Saunderson was.' 'Doubt not he will talk big enough,' answered the Vice-Master. 'He thinks because he is Provost of King's he can lift up his head over Trinity men. Yet let him beware, or he shall find that Pharaoh will lift up the head of the King's Baker from off his shoulders, and good Protestant fowls shall eat the flesh from off him. And besides, what order can he take? For if we cannot expel a fellow for observing fasts and particular days, not to speak of using allegory and citing Plato when publicly discoursing on the Scriptures, we may just as well write ourselves heathen idolaters and Italian atheists at once.' At this moment I heard the tramp of armed men below the window, and, looking out, I perceived the Proctor with the beadles and his watch in the court below halting at our staircase. At that time the Proctor's watch always went at night harnessed with good morions and corselets, for fear of the Mayor's constable and his men, but it was not common to see them so by day. Mr. Proctor demanded admittance in the Vice-Chancellor's name, and therewith entered the room with the beadles and two halberdiers, whose bright armour seemed strangely out of place in our dim and dusty lodging. 'I arrest you, John Beaumont,' said the Proctor, 'for brawling and other offences against the peace and dignity of our Lady the Queen and this University.' 'At whose suit?' asked the Vice-Master. 'At Mr. Saunderson's,' he answered. 'Here is the warrant; I pray you come peaceably.' 'Oh, I will come gladly enough!' said Mr. Beaumont, 'if it were only to enjoy the discomfiture it will bring the King's Baker when Sir William Cecil hears of it. Thank God, we have a Chancellor who knows my brother and me for true men, and can make a traitor's ears tingle--ay, and his back too. Let my brother know all, Mr. Cartwright, and pray him write without delay to Sir William.' The Proctor looked a little troubled at the mention of the great Secretary of State, but still he performed his task, and our Vice-Master was conducted to prison. And there indeed he lay till an answer came down from Sir William, with such a stinging reprimand for Dr. Baker that he was glad enough to release Mr. Beaumont and eat his humble pie, thanking God it was no worse. Were I to speak at greater length of Cambridge as it was at that time, I should have little else to tell save ringing the changes on what happened to me in the first week of residence. Factions and contentions were our only occupation; and while the seniors quarrelled the students brawled, and grew daily more inordinate and contemptuous of rules for their orderly governance, as well in behaviour as in religion. As for learning, it was only part and parcel with our manners. Our only philosophy was controversy concerning the ordinances of the English Church; while in grammar we studied nothing so much as how to rail in Ciceronian Latin,--and cunning professors we had, at least for the railing. Sharing Mr. Cartwright's lodging, I was more fortunate than most. Though very earnest in the controversies, he would not neglect his scholarship nor mine. Every morning he rose between three and four, not allowing himself more than five hours' sleep, whatever happened. I rose with him, out of my love of him and learning; and pushing my trundle-bed under his standing bedstead, to make room for my stool beside him, read with him out of the books we loved so well till nigh ten o'clock, when dinner was served in the Hall. After that the disputations in the schools began, which I always attended with him, being proud to carry the books of the most brilliant scholar and popular orator in Cambridge. Between that and supper-time I exercised my body, as I had promised Sir Fulke, chiefly in the fencing-school. For there was newly come to Cambridge at that time an Italian master of fence, to whom all the best gentlemen in the University resorted to learn the new foining rapier play, to the great discomfiture of the teachers of sword and buckler. Moreover, I rode out continually to the artillery butts or the Gog-Magog hills, till Mr. Cartwright persuaded me to abandon the evil company that gathered there daily for pastime. So things went with me and the University, till in the summer of the year of grace 1564 a great and notable thing for us came to pass. CHAPTER V It was after hall one day, in the middle of July, that Mr. Cartwright came up to me with the great news. 'Our time has come at last, Jasper,' said he; 'this day the Vice-Chancellor has received a letter from Mr. Secretary with very sharp orders for the burying of our differences, seeing that the Queen's grace will make progress here early in August.' 'That is news indeed,' said I; 'will there not be great things done for her entertainment?' 'That is the way my content lies,' answered Mr. Cartwright, radiant. 'There will be disputations, great disputations, where we shall pour into her gracious ear the true wisdom of Reformation, and refute our backsliding, halting adversaries.' 'But it is always said,' I replied, 'that the Queen clings to ceremonies and superstitions.' 'So she does,' he said, 'and were it not that that godly man, Lord Robert Dudley, is ever at her side, things might go harder with the faithful than they do.' 'Truly,' said I, 'our High Steward is very earnest for the truth, but how shall we prevail with her better than he?' 'God will give us strength, and words, and wisdom,' he answered excitedly. 'I shall stand forth in His might at the great disputation, and speak words of fire that the Lord shall whisper in my ears. She shall listen and know it is the word of God that she hears; and lo! she shall go forth from Cambridge henceforth thrice blessed, to search out and destroy utterly throughout the length and breadth of the land all that the people have disobediently saved from the destruction of Amalek.' 'But will she surely hearken?' I said, half pitying and half fearing to see him lifting up his voice like one of the prophets. 'Ay, lad!' he cried, growing more and more excited, 'I know she will. She is young and good and wise. She has been surrounded by evil councillors, but the Lord has bidden me go cry to her, that she may see the way of England's, ay, and the world's, salvation.' It was not until the day after the Queen arrived, when she rode out of her lodgings at King's to visit the colleges, that my eyes were gladdened with the sight of that most sublime Princess. I took my stand in Trinity, near the door of the hall, to see her ride into it. I shall never forget that sight as she passed on erect upon her horse, in a black velvet gown and hat. It was before the present monstrous fashions had come into use, and her costume so set off the brilliancy of her complexion and the ruddy glow of her hair that she looked radiant as a goddess in the joy of her reception, and the full flush and beauty of youthful womanhood. [Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH] As she rode on into the hall I fell upon my knees to worship what seemed to me, who had never spoken to and hardly seen a beautiful woman before, the most lovely sight my eyes had ever beheld. With all my lungs I shouted 'Vivat Regina Divina.' She heard my cry and smiled down upon me, and I, poor soul, like I know not how many more beside me that day, rose up over ears in love with my Queen. And why should I not? Could a gentleman have a more worthy love? Some speak of her littlenesses, and mumble over her womanly faults. I, for one, will not listen to them. I did not see them. I worshipped what I saw. What that was all men know. What witnesses could I call in her defence were she arraigned before a Court of Perfect Womanhood! And those not her own subjects either--it is only natural that they should praise--but foreigners, as any may know who have heard, as I have, Signor Giordano Bruno, the wisest of all who in my time have travelled hither, and my good friend, exhaust his surpassing eloquence in praising her. 'I hold her,' so I have heard him say, 'for a princess without peer or rival, a woman so gifted and favoured of Heaven, that whether for heroism or learning or sagacity, no soldier, or lawyer, or statesman in her kingdom is her equal. I tell you that the wisdom, the dignity, the statesmanship, the wit, the beauty of that most royal lady has won her a throne upon the steps of which must humbly take their place, Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, and all princesses of whom the world has boasted hitherto. See where she sits upon her lofty seat, with the eyes of Christendom fixed upon her in astonishment and admiration, wondering to see how, in her beauty and dignity, as by the mere force that shines from her glorious face, she kept back from her beloved kingdom for well-nigh thirty years the storm that surged and roared upon the face of Europe; and, when at last it burst in frantic fury on your shores, hurled it back with one majestic sweep of her arm, and bound it down once more to receive what it was her will to send.' Happy, happy for the world if thou, my peerless Queen, like the new sun-goddess Aphrodite that thou art, shouldst open thy girdle till it embraced not only England and Ireland, but the whole globe. Then under thy benignant universal rule it should deserve the title thou hast won for thine own realm amongst the wisest of other lands; then should it be named, as they have named England, 'the pattern of perfect monarchy,' '_domicilium quietatis et humanitatis_.' Such, at any rate, was Cambridge while the sun stayed with us; and such indeed was England by the side of other realms. So completely did the fair flowers of scholarship which blossomed in the sunbeams of her presence obscure the thorns beneath, that Cambridge indeed appeared the garden of learning that she thought it. It was a sight I am proud to have seen when she sat in great St. Mary's Church beneath her canopy, with the Doctors and Bachelors in due order around her upon the great stage that had been erected there for the disputations. 'Surely it is a second Sheba,' whispered Mr. Cartwright to me, as I stood by his side with the books he required for setting forth his arguments. 'She has come from the South to hear the wisdom of Heaven. Pray God he may give me this day some shred of the spirit of Solomon.' 'Would God, sir,' said I, 'you might turn her heart, though I fear the ungodly have sorely hardened it.' 'Why do you say that?' asked he. 'Did she not last night,' I answered, 'listen to a play of Plautus in King's Chapel after evening prayer, and did they not use the rood-loft as a gallery for her women?' 'Better use it for that,' said Mr. Cartwright, 'than for the lewd mockery of God they hold there daily. What wonder the poor Queen is led astray in that pestilent slough of Papacy where she lodges. But peace now, for the Proctor calls on the Respondent to begin the act.' Mr. Thomas Byng of Peterhouse set forth the questions of the philosophy act. They were two, namely, 'Monarchy is the best form of government;' and secondly, 'The constant changing of the laws is dangerous.' When his oration was finished the masters who were called to the disputation came forward. Mr. Cartwright's opponent in this was Mr. Thomas Preston of King's, a man of very goodly presence and sufficient wit, though more fit for a courtier than a scholar, and at heart little better Reformation man than the rest of the King's fellows. He made a speech well wrought enough, and delivered with courtly gesture, and very trippingly, to the great pleasure of the Queen. Yet for fire, learning, persuasion, and all that pertains to true rhetoric and philosophy, it was, to my mind, but the chatter of a jay beside my Mr. Cartwright's speaking. I could see the Queen was well pleased with what he said. It was like being in paradise with the angels for me to watch her beautiful face, wherein was delicately mirrored all the subtle perceiving qualities of her most polished mind, as each was stirred by the magic of my master's tongue. As I look back to it now it seems to me like the shining surface of some tropic lake, wherein the great soul of God, that dwells in the trees and flowers and vines, is mirrored each moment more gloriously as the soft breath of heaven from time to time breaks up the reflected image. I dwell on this because some have said, most wantonly, that Mr. Cartwright was so vexed at the favour the Queen afterwards showed to Mr. Preston that he thenceforward became a bitter enemy of the church she loved. I say it is a wanton lie to speak so. My master was too great a soul to harbour such littleness. His hatred of prelacy and superstitious forms was of older and firmer standing than that. If at that time he changed at all in opinion, it was that he saw too well there was no hope of winning the Queen, and that it was to Parliament and the people he must henceforth look. He was very silent as we left the church, and in spite of all I could say concerning the Queen's plain pleasure in his speech, I could see the melancholy of his face grow deeper and its resolution sterner. I know that he saw at once that he had failed, and perceived clearly before him the long life of toil and pain and bitterness through which he was thenceforth to fight his way. I was very glad that evening as we sat together gloomily in our lodging to hear a knocking at the door. I went to open it, and found there a gentleman of the Court, tall of stature, but so wrapped in his cloak and shaded by a large Spanish hat that I could not tell who it was. 'Is Mr. Cartwright within?' said the gentleman. 'Would you have speech with him?' asked I. 'Yes, and alone,' answered the gentleman. I knew not what to do, but Mr. Cartwright, who had started up at the sound of the stranger's voice, cried out at once to me that I should go. I went out straightway to King's College to see the seniors and Court ladies go in to the play of Dido, which was being presented there that night, wherein Mr. Thomas Preston was playing a chief part. In an hour's time I returned, but hearing voices still within my lodging, waited outside, where a lamp swung over the door. Very soon the voices ceased, and the gentleman came out. He seemed so occupied with his recent talk with Mr. Cartwright that he took no pains to conceal his face, and as he passed out by the lamp I could see it was none other than Lord Robert Dudley. 'What said Lord Robert about it?' I asked when I went in, thinking he had certainly come from the Queen to speak with my master about his oration. 'How knew you it was Lord Robert?' said he quickly. 'I saw his face by the lamp-light,' said I, surprised at his sharpness. 'Then tell no man what you saw,' he answered. He was silent a moment, and then, as though he thought best to tell me more, since I knew so much, or perhaps for very longing to speak with some one, he went on. 'He came not to speak of the oration,' said he, 'but of deeper matters, of things which nearly concern our Reformation. God grant he be a true man!' 'But is he not surely a true friend of ours?' I asked. 'I know not, lad, I know not,' he said. 'He speaks fair enough, but I doubt there is too much wind under his cap for us to count too much on his steadfastness. Still, better a popinjay at Court than no friend at all. Things look black indeed if all he says be true. God knows what counsel is being breathed in the Queen's ears, but 'tis certain her right hand is held out to Spain. Since peace was made with France, I thought there would be leisure for England to complete the good work within herself; but now this dallying with Spain and the woman of Scotland of which I hear may mar all, and we perhaps shall have to fight the fight again. Heaven send these piracies--of which Mr. Drake writes to us, and of which Lord Robert speaks--may by God's help prosper, till they make a breach between His people and the spawn of antichrist, such as no Queen or King or embassy can heal.' It surprised me to hear so godly a man as Mr. Cartwright speak of Heaven prospering piracy, but I was wont to believe all he said was right, and held my peace. He went on then to tell me how earnest her Majesty was that Lord Robert should marry the Queen of Scots, and how well she had received the new Spanish ambassador at Richmond, and many other evil signs. 'But surely, sir,' said I, 'in this she deserves the praise of our party, seeing that if the Queen of Scots had so godly a husband as our High Steward, all practices against the cause in Scotland would end, and a true succession be assured.' 'Speak not of it, lad,' Mr. Cartwright replied. 'It is but cozening of the Lord to dally thus with antichrist. England must have no part with the accursed thing. Rome and Reformation, there are these two, and no other; and we must choose between them. Pray, lad, and watch and toil by night and day, by thought and deed, that the choice may be the right. Above all, pray, as I have ever bid you, that we may see the Queen speedily matched to some godly Protestant lord, so that, being blessed with issue, she may keep the succession clear from all fear of Romish taint. Wrestle, lad, with the Lord for that. It is the only hope and safeguard of Reformation in England.' He uttered no more than we all thought then from the wisest and most wide-seeing to the most ignorant and bigoted. He, I think, saw it more plainly than many, and during the rest of the Queen's visit we spoke of little but these things, till I fully shared his thought that the tide of Rome, which, had begun to flow again, and had already covered so many fair Protestant provinces, was setting hard towards England; and each morn and night my prayers went up with those of all our party, and many a one beside, that the Queen might soon be wed. So moved was I by all this talk that I could take but little note of the disputations, plays, and pageants with which my university entertained the Queen, the more so as Mr. Cartwright took no more part in them. Still, I saw her every day, and dreamed of her every night, feeling I loved her more and more for the dangers that surrounded her, and that I would spare not even my life to ward her from her enemies. On the 10th of August, after a morning shower of degrees upon all the Court, the Queen left Cambridge, and I not long afterwards, being troubled with an ague, went home to Longdene. CHAPTER VI 'Hail! man of learning,' cried Harry to me, as the day after my coming home I rode up to Ashtead. He was standing at the gate about to mount his horse as though for a journey. He had grown a man since I saw him, and looked handsomer and happier than I had ever seen him. 'Hail! man of courts and camps,' I cried him back, 'whither away so fast?' 'No whither, lad,' said he, 'since you are come, and whither I was going I will not tell you, till I hear first where your life-blood has gone. 'Slight, man, you look as pale and dry as a love-lorn stock-fish. What ails you?' 'Nought but a piece of an ague,' said I, feeling the sight of him like medicine to me, 'and perhaps a surfeit of weary wits.' 'Well, save us from universities, then,' answered he. 'Courts and camps have their dangers, they say, but, 'fore heaven, I think your college is a very Castle Perilous beside them!' 'How will you make that good, most sapient brother?' 'Nay, the maxim is good already, without my making. For, look you, in camp a man shall lose at most his life, and at Court his heart; but your college puts his spirits in danger, and to be spiritless is worse a thousand times than to be dead or even in love.' 'Well, I think you may be right, and in any case have enough spirits to share with me.' 'Nay, if you want spirits, come with me whither I was going, and I will show you a man who has enough to set a whole graveyard singing.' 'Why, 'tis a very resurrection of spirits. Come, tell me who is your miracle man?' 'Who is he? Why, who should he be but that man of men, that prince of good companions, Frank Drake?' 'Nay, then I am for you; if it were only to keep peace amongst my members. For my ears have had so much of him that I think my eyes are like to fall out with them from pure jealousy.' 'Well, 'tis a bargain, then; and we both go a-fishing with him in his bark.' 'In his bark? Is he then master already?' 'Ay, that he is. Old Master Death mastered his old master, and now he is his own master and his bark's too. For he got that by the old dog's will.' 'Well, I am right glad to hear it. But tell me, is he all his brothers say?' 'And more, and more, and more again! Why, man, he is my own Lord of Bedford with a Will Somers rolled into him, and who could be more of a man than that? But we can talk of this as we go along. First come within and see my father, while Lashmer gives your horse a bite, that we may ride forward.' Lashmer, I had better say here, was son to Miles, my steward. He rode with me on this day, and henceforth became my body-servant and most trusty and trusted follower. He was a broad-faced, red-haired lad, but not very hard-featured, though his face was just of that honest Kentish sort that made one feel compelled to laugh by the mere looking at it. Sir Fulke greeted me boisterously, as usual, with a hearty welcome well peppered with oaths, which, I must say, burnt my palate more them they used to. 'Art going fishing with Harry?' said my guardian, when our greeting was done. 'Yes, sir,' cried Harry; 'we are going to catch Spanish mackerel.' They both laughed heartily at this, I knew not why; but not having heard of such a fish as he named, I thought it was a jest of Harry's which my scholar's wits were too hard to see. 'Have you brought your snappers with you?' asked Harry. 'Yes,' said I; 'a pretty case of short ones that were my father's, since Miles said the roads were far from safe. But will you shoot these fish?' 'No, lad,' said Harry, and he and Sir Fulke both seemed to be strangling another laugh; 'but, as you say, one meets fellow-travellers now whom it is well to treat at a distance, so every gentleman rides with a brace of dags or so in his saddle.' 'Blame yourselves for it,' said Sir Fulke. 'For since your new Reformation men have sent fish out of fashion, in spite of all Mr. Secretary can do with his acts and ordinances, fishermen have to fish ashore. The hundred of Hoo swarms with such folk, so that a man may hardly come to Gravesend in safety. There is never a lane in Kent which some of the valiant lubbers will not drag once in a week for any fin that's stirring. God knows what will become of the sea-service if gentlemen do not set the fashion for fishing again,' and therewith the old knight chuckled again till his face was redder than a doughty turkey-cock's. 'Come, let us away,' said Harry, 'or Frank Drake will have a rod for me. He is testy as the devil if a man be late.' 'What!' said I, 'will he not bide a gentleman's time?' 'Wait till you see him,' answered Harry. 'The sea, in Frank's company, is a mighty leveller of gentility. Here, take this; we shall be out all night.' So saying, he tossed me a cloak, and we set out. The way proved all too short, so much had we to tell each other. Harry was overflowing with the delights of the Court. He seemed able to talk for ever on the pageants and masques, in which, to my sorrow, he had taken a great share; for at Cambridge the men of our party began to look askance at such vanities. It pleased me better to hear him speak of the grace and beauty of the Court ladies, who seemed to have been very kind to him. He spoke of them in a tone of chivalrous rapture, which made me sometimes long to have his gifts, that I too might please women, and know how to speak with them, and be thought worthy to be their squire. But I tried hard, when he spoke of such things with kindling eyes, to crush my chivalry, having well learnt my lesson that this, too, was a carnal vanity. Above all, he praised the Queen as one that shone like a ruby amongst pearls, and there I suffered myself to join his song. I think he was as much in love with her as I. Next to the Queen he spoke most of a little girl, called Anne St. John, who, from what he said, seemed rather his tyrant than his playfellow. She was ever with the Earl, either at Russell House or at Woburn, being a niece of the good Countess Margaret, his beloved wife, who died soon after Harry joined the Earl's household. My lord found great comfort, Harry said, in the child's pretty ways as much as in her beauty, for she had ruddy hair and deep brown eyes, like the Queen. She was moreover much beloved by her cousins, the Earl's daughters, so that it came about that Harry saw her every day, and became her playfellow and willing servant. He made me laugh to hear him speak of her tyrannous ways and her jealousy. 'I know not what kind of woman she will grow,' he said; 'but now she is the sweetest toy a man could want, and wayward as a haggard. Yet my lord will often curb her in his dry, merry way, and she will be as thoughtful after it as a little Solomon. Were her pretty spirit in a colt I would not care to have his breaking; yet I think that any life which my lord will take in hand will never grow awry.' So he fell to speaking of his lord, Sir Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, to whom he seemed as devoted as ever I was to Mr. Cartwright; above all, when he followed him to the north, on his being named Governor of Berwick and Warden of the East Marches, and saw how great a statesman and soldier he was. 'Truly,' said he, 'may I count myself fortunate in thus being able to go in the train of so famous a captain to the best school of arms in the country, as Berwick is held to be, not only because of the passages of arms that continually take place on the Border, but also by reason of the number of skilled and veteran soldiers that are gathered there.' 'Then you had a plenitude of professors,' said I. 'Ay, and a plenitude of practice too,' he answered; 'and that in all military sciences. For my lord's first care was to increase the strength of the defences of the place. So I saw all that craft, besides gunnery and weapon exercise, both in play and earnest. Furthermore, my lord took me for secretary when he rode during the summer with Sir John Foster to settle the limits of the marches, and there I learned much of the conduct of military councils and affairs, together with many other things that a prudent soldier should know and be silent about. Certes, I think I have as much valiant scholarship in six months as many come by in six years.' 'And no wonder,' said I, 'with such a godly and warlike tutor.' 'Ay,' cried Harry, with enthusiasm, 'he is a very pattern of all valour, piety, and gentleness, and rightly called "the mirror of true honour and Christian nobility."' Indeed, I think he was right. For surely never was royal gift more wisely disposed than the wealth with which King Henry endowed Lord Russell and his father. Would God the whole of what he stripped from the monasteries had fallen into no worse vessels than those two! What a pattern of reformation, then, might England indeed have been to all the world, lifted far above the reach of even Papist sneer and cavil,--in very deed _domicilium quietatis et humanitatis_! I could fully share Harry's regret when he told me that he had left Berwick for good and all. But it was needful that he should be a short time with his father before setting forth on his travels into France and Italy--a course which the Earl had himself strongly urged, as being most necessary for the perfect shaping of a gentleman and the building up of a full-grown manhood, wherein, he held, there was no such hindrance either in court or camp or council as in youth to have known no travel. Talking thus together of the two years in which we had both passed into the dawn of manhood amidst such different scenes, we came to Rochester, where we left our horses in Lashmer's charge and took the boat, which two of Mr. Drake's boys had brought for Harry. It made a man of me again to be once more on the river, though I did not like to see Harry whisper to the two Drakes and see them nod and grin in reply. But I soon forgot this in chatting, as we did, chiefly of Frank and his boat. 'Look there!' cried the boys at last. 'Was ever such a dainty?' I looked and saw a smart-looking craft, such as is used in the Zeeland trade, but in better trim than most, lying at moorings close to Mr. Drake's hulk. The boys gave us a lusty cheer as we ran alongside their home and I sprang on deck. Mr. Drake embraced me with such fervour and smell of tar that I was well-nigh undone, but John and Joseph tore me from him, crying, 'Come and see Frank, come and see Frank!' Seizing each an arm, they dragged me to the cabin under the poop, where for the first time I saw that prince of captains, Francis Drake. Ah! how my heart is lifted up when I think of that September afternoon; when I contemplate the condition of two men that day about to enter into a life-long struggle which was to glitter with the most glorious deeds the world has seen: the one a plain rough mariner, in his coarse sailor's slops, sitting in a dingy cabin, intent on a rude map of the Indies, the meanest ship-master of an island queen; the other an emperor in purple and gold, seated on the loftiest throne in Europe, the most powerful monarch in the world, with the crowns of six kingdoms clustered on his brow, and the gold of two worlds pouring into his lap;--the one surrounded by rude fisher lads; the other surfeited with the homage of the most skilful captains, the proudest nobles, the most cunning councillors these modern times have bred. Surely no more notable example of God's power to humble pride and reward wickedness has ever been seen. Little could I guess then what his lot was to be, though when I looked on the man I might have known there was no task too great for Francis Drake to achieve. God never made a man, I think, more fitted for the work he was set to do. His stature was low, but though he was then not past twenty years old, his deep broad chest and massive limbs showed the strength that was to be his. His head well matched his body, being hard-looking and round and most pleasant to look on, because of the bright brown locks that curled thick and close all over it, and the round blue eyes that shone full and clear and steadfast from under his thick arched brows. His mouth, which was already slightly fringed with a light-coloured beard, was of a piece with the rest, wide and good-humoured, with full, well-formed, mobile lips, such as we look for in an orator, and withal firm and self-reliant. His colour, moreover, was fresh and fair, as of a man whom no sickness could take hold of; and his whole aspect so well-favoured and full of cheerful resolution as I could not wonder made his family set him up to be their idol. 'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Festing,' said he, rising up as I entered and holding out his hand very frankly. 'I am glad you are come. We want strong hands for our fishing. Jack has told me what kind of blow you can strike.' 'But I have only a scholar's arm now,' I said. 'Once I could pull an oar and tally on a drag-net indifferently well, but I doubt study has softened me.' Arching his eyebrows still more, he looked at me with that expression which I grew to know so well, and which as much as anything, I think, made him the master of men he was. It was a look half inquisitive, half astonished, yet wholly good-humoured. It seemed to wonder if a man could be so foolish as to try to deceive or thwart him, and to be ready to laugh at the folly of such an attempt rather than to resent it. Though there was plainly something in my speech he did not understand, yet he was soon satisfied, and burst out into a boisterous laugh. ''Fore God,' said he, 'you are a merry wag,' and then laughed on so heartily that no man could help taking the fever, and I laughed too, though I knew no better than the stern-post where the jest was. 'Yes, you may laugh,' said Mr. Drake, who had joined us. 'Frank knows how to fish, so do my boys. They will catch you now bigger fish than any man's sons in all Kent.' 'Where is James?' asked I, not seeing Mr. Drake's fourth son. 'Will he not go with us?' 'Peace,' said Harry, as the preacher turned away, and the laughter was hushed. 'Don't you know?' 'Let me tell him,' said Frank Drake, looking so stern as almost to seem another man. 'You must know, Mr. Festing, nigh a year ago he was 'prenticed in a ship that traded to Spain. We have no certain news of her, but very ugly tidings of what befell a crew that sailed in her company.' 'What tidings were those?' asked I. 'Come away,' said Frank; 'dad forbids us to speak of it. "Avenge it, if you will," says he, "but speak not of it."' We went apart, and he told me one of those stories of which my ears were soon but too well filled: of a ship's crew seized in a remote port of Spain, and on pretext of some unruly conduct of one or two half-drunken men ashore, first thrown into prison, and then handed over to the officers of the Inquisition. 'Such, we fear, is Jim's fate,' said Drake, as he ended his story. 'It is most like he lies rotting now with his shipmates in some filthy dungeon, if worse has not befallen him at the hands of those hell-hounds. But come, let us not think of it. The tide has turned, and it is time we were away.' We were soon aboard Frank Drake's boat, which was called the _Gazehound_. I could not help seeing how trim she was from stem to stern compared with other such craft engaged in the French and Zeeland trade. Nor could I but wonder at the ready despatch with which Frank's crew obeyed his orders. Indeed, we were hardly aboard a minute before we were running fast towards the sea, with a gentle breeze behind us, and the wicked river rushing recklessly along with us. I know not whether it was some inward warning that made the Medway look so dark and cruel as it curled about our sides, or whether it was the effect on my worn brain of Frank Drake's fearful tale, which he told with fierce earnestness. Yet as the misty darkness deepened and the low waste of marsh on either hand began to be lost in the night, a sort of horror came over me, perhaps a part of my ague. It seemed that we, the river and ourselves, were rushing wildly on to some deed that we must hide from heaven. The curdling river seemed some huge snake, for whose help we had sold our souls. Rejoicing at its work and the folly of its dupe, it seemed to hiss in low laughter like a fiend's about us. I turned from where I looked over the side to break the spell. Harry and all the boys, with one or two of the crew, were gathered aft around Frank as he sat tiller in hand. I could see them all by the light of the lantern we carried. Frank was telling them another hideous story of Spanish treachery and cruelty to English mariners who had come to trade in the Canaries. His wide blue eyes were flashing in the excitement of his tale, and Harry and the Drake boys were no less excited than he. Even then I could see he had that wonderful gift of words by which afterwards at his will he could always raise or calm a storm amongst his followers. Still the night deepened and the river grew darker and more devilish, as hand in hand with it we sped on through the darkness to our work. The flickering lantern cast strange lights and shadows upon the little group at the stern, till they seemed to be rather like some foul spirits than my good friends. They cried to me to join them, but I said I was weary with a headache because of my sickness, and would sleep. I crept in then below the foredeck, and lay down upon a sail. There was something beneath it which made it an uneasy bed. I raised the canvas to see what it might be, and beheld some half-dozen longbows, quite new, and several sheaves of arrows. I think my sleep would have been easier had I not sought to remove the cause of my uneasiness. For now I began to guess the meaning of all the jests I had heard, and questioned Harry when soon after he came to lie beside me. 'What fish, Harry,' I asked, 'is this that you bring me to catch with pistols and long-bows?' 'A fish that swims from Antwerp,' answered Harry, laughing. 'Wait and you shall see, if we have luck or judgment.' There was little laughter in me as I lay there in the dim lantern light, with the sound of the wicked river whispering temptation in my ear. Was it that which seemed to take from me the power to rebuke in him what seemed to me no less than sin; or was it shame lest he should think that Cambridge had so softened and unmanned me that I no longer would follow wherever he led? Harry must be right, thought I, and Frank Drake too! It must be right, yet would God I were in my trundle bed at Mr. Cartwright's side again! Surely Cambridge was sorely changing me. The great struggle of my life had begun, though I knew it not; the strife for the mastery of me between the inward man-made life of scholarship and vain hurry after God, and the strong, pure, out-o'-door life of England that God Himself had given me for my birthday gift. Who shall say which is best? Not I, now I am old; but then, as I lay there beside Harry, in my vanity and blindness I said to myself: 'Surely his life is not of God; it is mine that is from heaven, the search after wisdom, the merciless war for truth, the exalting of the spirit and abasement of the body.' My lips were trembling with a prayer that he might be turned and grow like me, but then I opened my eyes to look at him through the dim lantern light, and my prayer died unborn. Surely that gently-breathing figure, lying so calm and careless there in all its manly beauty, surely that must be all God's work, and what came of it His work as well. So let me cease to resist, and let the hissing river hurry me on wheresoever it will with him. CHAPTER VII It was John Drake's rough voice that aroused me, as the soft morning light glimmered into the cabin where I had been sleeping. 'Rise quickly,' said he; 'the fish is in sight, and Frank says you must bear a hand, as it is a big one.' So great was that extraordinary man's hold already on me that it never once seemed strange that I should receive orders from him thus. I rose quickly, and buckled on my sword and pistols, well knowing what was coming. I was not at all surprised to see Harry standing, bow in hand, by Frank, and all the rest armed with bows and pikes. 'Good-morrow, Mr. Festing,' cried Drake. 'Heaven has sent the Antwerpers fortune to-day. Ere another hour or so they will be spared all further trouble for their cargo. See where she lies.' It was a lovely misty morning, such as one can only see in the Channel on a sunny autumn day. Nothing was in sight but the shadowy form of a good-sized caravel on our larboard bow, heavily laden, and toiling at a snail's pace across our course. As we drew nearer I could make out that she was at least twice, perhaps three times, our size, though I could see but few men on board her. Still my heart began to beat heavily. 'Steady now, lads,' cried Drake, as some of his brothers began to show signs of excitement; 'steady, or we shall get never a bite. Get up on the forecastle, Jack, and mend a bit of net; and do you, Mr. Waldyve, carol us out a French ditty for a bait. And, look you, not a glint and glimmer of weapon.' Thus, with nothing to show we were not an ordinary French fishing-boat, we bore towards the caravel so as to pass close under her stern to windward. They, seeing our purpose, and fearing some ill-dealing, no doubt, since those waters were even then winning an evil name, hailed us. Still we held on without answer, till they hailed again, asking what countrymen we were. 'Now for an English greeting!' cried Drake. 'It would be less than courtesy not to let them know our country since they ask so fairly.' The words were hardly out of his mouth when our bows twanged and a little cloud of arrows swept over the caravel. With loud derisive cries our crew fitted fresh shafts. Thick and fast they flew, till the crew of the caravel dared not show themselves on deck. Every man hurried below to shelter himself, except him who was at the helm. Bravely he held on in spite of our shafts, till, with a shudder, I saw an arrow strike him under the arm. With a low cry he fell on his face across the tiller. The caravel hove up into the wind, and I saw the steersman turned helplessly head over ears as the helm swung round--a sickening sight to see. 'Save you for a pretty tumbler!' cried Joe Drake, and all the rest but Frank and Harry laughed loud. 'Steady, lads, steady,' said he; 'look to your pikes, and gentlemen to their swords, or we shall some of us laugh the wrong side.' As we fell aboard of her I drew my rapier. I can say without pride I was by this time no mean fencer, though a bungler beside Harry; yet so strange did my blade seem, now that for the first time I drew it in earnest, that I felt as though I had never handled one before. Still, there was no time to think. Frank Drake sprang aboard, Harry after him, I after Harry. No sooner did our feet touch the deck than out of the after-cabin burst a half-dressed cavalier, rapier in hand. Some nine or ten men were at his back, armed with swords and daggers. With a loud cry they ran upon us, the gentleman straight at me. He seemed mad with fury, for he made no shift to fence, more than to rush on with uplifted blade as though straightway to _arrebatar_ with a wiping sweep, after the method of Carranza. I did but offer him my point _di intrare_, and he spitted himself or ever he came within his proportion. It was but murder. God forgive me for it when His will is! It made me sick to see my rapier half-hidden in his breast, as his sword-arm dropped, and for a moment he stood gnashing his teeth before he fell backward. I shut my eyes as the blade drew hard from the wound, and reeled against the bulwarks, feeling dizzy with horror and my sickness. When I opened my eyes again it was well-nigh all over. For, save for two of his servants, no one resisted after the gentleman fell. The rest were poor Dutch mariners who cared little who had the cargo they carried, so long as they kept their skins whole. The serving-men were quickly overpowered, and the rest of the crew driven within the forecastle. Then Harry came up and slapped me on the back. 'Well done, Jasper,' he said. ''Slight, it was a pretty thrust, a most scholarly _imbroccata_. Would that Sir Fulke had been here to see what his errant disciple can do! Perhaps he would rail less at your Italian bodkin-play, and would say, I doubt not, that they can teach something beside Latins at Trinity. But what is it, man? You look as if the blade were through you instead of him.' 'Hush, Harry!' I said. 'For God's sake, look to him, for I dare not.' 'Poor lad!' answered my dear brother, who could always feel for me far more than for himself, 'you are too sick for this bloody work. I will do as you bid, though there is little hope for him.' But there was no need, for as I turned to look upon my work again, I saw Frank Drake leaning over the bleeding Spaniard, and, as tenderly as a woman, trying to staunch the wound. It filled me with new wonder and love for this man to see how his fierce courage melted to gentleness as soon as the danger was over. I marvelled, too, to see how apt he was at surgery even then, though he had not yet attained to that great skill which afterwards he made it his duty to acquire. It seemed to make war wondrous gentle to see him, and I was better able to give my help. We soon disposed the wounded man more easily, and went to minister to the helmsman, but, alas! he was stone dead. Meanwhile the others had bound the crew, and Frank Drake set about questioning them. I don't know whether it made any difference to him, but he was most instant to find out if the cargo were Spanish owned. While we were thus engaged there was a sudden cry of a sail in sight. Looking up, I could see a tall ship looming through the silver mist, and bearing down straight for us. 'Stand by to cast off, lads,' cried Frank, cool and decided, 'till we see what she is.' We were all on board the _Gazehound_ in a minute, and sat breathlessly waiting to see what our unwelcome neighbour might be. Slowly she came down upon, us before the gentle breeze, looking so beautiful in the morning sun that I could hardly believe that she might contain a pirate's death for us all. The strain would have been more than I could have borne had it not been that my senses seemed dulled with horror of my deed. Afterwards I thought it strange that no one had urged Drake to let go the prize and run for it; but then all seemed to think that the course he had made up his mind to was the only one possible. Nearer and nearer she drew, till the mist, which was very thick close down on the water and had till now hidden her hull, cleared a little, and we could see, I at least with sinking heart, the sunlight sparkle on the ordnance which protruded from her lofty forecastle, like the teeth of some savage hound. 'Culverins!' whispered Harry to me. 'They have point-blank range of five hundred paces, and we are within that of her already. There is no running now, whatever befalls. Heaven send she is a Queen's ship, and no Spaniard.' 'What matters which,' said I, 'if we are pirates? You know well what grievous complaints they say the Spanish ambassador has made, and what orders the Queen has given the navy.' 'Well, wait a little. See the trumpets on the poop; they are going to hail us.' On she came, a glorious sight, with the sun glowing on her bulging sails and the perfect lines of her hull, that swept so gracefully from towering poop to lofty forecastle. Suddenly, as she drew level with us, her trumpets blared forth a loud flourish that rolled merrily away over the misty sea. The boatswain's pipe chirped out, and we could see the sailors stand by to go about. Again the trumpets brayed a fuller call, and then a mass of red and gold aloft unfolded itself with royal languor, till there flashed in the sunlight, plain to see, the beautiful banner of our island Queen. A lusty cheer from all our crew greeted the welcome flag. As it died away we could hear the captain of the Queen's ship hailing us to know who we were, and what we did. 'The _Gazehound_ of Chatham--Master Drake,' shouted Frank, springing on the poop,--and then, after a pause, 'aiding a Spanish caravel in distress.' We could hear a roar of laughter on board the ship at his words, and the captain's voice came rolling back: 'Well met, Master Drake, and a fair voyage.' We gave her another cheer as we saw her keep on her course. She answered us with her hautboys and other music, which we listened to till it grew faint in the offing, and we were left alone to do our will upon our prize and prisoners. As we watched her sail away so gallantly, with her gay streamers and gilded poop glittering like some tropic bird in the sun, I asked Drake what she was. 'I know her well enough,' said he, 'but we ask not the names of Queen's ships that find us at this work. Yet I will tell you. It is the _Minion_, and Captain David Carlet is in command of her. He is bound for Guinea with the _John Baptist_ and _Merline_, both of London, so I know. They are going to try if they cannot draw a little for the Queen out of the Portugal's wells, like Mr. John Hawkins. Good luck go with them; but now we must to work.' After what I had seen of Drake's dealing with the cavalier I had so grievously hurt, I had no fear that the crew of the caravel would suffer at his hands any great cruelty, such as I had heard less noble spirits had inflicted in the fury of their revenge against the Inquisition. I went aboard the prize with the rest when Drake gave the order to rummage the cargo. We found that it consisted chiefly of silks and woollen goods. A few more inquiries soon showed us that they were Spanish owned, and, further, that the cavalier was a gentleman returning from secret service in the Netherlands to Spain. We quickly then completed our work. It was only to set some of the cargo on board the _Gazehound_ in order to lighten the caravel enough to allow of her being run into Otterham Channel, one of those lonely tortuous inlets amongst the Saltings in the mouth of the Medway which we had all known so well since boyhood. As soon as it was done Drake bade his brother and me carry the _Gazehound_ back to Rochester, while he and Harry, with half our crew, and some of the Netherlanders who were freed for the work, made sail in the caravel to the spot whither he intended to take her. So we parted company, and I with my charge came safely on the next morning's tide to our moorings. The Spanish bales we stowed on board Mr. Drake's hulk. He was not at home, purposely, as I could not help thinking, to ease his conscience, if indeed our piracy went in any way against it. Only poor Mrs. Drake was there, trying vainly to get her youngest boy away from the taffrail, outside of which he was recklessly climbing at the risk of a sudden grave in the rushing tide. She looked more wan and weary than ever when she saw what our cargo was, and soon seized an occasion to draw me into the cabin for a little comfort. 'Mr. Festing,' she said piteously, 'for God's sake, sir, stop them from this bloody work. They will die in a halter, every one of them. God pardon me for not bearing His punishment without complaint, but what sinful woman was ever chastised with twelve such rods? See, there is blood on your own doublet! Shun this sin, Mr. Festing, for sin it is. How will God ever give us back our dear James if we break His law daily thus? Surely he has been taken in judgment for his and his brothers' wickedness. Frank is as bad as the rest, and leads them on to it. But vengeance is the Lord's, Master Jasper, and not for preachers' sons, for all that men cry out about spoiling the Egyptians.' I tried hard to comfort the poor woman, feeling deeply for her. I could pity her the more heartily in her misery at the little care or kindness her sons showed for her, seeing I knew what it was to crave unsatisfied for a mother's love. She had often come to me thus for comfort; yet I never found it a harder task than now, not only because of my own sense of sin, but also from my difficulty in understanding what she felt. At one moment she spoke of her boys as an infliction of Heaven; at another she seemed in terror that she should lose them; nor could I be sure whether her hatred of piracy came from a tenderness for them or the laws. I could only tell her how I had been drawn into it unawares, and would do all I could to turn them from further crime. 'God bless you for your words, Master Jasper,' she said. 'What should I do if I lost my boys? I see them o' nights dangling in halters, and sometimes again lying in blood with Spanish blades at their hearts. Then I wake and pray God for comfort, till I sleep again; yet I only rise on the morrow to hear more talk of fights, and Spaniards, and wild work.' 'Surely,' said I, 'God has set them apart for some notable work in His service, seeing how they prosper in what they do.' 'Maybe, maybe,' the poor woman answered. 'Yet more times I think it is the devil and not God who is their master; think of it, Master Jasper, twelve of them, and not one a godly preacher like their father. What will God say to me for that? It was my hope and comfort when little Willie came, bless his sweet heart, that he would be my own boy, and God's, till he fell in with the old sword-hilt, and loved it just like all the rest of them; and played all day with it like the others, and grew as heady and masterful as the worst of them.' 'Well, Mrs. Drake,' said I, 'I am as earnest as you to turn them to a better path. You and I must try, under God; yet, in truth, I know not which way to start.' 'Will you not go to the Earl of Bedford?' she said eagerly. 'Did he hear what his godson did, I know he would stretch out his hand, and the Lord would prosper him. Truly, I thought when godly young Master Russell, as he was then, held my pretty curly-pated Frank at his baptism, that he would prove the firstfruits of a vineyard that should be savoury in the nostrils of the Lord. But He punished my pride, and lo! my vine bore nothing but thistles. Still, go to him, Master Jasper, and he will save them.' 'But my lord is far away in Berwick,' said I, 'where I cannot reach him.' 'Then write to him letters,' she answered, 'or go inform Sir Fulke how they deal with his boy. He is a Justice, and will tell the Queen, and stop this ungodly breaking of the laws.' I think this plan had come into my mind before; yet I had driven it away as one that sorted ill with my honour, and fearing to get the Drakes and Harry into some trouble. Now it looked less evil to me; for I think this poor weary mother had somewhat unmanned me. Without promising I said I would do all in my power, which seemed greatly to comfort her. So I took my leave, and coming by boat to Rochester, where I found Lashmer, rode gloomily towards Longdene, much pondering what way my duty lay. By the time I reached the place where the roads to Longdene and Ashtead parted, I had made up my mind, as I knew from the first I should. The Puritan party at Cambridge was already growing marvellously grim-minded. There had been many who muttered secretly against the masques and comedies with which the university had entertained the Queen, and in many other things Mr. Cartwright and his friends, of whom I was one of the most loyal and devoted, began to show a growing faith in all that made life hard and mournful, no less than an ever-waxing mistrust of whatever was easy and pleasant. Tried by this terrible test, my true duty, as I thought, was easy to see. I had an inborn English horror of tale-bearing. Here, then, was an occasion to wound the carnal scruple. I had a love for Harry that was the one bright light in my life, I had an admiration and belief in him that fed my hunger for guidance to a noble life. Here, then, was a time in which I might humble my earthly idol in the dust. Poor lad, poor lad! I can look back now from the quiet spot whither God has led me, and see my youth as something apart from me. I can pity it now, ay, and grieve for it too, seeing that I know how many at this very hour are torturing themselves, even as did that youth, that was I, long ago. When will one arise with tongue and pen of flame to show them what they do, that men may cease to mar what God in His wisdom and goodness has made so fair? Why will ye be so doting, good people? What blindness has seized you, so that you cannot understand the gift of life that He has given you? It is hard, I know, to fathom all its depths, and fully understand the voice with which it speaks to you; yet treat it not, therefore, like some poor, mad thing that must be laid by the heels and scourged and starved, till it grow so foul and ill-favoured that even the angels, who weep for the folly of mankind, shall turn from it with loathing. But I may not rail at you, for I was no wiser as I rode that night up to Ashtead. I had started late from Rochester, and it had been dark an hour or more before I saw the crowded turrets and gables of my guardian's house faintly outlined against the starlit sky. When I drew rein at the foot of the gentle slope upon which the manor-house stood, I could hear the sound of many horses entering the gate above. It seemed strange to me that so large a company should be coming there at so late an hour, but I soon saw the cause. As I entered the gate some serving-men were setting torches in the sconces round the court, and my bewildered eyes saw their lurid light fall on a whole train of packhorses which almost filled the place. Frank Drake together with some of his brothers and Harry were moving busily and silently amongst them. They had plainly just come in, and were setting about unloading the packs as though they had no spare time on their hands. Sir Fulke was standing on the steps of the hall looking at the busy scene below him. 'Who's there?' cried he, suddenly catching sight of Lashmer and me dimly in the gateway. 'Where the devil is John Porter? Harry, quick to the gate; there are strangers!' Frank Drake and Harry whipped out their swords in a trice and sprang towards me. 'Stand!' they cried together. 'Who are you?' 'A friend!' cried I, riding out into the light and springing from my horse. 'Mass!' said Drake, 'but I thought you were some of those rake-hells from Hoo that had got wind of our luck and wanted to cut a slice for themselves. Is my _Gazehound_ safe?' 'Yes,' said I, 'safe at her moorings, and the cargo in the hold of the hulk. And how fares it with the Don?' 'As well as man may,' answered Drake, 'with a hole such as you whipped through him. He lives; but no more.' 'Thank God for your care of him, Mr. Drake,' said I. 'But tell me now, what means all this hubbub?' 'Why,' answered Harry, 'only that our work took longer than yours, and had to be set about more secretly. Come and help unload the silk.' 'What!' cried I, aghast; 'the stolen cargo here?' '_Blanda verba, blanda verba_, my scholar,' said Harry. 'Our prize of war, you would say. Of course it is; and where could it be safer than in the cellars of the gentleman adventurer who fitted out the craft that captured it?' 'Surely you jest,' said I. 'Nay, I jest not,' answered Harry; 'it is plain open-air truth, and yet withal so good a jest as to want no bettering at my hands.' 'I can see no jest in it at all,' said I. 'I know it well enough, lad,' cried Harry, putting his arm through mine in his old loving way. 'Many do not see it at first, but they come to it soon. You learn the lesson quick enough on the Scotch marches; but I could see you were so be-Cambridged that, if I told you all, you would never join the sport. You shall pardon me; for, in truth, I could not rest till I had uncolleged you a little.' 'You know well, dear lad,' said I, for I could never resist him, for all my stern resolves, 'there is nothing I cannot forgive you. Yet, I pray you, bear with me a little now, for I think my sickness comes over me again, and I would go within and rest.' 'Right willingly,' said he. 'Sir Fulke will see you lodged; for I must make another journey to Otterham Quay ere the sun is up, to bring on what is left of the caravel's cargo.' So I left him and went within to sleep a fevered, troubled sleep, in which I saw the wounded cavalier grinning upon my sword again, till he sprang at last from off it, and, seizing Harry and the Drakes, swung them up on gibbets in a long ghastly row, while Mrs. Drake cried to me, who could not move, to save them. CHAPTER VIII On the morrow, as I walked in the orchard after dinner with Frank Drake and Harry, for the rest were gone, I took occasion to inquire what they thought of piracy; for our adventure, and especially my own part in it, weighed no less heavily on my mind for my night's rest. 'That was a shrewd thrust of yours, Mr. Festing,' said Drake, as our talk turned, naturally enough, on our adventure. 'But for you we might have had ugly work. I give you good thanks for it, and all the honour; ay, and if I had my way you should have the lion's share of the booty too.' 'Have my thanks, Mr. Drake,' said I, 'for your good words. Yet think me not churlish if I say they might be better bestowed. As for the thrust, it was none, for the Don spitted himself; as for the honour, let us talk of that when there is any in such work; and as for the booty, I will have none of it.' 'Your reasons, Mr. Festing, your reasons?' said Drake good-humouredly. 'For the honour,' answered I, 'it is a thing which I hold pirates have little part in; for the booty, I care not to share with water-thieves.' He turned sharp on me then and stopped in his walk with a flush in his face, looking hard at me with that strange, honest, searching look of his. I was ready to bite my tongue out; for I saw in a moment that my hot words had seared the unsullied spirit of a man whom nothing would bend to an act which he thought base, a man in all ways nobler than myself. God knows, I thought him wrong, and thought he led Harry wrong, but now I would have given half I had to have chosen kindlier words to say my say. 'You use hard words, and wrong ones too, Mr. Festing, saving your scholarship,' said Drake at last, proud as a Spaniard. 'I am no water-thief or pirate either. I shall tell you what a pirate is, not to speak more of water-thieves, which is a hard word that breaks no more bones than another. By the most ancient customs of the sea, sir, whereof be it your excuse that you are ignorant, a pirate is one who, without license from his prince or his prince's officers, in time of peace or truce doth spoil or rob those which have peace or truce with him.' 'Then how shall you justify yourself,' I asked, too cowardly to yield to him, 'seeing we have peace with Spain?' 'Nay, but I say,' he answered, 'we have no peace with Spain, or truce either. Is it peace when they lay embargos on our ships, throw our mariners into prison, and burn and torture them in their streets? Is it peace when they shut our trade from their ports, and succour and defend our deadliest enemies?' 'That was well, perhaps, months ago,' said I, though it wanted all my courage to answer him, such force was in his eyes and voice, 'but now truce is made, and prisoners are released, the embargo lifted, and King Philip's ambassador received at Court.' 'And how call you that truce?' he asked. 'They brand us heretics and Lutheran dogs, with whom they say openly no faith is to be kept; no mariner is safe from their rake-hell Inquisition in any port of Spain; they send a spy, whom they call ambassador, to search out the weakness and plot with the traitors of the land and practise on our poor young Queen, that they may bring on us again the curse of Rome, as they did in Mary's time. Call you that truce? Call it rather war, and worse than war, for it is dastards' warfare? Philip may cry truce to Bess, and Bess to Philip, but between the people of Spain and England there is, nor shall be, neither peace nor truce till one of us is crushed.' 'Yet if all were as you say,' I persisted, more faintly now, for there was that in the man which no one could withstand when he was moved thus, 'if there be neither peace nor truce, you have no license from the Queen. Nor even her goodwill, since you must know what urgent orders she has issued against adventurers like yourself.' 'I know well enough,' he answered. 'For some reasons of state she has done this. Yet wait till you see the orders carried out, wait till you see such an adventurer punished, before you say I have not her license. Did you not see how the _Minion_, sailing under her own royal flag, passed us by when we were at the work; and was it not one of her Justices in constant communication with the Council who fitted me out? Is not that license enough?' 'Nay, then you accuse the Queen's grace of bad faith to the Spaniard, and you are willing to abet her in her deceit.' 'Faith to those that keep faith, say I. To every Spaniard, and not the least the Spanish ambassador, Don Guzman de Silva, she is a heretic with whom to break faith is the path to heaven. To such must a man give fair words, as the poor Queen does, till she grow great enough to strike them straight on the mouth, as, under God, by our help she shall. And were all I have said too little excuse for what we do, I have even a higher and greater license than all; for, as dad says, and all pious men beside, I have God's own commission to prey on Antichrist and him who stands his champion, till the filthy breath of the beast shall cease to poison the earth. The Spaniard goes about to lead away the people after false gods and idolatry and superstition. Such men by the Word of God are worthy of death. Here in my Bible I hold license from the Great King to seek out and spoil and destroy His enemies. Shall I hold my hand so long as He shall prosper His servant? How are we to call that piracy and thieving which God has so clearly commanded?' Then all at once came back to me Mr. Cartwright's words, and how he spoke of these rovers as doing the Lord's work and being prospered by Him. I do not think it was that which overcame me, but rather Frank Drake's presence. The recalling of my master's words was but an excuse to myself for yielding. 'Mr. Drake, you have prevailed,' said I. 'I crave your pardon; you are a better man than I, and a truer servant both to God and the Queen. Give me your pardon for my words; they were uncourteous and unjust. Forget that they were spoken, and let my memory of them be my punishment.' 'Nay, it is you, sir,' said he, holding out his hand, 'it is you that have prevailed. I took you for a distempered, fastidious scholar, and now I know you for a true man. I desire your better acquaintance, Mr. Festing, and nothing better than that we may one day adventure together. At any rate, I trust that if you have a mind to it at any time, you will know where to look for a captain.' 'Ah,' said Harry, 'Jasper is more for stay-at-home book voyages than for a dainty feast of dry haberdine and "poor John" at sea; for I think,' the foolish lad added, 'he knows every cosmography book that was ever wrote.' 'Say you so?' cried Drake. 'Then I pray you lay in a victualling of apples, and we three will aboard the arbour and make a dry voyage together.' So we did, and talked over Drake's map till sunset, of half-known worlds and unfurrowed seas, and all the wonders with which the learning of the ancients and the fancies of the moderns had peopled them. I cannot say that from that moment I became Frank Drake's friend, for he was ever as slow in making a friendship as he was in parting with one. Yet before he sailed again I may boast we began to be to one another what we continued till his death. For in those days which followed we were always together, seeing that Harry had almost every day to ride forth with his father to bid farewell to some neighbour. I had been much astonished at the learning Drake displayed in his first talk with me, and marvelled where a mariner could have gathered so great a store of knowledge. He had gladly assented when I bade him to Longdene, that we might study together the cosmography books that were in my library. Day by day we pored together over their crabbed latinity, which I expounded for his better understanding, while he, as I could see by his shrewd questions and ruthless commentation, sucked the old pedants dry as herrings. Ah! sweet bulky tomes, how dear is the sight of you to my declining years, since that renowned navigator deigned to ask wisdom of you! Well may you stand so proudly in your ranks, mounting guard, as it were, over yonder table whereon he read in you. Best beloved to me you are of all my books, yea, though I have around me the choicest flowers of wit and scholarship, which in these latter years have blossomed so bounteously under the glorious rays of our most royal sun. Yes, you I love best; as much for the memory of my dear friend, which you enshrine, as for some mighty power that seems to lie still behind your great leather covers. Who knows how much you told him that listened to your voice with such a wise discernment? Who knows how much of fame he owed to what you whispered in his ear, unheard by me? Ay, and who can even tell how many of these new dainty fruits our sun would have had power to ripen, if he, untaught by you, had not first so deeply stirred and tilled our fallow English wit with his heroic and inspiring deeds? How large and fair a place those weeks hold in my memory! Had their sands run out less quickly, how great a sorrow I might have been spared! For I cannot doubt that had I spent a very little longer time with Frank Drake, he would have made of me, there and then, a sailor like himself, and I should never have gone back to Cambridge. But the hours of our studies were numbered, and the day came at last when Harry must pass over to France in Drake's bark. It was a parting of double sadness; for not only was I to lose my two friends, but one of them, he that I accounted my brother, was going to a far country, where I feared I should lose him, both body and soul. For Harry, like most other young gentlemen in his case, had determined to pass into Italy--a country of which all our party had a most wholesome horror, not only as the very home and fount of papistry, but also because we held it no better than a foul Circean garden, full of all manner of enticements to pleasure and wantonness. The proverb, by which the Italians themselves would make of every Italianate Englishman a fiend incarnate, was ever on our lips. I knew how hardly a man of Harry's kidney could escape unsullied, seeing how little love he had for learning, in pursuit of which it was pretended he should travel to Padua and elsewhere, and which alone could save a man from the Italian taint. I perceived with great pain that since his return from Berwick Harry read nothing but the Morte d'Arthur, and such like wanton books of chivalry, wherein, as it seemed to me, those were accounted the noblest knights who slew most men for mere valour's sake, without any quarrel, and lived the most wanton lives. I spoke long and earnestly to him on this, praying him rather to travel in Germany, and countries given up to God's true religion. He listened patiently, as he always did to my preaching, though I think he must have laughed in his sleeve, knowing how true and pure his heart was beside mine. Yet I could not turn him from his purpose, and had to bid him farewell with a sinking heart, which he tried to comfort by promising that for my sake, if for none other, he would come back unchanged. After Harry's departure Sir Fulke was so lonely that he prayed me stay with him, for a little space. And this I was glad enough to do, till letters came to me from Mr. Cartwright, wherein he told me of the growing heats of the controversies at Cambridge concerning conformity, and urged me to return to the standard, which thing I did in the beginning of the year of grace 1565. It is in no way my desire to overstrain patience by speaking of these matters, whereof so many have written at so great length, and better than I; nor do I wish to speak much of my life, save in so far as it was wrapped in those of my two dear friends who were now beyond the seas, Frank Drake, on his return from France, having sailed under Captain Lovell on his disastrous voyage to the Indies. Suffice it to say that I remained at Trinity, working diligently, under Mr. Cartwright's guidance, to perfect myself in all manner of scholarship, that I might render myself well practised in the use of the most lethal weapons which he could forge for me in regard to the then present controversies. Every day they and I grew more heated. Conformity was openly condemned in Trinity, till at last Mr. Cartwright persuaded the whole college, save three, to cast off the garb of Antichrist, and appear in chapel without surplices. It was a day of great rejoicing in my college, for we, setting far too high our importance, as is the wont of scholars in places where they are gathered together, deemed we had accomplished little less than a second Reformation. Yet all it brought about was so sound a rating from the Chancellor, in which he was pleased to call us 'bragging, brainless heads,' with other pretty conceits, that many were glad to disclaim their part in the matter and blame Mr. Cartwright; so that, fearing the further displeasure of Mr. Secretary, and urged thereto by his friends, my master left Cambridge and went abroad, whither I would gladly have followed him, but he would not have it so. 'It were better,' he said, 'that you should abide here and take your degrees; and, moreover, I desire to leave behind me in the University some true and understanding friend, who will keep me informed of all that passes here.' Being very glad to take upon myself so honourable an office I did as he wished, and Mr. Cartwright's encouragement to scholarship being thus withdrawn, my studies became almost entirely turned to theology, or rather to that unseemly scramble for scraps of divinity which passed for it in those days. I was even appointed for a time to read the divinity lecture, as a gentleman reader without stipendium, and thus becoming always more fanatical, and being well known as being in Mr. Cartwright's confidence, I grew to be a marked man in Trinity, and in due course was elected fellow, to my great content, though I had no intention of taking orders, being a violent opponent of conformity. Those were great days for us in Trinity, for we had, what men love best, a perfect content in the sense of our own bigness, at least whenever our ears were not tingling with a rating from my Lord Burleigh, our chancellor. We went on our ways like prophets, blindly swelling out our littleness with the vain wind of our own babbling, till we seemed to ourselves to tower like a giant at the head of Reformation. If any had told us then that Frank Drake, or even my Lord of Bedford, was doing more for the cause with his little finger than all our heads together, we should have laughed him to scorn. Yet now it is not clear to me that such a speech would not have had some show of reason. In the year 1567 Dr. Beaumont died, to my great sorrow, and we had set over us in his place Dr. Whitgift, Master of Pembroke Hall and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. He was a man from whom we hoped much, seeing that to a good disposition towards the Puritan party, a hatred of vestments, and very sound Calvinistic doctrine, he added a greater force of scholarship and eloquence than Dr. Beaumont ever had, and moreover was a better courtier. Indeed, I think Trinity could have had no better Master in those days. For although he seemed then to my hot head but lukewarm in the cause, yet now I can see how high he raised my college during the ten years of his mastership, which thing he achieved by a nice handling of his authority between the parties, whereby the turbulent spirits were pruned to a less rank growth, and the timid digged about and fostered to the plentiful production of sweet and peaceful fruit. Such is the man as I see him now. Then it was different, for my hard zeal was always distasteful to him, and we were but sorry friends. So little indeed to my taste was the new spirit in the college, that on his constantly urging me to conform and take orders, I resigned my fellowship in fear of being deprived of it, as Mr. Cartwright was afterwards, and retired to Longdene. I had the full consent of my master for this. He had recently returned to Cambridge, and found himself the man of greatest weight in the University, and like to be elected Vice-Chancellor had he been in priest's orders. 'It will be better in many ways,' said he, when I asked him his advice, 'that you should return to your estate; your influence will be more useful there. In Cambridge we have an abundance of labourers. It is men like yourself that we now require throughout the country. The cause needs urgently the support of the gentry, who for the most part are papist or half-reformed. Since Mr. Drake has got the vicarage of Upchurch you will have a stalwart fellow-worker. Go then, and do your best till the time is ripe for our great blow. I do not mean in any way to attack our present detestable and superstitious manner of church government until I am made Professor of Divinity, and can speak with all the authority of our great University. Meanwhile in your private study you can help me in my labour of grinding the weapons, that they may be sharp and ready in my hands when the hour is come.' Though feeling not a little sad at leaving my dear college, perhaps never to return, I could not but rejoice when I reached home that I had taken Mr. Cartwright's advice; for I found my good old guardian most grievously sick. He seemed very glad to see me, but yet I could fancy his manner was not so frank as of yore. It pained me not a little, for I could see by his pinched face that he was near to death's door. Nor could I understand why he should be so different, till after I had talked with him for some time, particularly of his spiritual state, we were interrupted by some one entering the room unbidden. I started to my feet when I saw at the door a young gentleman whom I had known at Cambridge. He had been a scholar of King's, and was one of those who took little trouble to disguise their love of papistry. He was dressed now in a cassock, and wore a small skull-cap to hide his tonsure. We saluted each other very stiffly, while Sir Fulke looked from one to the other in a frightened way, as though he expected us to fly at each other's throats. 'Which of us shall remain, Sir Fulke,' said I, 'since there is no room for both?' 'Both, lad, both,' cried Sir Fulke. 'Nay,' said the Catholic gentleman, 'you must choose between us. If you would have me do my office let this gentleman depart. I cannot defile the mass by celebrating it in the presence of a heretic.' He said this in so soft and polished a manner that, though I felt my face flush, I would not let him have the advantage, but replied with my utmost politeness, speaking as though I had not heard him. 'It were better I should go, Sir Fulke,' I said; 'I cannot stay and stand by while a servant of Antichrist sullies your soul with superstition and idolatry even as it is knocking for entry at God's door.' It was the priest's turn to look angry then, but he only bowed to me again and was silent. 'Tush, lads,' broke in Sir Fulke, 'there is no need for squabbling over me. What matter, Jasper, if I have a bit of a mass in memory of the old days? I have been an arrant sinner too, and would ease myself of a load of sin with just a piece of confession. I have robbed the Church grievously, curse that mad knave Drake that led me to it, and been a great swearer, Heaven help me; ay, and you help me too, Jasper, since you know better prayers against swearing than the priests. You shall come and pray with me after he has done, lad, and then God will know it was my wish to make peace with Him and all men before I died. Come, lad, will you not? I have no son but you to smooth my pillow, since Harry is beyond the sea. Go now, and come again. You would not grudge me a bit of a mass like my fathers to die upon. May be they would be ashamed of me when I went to do homage with them up there, if I came amongst them unshriven and unhouselled.' 'Surely, sir,' I said, much melted at the old knight's words, 'you would depart in surer hope of Paradise if you please God in your death rather than your ancestors.' 'That is right, lad,' said the dying man, 'and so I will. You shall come and help me. But there would be no joy in Paradise if my ancestors and the old gentry turned their backs upon me, and I had to go with the new men. Save your father, there never was one of them I could abide; and Mr. Carter says Nick will not be there.' I looked at Mr. Carter, as Sir Fulke called him, though I knew it was not his name. He bowed again to me politely, and I repressed the angry burst that I had ready for him, being unwilling to cause Sir Fulke any further pain. 'Sir Fulke,' said I, 'it was your good will to let my father be buried as he would. I have not forgotten that, and for your sake will this day forget my plain duty both to God and myself.' With that I left the room, and waited below in the hall till I was called up again. I found Sir Fulke at the mercy of God, and senseless. The Catholic gentleman was gone. So I knelt by the old knight's bed, and prayed long and earnestly to God that his opinions might be forgiven him, seeing they sprang of ignorance rather than perversity, though I had then, it must be said, little hope my prayers would be heard; and even as I prayed my guardian passed peacefully away. CHAPTER IX After Sir Fulke's death, and the stir which naturally followed, things grew very quiet with me. Almost my whole day was devoted to what Mr. Cartwright had called 'grinding the weapons' for his coming attack on prelatical government. In spite of my books I was very lonely. Mr. Drake was at this time almost always away on duty. Upnor Castle was full of Spanish prisoners, who had been seized in the neighbouring ports in pursuance of the Queen's recent order, whereby she sought to make reprisal for a like order issued by her loving brother-in-law the King of Spain. And that some recognition might be made for the labours of the Inquisition so generously bestowed on the English prisoners in Spain, Mr. Drake was ordered to preach at Upnor every day. It seemed a great delight to the old navy preacher to go and rail before them at the Romish church, and it was no doubt most medicinable in his case, for never saw I a man more furious against Spain than he was at that time, and not without cause. Frank Drake had sold his bark, and sailed with his cousin, Mr. John Hawkins, in the great trading expedition which Sir William Garrard and Company had fitted out for the Guinea coast and the Indies. His kind old kinsman suffered him to venture his small savings with him, and had given him a petty officer's place in the fleet, out of pity for the wrongs he had suffered at Rio de la Hacha, under Captain Lovell, of which I have already spoken. We were all rejoiced at his good fortune, for it was as pretty a sail of ships as ever left the coast. There was the great _Jesus of Lubeck_, Mr. Hawkins's admiral; the _Minion_, his vice-admiral; a smart bark of fifty tons, called the _Judith_; besides three others, the _Swallow_, the _William and John_, and the _Angel_. It was, moreover, no fast secret that the Queen's grace and many of the Council were sharers in the venture, so that it lacked not any kind of furniture, either of men or arms, and great things were expected from it for all concerned, even to the lowest mariner. Indeed I myself had adventured a moderate sum, being persuaded by Drake how profitable the negro trade had been and would be again. Of this expedition nothing had now been heard for more than a year, and we began to grow anxious. At last a Spaniard who had put into Plymouth gave Mr. William Hawkins intelligence that his brother was on his way home, laden with the untold spoils of a town which he had sacked, and of prizes which he had taken on the seas. We hardly knew what to think of this, for such dealings were not at all to John Hawkins's liking. He was a wary, far-casting man, and I always thought looked on trading, especially in negroes, as more profitable than piracy, as indeed it was. Thus he had always laboured while in the Indies, by just dealing, that the planters and merchants should stand well with him and secretly support him, when, as happened sometimes, he was forced to carry a high hand over governors who refused to trade quietly. Mr. Drake was sure the report was all another Spanish lie, and was not surprised when, some time after, he heard that some Spanish mariners had been bragging over their cups that Hawkins and all his men had been entrapped and put to the sword far inland, and the whole undertaking brought to nought. I need not say with what alarm and anxiety these reports filled us, for they sounded far more like truth than the last. It in no way decreased our fear for Frank's safety when shortly afterward the Queen seized the treasure-ships of the Duke of Alva, which had been chased by privateers and pirates into Southampton, Plymouth, and Foy, and were still lying there, since the ship-masters knew not how to get through to the Netherlands. We could not doubt then that the Council had certain news that all we feared was true. Every one now gave up all hope, and thought only of revenge and reprisal, when tidings joyfully reached us that the _Judith_, one of the ships of the expedition, had put into Mount's Bay, crowded with twice her proper crew, and in command of 'Captain' Drake! All kinds of rumours now arose of what had happened, mingled with news of how the Spaniards had laid an embargo on British ships in the Netherlands and in Spain, and imprisoned every Englishman they could clutch. The Queen replied undaunted with like boldness, and every prison along the coast was packed with Spanish sailors, and every town-hall with treasure and rich cargoes. Such doings very soon caused it to be reported with greater certainty that the Council had certain news of Mr. Hawkins's death and the destruction of all his men, when to our great relief it was said that the _Minion_, with the general aboard and a half-starved crew, had come home. We were more hopeful now, but hungrier than ever for news. Mr. Drake brought us every kind of horrible tale from the Spanish prisoners at Upnor. I think they devised them in pure revenge for his preaching at them, and the more they lied the more he rated their idolatry and superstition. It was some time before we heard the truth. Frank sent us letters (in which I noted that he wrote himself 'Captain' Drake) saying that Mr. William Hawkins, Governor of Plymouth, had sent him up to inform the Council fully of what had occurred, and that he was detained in London upon that business. So things stood with us when one morning, a month or more after Sir Fulke's death, I was awakened by the sound of a gruff, loud voice, such as soldiers affect, in conversation with Lashmer's somewhat strident tenor. 'Good master soldier,' cried Lashmer, 'I tell you he is still abed, and you cannot see him this two hours.' 'Nay, by this bright honour, but I will see him,' said the other. 'And yet I think you will not,' said Lashmer; 'and yet again, by this bright honour is a good oath, and a gentleman's oath, and one that may not be sworn to a lie or a thing that is not true, unless, indeed, there be provocation; for provocation, look you, master soldier, excuses many things. It is your great peacemaker.' 'Why, this is monstrous logic,' returned the bass, 'and such as I never heard all the time I was sergeant-groom under the Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, a man of most fertile Italian wit. What need of the philosopher's stone, if by mere logic you can make of provocation a peacemaker?' 'Well, softly now, and I will show you,' answered Lashmer, whose talk served often to wile a dull hour, since he had been to Cambridge and gleaned I know not what stray scraps of learning that careless students had dropped in his way,--'I will show you how a man will come to swear the peace of another for some assault, or battery, or mayhem, or anything, and that other shall show provocation. Then shall no peace be sworn, and they shall be at one again. For it shall appear that he who battered the other did him no wrong, seeing there was provocation in it. So they that thought they had quarrel shall find by this same sweet provocation that they have none.' 'Then must I provoke all men,' said the sergeant-groom, 'if I would live at peace with them.' 'Ay, by this bright honour,' said Lashmer; 'then no matter how often you get a bloody coxcomb, yet shall you never have quarrel with any man.' 'Then will I now most lovingly break your pate,' said the other, 'that you may stand my friend and bring me to your master. For my master, the most excellent esquire, Henry Waldyve, bade me spare no pains to see your master as soon as possible.' Whether my servant's logic would have been put to this severe test I cannot say, for at Harry's name I sprang out of bed and cried from the window that I would see the messenger forthwith. I hurried from my chamber to find Harry's servant discussing his morning ale with Lashmer. He rose to a stiff military position as I entered, and made me a most lofty salute with his Spanish hat. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man of about forty years of age, with a peaked beard and very fierce moustaches that had been nicely disciplined in the Spanish fashion to curl nearly up to his eyes. By his side hung a very terrible 'schiavona,' which he wore instead of a rapier, after the fashion of the German _reiters_, considering, as he afterwards told me, that the broadsword was the only fit weapon for horsemen. It had a great steel closed hilt, presenting such a defiant tangle of rings, hilt-points, and twisted bars after the latest pedantic fancy as to make the beholder tremble to think what the blade must be. Indeed his whole appearance was foreign. He wore a large ruff, a thing as new to me as his sword; and his doublet, which showed clearly the marks of a corselet often worn over it, was pinked and slashed in the furthest fantastic fashion. 'If you come on the part of Mr. Waldyve,' said I, receiving his salute, 'you are thrice welcome.' 'In truth I bring you, sir, that most excellent and soldierly young gentleman's most full and lovingly complete commendation. Know me, at your worship's service, as Alexander Culverin, sometime sergeant-groom under the Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, and now body-servant and master of the horse to that most proper gentleman Mr. Henry Waldyve.' All this he said drawn up as stiff and soldierly as though he were mounting guard over the Emperor's own bedchamber. His presence much impressed my peaceful follower, though to me he was a thing to smile at lovingly; for somewhere in his face was a simple, kindly, almost childish look, that was strangely in contrast with his fiercely curling moustache, his loud, gruff voice, and his very warlike bearing. 'When came your master home?' I asked, for in truth I was greatly surprised to hear of his return so suddenly. 'But a week ago,' said the Sergeant; 'since which time we have been lying at my Lord of Bedford's house in London; for Mr. Waldyve had matters to report to the Council ere he could come down here.' 'And have you brought me any message from him beside his commendations?' I asked. 'Saving your worship's worship,' said the man, 'he would have you ride over at your worship's most early haste to Ashtead, since he would have some speech with you together with some poor soul, who, to judge by his most unhorsemanlike carriage, is a mariner or sailor.' 'Gave he the name of this same sailor?' I asked. 'That he did. A name he had that sorts well with one who splashes about all his life in that most base element called water. To be short with you, it is one Captain Drake, though I hold it most false heraldry to apply so dignified and soldierly a title to a seafaring man.' 'Well, we can talk of this as we go,' said I, in a mighty hurry now to be off. 'I will ride back with you now, if you will wait till Lashmer has saddled our horses.' I tarried but to eat my manchet and drink my bowl of ale, since I hold a morsel in the morning with a good draught, sweetened and defecated by all night standing, to be very good and wholesome for the eyesight. As I mounted my horse I saw Culverin watching me with a most judicial air. I must own I felt no little comfort and gratitude to my guardian for his good training to see him nod a distinct though qualified approval to himself when he saw me in the saddle. 'Know you what business your master has with Captain Drake?' I asked as we rode out of my gates, my mouth watering for news. 'Nay, not I,' answered Culverin; 'yet I hope it will be none, since I hold it unseemly for a gentleman and a soldier to have near communication with sailors.' 'Yet Captain Drake,' I said, 'has great love and respect for land-soldiers.' 'Has he indeed?' replied the Sergeant, looking very pleased; 'a most notable sign of his good sense, and had he said horse-soldiers, it would have been a notable sign of his better sense.' 'How make you that good, Master Culverin?' asked Lashmer, whose hunger for an argument was by this time getting the better of his awe of the stranger. 'It is good of itself, Master Lashmer,' said Sergeant Culverin. 'For when I was sergeant-groom under Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, he was wont to say (and, mark you, he was a man of most fertile Italian wit) that soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. They were masters of war, he said, and ornaments of peace, speedy goers and strong abiders, triumphers both in courts and camps. In truth, your only salvation is to be a horse-soldier. Take that of me.' Seeing Lashmer was on the point of a desperate charge upon this monstrous position, I changed our subject quickly by asking news of Harry. 'It was but three weeks ago, sir,' said Culverin, 'that we got your letters telling of Sir Fulke Waldyve's death. We were in winter quarters, whither we had gone when the campaign ended so ill for us with the fall of St. Jean d'Angely. Then we tarried not for drum or trumpet, but came straight homewards in the first ship that sailed. It was a pity it fell so. There was pretty warfare there, and most profitable for a gentleman to see. For, look you, sir, a soldier can learn more from defeats than victories. Take that of me. We were present all through last year's campaign, and rode in M. Ardelot's regiment when they drubbed us so soundly at Jarnac. After his death we were attached to the admiral himself, and so continued till our second rout at Moncontour. It was an evil time for the Huguenots, but a pretty schoolhouse for a scholar of arms, and my master was growing to be a most sweet soldier. I tell you, sir, his name was on every tongue in the army, so high a courage and discretion had he shown in all passages of arms we had made together.' 'Ah,' said I, 'there is little need to tell me that. I knew well what men would say of him when the time came to show what stuff was in him.' 'And so did I too, sir,' said he. 'As soon as ever he came to the Emperor's Court, and rode down to the tilting ground, I said to Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the stables, "There is a soldier," said I; for his seat was as well as a man could sit. It won my heart, sir, to see him. From that hour I was his servant. I craved leave to direct his exercises under the esquire, and grew to love him as my own horse.' 'Was it, then, pure love that made you follow him to England?' I asked. 'Indeed, sir, I think it was. After he had been with us a year or so, he took it in his mind to see some service in the French wars. I begged to go in his train; for I loved him, and could not see him go to the wars without a proper following or some old dog to watch over him when dangers were thick.' 'And you gave up your honourable post of sergeant-groom for his sake?' 'Ay, sir, and willingly; for he promised to carry me to England with him after he had had his fill of fighting. My bowels yearned for the land I had not seen for twenty years. Indeed, sir, there's no man loves the smoke of his own country that hath not been singed in the flame of another soil. Take that from me, sir, saving your wisdom.' 'Then you are of English parentage, Sergeant Culverin?' 'Yes, sir, though many think not, because of my name and a certain carriage that comes to men of travel; yet I am English born, sir, and never knew father or mother, save an English great piece on the Calais barbican.' 'Then save you, Sergeant, from your kinsmen,' said I, thinking he was jesting, 'since the Moors call great pieces the "mothers of death." You and it are the only children I ever heard that they had.' 'You are merry, sir, but I jest not,' said the Sergeant, drawing himself up very stiff on his horse. 'What I say is sober truth. The first human eyes that ever saw me, as I could ever hear, were just those of an old gunner, who found me one night in the mouth of his culverin. He, good soul, took care of me. "She is the only lass I ever loved," he was wont to say, "but I never thought she would be mother of a son to me." So he took me home, and his mates and he would have the priest kursten me "Culverin" after my mother, and "Alexander," because they said I must be born to be a mighty soldier.' 'Truly, Sergeant,' said I, seeing how serious he was, though I had much ado to stop laughing, 'a most honourable and soldierly descent.' 'Ay, sir, you may say that,' he answered, looking round at Lashmer, from whom came a sound of choking laughter. 'A most soldierly and royal parentage. She was as good a piece as ever was cast, and stamped, look you, with King Harry's own arms, rest his soul! To say no more, for modesty's sake, it is not one or two who have rued their ribald merriment at what I am telling you.' And with that he laid his hand upon the great steel hilt of his broadsword, and glared so terribly at Lashmer that I thought the poor lad would have fallen from his saddle from pure fear of the bristling of the Sergeant's fierce moustache. I do not think Lashmer ever laughed at Sergeant Culverin again, at least not in his face. Indeed it was not many who did; most men feared his sword too much, and those who knew him best, and were not afraid, loved him too well. I think three men never greeted each other more warmly than Frank, Harry, and I when I reached Ashtead. It was like summer to see them again, yet I found them much altered. Harry seemed shocked by his father's death, and looked very sad in his black clothes. His face was bronzed, his short beard neatly trimmed to a point, and a scar scarce healed stretched across one temple. Yet I thought I never saw him look more manly, handsome, or lovable, in spite of the foreign look his travels had given him. Captain Drake, too, was changed. His eye was as bright and his ways as cheery as ever; yet when he was not speaking I could see in his face a harder and sterner look than there used to be. His dress, too, was very different to what he had worn in the old days; though plain, it was of good stuff, and cut according to the fashion. He wore, moreover, a smart rapier, and had the air of a gentleman, though without having lost his sailor-like looks. 'You will want to know why I sent for you, Jasper,' said Harry, as soon as our greetings were over. 'Nay, that do I not,' said I; 'so long as you sent for me, that is enough.' 'Well, but I had a good reason,' answered Harry. 'I met Captain Drake in London, whither he had come on business, as he will tell you. As he was coming hither to see his father at Upchurch we journeyed together, and he told me--tell him, Frank, what you told me, and then he will know why we sent for him.' 'Well, lad,' said Captain Drake, setting himself down for a long tale, as sailors will, 'you remember how I wrote to you of the voyage which I made to Cape de la Vela in the Indies with Captain Lovell, the year after our brush with the caravel, and how it all ended in the wrong I suffered from the Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha for no cause but their accursed treachery?' 'Yes, that I do,' said I; for he had written to me about it at Cambridge, and Mr. Drake, too, had told me fully of that most wicked dealing with his son. 'Well, that was well enough,' Drake went on; 'a plague on the false papist hearts; but what came after was worse.' 'And at one time we feared it was worse again,' said I; 'for we thought we had lost you as well as our venture. But how came it about? We looked for nothing but success under Mr. Hawkins.' 'And nothing but that should you have had,' said Drake. 'Merrily should we have singed the King of Spain's beard, and filled some most noble pockets beside our own, but that Jack Hawkins was over scrupulous with the traitors. Things went well enough at first, in spite of bad weather, especially for me; for off Cape de Verde we fell in with a Frenchman from Rochelle, who had taken a Portugal caravel. This Jack Hawkins chased and took, and made me master and captain of her. We called her the _Grace of God_, and a good name too, seeing how God graced our venture. For we drubbed the Portugals wherever we met them, and before we left the Guinea coast we had gathered as fine a cargo of black flesh as a merchant need wish to see. 'Being well filled up with what we sought, we sailed for the Indies. My luck stood by me still; for when Captain Dudley of the _Judith_ died, Cousin Jack gave me his place, and made me full captain. We found traffic on the Main a bit hard, because the King of Spain had most uncourteously charged that no man should trade so much as a _peso_-worth with us. Yet negroes are dear to a Don's heart, and there are ways, lad, there are ways that none know better than old Jack. So we had reasonable trade at mighty good prices, both in black flesh and our other merchandise, till we came to Rio de la Hacha. We were but two ships when we anchored before the town--the _Angel_ and my lady _Judith_. The rest had been sent to Curaçoa to make provision for the fleet. So they thought to try their scurvy tricks there again, and refused us water, thinking thereby to starve us into selling our negroes for half nothing. The Treasurer, who was in charge, had fortified the town and got some hundred or so of harquebusiers behind his bulwarks; so we could not land, but took a caravel in spite of all their shot, right under their noses, and rode there till our general came round in the _Jesus_. They soon found that an English cock could crow as loud and louder than a Spaniard. For old Jack set ashore two hundred small shot and pikemen, and took the town. It was no less than their discourtesy deserved, and they suffered no harm; for every man of them ran clean out of the place at the first bark of our snappers. I think it was only a little comedy to please the King of Spain; for Master Treasurer and all of them came in at night to trade, and before we left we had two hundred less black mouths to fill and a pretty store of gold and pearls in our hold. 'We had done such a brisk trade and no bones made all along the coast, after our persuasions at Rio de la Hacha, that when we came to Carthagena, our traffic being nearly done, we tried nothing against it, save that the _Minion_ saluted the castle with a few shot from her great pieces, while we landed and took certain _botijos_ of wine from an island, just to drink their health, leaving woollen and linen cloth there in payment. So we bore up for Florida; but being taken in a _furicano_, which I believe the Lord sent to guide us, we were driven into San Juan de Ulloa, the port of the city of Mexico, as you know. Now listen, lad; listen what God sent us. There in the port at our mercy--entirely in our power--were twelve galleons, laden with two hundred thousand pounds' worth of gold and silver. Two hundred thousand pounds! Think of it, if you can, without going mad, for I can't. Yet, in spite of God's plain guidance, as I told him again and again, Jack Hawkins set them all at liberty without touching a _peso_, fearing, as he said, the Queen's displeasure, the simple fool, if he touched the goods of her most loving brother-in-law! Ah! had we known how the brave Queen was going to deal with her loving brother-in-law's money in her own fair ports of Southampton and the West, Jack would have listened to me when I told how best to please her Grace! 'Well, it was no good. Not a _peso_ would he touch, but only asked leave to refit and victual; and now, lad, comes the worst of all. Next morning we saw open of the haven thirteen great ships, being the Plate fleet and its wafters--a sight to make an honest Protestant man's mouth water. Lord, Lord, Jasper! I cannot think of it with loving-kindness to Jack. Just see now, lad! We had complete command of the haven. Not a fly-boat, not a pinnace could enter or leave without our yea. To keep the Spaniards outside in the north wind was only the other way of saying present wreck to every rag and stick of them; and that meant wellnigh two millions loss to the Spaniards, and Heaven knows what gain to us in wreckage, and flotsam, and trifles we should have had for our trouble in saving crews. 'Did God ever show a greater mercy to His faithful people than that? I ask you, sir. You know better than I, because you are a scholar. Yet Jack Hawkins let his scruples stand before the plain will of God, and would make conditions with them. Would I could have told him what our lion-hearted Queen was doing in the narrow seas with her dear brother-in-law's belongings; but we did not know. Then he would have heard the voice of the Lord aright. But, as it was, he was stubborn, and let them all in on conditions of peace, and safe fitting and victualling for ourselves; to the which was passed the word of Don Martin Henriquez, Viceroy of Mexico, himself, who was with the fleet; a pox on him till this hand has squeezed him dry, and then the knave may go hang! 'I need not tell the rest. You guess what came--what must have come. It was like night after day. Relying on all their solemn words and papistical oaths, no less than on the hostages they had given us, we laboured together two days peaceably to bestow the ships properly in the port and prepare ours for refitting. A good part of our ordnance we set ashore upon an island in the mouth of the port, which, by the conditions, was to be in our possession. 'On the third day after we had let them in, when we were about to set the carpenters to work, and were all dismantled, I could see things were going treacherously, in spite of their fine words. Soldiers were marching to and fro, and ordnance being bent upon us. Jack sent to inquire what it might mean, and Don Martin Henriquez passed his word of honour to protect us from treason. 'Still the preparation went on, and Jack protested again--this time with much effect; for his messenger was seized, a trumpet blown, and in a moment all was in a roar and blaze. Out of the smoke that hid the quay and ships we could see the glitter of harness and pikes and halberds, and the glow of matches, as hundreds of soldiers rushed upon us and thrust out to the island in crowded long-boats. In a trice our men ashore were overcome and cut down, and our ships swarming with Spaniards. 'Lord, what a fight it was then! Tooth and nail, claw and heel, we went at them. Such a roar and din there was as my ears at least had never heard, till it lulled again, and not a Spaniard was left alive upon our ships. It was glorious work, but we had no time to think of it. 'No sooner were we clear than we cut our headfasts and warped out on our sternfasts; but though that saved us from boarding again, it did little good; for the treacherous dogs were masters of the island and our great pieces, as well as of their own on the ships and the platform. Still, for a whole hour we made a great fight of it, in which we sunk two of their great ships and burnt another. 'By this time the _Jesus_ was dismasted and an utter wreck. She, being the admiral, had aboard of her all our treasure--twelve thousand pounds in gold, lad, besides negroes and merchandise. 'It was impossible to bring her off, so Jack resolved to abandon her, after taking out all she had. To this end we drew her off and set her in front of the _Minion_, to keep off the shot of the Spanish batteries, and so save our whole ship from destruction while we were at our work. For the _Minion_ was the only ship we had now that would sail, except my _Judith_, which I had got safe off after the fight. But the Spaniards saw our game, and fired two other great ships of theirs, and loosed them down wind at us. They may call us cowards, Jasper, but it is a fearful thing to see two fireships a mass of roaring, crackling flames, and each twice and thrice as big as yourself, bearing down on you. Who can blame them if the crew of the _Minion_ grew afraid and cast her off from the _Jesus_, in spite of all their captain or the general could say? So suddenly was it done that the general himself almost perished in trying to come aboard the _Minion_, and many were drowned in the attempt, and many left aboard the grand old _Jesus_ with the treasure, to fall a prey to those rake-hell traitors. 'I quickly lay aboard the _Minion_ with the _Judith_, and took out of her all I had room for; and so, at the mercy of God and looking for nothing but death, seeing how overladen we were and without proper provisions, I made my way home as speedily as I might. Jack takes it unkindly that I left him; yet, God knows, I did it for the best, trusting, by His help, to save my ship and all those aboard, if such a thing were possible to any man. Who knows, if I had tarried with the general, I should not have fared like him, and had to set half my crew ashore to suffer Heaven knows what miseries at the hand of Indians and wild beasts and Spaniards, which is worse. Ay, and to lose half the rest from famine and sickness. God be praised for His mercy to me, and judge between me and Cousin Jack.' So Frank Drake ended his relation of that famous adventure in the port of San Juan de Ulloa, and fell to walking fiercely up and down the room where we sat. I knew not what to answer him; for I was almost as much moved as he, and firmly believed it was the will of God that they should have destroyed the two Spanish fleets. It is strange to look back upon now, yet I cannot wonder that I thought as I did, seeing what my masters had been at Cambridge, and, above all, in what a perilous case England then was. Never, I think, was reformation in greater danger than at that time. There were already constant rumours of the disquiet in the north. The rumblings of the Papist storm that was soon to burst from thence were making themselves heard. The Scots Queen sat fouling the nest to which she had flown for refuge, in our eyes like some unclean bird that bred new traitors every day, and Spain cried louder and France blustered more fiercely against the one stout heart which would not bend to Rome. The Queen still stoutly held the Duke of Alva's treasure, which she had seized; our ports were closed to Spain, and those of Spain to us. Sir William Winter was fitting out his expedition to relieve Rochelle, with victuals, men, and furniture for the Huguenots. Papist prizes, Spanish, French, no matter what, were daily pouring into our ports upon the narrow seas, and Don Gueran de Espes, the Spanish Ambassador, was a prisoner in his own house in London. It was said at all hands that the times could not long endure the strain, and we looked for war to burst out every day. What wonder then, if, when the whole host of Anti-christ seemed to be gathering about us, I, like Francis Drake, saw the finger of God in the hurricane which had put it in our power to make so big a blow at His enemies, and read in the disaster that followed a judgment on those who spared to spoil the Egyptians? That was what the scholar Said to the sailor; ay, and honestly believed it too. 'Have no doubt, Frank,' said I, 'it was the Lord's will that you had smitten and spared not. It was His plain and manifest mercy to you to put it in your power to bruise the serpent's head. Would God Captain Hawkins had listened with your ears!' 'That is what I tell Harry, but he scorns it,' said Drake eagerly; and Harry, to my inquiring look, only laughed a little low laugh, so full of complete amusement that it made me shudder, and there rushed to my mind the horrid Italian proverb that we heard so often--_Inglese Italianato è Diavolo incarnato_. 'Do you not think, then,' I asked of Harry, 'that it is God's will that we should smite Antichrist and all his host?' 'Well, let that pass, lad,' said Harry, laying his hand gently upon my knee. 'I know not too well what God thinks of us; but it is my will, and England's will, that we should smite, as you say, the King of Spain, and that is why I sent for you. Ever since he came home Frank has been striving to get redress from Spain through the Council, but things have come to such a pass with embargoes and imprisoned ambassadors that all hope of that is at an end. So Frank is going to fry his own fish. Tell him what you are going to do, Frank.' Drake looked at Culverin and Lashmer, who had remained in the room, with that same strange stare of his, as though to see whether he might safely speak before them. 'Shall they go?' said Harry. 'No,' said Frank, after a pause, and the Sergeant saluted him, and Lashmer looked like a happy sheep. 'They are neither men to blab, yet we must be close; for it would seem there is a Spanish ear grows on every village cross.' Therewith Frank Drake unfolded to us his mighty project, of which I think none but his heroic soul had yet dreamed--that glorious enterprise which, before a few more years were gone, was to make England's heart to leap with pride like a young stag, and set her fair body throbbing with the wild untamable life that was to make her what she is. 'The time is past for child's play,' he cried, with glowing face, 'the time is past for nibbling at our enemy in the narrow seas, it is past for peaceable trade with them. If we are to live and dare worthily of our manhood, we must bite hard and deep in their vitals. Where is that, lad? Whence comes their life? Where but from the Indies? There lies the heart of Spain, the heart of Antichrist, open and unprotected, for a man who dares to try. I have seen and I know. They are no match for us. See what we did at San Juan de Ulloa. In spite of their numbers, in spite of their treachery, we saved two of our ships and they lost five of theirs, and all three times the _Minion's_ size at least. I suffered there, but still I learnt a lesson which, by God's help, they shall rue the teaching of. But he who attempts this must not flinch or quail. Jack Hawkins is no man for it; but I can do it, lads, under God, I can; and if I do it, it shall be under no man's flag but my own.' 'Frank,' said I, 'I believe if there is a man in England can attempt this thing it is you. But be not hasty to throw away your life, which England needs. Think of those unknown seas for which you can get no pilot in England; think of the power of him you attack.' 'I know, lad, I know,' answered Drake, as calm and confident as ever. 'I have thought of it. I will have a pilot, and that pilot shall be myself. It may take a year or two, but at last I will know those seas as well as any Spaniard of them all. Then I will strike, and let them see how I can revenge myself. Revenge is the Lord's, and by His chosen people He does His work. To you, and such as you, He looks to help me in this, and I have come to ask if you will join me in working the revenge of God.' CHAPTER X Before we parted I had promised to help Frank, as far as my purse would go, to fit out a ship for the Indies, that he might make survey of the whole region, and find out when and how best to strike his blow, and haply pick up a prize or two to pay his fellow-adventurers a fair profit on their risk. Harry helped him too, but to a very small extent, for his travels had made a large hole in his purse, and he never had the heart to squeeze his tenants so hard as others would have done in like case. Frank's kinsmen, the Hawkins, still took what they called his desertion at San Juan de Ulloa so unkindly that he could get nothing from them, and while the disaster was fresh in men's minds a good many pockets were shut to him that a year ago would have run like a river at the very name of a venture to the Indies. Still, by the next year--it was, I remember, soon after the bull for the Queen's deposition had been found affixed to Lambeth Palace--he sailed. It was, I think, in a great measure the fury with which that wanton insult to the Queen filled the country that helped Frank more than anything to get the money he wanted for his enterprise. During the whole of this time Harry was in London or elsewhere with the Court, and not more than once or twice for a few days at Ashtead. I do not know whether I felt more lonely when he was away and I was poring over my books at Mr. Cartwright's work, or when he came down on his hurried visits. Each time I saw him his heart seemed farther away from me. Not that he was less kind than of old, but now his whole soul seemed wrapped up in the pageantries, the passages of arms, and, above all, the ladies of the Court. Of these he seemed never to tire of talking, though I wearied of listening. I was longing, as I used, to speak to him of all that was next my heart--of the great strife in which I laboured for the purifying of religion; of the solemnity of this present life, of which he seemed to take no heed; of the awful doom for all eternity, which I shuddered to see yawning before him. Yet I knew not how to win his ear. Whenever I tried to start such talk he was quick enough to see my intention and thwart it with a rattling jest or some whimsical conceit. Nor had I much heart for it, if the truth must be told; for I dreaded in speaking to him on such things to find he was more Italianate than I believed him. So in his company I was lonely, and in his absence lonely. I strove to find comfort in my books, hunting daily in their inmost coverts. All was game that my net enclosed. No allusion was too fantastic, no phrase too ambiguous, no simile too conceited, no argument too fanciful for me. I swept them all up to feed Mr. Cartwright's great idea, no matter where I found them. Daily and all day I worked on, searching like some warrener for every unsuspected bolt-hole through which our adversaries might seek to escape. No sooner was one found than I was weaving cunning nets with terms and figures, premiss and consequence, to set across it, and entangle them in its wordy meshes as soon as ever they should try to give us the slip. Yet I got little comfort from it all. For though my studies assured me of my own salvation, they also confirmed my dread and certainty of Harry's perdition. Never was my life more joyless than then. There was no one I cared to see except my servant Lashmer, and sometimes Mr. Drake, though I won a most godly name by entertaining all the preachers and such like that came my way. I was fast growing to be a morose misanthropic scholar, and an iron-bound Puritan to boot. Yet I knew it not, but rejoiced to think how utterly I denied myself the joys of this world, and how dear in the sight of God my life must be. I shudder, too, to think that as the breach continued to widen between Harry and me, I began at last to find some sort of solace in what I saw in store for him hereafter, and though I prayed for him unceasingly my prayers were the prayers of the Pharisee. Perhaps it was a sort of jealousy, that he was so wicked and so happy, while I, God help me for my blindness, was so good and so miserable. I confessed it not to myself, yet indeed I think it was no different. For those were the days when I and half England beside were gathering up what we took in our ignorance for the manna of heaven, when in truth it was little better than a foul poison to our souls. But now I must cry forgiveness for my tedious babbling of myself, if indeed my credit be not already cracked with over much borrowing of patience with no return of profit or pleasure. Yet, at the risk of earning ill-will, I have thought so much necessary for the proper understanding of what next befell. Such, then, was I when one morning some time after Frank Drake had sailed I again heard Mr. Alexander Culverin crying out for me at the gate. This time he was at once shown to my presence by Lashmer, where, with a grave salute, he presented me with a letter from Harry. I opened it and read as follows:-- DEAR LAD--After my most loving and hearty commendations, this is to crave you give me joy. A little pretty bird piped to me and witched my heart away or ever I felt it go. In despair I sang back the song I learned of her, and, the gods be praised, saw my way to steal her heart in payment for mine. Then, lest we should quarrel over the felonies, we agreed to love. Ere Diana sleeps and wakes again the compact will be sealed by Holy Church. Then look for your sister at Ashtead, which I pray you see well bestowed for her coming, for I am too busy and happy to leave her side. Yours from the seventh heaven of ecstacy, and higher than that again, HARRY WALDYVE. See a mad lover! I had near forgot to tell you your sister's name. It is the name of names, even the name of the little ruddy-haired child that I knew, and yet knew not, while I was of my Lord of Bedford's household. 'Why, this is news indeed, Sergeant,' said I. 'Yes, it is new, sir,' said Culverin; 'that is all that is to be said in its favour. I knew he would do it, I knew he would, if we stayed at Court so long. Not that I blame Mistress St. John. It was not her fault. How any lady amongst them all could sit and see him ride a tilt without doing the like is more than I can say; but I claim no cunning in the management of women, sir, saving your worship.' 'So you think it was his riding that won her?' 'Never doubt it, sir. That and how men spoke of his conduct in the wars. It was enough to turn any woman's head. I blame him, not her.' 'But why blame him, Culverin?' 'Why, sir, for good enough reason, because he has spoilt one of the prettiest soldiers and horsemen in Europe. For how can a man love his horse or even his weapon with a woman like that always about his elbow? It is not natural, sir.' 'But cannot a man love his horse and weapon all the better that he has something he loves to protect with them?' 'Well, I think not, sir, saving your scholarship. I never knew one that could; and if there is one, certes, it is not Mr. Waldyve. He never loved a horse well enough before, that was where he always failed. He had no contemplation of horsemanship. In the exercise of it he was without match that ever I saw, save only Signor John Peter Pugliano himself. But his contemplation of it was naught. The Signor Esquire of the Emperor's stables always said so. He proved to him many times how it was a science to be preferred next to divinity. He gave him _La Gloria del Gavallo_ to read, and _Orison Claudia_ too, but it availed nothing. In pace, in trot, in gallop, in career, in stop, in manage he was a Centaur, but he could never see how peerless a beast a horse was; how it was the only serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and all the virtues. Why, sir, I have seen Signor John Peter Pugliano, when a man spoke slightingly of a horse, so belabour him with the richness and strength of his contemplation, that before he ended the wretch was like to weep that God had made him a man and not a horse. But it was never born or bred in Mr. Waldyve, and this is what has come of it.' 'Still, men must marry now and then, Sergeant, though the Queen seems to think otherwise.' 'I know, sir, I know; yet I hold marriage a poor distempered state that soldiers should leave to men of peace, saving your worship's presence. Still, it is not of that that I complain most. There is worse than that.' 'What do you mean? You told me of no ill fortune.' 'Did I not, sir? Why, then, it is this. He has given her his bay horse, and sent me down for the roan--by this light, he has, sir, given that peerless quadruped to a woman! What man with contemplation enough to fill half a pepper-corn could have done the like?' I knew not how to console the poor soldier, so fell to asking him about Mistress St. John. He could tell me little, never having seen her except in the tilt-yard at Whitehall and Hampton Court, when, as he said, it was easy to know the little red-haired lady by her most free nodding at his master. So I had to rest content till she should come, meanwhile taking what pains I could to see that the work-people from Rochester carried out Harry's instructions. I found more comfort in the task than I could have believed, hoping that now my brother was coming to settle down at home things would go between us more as they used. Indeed, so light did my heart grow as the time of their coming drew near, that I began to doubt whether it were not a sin for me take pleasure in the company of so carnally-minded a man as Harry, and to begin to think I ought wholly to eschew, as far as good manners would allow, the conversation of the wanton Court lady that I pictured his wife to be. The day came at last, and, not a little doubting whether it were right, I rode out to Rochester to meet them. They were already at the 'Crown' resting awhile when I alighted there. Harry rushed out and seized me by both hands, and then, throwing his arm about me in his old way, dragged me to see his wife. 'Wife! wife!' he cried, 'set a good face for our brother, whom you wanted so much to see. Here he is come to meet us.' With that I saw rise to greet me a little lady not much over twenty, with ruddy hair and brown eyes like the Queen's. In a moment the memory of my old boy's love at Cambridge came to my mind, but when I looked once more at the dainty little head and smiling face, set so prettily in her snow-white ruff, the memory was lost in the greater beauty of the present vision. Beautiful as I had thought the Queen, yet she, I confessed, was more beautiful still, although so like. It was a more laughing face than the Queen's, and yet in her eyes, unlike the Queen's, there was that wistful look that all men love till they learn to fear it as own sister to discontent. Yet this I knew not then, having, as I say, known no woman all my life; and so my heart, that I had tried so sore to harden, was melted like wax at the soft music of her voice. 'Well met, brother,' she said, holding out her hand with a gay smile. 'Your desires upon you, lady,' I answered, taking her greeting with as little awkwardness as I could. 'A most gentle prayer, brother. And yourself shall begin its granting.' 'I, lady?' 'Yes, you. Yourself is my desire. Bestow on me yourself and call me "sister." All my life I have desired a brother, and Hal says, by your sweet leave, I am to be no more brotherless; so call me henceforth sister, brother Jasper.' 'Then, sister, shall I gain more than I bestow.' 'Nay, brother, it is I that gain. I have full report of all your scholarship and most excellent parts.' 'Believe it not, sister, or you will wrong yourself. Harry will ever be making too long an inventory of my commendations. But he is a most false reckoner, and you must not take me by his tale.' 'Out upon you, lad,' said Harry. 'What a dry feast of modest phrases is that to set before your sister! Come, now, palm to palm is no greeting for brother and sister. A man would think you had never been to Court.' But I drew back, feeling very country-bred, and blushed, and then a flush of sunset hue made her beauty radiant, and Harry laughed at us his rattling laugh, which his wife could only stop with kisses. That made her my sister indeed. At first I had thought her manner tainted with too much Court freedom, but now she seemed a most wise and modest lady, who might in deed as well as word be a true sister to me. So we talked together pleasantly enough till it was time to go, nor did we stop our tongues as we rode out towards Ashtead. And yet again, now I bethink me, it was I that talked and she that listened, while Harry smiled to see us such good friends. I thinked he wondered, too, to hear me, and I am sure I marvelled at myself no less than that she should want to listen to my homily. Yet whenever my tongue ceased wagging, she had some little magic phrase or witch's glance to set it a-gallop again, and I felt I could talk to her till the sun grew cold. 'It is a scholar,' she said, as we came to the place where our ways parted, 'that I have always desired to call "brother." Some one whose mouth would be all my books in little, just as was my Lord Bedford's when I was a little girl. And now methinks you have bestowed on me all my desire.' 'Indeed you wrong yourself and me. I am not such a one, though I think my master, Mr. Cartwright, is.' 'Ah, I have heard of him that he is a ripe scholar for all his wild doctrine; and now I know it, for I hear his pupil talk. I think Hal must speak no more than truth when he says you have read more books than Mr. Ascham himself.' 'I tell you, sister, you must not mark his commendations, that are bred in love and not in reason.' 'Now, I cry you mercy. You must not tell a new-wed wife that love and reason are not one. That were a philosophy fit for none but monkish scholars. There I must school you, and you me in all else but that. So I will prove a most gentle scholar; and now farewell, my brother, since it is here our ways are parting.' Mark what a change had come over my life since I travelled the road but a few hours ago. I had ridden into Rochester from pure good manners, thinking to carry a cold greeting to Harry's wife, and so return to my books and loneliness. How differently had it fallen out! Since I left Longdene I had found a sister--a courtly and beautiful woman to whom I could talk, and who would talk kindly to me. I knew not what to think as I rode slowly along, with the shouts of the crowds which had gathered to welcome Harry and his wife coming faintly to my ears across the fields on the still evening air. It had been the first hot day of summer, and as the night fell I sat in my old corner in the library at the open lattice, watching the golden labyrinth that broke up the dark stretch of the marshes into a hundred fantastic shapes of gloomy hue wherever the intricate channels caught the glow of the dying sunset. No less mazy and shapeless, no less gilded and gloomy, were my wandering thoughts. My man-born sense of stern duty cried to me that the carnal conversation of Harry and his wife was sin to be shunned, a temptation of the devil to drag me from the godly work on which I was set. But then, again, my God-born sense of beauty both in body and soul said, 'Go to them, and there your hunger shall be filled.' The labyrinth in the marshes had faded to a faint starlit glimmer here and there ere I had resolved my doubts. The whole host of heaven glittered down upon the sleeping world, and amidst them from either hand the _Lactea Via_ seemed to show a fair path brightened with the light of God to the highest regions of His kingdom. I knelt upon the deep window-seat and thanked God that He had given me a lantern for my path, and prayed for strength not to swerve from the way He had shown. For I had resolved to face the danger at Ashtead, that I might save the two souls I loved so well from the certain perdition to which I saw them drifting. Ah me! what cunning casuists are our desires! How subtly will the wantons weave a cloak of reasons round about their nakedness till we know them not, and follow whither they entice, taking them in their decent array for duty! So we march on after them to death and sin, with proudly lifted heads, as who should say, 'See a man who forsakes all to follow Christ.' It was not difficult with such a guide to find occasions for going to Ashtead. As the days of their married life wore on, and Harry tired of love-making, my visits grew frequent. He every day came to love his estate more and more, and was ever riding up and down it, with Sergeant Culverin at his heels, planning and altering and improving, just like his father. Nor could he do without a share in the country life around, and was always away whenever he could hear of a cock-fight or a bear-baiting within a reasonable distance. 'Come over and bear Nan company,' he would say at such times. 'Her bright wit misses the companionship of the Court, and will, I fear, grow dull and humorous unless you keep it clear. It is no little comfort to me that you can be by her with your learning. Her scholarship trod on the heels of mine when she was little more than a baby, and now it has slipped ahead where I can never catch it. So you must be a good brother, Jasper, and be to her what I cannot.' So he would ride off, gallantly waving kisses to his pretty bride, and we were left alone to study cosmography together. She had begged me to teach it her, and so my great tomes got a second hallowing. I wondered daily more and more at her keen wit; her quickness at grasping what I had to tell was past all believing unless seen; yet would she never stay long at it, but would soon want waywardly to wander out into the garden and down amongst the woodlands to talk with me of whatever fancies had taken her playful thoughts. It was a pretty sight then to see how everything loved her. The cows came trotting at her call, the colts in the meadows raced for her caress and jostled each other jealously, while her dogs squatted round with drooping ears, miserable that her favours were for others, but too mannerly to protest. Then all together would follow her along the fence to the end of the field, where, as she went from them, they would break into rough play, and disperse cheerily to their rhythmical cropping of the grass again, while the spaniels, more fortunate, leaped round her with mended spirits. Each husbandman we came to would pause at his work and grin in silly happiness as she nodded him a merry 'god-den,' and the woodman's eyes almost brimmed with tears when she would not stop to hear the oft-told secrets of his art; and then when we came near the village the children started out of the brakes to peep at her, while the younger and braver ran crying after her with a present of gillifiowers or long purples, which their hot little hands had withered by long cuddling to a sickly faintness. The strangest and most difficult conquest which she made was Alexander. I remember well the day I saw it first. I was riding, as I often did, to Ashtead by way of the park, when as I topped a knoll I saw her wandering across the close-cropped turf with the old soldier at her heels, and a motley following of colts and cows and one short-winded hog. Now and again her dainty figure bent down to pick a flower, and as she stopped the colts stopped, and the cows and the hog, and the Sergeant stooped for a handful of all the flowers in reach. My wonder was increased when I saw Harry not far off overlooking the work of the woodmen, seemingly forgotten by his devoted follower. I cantered over to her, and, giving my horse to Lashmer, joined her in her walk. Soon we came to a woodman's cottage, whither she was carrying some simple drug, which her own learned little hands had compounded, for a sick child. Culverin and I remained without. 'A most sweet and excellent lady,' sighed the Sergeant, as soon as she was out of hearing. 'What! is your mind so changed?' said I. 'But a few months ago you had not a good word to throw at her.' 'Well, that is getting on for a year now, sir,' he answered, 'and I did not know her as I do now. I did not dream what virtue was in her. Why, sir, there is not a colt here, take the wildest you will, that would not follow her up the turret stair. I never saw such management, except in Signor John Peter Pugliano. And then for contemplation, sir, I could not have believed it. It was but yesterday she told me horses were the only men for her heart, since there was nothing they would not do with coaxing.' CHAPTER XI During all this time of which I write I had said nothing to Mrs. Waldyve about religion. I had persuaded myself, and that easily enough, that I must first make her my warm friend, and gain some influence with her by my teaching, and such other ways as I could think of. She, I think, avoided all mention of it too, since she really loved learning, and feared by speaking of things deeper to ruffle the happy calm in which we sailed together. It was not till after my little godson Fulke had been born, and Frank Drake had returned from the Indies, and was gone again to complete his discovery of those regions, that we came to talk of what was next my heart. Frank had been to see us, and Mrs. Waldyve was so taken with his manly, jolly ways, that when he was gone we often talked of him. I told her of his father and brothers, and their old strange life on the hulk, till one day she said she would like to go to Mr. Drake's church and hear him preach, for he made a discourse nearly every Sunday. Harry, who of late had been made a Justice, laughingly gave us dispensation from attending our parish churches, and the next Sunday we rode over to Upchurch. Harry stayed at home, and Mrs. Waldyve rode pillion behind Culverin, thereby for the space of our ride making him the happiest man in Christendom. As we neared Upchurch we overtook a man, who seemed a preacher, riding the sorriest nag I ever beheld. In passing him I saw it was none other than Mr. Death, the same who had come with Mr. Drake for the ordering of my father's funeral. He looked less sour than formerly, and wore an aspect of smug and well-fed content; but as he knew me not I passed on without speaking. Mr. Drake greeted us very warmly, and Mrs. Waldyve with great respect. He was in the churchyard talking with the godly farmers of the parish until it was time for the service. To-day the well-worn subject of the Queen's marriage, and all the danger that came of her delays, was set aside, and they had been discussing Mr. Strickland's Bill, which he had lately moved before Parliament for the abrogation of various religious ceremonies, and how the Queen's Grace had taken it so ill that she had put him in prison. They continued their talk after our greetings were done, while Mr. Drake drew me aside to ask what I thought of the new order of the Commission against reading, praying, preaching, or administering the sacraments in any place, public or private, without license. I condemned it so warmly, as will be easily guessed, for a piece of most wanton and sinful Erastianism, that the people in the churchyard gathered round to listen. I was in the midst of proclaiming it, on the authority of Mr. Cartwright, as a thing that should not and would not be borne, when little Willie Drake cried out from the skirts of the throng: 'Father, father, there's a wolf in the fold!' A movement was made towards the church, and I could now see the Sergeant pointing out to his mistress the score of bad points of a beast tied up to the gate, which I at once recognised as Mr. Death's nag. Hoping to avert a storm, I begged them both to come with me into the church, which was now crowded; but the tempest had already burst. Mr. Death had got possession of the pulpit. It was a strong position, being only approached by the old rood-loft steps, which were cut through the solid pier of the chancel arch. The enemy was defending the narrow passage with the door, which he held tightly shut, and a smart fire of reasons, which he shot down at Mr. Drake from behind his barricada. 'You have no license, you have no license,' he was crying as we entered. 'What, no license!' said Mr. Drake. 'I who was licensed preacher to the King's navy when you were still crying for the mass!' 'Ay, but the Archbishop has revoked all licenses, and you have not renewed,' answered Mr. Death. 'The flock must be fed with the Word; you may not feed them, and I claim your pulpit.' 'O Death, Death!' cried Mr. Drake, 'is that your sting? There was a time when you would brag that no Erastian prelate of them all should be your authority, but only the voice of God, that called you to the ministry. Is this all that has come of your loud shouting for the battle? O Death, Death! where is now your victory?' 'I care not for your roaring, Fire-Drake,' cried Death. 'You are no preacher, being unlicensed; and I, being licensed, have authority in every pulpit in the diocese.' The people now began to cry out, some that they would hear him, and some that he should be plucked down and cast out of the church. Yet they all stood by, waiting to see how the two preachers would settle it; and they had not to wait long. 'Nay, if you fear not my roaring, Death,' said Mr. Drake, 'let us see what my claws will do.' With that he made a rapid _escalada_, and, seizing the garrison by the throat, plucked him forth by main force. Still no one interfered; so, wishing to end the scene, I whispered to Culverin to help Mr. Drake, which he did with great good-will, being, as he afterwards confessed, much taken by the valorous delivery of Mr. Drake's assault. Mr. Death cried lustily for a rescue, but all to no purpose. Between the two strong men he was helpless. In spite of his feeble struggles, they ran him right out of the church to where his horse was tied. There they set him in the saddle, face to the tail, and, giving his jade a smart cut, sent him in an ungainly canter on the road to Rochester. It pained me to think that Mrs. Waldyve should have witnessed such a scene the first time I had taken her to a Puritan church. She was looking shocked at what had occurred, and seemed in no way to share the merriment of the younger part of the congregation. 'Let us go,' she said; 'I have seen enough. It is terrible.' But I prayed her to remain, pointing out that Mr. Drake was in no way to blame, and begging her to stay and see how reverent the people would be when he began to preach. Unwillingly, I think, she consented, more for fear of hurting me than from any desire she had to stay. Meanwhile Mr. Drake, a little flushed and breathless from his victory, had taken his place in the pulpit, and was giving out a psalm to quiet the people. They sang it all together in pricksong very orderly, so that when it was done they were in a decent mood for the sermon. He preached from the words, 'The hireling fleeth,' in John x. 13, for the profit and confusion of that part of his flock which had given countenance to Mr. Death. After the manner of his kind, he rated them soundly for their treason, with text and parable and a score of quaint conceits. 'Is this your gratitude?' he cried. 'Know you not your shepherd? I will tell you, then, what he is. He is one of those who, unlike the holders of other benefices, has stood by his flock and fed them, nor given their care to a poor, dumb, hireling curate, while he himself has gone riding round to other flocks to preach vain and new doctrines to them, that he may have in return plate and hangings and napery and money. I know you, what you are. Your stomachs have grown proud and dainty against the Word. You must have choice; you must have spicery; you must have a new cook every day. You will run to every hireling who will throw you new meat, and turn from the sound old hay of your shepherd, who folds and feeds you every night. Out upon you! Is this the way to appease the wrath of God, whereby the heart, the tongue, the hand of every Englishman is bent against another? No! But you care not what divisions be made, so long as your stomachs be tickled with new and dainty sauces. Are you mad, good people? Has a devil possessed you? Look, look towards the east! See you not the great roaring bull that the vile Italian out of Rome hath loosed against you? See you not the glitter of his brazen horns; smell you not the stench of his filthy breath; hear you not the clang of his iron hoofs? Ah! but wait and you will. Wait till the bringing forth of the bull-calves that he hath gotten; wait till you see them compass you in on every side; and wait till you see them grow fat as those of Bashan, on your faith and your consciences and your purity. Then you will see; then you will smell; then you will hear. In that hour you will cry to him who folded and fed you; but the foul waters of idolatry will have passed over his head and choked him.' In such wise Mr. Drake continued very earnest for a good space, the people listening with bated breath, and from time to time a mutter of approval, ay, and here and there tears of repentance. Many have marvelled to me at Captain Drake's eloquence, but I know whence it came, and if I knew not before I should have known that day. I have tried to write down some of what his father said, but even if it were rightly done, as I doubt it is not, yet could no one tell the force of his preaching, unless he had seen him hold spell-bound that throng which so short a while ago had been laughing at a rude jest and an unseemly brawl, in which he played the chief part. I watched Mrs. Waldyve's face as he spoke on, and was, as it were, carried back to that day long ago when the Queen's grace was listening to the divinity act in Mary's Church at Cambridge. And no wonder, for never save then had I looked on a face so sweet and ever changing to new sweetness. Her brown eyes were fixed wistfully upon the preacher, and she listened so intently that I could see the fire and humour and pathos of his words reflected as in a mirror upon her upturned face. Once or twice I could see her wince, as one in pain, when some too rude conceit or figure jarred upon her delicately-nurtured sense. Then she would look round to me as though to find what I thought of it, and, seeing my eyes fixed upon her, turn quickly to the preacher again with heightened colour, more beautiful than ever. I too tried to look away, at the painting of the murder of St. Thomas, half defaced and mouldering on the wall of the Becket Chapel; at the strange chamber under the tower, where it was said a hermit nun lived in solitude so long; at Mr. Drake's red face and ardent figure, but all was beyond my power. I had no eyes save to read with beating heart the living book at my side, nor ears save to hearken to the still voice which whispered in them, 'Lo, how the true spirit of the gospel is reawaking in her!' It was the Sunday set apart for the quarterly taking of the communion. When the sermon was done, and while the people sang another psalm, the wardens fetched into the nave the trestles and communion board from where it stood at the east end of the church. Then they spread upon it a fair white cloth, and Mr. Drake brought forth a loaf of bread and a skin of wine, with cups and platters. Mrs. Waldyve watched them as though bewildered or afraid, not knowing what to do. 'Jasper,' she whispered, 'we had better depart now. How can I receive the holy sacrament after this sort?' But again I exhorted her to stay, promising that all would be done most reverently, and according to the plain word of the gospel, with nothing added or taken away, so that whether or not it fell short of what her conscience would wish, yet there could be no offence in staying, as there clearly would be in going. She answered me nothing, but gave way and obeyed like a little child, leaning on me, as though for support to body and soul, as we drew near to the table. It was then I knew that I had prevailed. I knew that my will had overcome hers, and that the hour was at hand for me to set about my crowning work. The people made way for us close to where Mr. Drake was seated at the table. Mrs. Waldyve knelt down, as she had been accustomed at Court. One or two old women, when they saw that, knelt too, in the old fashion of their courting days. I stood by her side, and the people thronged round, sitting or standing, as each thought best or could get accommodated. For to most this was a thing indifferent or adiaphoristic. Mr. Drake now broke the bread and poured out the wine, and then passed the cups and platters to the people. Mrs. Waldyve looked up to me for guidance, and I bent over her to whisper what she should do. So we took and ate the supper of the Lord together, while Mr. Drake, from where he sat, read comfortable texts from the Scriptures, and now and again offered an earnest prayer of his own making. With another prayer _ex tempore_ and a psalm the service ended, and we all went forth, leaving the wardens to set the table back again in the chancel. Mrs. Waldyve said nothing as we waited in the churchyard for Culverin to fetch the horses. So we stood in silence, side by side, under the spreading branches of the ancient yew tree, returning the greetings of the villagers as they filed out under the lych-gate, and watching the couples that broke off from the mass, the gossips in close talk over the sermon, the lovers sheepishly far apart. At last they were all dispersed amongst the trees and the black and white cottages that nestled amongst them; and we were left alone, looking out over the melancholy Medway, which seemed lost amidst the dreary Saltings and the inlets that ran up into the marshes. The Sergeant brought the horses at last, and Mr. Drake came to say 'Good-bye,' and so we went on our way. For shame I must forbear to speak of the pride that filled my heart as we rode home in silence. She was in deep thought, with eyes looking far away. Now and again she looked towards me as though to speak, but her lips only let pass a sigh. I knew well of what she thought, and did not disturb her meditation. I knew well how that strange change had come over her, which now I know not how to name. It was a thing that came, and still comes, to many, whether of high or low degree. Men such as I was then, when they see its signs so suddenly, and, as it were, miraculously appearing, say, 'Behold, another whom the Lord has called!' I say it is for very shame that I forbear, for now I know the coward that I was to play so upon a woman's passions. I see her now as some bright painted bird for which I lay in wait, spreading my nets in the way I had learnt by long and secret watching she would go, and setting gins for her, which I furnished with cunning baits, while she, trusting me, thought I did but feed her lovingly. It was not till the afternoon that we spoke of it. We had been supping in the orchard, and Harry, finding us but dull companions, had fallen asleep in his chair. 'Jasper,' said Mrs. Waldyve, 'come, let us walk together. I must have private speech with you.' We rose and wandered down our favourite walk by the park, but to-day the colts had no caresses. 'It cannot be right, Jasper, it cannot be,' she burst out, as we entered the wood. 'What cannot be right?' asked I. 'It cannot be right,' she said, 'to cast away, as you have done, all the old holy rites of the Church.' 'It is hard to part with them, I know,' I answered, 'since from your childhood you have learned to love and hold them sacred. Yet for that very cause must you cast them away. Ere we can hope to see religion purified, we must first stifle all that deafening ritual that drowns the voice of God.' 'Yet,' she pleaded, 'why must we approach Him, as we did this day, without order, without ceremony, without any token of homage? If we offer it to the Queen, surely the more should we do so to the King of Heaven.' 'I do not deny,' said I, 'that what we saw to-day might have been done more decently. Yet remember how long popes and prelates and priests have stood between God and His people, and marvel not if, now that He has called us to the steps of His throne, we know not at first how to approach Him reverently. But He will teach us, when at last we can draw near and hear what He will whisper in our ear. But still there are many left between us and the throne, in spite of all that has been done. But the hour is coming when one I know will raise his voice like a clarion and bid them stand aside, in words they shall not dare to disobey. Then at last we shall be face to face with God, and know indeed what His will is.' This and much more of like effect I told her out of my well-learnt lesson. She struggled ever more faintly against me, but I was strongly armed against all she could say. I told her of predestination, and what she should think of works done in the days of her unbelief. All the things she loved so well--ceremonies, vestments, and every relic of the ancient mass to which she clung--I condemned mercilessly with practised argument. I showed how Rome had abused the Christian faith, and how it could not be purified till every meretricious adornment by which worship had been turned to idolatry was cleansed away. She fell at last to imploring me to leave her something, but I told her, without pity, that no good could come of any unholy union of the gospel and papacy, such alluring schemes being only thought on by their inventors as an unstable place whence it was hard not to slip back to Antichrist. It was an easy task I had. In the wilderness of doctrine, where she suddenly found herself, she seemed but to want a guide who would take her by the hand and lead her to rest. So it was but a short work to set her again on the path she once had trodden under the good Earl of Bedford's lead, and which she had deserted for the flowery mazes of the Court. It were tedious to tell step by step how we trode the sweet and dangerous way together. All will understand if they remember what we two were. I, from long sojourn at Cambridge, a monk, for with all its faults my university was then a most well-ordered monastery,--a monk who, as it were, was on a sudden released from his vows; she, a woman who, after a strictly ordered childhood, was set loose in a pleasure-loving Court, where her life was an ever-changing scene of exciting pleasure and gallantry. The change was too great for both of us. For myself I find no excuse, but for her much. Ere the first fires of her youth had burnt out she was overcome by the passionate love-making of the handsome soldier, who came covered with glory from the wars abroad to lay siege to her heart at home. What wonder if she loved before all that pattern of manhood and gentleness who so loved her, and thought she could feed on his love alone! What wonder that, when passion grew dull and she found how full of many things besides love a man's life is, and how full of things which, in spite of all her trying, proved but dull to what her life had been at Court, insensibly she was ready to open her heart to any excitement, even to me and my teaching! If I had not been blinded by my own accursed pride and self-righteousness, I should have known by many marks which we passed whither our road led. I should have known when, after that first talk, we began to be silent in Harry's presence, though we could chatter well enough when he was not by. I should have known when we ceased to speak, and moved farther from each other whenever he came where we talked. I should have known when she spoke to me of her misery in being wed to so ungodly a husband, and begged me to speak earnestly to him that he might amend his ways. It is my one comfort of all that time that I still had manliness left to defend him with all my heart to her, and that I was spared that last depth of knavery, much used by craven gallants, who, that they may win a cheap and easy favour with a woman, will make her believe with a score of cunning lies that her husband is unworthy of her. Though out of the deeps of my love for him I found a hundred excuses to offer her, yet I laboured when alone with him to turn his light heart to weightier things, well knowing it was useless, or who can tell whether I should have tried? It was as we rode home over the downs from hawking wild-fowl on the marsh-lands in the valley of the Medway that I first attacked him, and I well remember that my surprise was rather at how much he had thought than at what his thought was. It was such a glorious afternoon as now, since I have known Signor Bruno, lifts my heart to God more truly than ever did psalms and prayers, much as I loved them and do still. The wide and marshy river stretched out below us far away to the low haze-clad lands of Hoo and the misty Thames. Water and woodland and field were bathed in sunshine which seemed, as it were, to melt all Nature into such full and tender harmony with its Creator, as I think, after all my many wanderings, can nowhere be seen in truer perfection than in our own dear England. Moved by the beauty which wrapped the land, Harry fell to praising it with a score of rich conceits, and I seized the occasion to broach the cask of divinity which I had brewed for him. 'Surely,' I broke in, 'surely should our lives be one long song of gratitude, set to a holy and solemn tune, to Him who made all this so fair for us.' 'Why, lad, why?' asked Harry. 'You can only conceive this of God--that He is a perfected quintessence of all that is best and fairest in us, and therefore must our love of these things, and our joy in them, be but a grain of sand beside the mountain of His. His delight in the great banquet He has spread is for all eternity, while we can but gaze upon it for a little hour. No, lad, I cannot thank Him for these things, which are but the crumbs that fall from His table; but I worship it all, and Him in it, as I was taught in Italy. When will you leave looking for Him in holes which are only full of musty quibbles and the mouldering shreds of men's quarrels? Stand up, man, and see Him in yonder sky, in yonder woods, in yonder broad flowing river.' 'But, Harry, Harry!' I cried, feeling my worst fears confirmed, 'have a care, or this Italian dreaming will run you into flat atheism.' 'Ah, Jasper,' he answered, 'I fear you are only like the rest, and will brand me atheist and epicure because my voice is not raised in any controversy. Must I rail with Baius and howl with Brentius before you grant me faith? With whom shall I be saved, and with whom damned? Show me that first, lad, for I cannot tell. When I first set out upon my travels I strove awhile to study these things for love of you and Mr. Follet, yet in every land and every city where I came I found the same angry unrest where Antinomian roared against Pelagian, and Synergists bellowed between; where Lutheran and Calvinist and Papist, and who knows what other legion of sects beside, did battle one with another, and each against all, till Europe seemed to throb and ring again with their unchristly din, and the sweet voice of God could I nowhere hear.' 'Nay, then, I fear you closed your ears in your impatience, or the true voice of our purified faith would have sounded clear enough above all the rest.' 'No, I tell you, Jasper, I opened my ears wide enough, but they were deafened with the clash of syllogism on syllogism, and lie on lie. My eyes were blinded with the glint of steel and the flash of fires. My nostrils were filled with the stench of railing breath. Then I cried, "Where, O God, shall thy spirit be found? Surely not on this earth, that men's tongues and pens have so befouled." But there was one under the sweet blue sky of Italy who whispered in my ears, "Turn thee to Nature and thou shalt find thy quest." I heard him and sought earnestly where he showed, and soon the whole world was bright with the spirit of God, and I was in the midst of it. Yes, lad, I turned from men and saw it shining in the limpid rays of the stars; I heard it in the waving grass and the laughter of the brooks; I perceived it in the sweet-smelling flowers. Will you then cry "Atheist" at me for whom God is everywhere, when for you and the like of you He lies but in a little dogma, nay, in the mangled shred of a dogma? Take it not unkindly that I speak so hot, but it makes me mad to think that men will so befoul the nest which God has given them, and think they do Him service.' 'Indeed,' I answered, wishing to follow his mood, for I knew if I broke in as I would to another with my theology that he would only call me a Puritan and crack some kindly jest, 'I do not complain of your heat. There is doubtless much truth in what you say, for Luther himself wrote, "There is nought in Nature but a certain craving for God," yet he did not hold that mere contemplation of Nature will satisfy that craving. The beauty and fulness of Nature does but create the hunger which right doctrine alone will fill.' 'Nay, if Luther is to guide us, remember who it was who taught that this very passion for God of which you speak, and which is far from what I mean, becomes the lust of the spirit. It is that which sets your wits awry. Beware of it, Jasper, as you avoid the devil. For I tell you, from the lust of the spirit to the lust of the flesh is but a little step. You shall see it shortest in a woman.' 'Jest not, Harry, on things so solemn,' said I, not thinking even then that he could mean what he said. 'I jest not,' he answered; 'it is sober truth, and if I did jest, wherefore not? Sometimes I think that jesting is your only earnest, and that there is nothing but that which is worth living for.' 'At least you jest in earnest now,' I said, thinking to weather him on another tack. 'Even you must grant that there are other things but that worth the life-search--exempli gratia, Fame.' 'How do I know that?' he answered; 'for how shall Fame satisfy a man when he has got it? Why, look you, Fame is a thing begets hunger for itself faster than a dead dog breeds maggots. There was never a fame-glutton yet but went to his grave fasting.' ''Tis because they hunger after earthly fame,' said I. 'Seek something higher. If you cannot pursue God, yet at least you may search out wisdom. That is earnest enough.' 'Wisdom! wisdom!' cried Harry. 'Why, what is that? In truth, I think that Folly is the only Wisdom, and there's no such profitable travelling as a voyage in the Ship of Fools. In a thousand times to one he who pursues Wisdom shall find he has no quarry but Folly, while he that runs merrily after Folly shall find on a sudden that he is carrying Wisdom in his hand. Who shall say, amidst the ruins of these broken times, where Folly shall be sought and where Wisdom shall be found?' 'I know there is great confusion in the times,' said I, 'but still there is at least sure ground left for a scholar who will pursue diligently the arts and sciences.' 'Who can tell even that?' answered Harry. 'Read Cornelius Agrippa, if you know him not. Read his _Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences_, and you shall find wisdom there that will prove you, by most nice argument and sharp reasons, that knowledge is the very pestilence that puts all mankind to ruin, that chases away all innocence, condemns all truth, and places errors on the highest thrones.' 'Oh, Harry, Harry!' I cried in despair, 'you are Italianate past all praying for.' 'Well, then, if you cannot pray with me, laugh with me, jest with me,' he answered. 'Are we not all the puppets and playthings that God has made for His laughter, while He sits at His feast. Let him who would be wise make haste to laugh at himself with God, and at all men with their little humours. Hola! Quester! Monk! hola, hola!' he shouted then to his hounds that stayed behind, and bringing his hand with a ringing clap upon his gelding's shoulder, broke gaily into a canter across the stretch of sheep-cropped turf that lay before us. What could I do with such a man? To me he was all and more than I had dreaded he would become when he travelled into Italy. In my eyes he was but one more added to the long list of atheists and epicures which that wicked and beautiful land has filled. Still, I would not desist from my efforts to win him back to what I deemed the only true path. Amidst the ruins of his faith I searched for some unbroken stones, wherewith I might lay the foundations of a new sanctuary for his soul. I tried to make him see the horrors and dangers of the Popish religion, and so teach him to love and cling to our Christian faith as its most stalwart opponent. The last time that ever I attacked him was when I thought by dwelling on the idolatry of Rome to gain my end, seeing how wholly opposed it was to his own wide and spiritual conceptions. But it was all to little purpose. 'In so far,' he answered me, 'as Rome is the enemy of the Queen and of England, she is also my enemy. Since the bull of deposition was nailed on the gate of Lambeth Palace I have been her foe, ready to do all in my power to strike and thwart and humble her as I may find occasion, or the Queen's Grace bids me. Yet for Rome's faith I hate her not, though I may smile at it sometimes, as I do at others.' 'But surely, Harry,' I said, 'you must detest their damnable, idolatrous doctrines of the mass and saints and images. Even for your love of mankind you must loathe these chains, by which they drag men down into the dark pits of superstition.' 'Rail not at idolatry, lad,' he answered. 'We are all idolaters. All men worship the idol which each sets up for himself in such manner as his mind, clogged with an imperfect shape, and, as it were, fettered and imprisoned in his visible body, can fashion it. Each has his own graven image, to which he bows. He thinks it is God, ay, and sometimes will almost persuade others so; yet it is nought but a little unshapely bit, that he laboriously has hewn from the great soul that dwells in his mind. There is but one escape from idolatry. We must worship the one universal God, who is formless and yet of every form, who is everywhere and in everything, who, as I say, is a spirit that breathes in the sweet scents of the flowers, in the sighing of the summer wind, in the twittering songs of the birds, in the kisses of lovers' lips.' Such was the mangled philosophy he brought home from Padua, that lodestone of wit, to which then gathered all that was bold and learned and polished in thought throughout the length and breadth of Europe. What wonder that I, being untravelled, had no skill to win him from his opinions, and drew each day closer to the gentle spirit of her who so trustingly took me for her guide! CHAPTER XII It was early in the year of grace 1572, that Frank Drake came back from the second voyage which he made to discover the Spanish Indies. He came to see us soon after he landed, in most excellent heart. For not only was he the bearer of a modest return for our venture with him, but he also brought news that his discovery of those seas was now complete, and as happy in its omens as it was complete. 'Heark ye, my lads,' said he, setting a hand on our knees as he sat between us, and speaking in a low excited voice. 'I have found the treasure-house of the world! I have found the well whence the Spaniards draw the life-blood that gives them all their strength to trouble Europe and champion Antichrist! Closer, my lads, while I whisper its name. Nombre de Dios it is called, "the Name of God," and in the name of God I will so rifle it and breed such terror in the place that thenceforth they shall rather call it Nombre de Diablo.' 'But how, Frank, bow?' we cried. 'Why, easily enough,' he answered. 'They sleep there in fatness and security, they grow soft and womanish with riches; and who can wonder? Since thither flow all the wealth of Peru, the gold of El Dorado, and the pearls of the Southern sea. Yet they protect it not, but lie secure in ease and wantonness, because they deem the land is theirs, since the vile Italian has given it to them; they deem it is theirs, because they think no man can sail thither save with their pilots: but we can and will by God's help. I know a safe place for rendezvous hard by, whence we may strike, as we will, swift and sudden before they are 'ware of us. Then we will show them whether the world is the Pope's to part and grant. They shall see the New World is for those that can occupy with a strong arm. Hey! 'twill be merry to think how the fat lazy hens will cluck and flutter when the hawk has struck and we are rolling home again, with golden wedges for ballast, and pearls to fill the cracks.' 'But, Frank,' said I, almost breathless at his gigantic project, 'how will you get money to furnish ships for so great a venture?' 'And how many ships do you think I want?' exclaimed Drake. 'Do you think I am going to sail away with a whole fleet, like Jack Hawkins, with the Spanish Ambassador looking on and sending word before me? No, my lads, I know better than that now. I know the thing can be done, and I know how to do it. Just two ships is all I take.' 'What!' cried Harry, 'attack the Indies, attack the choicest possession of the greatest empire in the world with two ships? You must be mad.' 'Maybe, maybe, my lad,' laughed Drake. 'We shall see who is mad and who is sane before long; but now I mean to sail with just two ships and a pinnace or two for shore work. I have already bespoke in Plymouth the _Pasha_, of seventy tons, for my admiral, and then I will take again my little _Swan_, of twenty-five, for my vice-admiral. She is still staunch, and now knows her way to the Indies better than any ship that floats in English waters. Brother Jack is to be captain in her.' 'But, for God's sake, Frank,' said I, 'be not so hastily resolved. Think again what you do. It is not hens you fly at. It is a mighty eagle with claws of iron, whose wings stretch over the four quarters of the world.' 'You may say that too,' answered he. 'Yet remember that though the eagle lays her eggs in Jupiter's lap, still she escapes not requital for her wrong done to the emmet. The Spaniard has foully wronged me, and foully wronged one beside whom I am indeed but an emmet. It is the Lord's work to do what I say. It can be done, and I am going to do it.' This he said quietly, without boasting, and with so determined an air of cheerful resolution that I knew no words of ours would turn him from his audacious purpose. So we listened, wondering more and more at the fire of his dauntless spirit, while he unfolded to us every detail of his plan. 'Would God I could sail with you!' burst out Harry at last, with kindling eyes. 'Why not, lad, why not?' cried Frank, smiting him on the back in his cheery sea fashion. 'Such lads as you I want. Not a man over thirty years old will I have. It is youth and fire we need. The oldest are too wary, and will not believe I know best. Say now, will you sail and take command of the land-soldiers?' 'Would God I could!' answered Harry mournfully. 'It will be a tale to be told beside the story of �neas, and sung with the song of the Argonauts. But tempt me not, Frank; I am married now, and must stay to watch over my sweet Nan. My fighting days are over, save at England's need.' 'Well, as you will,' said Drake, very disappointed. 'But you miss a glorious venture; and you will not go either, Jasper?' 'Gladly I would,' said I, 'but each must to the work his hand finds to do, and mine, as you know, is here. My money, as far as my capacity goes, shall be with you, though for profit I would rather have seen it risked in a plain voyage to Guinea after negroes. Yet, since this is the Lord's work which you are on, you shall have what help my purse can yield. But for my body, the Lord has need of that here.' This was indeed so, as I thought, though had it been otherwise I doubt if then I should have had stomach for Frank's wild enterprise. Mr. Cartwright had already sounded his note against prelatical Church government and all its brood of evils, and had been deprived both of his professorship and his fellowship. Since that time he had been busy with his _Admonition to Parliament_. That clarion-blast, which was to wake a war in England which seems each day to grow in fierceness, was about to be blown, and seeing how much he looked to me to help him in his great work, and how stormy a controversy he foresaw it would raise, I felt I should not leave his side. Such was the reason I gave to myself, yet I think my resolve was dictated rather by distaste for the danger of so rash an expedition, and by the closer ties which bound me to England. Would God I had had strength to give Frank another answer! What sin and misery I might then have been spared, and of how much sorrow brought on those I loved best should I have been guiltless! Yet it was fated that I should have another tale to tell, so let me hasten in shame to the end, which now came quickly. When Frank left us our lives rolled on in the old ruts again, but deeper than before. Out of his great love for his wife, and his knightly devotion to her, Harry had made a sacrifice greater than we and he guessed in refusing Drake's offer; and seeking to forget it in an unceasing round of work and pleasure, he devoted his time more and more to his sheep and tenants and estate, and sought more, eagerly the assemblies of gentlemen where sport was to be had. As for his wife, she seemed to think now of nothing but good works amongst the poor and reading theology with me. Hour after hour she would pore over Genevan Latin, still her Puritanism grew sterner and sterner. Harry's hunting and bull-baiting and card-playing became more and more distasteful in her eyes, till at last I think it was all they could see of him; so that when he came home at nights it was little return he got for the love he was ready to lavish upon her. Perhaps he was to blame, though I can never see in his most noble life anything that is not praiseworthy. Perhaps if he could have given her a little more and his work a little less, she would have been readier to forgive the manly pleasures he loved in common with every other gentleman of spirit. Yet I think not. I doubt the poison which I, in my self-willed ignorance, administered for a wholesome physic was too strong and deadly for her high-wrought nature. Soon she would bid none but the poor and preachers to Ashtead, where once she had loved so well to entertain very gallant parties of gentry from the country round, ay, and from London too. Nor would she go abroad to other houses, as she used, with Harry, since she had grown to hate the sports and ungodly conversation and gallantry that went forward at such times. Above all, there was one house which she hated. It belonged to a Popish gentleman, and was well known to me as a place where there was a great coming and going of strangers, who rode on North Country cobbles, and often spoke with a strong North Country burr. We had not yet forgotten the Catholic risings in the North. The Duke of Norfolk's treasonable practices with Rome for her Majesty's destruction had been but recently brought to light, and he was yet lying a convicted traitor in the Tower, but still unexecuted. Rumours were leaking out or being invented of other great Popish plots for the subversion of the realm and the making away with the Queen and her ministers. It was no wonder, then, that Harry's constant visits to the house of which I speak caused us no little anxiety, although now I know he went there bent only on pleasure. It was one of these visits that brought about the end. I had ridden over to Ashtead one afternoon towards the end of April. The morning had been showery--a mirror of England's state at that time, as I thought to myself, a mixture of sunshine and tears. To my great surprise, instead of finding Mrs. Waldyve bent over some Latin book as usual, she was sitting miserably crouched upon the window seat, wild-eyed and weary, as one that grieved sorely and could not weep. As soon as she heard my step she sprang up with a strange little laugh, and pressed my hand very hard as she spoke. 'Oh, Jasper,' she said, 'I am so glad you are come. I had need of you. Let us come to the orchard, where we can talk alone.' We went out together and seated ourselves side by side, as we had done many times before, on the bowed limb of an ancient apple-tree which, as though overcome with years, rested, all gnarled and twisted, upon the flowery turf. It was one of the first warm days of spring. The grass was spangled over with primroses, the trees were laden with flowery frost, the choir of the birds was warbling its fullest love-notes, and all was bathed in the soft sunshine of the waning afternoon. Yet there was nothing for me so beautiful as the woman who sat by my side, gazing far away over the mellow prospect of field and woodland and river, or so tuneful as the soft murmur that came in rhythmical whisper from her heaving breast. For a time we sat in silence, and while she gathered strength and calmness to speak, I watched the sunlight playing in her hair and, wondering, tried to read the thoughts that chased each other across her wistful face. 'Jasper!' she said at last, turning suddenly on me, 'whatever comes of it you will not think ill of me? Say you will not.' I tried to calm and comfort her, and begged her to tell me what her trouble was; but I was afraid to speak much, for a strange fear of her seemed to come over me, and I could not think quietly. 'When he was going over there, you know where, Jasper,' she said, 'the voice of the Lord whispered to me that I must stay him. So I arose and begged him not to go. He patted my cheek, as though I were a child, and laughing, asked me of what I was afraid. Then I told him how we feared for his body, lest he should be drawn into some Popish plot, and, more than that, for his soul, lest he should be tempted to backsliding and so to utter perdition. And what think you he said, Jasper? I shudder to speak it. He patted my cheek, smiling again, and said, "Ah, Nan,' 'tis a pity you are grown such a prim little Puritan. But fear not; a Waldyve heart is loyal enough, and as for my soul, why, lass, God--if there is a God that marks these little coils--must be made of better stuff than to damn my soul for a frolic with a jolly papist or two." Then I knew what he was. I was stricken dumb, and he rode away. Jasper!' she went on, seizing my arm and leaning eagerly towards me, 'he is an atheist! I am married to an atheist! My son is an atheist's son! Oh, my God, what shall I do? He will grow up to mock God, like his father. He will learn to mock at my faith, like Hal. I know it. He will not care for me. Hal wins all to him. What shall I do? Counsel me, brother, for God's sake, or my heart will break. I have no friend but you. Thank God He sent you to me!' I know not what I said. I could not think of my words, only of her, as she leaned her lithe young figure on my arm and sobbed and sobbed again. A devil came into me with the sunshine, and the warbling of the birds, and the faint scent of the flowers, and at last I dared not speak for dread of what words the fiend had put on my tongue. So we continued for a space, till suddenly her sobs ceased and she sprang up to her feet before me. I rose too, stepping a little back from her. I dared not go near, for her eyes were glittering, her cheeks flushed, and all in the reddening sun she was a vision too fair for my strength. 'Jasper,' she said quietly, but much excited and trembling, and looking at me very fixedly, 'there is but one way, and the Lord has shown it me. I must go away from here, from him, and take little Fulke away, or he and I and all will be lost for ever. Jasper, you must take us away.' I started, horror-stricken, to hear from her sweet mouth the very words which the devil had set on my own lips and which I had striven so hard to keep back. I knew then I could not resist much longer. It seemed to me that I must be speaking to a fiend who had taken her angel shape, and my courage for so hopeless a battle began to fail me. 'Brother,' it said, coming towards me, 'you will not fail me. Save me and my boy, your own godson, from perdition. Take me to where he is fostering, and thence whither you will. I care not, so long as I am away from this great trial.' Her form was close to me; what seemed her little white hands were upon me; two wistful brown eyes like hers were looking up in my face in an agony of pleading. What could I do, what could I do? I had taken the soft form in my arms before I knew and passionately kissed the sweet upturned face. God forgive me for it, when His will is! I was tempted more than I could bear. CHAPTER XIII The ways were very foundrous, and night closed in upon us while we were still on our flight. Ere Harry had returned we had departed and were making for the farm to which little Fulke had been sent with his foster-mother. It was a good distance from Ashtead, being the farthest part of Harry's estate inland, and detached from the rest by a large space. For that reason it had been chosen by him for his boy, that he might be as far as possible away from the marshes, which were held to be pestilent in the spring. Mrs. Waldyve was riding pillion behind me. A sort of calm had settled upon us with the night, and I picked my way as well as I could through the mud, content to feel her soft arm about me, and know that it was her sweet form that leaned upon me. Darker and darker gathered the night, and deeper grew the mire. I could no longer see where my horse trod, and had to leave him with loosened rein to find his way as best he could. I think the unwonted weight upon his back must have wearied him, for all at once he stumbled, and we found him stuck up to the girths in a slough. There was nothing to be done but dismount and lift Mrs. Waldyve off. I sank almost over my boots as I took her in my arms, but managed nevertheless to set her safely on a firm bank by the side of the road. My next care was to get my horse clear, which at last, with great toil, I did. Still, we were in a sorry plight. My horse had so laboured in the slough that by the time I had got him free he was strained and weary past all going. Moreover, the clouds had gathered above us in great masses, so that not only was the darkness almost impenetrable, but I had great fear of a heavy downpour of rain. I know not what would have befallen us had it not been that I was aware of a little inn not far distant, which was used by travellers passing from Rochester towards Maidstone and Tunbridge. That I could reach it with my horse I did not doubt, but was fearful for Mrs. Waldyve. When, however, I told her how things stood with us I found her so resolved and courageous that I determined to set out forthwith, and in a shorter time than I had hoped we saw the lights of the inn in front of us. No sooner had we reached shelter than the rain came down in torrents. During the happy dream in which I had ridden, and afterwards in the labour with my horse, I had hardly realised what we were doing. I was reckless, not caring what came so long as I was with her on our journey, away from my old mournful life, as it now seemed to me. It was clear we must pass the night in the inn. To go on was not to be thought of. I know not what Mrs. Waldyve thought, but to me it seemed quite natural and easy, though, I confess, it was with no little comfort that I found there were no travellers there besides ourselves. Perhaps it is well I cannot write down each thing we said and all that passed that night; yet I would do it if I could. It seems to me now like a faint dream of some other man's life; and, try how I will, I can remember little but the bustling hostess setting our supper to a tune of chattering gossip, and after it was cleared leaving us with a cheery 'Good-night to your gentilities.' I know we sat side by side in the great chimney corner, my arm about her, her hand in mine, talking low, with such soft speech as none but a villain would suffer to pass between him and another man's wife. I know the rain had ceased and the new-risen moon was shining gloriously in between the mullions of the broad low lattice window, almost darkening the dancing firelight, and making a large chequer pattern on the rush-strewn floor. How long we sat so I cannot tell, no more than how long we should have sat had we not heard the plash of horses' feet in the mud outside. The shadow of a cloaked horseman passed across the bright chequer pattern on the floor, and then another. We heard them stop, and then a voice that made our hearts stand still hailed the house. 'Hola, house! Hola, within!' it cried. 'What would ye, gentles?' cried the voice of the hostess. ''Slight, to come in, woman. Open quickly,' said the traveller. 'Despatch, despatch, Jem,' cried the landlady. 'See you not it is a gentleman and his gentleman servant? In good time, your worship. My goodman is in bed. Be patient till he make shift, that we be not shamed, and he shall let you in. Will Ostler, Will Ostler, wake up, you loon, and take the horses! Was ever such luck? Mass! but I knew we should have travellers ever since last Tuesday, when I could not sleep for dreaming of green rushes, and that's for strangers.' I could not speak, or stir, or think, but only stand by the hearth and stupidly mark what the shrill voice of the hostess said. Yet I had strength to resolve, come what might, I would not draw my blade. It seemed an age of silence, broken only by muttered words for a moment without, and then the door burst open, and Harry, covered with mud, strode in with his rapier drawn in his hand and his cloak about his left arm. Culverin followed at his heels, and, slamming the door after him, stood solidly in front of it, while Harry advanced towards us. There seemed no anger in his face, but rather sorrow and set purpose, as he came quickly forward. I stood where I was, hoping in a moment to feel his point and have an end to all; but Mrs. Waldyve made a sudden movement, half of horror, half as though to protect me. Harry stopped in a moment with lowered point, and looked at her with a face in which was such a constant love and unspeakable pain as tears my heart to this hour to think on. Then, setting hard his teeth, he lifted his rapier on high and flung it with all his might crashing through the window into the yard outside. I heard the clang of the broken glass. I heard the Sergeant's great broadsword come screaming from its sheath. I saw Harry stand trembling with set face, trying in vain to speak with steady voice; and the Sergeant, rigid as a column, at the door with his drawn sword, his naked dagger, and his bristling moustache. A choking sound came at last from Harry's lips, in which there seemed no trace of his own clear, ringing voice. 'For God's sake, Jasper, bring her back. You know not what you do. You love her not as I do.' That was all. I think he would have said more, but could not. For a moment he seemed to struggle for words, and then turned and was gone. The Sergeant sheathed his sword with an angry clang, turned on his heel rudely, without a word or salute, and we were alone again in the moonlight. Then there burst upon me in dazzling light, that seemed to scorch my very soul, the horror of my sin. I saw in a moment how blind I had been. A mad rage at Heaven and all that had made my life seized me. Was it for this I had striven, and denied myself, and lived the life of a monk, when others were dancing, and dicing, and drinking in full content? Was this, after all my toil and wasted youth, the place where my religion had brought me? So, in wild reaction, my long-pent thoughts, their bonds burst in sunder, ran riot through my brain, till I heard a horseman dash away through the mud. In hate of Heaven, in hate of myself, I went forth, not knowing what I did. The cool night air and the pure, soft moonlight seemed to soothe my fever as I stepped into the yard. There lay Harry's rapier, where it had fallen, the hilt buried in the mire, the blade glittering like hope in the silver light. I know not how the fancy seized me, unless, unknown to myself, I was infected with a foretaste of that sweet sense which since has flowed in such full and tuneful flood from the honeyed lips of Mr. Spenser. Yet I know, as that rapier lay there so keen and shining, I saw in it a mirror of perfect courage and gentleness, wherein I could look for every rule of life. I saw in it, as it were, the embodied presentment of that noble spirit I had so foully wronged, and I clutched at it in forlorn hope to save me amidst the dark waste of waters that had flowed over every landmark I had known before, and every path I had painfully learned to tread. Yes, many may think it folly, yet to me it was the devoutest act of my life. I drew my own stained blade, and, setting my foot upon it, snapped it across, and then flung it into the mire as the weapon of a felon knight. So I kneeled down, and picking up Harry's rapier, like a holy thing, I put it to my lips. For I had an oath to swear, and I swore it aloud on that unsullied blade, that, come what might, in joy and sorrow, by land and sea, in life and death, I would never, by the help of Harry's memory, do an act that would disgrace the weapon which he had hallowed by true faith, and love, and courtesy, and every knightly virtue. I kissed the blade again, and, rising up, I put it in my own scabbard. It fitted easily, as though it shunned not its new resting-place. As I looked up I was suddenly aware of Sergeant Culverin standing by my side. His posture was as different as could be from that in which I had last seen him. Soldierly he was as ever, yet the childlike look was on his face behind the fierce moustache, and he was saluting me. 'Has your worship any use for me ere I go?' he said, very respectfully, and drawn up stiffly to his full height. I could have easily embraced the grim soldier for that salute and those words. In the depth of my degradation, when I so loathed myself that I felt I should never dare to look an honest man in the face again, I found this steadfast soul did not wholly despise me. It seemed to me he was a sign sent, I cannot say from God, for God was no more to me now, but sent by some mysterious power of good that by hazard I had conjured, to bid me hope my vow would be fulfilled. 'Is your horse strong enough to go back to Ashtead?' said I. 'Yes, your worship,' he answered; 'and as far again in a good cause.' 'Then set the pillion saddle on him,' said I. The Sergeant's childlike look grew very apparent and smiling as I spoke. I thought at first he was about to seize my hand, but he restrained himself and only rigidly saluted as he went to do my bidding. So, hopefully and with hardened heart, I went back to the guest chamber of the inn. She had left the place where I had seen her last, and was sitting in the window, as though she had gone there to look after Harry or me, I knew not which. How beautiful she shone in the moonlight! I can think of it quietly now. The silver flood fell full upon her, and illumined her lovely face and form with so heavenly a radiance in the dark chamber that she seemed to me like some poor angel, weary of worship, who had strayed from heaven. It was as though the eye of some great spirit far away was turned upon her to draw her back to the realms she had left; as though she saw the golden gate whence she came, and, weighed down by the thick and cloying vapours of earth, knew not how to take wing back to the life she had loved and lost. 'Will you go back to-night,' said I, 'or wait for the morning?' She started then from her reverie, and turned on me her sweet brown eyes, so wistfully and full of reproach as almost to undo me. 'Must we go back, Jasper?' she said at last, so submissively and in such beseeching tones that my head swam and my breath came thick. Many a struggle I have had in my changeful life, but never one like that. It was only my new guardian that won the strife for me. I clapped my hand to Harry's rapier, and, pressing it mighty hard, found strength to say firmly, 'Yes!' I think she saw what I did, for she stood up with that stony calm which to me is far more terrible than the wildest passion. Once she pressed her little white hands to her eyes, and then drew them slowly away, while I stood watching and waiting for my answer. 'We will go now, Jasper,' she said at last. 'You are right; we must go; but I can never have been to you what you have been to me.' Her words cut me like the hangman's lash on the back of prisoner unjustly condemned. It was more than I could bear to see her. It was past my strength after these scourging words to choose the path that was so hard and bitter before the one that was so easy and sweet. I felt driven towards her. I sprang forwards to take her tender form in my arms, and cover her reproachful face with passionate kisses; to show her what she had done; to show her what she was to me--more than honour, more than duty, more than all the world; to show her that I loved her. I was at her side with arms wide open to enfold her; in one last strife with myself I paused, and like a thunderclap to my strained wits the Sergeant's knock rattled out on the door, and I was saved. Clutching the rapier by my side once more, I turned to see the soldier's tall form appear in the doorway. 'Your bidding is done, sir,' said he. 'Then help Mrs. Waldyve to the saddle,' said I; 'we will walk by her side.' With hanging head, and never a glance to me, she went with tottering steps to the Sergeant, who lifted her with loving gentleness into the saddle. Then we set forward through the moonlight. Not a word was spoken as we toiled along; not a sound broke the stillness of the night, save the suck of our boots and the horse's feet in the mire. So in silence, each communing with his own thoughts, we came in the first gray glimmer of the dawn to Ashtead, and in silence parted. CHAPTER XIV How the next day passed with me I cannot say. I spent it, I know, in my library, pacing up and down and thinking over and over again of all that had happened since last the sun rose. I remember angrily putting away the divinity books which lay on my table, and taking down others at random. But they would not speak to me as they used, or perhaps I could not hear them for the din of self-reproach in my head. Many times I tried to think what lucky chance it was that brought Harry to the inn; but I could not guess, nor did I ever know, till the Sergeant told me he came there by hazard, on his way from the Popish gentleman's house, for a cup of spiced wine, because they were wet, and seeing in the stable my horse and his wife's pillion-saddle, had guessed the bitter truth, which the hostess speedily confirmed. After a heavy night's rest had soothed me I arose at a late hour, and saw things more clearly. I took down my _Phædo Platonis_, and read in it till I began to see right from wrong again. Gradually it seemed to me that there was but one thing to do. I would ride over to Ashtead once more, see Harry, and tell him I was going away, I knew not for how long or where, but to some land in which I could learn the lesson his travels had taught him. So I would crave his pardon in years to come, and take my leave of all I loved. It was towards evening that I slowly crossed the park and came to the little wicket that opened into the pretty Italian garden which Harry had made for his wife. There I tied my horse, as I had often done before, and entered. The terraces on either hand, where in grotesque solemnity the cognisance of his house frowned from many a half-hidden pedestal, were ablaze with the first flowers of spring. Celandine, fritillary, flower-de-luce, and all were there, like pretty laughing maids who knew their beauty and waywardly transgressed the trim stone mouldings, within which their luxuriance could not be content. From a wide-mouthed dragon's head the water spouted with a pleasant tinkle into the glassy basin that occupied the midst; the little trout that played there were springing merrily for the evening flies; whilst from the ivy and honeysuckle that was fast covering the enclosing walls, and from the blossom-laden pear trees in the orchard hard by, the birds were singing the requiem of the dying day. At the end towards the house, between two vases that overflowed with woodruff, a flight of steps led upwards to the grassy terrace before Mrs. Waldyve's parlour. One lattice of her bow window was open, and as I mounted the steps I could hear the low sound of singing within. Very sad it came to me amidst the gay carolling of the birds; so sad, that I could not choose but go softly across the little velvet lawn and peep between the mullions. All, what a sight was there! Rocking herself to and fro in her chair miserably sat Mrs. Waldyve, with hair and dress disordered. Her face was pale, her eyes hollow with weeping, and on her knees slumbered her little son. As though there was no world but in that small peaceful face, she leant over it and now and again touched the tiny brow with her lips. Singing ever the same mournful song, she rocked herself and leaned over the baby. I could hear the words she sang--some which her grief had made for her--and as I listened I cursed all in heaven and earth, and above all myself. For thus she sang a lullaby to her son:-- 'Sleep, baby, sleep, for so thou canst, Thou hast no sins to shrive; Lully, lully, my babe, hope is not dead, Love keepeth hope alive. 'Sleep, baby, sleep, he will come back, Back, honey-sweet, to the hive; Lully, lully, my babe, love is not dead, Thou keepest love alive.' Those words told me true what had befallen. I should have known well enough, even had it not been for the letter she held crushed in her hand, and kissed, as I watched her. It was easy to guess what it said, though I could not read the words. Years after I saw it again. She herself showed it me, long afterwards, when all was healed. It still bore witness then how she had crushed it in her grief; it was still blistered with her tears. And this is what was written there:-- To Mrs. WALDYVE, my own sweet Wife. You shall receive, dear wife, my parting words in these my parting lines. If I ever held your love, as indeed I think I did, it was by the poor things my sword had done. Now I go, I know not whither, to see if haply I may win it again to me beyond the seas, or at least forget a little of what I have lost. My love I leave you, though I know it is a little thing to you, yet hoping, when I am gone, you will find some place for it, if only it be when you kneel to pray for our boy. I would not that my last gift should be reproaches, dear Nan. Such are not for me, seeing it was by my own shortcoming that I could not keep your love. But first I send you all the thanks my heart can conceive or my pen express for your many cares and troubles taken for me, whom unworthy you strove to love. And secondly, I would commend to you my poor child, for his father's sake, whom in his happiest times I trow you loved and would have loved still had he been worthy. I cannot write much,--God knows how hardly I wrote even thus far. The everlasting, infinite, universal God, that is goodness itself, keep you and yours, have mercy on me, and teach me to forgive those who have wronged me; amongst whom, believe me, Nan, from my heart, I hold you not one. My wife, farewell. Bless my poor boy, pray your all-conquering prayers for him. My true God hold you both in His arms.--Your most loving, unworthy husband, HARRY WALDYVE. From Rochester, _this_ 30_th day of April_ 1572. I cannot but rejoice that I then knew no more of that letter than that by her kissing of it it was from him, and by the words of her song that it told how he was gone. My heart was already so seared and torn with shame at my work that, had I known how pathetic was his farewell, how deep and noble his sorrow, how touching his self-reproaches, and his straining in the anguish of his misery after the lost faith of his childhood, I know not how I should have borne the pain. What to do now I could not think. To go in to her was impossible. As she sat there grieving with her baby upon her knees and the letter in her hand, she seemed to me a holy thing, more purely sanctified in her motherhood and grief to him she had lost than ever was vestal to her goddess. All faith and reverence I thought had left me, yet I could have worshipped that mother and child as devoutly as ever a poor Papist bowed before the Virgin's shrine. Still there was a holiness about them I dared not profane, even with my worship. I felt a thing too unclean even to stand on the steps of the altar where she was now enshrined, and I crept away like the guilty thief I was. Hardly less difficult was it to go and leave her alone in the desert I had made of the fair garden, where but for me she might have dwelt so happily. To go was cowardly; it was sacrilege to stay. I had no guide to show me my way, no friend whom I could consult. Wearily, rather drifting than with any set purpose, I descended the steps, passed by the tinkling water, through the perfume-laden air, closed the wicket behind me, and so rode home, my errand undone. He was gone! I knew not whither; and there was no one of whom I could seek counsel. I would have gone to Mr. Drake to tell him all and seek comfort, but the thought of the good man's hard Calvinism repelled me now. He would not understand. As for Mr. Cartwright, he was still less to be thought of. For very shame, I dared not confess to his holy ears the depth to which I had fallen, even could I have hoped for sympathy from him. No, there was none to ease me of my burden. He was gone; and I must follow,--follow and bring him back to her, and then rid them for ever of my accursed presence. That was all I could think of. And on the morrow, after committing my affairs to old Miles's hands, I rode to Gravesend, and so came next day by river to London, whither I heard from the boatmen he had gone. As I have said, I came to London drifting, rather than with any set purpose. As soon as I had sought for Harry at my Lord of Bedford's, and at the lodging where he was wont to lie when in London, and found no news of him, I was at a loss what to do. I had no friends in London that I knew of, nor was I so much as acquainted with any there except my merchant and old Mr. Follet, who had a lodging in Warwick Court, where he was of easy access to his scholars, both those about the Court and those who were sons to wealthy citizens. To him I was resolved to go, not so much in hope to hear of Harry, as trusting in my forlorn state to receive comfort from him, when I remembered how peaceful and content was his life, and yet without any comfort of religion that I was ever able to discover. I found him polished and kindly and gentle as ever, and bound still in willing servitude to his 'Apology.' He welcomed me very warmly, refusing any denial that I would sup with him. Our first commendation over, he fell to asking me of my life and work, so that we easily came to talk of those deep matters wherein my trouble lay. 'I cannot but rejoice, my dear Jasper,' said the old scholar, bending on me his intelligent, clear eyes, 'that you have come to your present state. It was always my desire that you should see that as a rule or touchstone of right living, nay, if you will, as a _virgula divina_, or divining rod, whereby to discover the pure water of life, religion is in no comparison with scholarship. So long as men shall pursue religion as a chief end, so long shall they be ever athirst and rage in these present fevers that now be. I hold there are three special points in education, or the leading forth of life, the same being, truth in religion, honesty in living, and right order in learning. I name them in the order in which the three are now commonly held, yet you know, as I do, that in order of excellence these points should be reversed.' 'Then you would not have a scholar,' said I, 'lay aside religion altogether?' 'I see no need for that,' he answered. 'It was not so in the past golden days of scholarship, before Reformation violently killed the old kindly tolerance of the Romish Church. Side by side they could not exist, so Rome grew hard perforce, and Geneva as hard to withstand her. And so the good old days were ended, even the days when a man would first take heed that his order of learning was rightly governed according to the precepts of the immortal Stagirite, from which, secondly, would flow, by the bestowing of such leisure as remained, a sufficient honesty in living, the whole being sweetened and tempered with such truth of religion as came of itself, without straining, out of the other two. It is this straining after God that so troubles the world and burns up scholarship. They draw the Ardour of Heaven too near, whereby the inflammable principles, whereof He is in a great measure composed, so heat men's blood and set their stomachs on fire, that cool scholarship itself is set in a blaze, and serves but to feed the fires of controversy, whereby learning, honesty, and religion itself are fast being consumed.' 'Surely, then, it were better,' said I, 'to shut out this disturbing element that makes life so turbid; better to deafen our ears to this note which sets all our harmony awry.' 'No, Jasper,' answered Mr. Follet, 'that is impossible. That far-off note is your octavo, as Pythagoras taught. You, with your spiritual nature, will always hear it sounding in unison with that which you yourself are making as you live your Life. If there is discord in your ears, it is that you are sounding some other note awry between your fundamental earthly note and His in the empyrean. By your scholarship I judge your first harmony must be _dia-trion_ to the orbit of Mercury, which is science; and thus, if you would have concord, your next must be _dia-pente_ to the orbit of Mars, which is manhood and knightly adventure. So can you reach through your full _dia-pason_ to God, and sound your third and just fifth in complete and peaceful harmony with the universe. So I would advise you, if the music of your life has seemed meagre. But, above all, beware of the fourth, which is the orbit of Venus, that shall bring you nothing but most jarring discord, wherein you shall find no rest.' The old man looked out at me from his clear eyes so shrewdly that, although I could only guess at his meaning, I felt he had divined the true cause of my discomfort. How far he had learned it I cannot say, yet I could not help calling to mind the many times I had written to him concerning my most pleasant studies with Mrs. Waldyve. I found in my old tutor a strange mingling of shrewd worldly knowledge and unreal speculation which drew me nearer to him than I had ever had wit to be in my boyhood. It is true I hoped to get little help from his medley of philosophies, yet his conversation fascinated me in spite of the half-mystic vagueness that seemed to be growing on him with his old age, and I stayed with him till a late hour. Whether right or wrong for others, his own way of thought had brought him to an old age of profound peace, most enviable to me in the tempestuous flood of doubt that had overwhelmed my life since the dams of my faith, which I had deemed so secure, had burst. Moreover, his whole discourse was so seasoned with spicery from the writings of the ancients, and above all his beloved Aristotle, that it was very pleasant to hear, though beyond what my memory will bear to write. Moreover I wished to speak with him about his 'Apology,' which he had not once mentioned. No one but myself can truly know how great must have been his sympathy with my troubled state, or how much he must have denied himself to minister to it, when for two hours he never once spoke of his manuscript. At last, moved to pity because of his exceeding kindness, I asked him how it fared. 'Bravely, bravely, my dear discipulus,' said he with beaming face. 'It has been long in getting set forth because of the great growth which it has attained by reason of the weighty arguments I continually found. Still the day for the great purging of scholarship is very near. I am near to finishing the Latin text, in which form I have been weightily advised the work should appear, although I had purposed otherwise for the glory of the English tongue. The Right Honourable the Earl of Bedford has promised to receive the dedicatory epistle, so that I doubt not, with so noble and learned a sponsor, my child shall find an honourable reception in the courts of science.' This and much more to like purpose he spoke till I took my leave, much comforted by his kindliness, yet little relieved of my inward sickness. Lashmer, who had been passing the time of my visit with Mr. Follet's servant, came to my chamber as usual to untruss me when we reached our lodging. He seemed full of something, which after a little painful repressing he poured forth. 'Did your worship hear whither he had gone?' asked he. 'Whither who had gone?' said I. 'Was not your worship seeking news of Mr. Waldyve?' he asked again. 'Certes, I was,' said I; 'but that is no concern of yours.' 'No, sir, none,' he answered, 'save that I hold all that concerns you concerns your faithful servant; but since it is not so, let it pass.' So he fell into a sullen silence, till I, feeling he held news, could refrain no longer from asking what he meant. 'Nay, I meant nothing, sir,' said he. 'A gentleman's movements are nothing to me; but since I thought Mr. Follet would have told you whither he had gone, I made bold to inquire; for he was ever a most kind gentleman to me; but since there is offence in it, let it pass.' 'But what made you think Mr. Follet should know this?' I asked sharply. 'Nay, sir, I pray you let it pass. I have no longer desire to know what concerns me not.' 'But I have desire to know what you meant, sirrah.' 'Then, saving your displeasure, it was a foolish idle whim of mine, that am but a dunce and unlearned, to think that since Mr. Waldyve was with Mr. Follet yesterday he would have given your worship news of him. It was a stupid, foolish fancy, so I pray you let it pass.' 'Mr. Waldyve with Mr. Follet yesterday, say you?' I cried, as soon as I recovered breath. 'Why, how know you this, Lashmer?' 'Nay, I know it not,' said he, making occasion of my anxiety to have revenge for my sharpness. 'What a plague makes you say it then?' 'Why, sir, because Mr. Follet's man knows it, and Mr. Follet's man told me how Mr. Waldyve was with his master for the space of two hours save a thimbleful of sand yesterday about supper-time, during all which time he had to wait, for good manners' sake, though like to die of a watery mouth for thinking of a roasted rabbit and a dish of prunes that were bespoke for him and two other blades at the "Portcullis" tavern hard by.' 'Pace! pace! draw rein on your galloping tongue, good Lashmer, and tell me whither he has gone.' 'If I could, sir, but I cannot; nor Mr. Follet, nor Mr. Follet's man neither, for in truth he told none of them anything, save that they were not like to see him for a good space to come.' 'Then leave me, Lashmer, and good-night. Go to your bed now, and find a kind thought for a heart-sick master.' 'Heaven save your worship, and pardon a malapert servitor,' said Lashmer, and left me to my thoughts. First, I think, I pondered over Mr. Follet's great tenderness with me, when as I felt he must have known all. Then I tried to come to conclusions with myself what I was to do. The more I pondered the more it seemed useless to search farther for Harry, and the more I dwelt on what Mr. Follet had said to me of sounding the note of Mars's orbit as a cure for my discords. I felt shamed, moreover, to think that my old tutor knew all. I felt I could no more go back and face him; nay, I felt as though every one knew my shame, and a desire grew in me to fly far away from it all. I began to reason with myself as to what good end it would serve to find Harry, and now it seemed that even if I could find him I dared not face him. My bold resolves were melting to cowardice in the heat of my remorse, and utterly purposeless and alone I crept with a broken spirit to my bed. CHAPTER XV Next day I stayed within all the morning. Harry was in London, and though I had come thither to seek him, I dared not stir abroad for fear of meeting him. I dined in my lodging, sending Lashmer to the tavern for a quart of claret. The food and the wine must have put new heart in me; for after they were done I sallied forth alone, resolved to prosecute my search. Still dreading success, I wandered eastward along the Strand. Many gallants, most splendid with new-fashioned hats and hose, were loitering along the way I went. I followed the stream, and so, passing Temple Bar and over the Fleet Bridge, I came through Ludgate before St. Paul's Church. I stood a while admiring the grandeur of the front and the lofty tower. For then, being untravelled, I was unlearned in architecture, and saw not how rude were its proportions and barbarous its ornament beside the new style. Many gallants went by me as I watched, laughing, and passed on into the church. Harry had often told me how it was a place of great resort, so I followed, thinking perhaps to find what I looked for and dreaded to see. The floor of the long and lofty nave was thronged with gallants and would-be gallants, strolling up and down, and laughing and talking with one another; while between the piers of clustered columns which supported the soaring roof-groins and dim triforium knots of men were gathered, who seemed for the most part to be merchants. From time to time I could see a bond or account-book fluttering white amidst their sober robes, but all was done with as little noise and bustle as could well be. For it must be known that Paul's was not then the den of thieves it is now. It was not so long since the Queen's proclamation had been issued against such as should transact business, or make any fray, or shoot any hand-gun or dag within the precincts. It was still had in memory, though little regarded, and the place was not wholly disorderly. Yet was it sufficiently out of order to see so gay a company glowing in their bright clothes of 'popinjay blue,' 'devil-in-the-head,' 'lusty gallant,' and I know not what other outlandish new-fashioned hues, and to hear their laughter rolling round the gray old walls, and the clink of their spurs and rapiers on the pavement, and the rustle of their silks and taffeta as they walked. Wrapped as I was in myself, and shut off by my shame from all men, that thoughtless throng only made my sense of loneliness keener. Far more in sympathy with me than any creature there was the tall temple itself, which, stripped long since of all its altars and Popish adornments, seemed to look down in lofty contempt upon the irreverent crowd which insulted its ancient dignity. Solemn and sad and alone it seemed to wait in patient confidence for the day when their little paltry lives would have passed away to oblivion, and its days of worship would come again. That there were many there more loyal with their tongues than in ought else I could see as I went forward and came near Duke Humphrey's tomb. Here the proclamation seemed wellnigh forgotten. Round the battered effigy the throng was thicker and full of ruffling loud-voiced swaggerers, who, from their ruffianly carriage and most vile Smithfield oaths, made me think their gentility much belied the bravery of their clothes. It was a thing I then first noted, and have since much grieved over, that men of low station nowadays take to wearing garments of gentleman's cut, no matter how common or ill-made, so long as they be as good as their scrapings, or stealings, or borrowings will buy. Not wishing to mingle with this lewd throng I turned aside between the columns, that I might so pass into the aisle and avoid them. But before I could carry out my purpose I felt myself hustled roughly into the aisle by some one who thrust violently by me. 'Body of Bacchus!' said a loud, gruff voice, 'know you not better, base countryman, than to hustle a gentleman so?' I turned and saw glaring at me a tall ruffian whom I had noted in the throng. He was dressed in garish and faded garments very vilely pinked and guarded, and wore on his head a most desperate hat. As though to give him a warlike note, his clothes were thrown on in a slovenly way, and his moustache frounced out so shock and bristling that it seemed from each hair-end a crackling oath must start with every word he said. I felt little inclined for a brawl, least of all in that place, though to quarrel with any man would perhaps have been a comfort in my present state; so I civilly told him I was sorry to have stood in his way. 'What, base minion!' said he very fierce, with a whole fusilada of oaths, 'think you to pass so lightly from a gentleman's wrath?' 'I pray you, sir, be content,' I replied as quietly as I could, for it seemed very silly to quarrel with such a mountebank. 'If I wronged your gentility it was unwittingly, and I crave your pardon.' 'Stay, rude rustic,' said he, stepping before me as I turned away, and clapping his hand to a rapier of extravagant length. 'This shall not serve you. Craving of pardons shall not serve you, nor your _pardonnez-mois_ neither. A gentleman must have satisfaction by rule and circumstance, after the teaching of the inestimable Signor Rocco.' I found myself by this time hemmed in by a throng of his fellows, as ruffianly and hectoring as himself, none of whom I dare have sworn could ever have afforded so much as their noses inside Signor Rocco's 'College,' so I thought best to make an end. 'Come then, sir,' said I, 'to a fitting place, and I will presently give you your desire.' 'Nay, but first name your friends,' my opponent replied. 'For know, base scullion, that town-bred gentlemen fight by rule and circumstance, and not like two rams in field, without supporters.' 'Yes, pretty shepherd,' cried the throng jeeringly, 'name first your friend, if you want a gentleman to walk with you.' I now saw my evil case and what a trick was put on me, and knew not what to do. To draw my rapier, Harry's rapier, on this vermin was farthest from my thoughts. Yet the throng hustled me closer, and my bully swaggered and threatened loudly. 'I have no friend here,' said I, 'unless any gentleman among you will stand by me.' 'Hark to the scurvy rustic,' they cried, in answer to my look around to them. 'A pox on your familiarity. You will get no friend here.' 'Nay, my dry-livered lubbers, that he will,' cried a clear jolly voice, and I turned to see Frank Drake and another gentleman break through the throng to my side. 'What is it, Jasper? Stand back, ye lubberly porpoises, and give a seaman sea-room.' 'Stand back, I pray you, gentlemen,' cried my bully very condescending; 'I knew not that I spoke with a friend of Captain Drake's.' 'Or maybe you would not have spoken so loud, my pot-valiant Hercules,' said Frank's friend. 'What is all the coil about, Jasper?' said Frank again, while my bully tried to outstare the gentleman. ''Tis nothing,' said I. 'He wanted two friends for me, to help give him satisfaction for having been at the pain of jostling me.' 'Give him a tester, sir,' said Frank's friend, 'to buy sack withal. That is the best satisfaction for his most barrel-bellied worship.' 'No, gentlemen,' said my bully with great pomp, finding he could not outstare his new adversary, 'it is satisfaction enough to know the gentleman is a friend of the most valiant Captain Drake. I know of no quarrel here that a skin of muscadine will not assuage. I pray you, let me conduct you to a very honest tavern hard by where I am known, and where I will see you served with the best.' 'Most courtly offered!' said the gentleman. 'And peradventure your most sweet honesty will see us served also with very honest dice and very honest cards. 'Tis a pity we are promised elsewhere, but so it is, and we must perforce pray your valourship to bestow on us instead a full measure of your most delectable absence.' 'By the soul of Bacchus,' said the bully, swelling with contempt, 'were it not for the proclamation, blood should flow for this;' but we all laughed at him, and he strode away with his nose in the air, as proud as Alexander after Granicus. So we were rid of him and his fellows, who followed on his heels all growling, 'Were it not for the proclamation,' and swearing like drovers between their teeth. 'A happy meeting, Jasper,' said Frank. 'Yonder go as arrant a lot of thieves as any in all London. Be better acquainted with my friend, Mr. John Oxenham. A fellow-adventurer, Oxenham, Mr. Festing, but not, to my grief, a shipmate.' 'Pity you will not sail with us, Mr. Festing,' said Mr. Oxenham with a winning courtesy of manner. 'A man who can stand up to a throng of swaggerers like that should try his hand on Spaniards.' 'Why, so he has,' cried Frank,' and to their cost; but now he will be doing nothing but ram home most portentous charges of words into paper ordnance with a quill rammer. Heaven knows what giants they will bring down when they go off!' We all laughed together, for I cannot say what it was to me to meet these two in the midst of my loneliness. I gladly accepted their invitation to a tavern, where we could talk in peace. For not only was I overjoyed to be with Frank again, but I was much taken with Mr. Oxenham. He was a tall, well-dressed man with a very handsome face, and such courageous eyes that I did not wonder they had daunted the Paul's man. 'Tis true I should have liked him better had it not been for an amorous look he wore over all his manliness. Yet who was I to judge him for that? His talk was very pleasant, for he had been a rover from his youth, and spoke of what he had seen freely, without boasting. We sat drinking a long time, and talked of the glories of the West and a sailor's life, for which he had conceived a romantic enthusiasm. 'Ah, Mr. Festing,' burst out Mr. Oxenham at last, 'it is a pity you will not sail with us to the West, since you are bent on travel. I envy you your learning in these things, but none who have not seen can picture their glory. Compared with them, to potter about Europe from one pestered town to another, from one crowded country to another, is like the paddling of a duckling in a puddle beside the everlasting flight of the god-like albatross, that never lights, not even for love. This old world is gray, and worn, and stifling. Over there it is all colour and sunlight and freedom; where the golden land brings forth without labour, and he who will may pass through and enjoy. Why, when once you come to that Paradise where all is so wide and fresh and lovely, you lift your hands in wonder, as you look back to this dull corner far away, that your life can ever have been so little as to come within the bounds of such a prison; you shall hardly believe there was ever room here for aught large enough to cause a moment's grief or joy for your expanded soul. There you can see Nature and know at last what beauty is. There at last you shall drink her fragrant breath, feel the richness of her warm embrace, revel in the azure and rose colour and golden sheen that make up her divine beauty, and lie in her arms to know at last what it means to say, "This is delight."' 'And think, lad,' cried Frank, who hardly, I think, can have seen with Mr. Oxenham's eyes, 'think that it is Spaniards who have ravished this rich beauty. It is these idolatrous hell-hounds of Antichrist who have possessed this Shulamite woman whom the Lord had reserved as a bride for his saints. It will be a glorious smiting of them. Their lust has made them sleepy and womanish. They are puffed up into silly security with their Spanish pride. Why, man, they will leave whole estates in charge of one slave, and send out trains of a hundred Indians or more laden with gold with but a single negro over them. I know it all now. I know every way in and out, and every course and time their ships will sail, and I know harbours, lad, where none could ever find us, where we can lie in wait and pounce out like cats on the good things that come by. And then they have not a walled town on the coast, that I know of. We can swoop down on the Dons and be away again, made men, or ever they have time to wake up out of their beds. Why will not men see what there is to be done, if they will only do? One such stroke as I have in mind will do more to undo Antichrist than all your thinking. Yet you scholars will not see it, but will not cease your idle disputing and dreaming till the angels shall come down and cry to you in voice of thunder, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"' His words struck me very deep, and I began to see how idle was our scholars' contempt for men of action. So, with ever-growing interest, I listened as we talked together till long after supper, and Frank unfolded every detail of his plan in his honest practical way. Mr. Oxenham, moreover, ceased not to paint his glowing pictures not only of what was known of those regions, but also of the fairyland beyond, where no Christian had yet trod,--the unknown lands where he set my fancy playing with his till my imagination, on which I had already heaped so much that was inflammable from my books, was all on fire. As for my reason, Frank's sound sense was enough to satisfy that, and his taunt at my standing still and gazing up into heaven while others were doing touched my pride nearly. What wonder, then, that when the time came to bid them good-night, when I saw before me my lonely lodging, when I pictured the blank morrow and all my life beyond, empty of hope or joy or fellowship, when they urged me once more most earnestly to sail with them, that I could not resist! They were pressing on me the very course in which I could follow Mr. Follet's strangely-worded advice more fully and nobly than I had ever dreamed. In place of my faith a sense of destiny seemed to have come to me, and to be speaking clearly in this chance meeting. If there was anything in man's harmony with the music of the spheres, sure it was the wild adventurous war-note of the universal gamut that I heard far off in the height of heaven sounding low and clear for my soul's response. My quest for Harry was forgotten, and with it whatever else tied me to the old life, which now began to seem but a body of death. For that strange voice had come over the wide ocean and whispered its witching summons in my ear also. I could not choose but obey. So we three joined hands and drank a cup on my resolve, and one more was added to the throng who day by day were leaving all to taste the ripe lips of this New Helen in the West. CHAPTER XVI It was arranged that I should go out as gentleman adventurer; and since I did not wish to be without place, and had some little knowledge of business, gained by always managing my own estate so as to make it yield the fullest return, I begged and got the office of merchant to the expedition. I was soon tried in my new post, for Frank was earnest to get back to Plymouth to speed the fitting out of the ships and the building of the pinnaces, which we were to carry with us in pieces. So I was left to purchase the arms and other furniture which was still lacking. This had been the only occasion of his staying in London, which being left in my hands he was free to depart, and this he accordingly did, taking Mr. Oxenham with him. From my constant fear of meeting Harry, which was greater than ever since I had resolved to fly, I stirred abroad no more than my business demanded. Yet I was obliged often to go into the city, for there was still a great deal to be done. Money was in no way lacking, both by reason of the success of Frank's two former voyages, which had lined his pockets well, and of the support he got elsewhere. Nothing was to be wanting from the complete furniture of a man-of-war in either ship; and our captain, who, both on his person and his ship, would always have the best, had furnished me with a long schedule of muskets, calivers, targets, pikes, partisans, bows, and artificers' tools, as well as cloth and other provision for a whole year, all of which things I was bidden to purchase of different merchants as far as possible, that no wind of our preparations should be blown into the Spanish ambassador's ears. Such time as I was not thus engaged I spent very profitably in Signor Rocco's new College of Fence in Warwick Lane. I had learned that Harry did not resort thither, so, since it was near my lodging, I was able to enjoy my best-loved pastime and see much excellent rapier-play that was new to me, whereby the pain of my delay in London was a little eased. Thus by avoiding other public places, and above all Paul's, at the end of a fortnight I found my work complete without the meeting I dreaded; and with a lighter heart than I had borne for many a day I took ship at Radcliffe with all my lading, and so came to Plymouth after a slow passage on the afternoon of Friday, the 23d of May. The three brothers, for Joseph Drake was of the expedition as well as John, received me with open arms, and much commended my pains when the arms and furniture came to be stowed on board. They informed me that as merchant I was to sail in the admiral with Frank, of which I was very glad. [Illustration: PLYMOUTH] It seemed that everything was prepared, and that, as they had only stayed for my coming, we were to weigh on the morrow. Nothing could have been more to my mind. So eager was I to leave my old life behind that I hardly accepted their invitation to go ashore to gather the men who were yet to come aboard. Yet I did at last for good-fellowship, and started with them to the sound of a demi-culverin and a flourish of our trumpets, for a signal to the mariners to embark. As we rowed I saw another boat making for the _Swan_, which lay a good way from the _Pasha_. They hailed us as we passed, so that I knew they were some of our company; but I could not notice them much, for Frank just then took occasion to point out Mount Edgcombe to me and I looked the other way. Our passage from tavern to tavern to beat up the stragglers was like a triumph. Indeed I think Plymouth was then, and maybe still is, flat drunk with the western wine. A crowd followed on our heels, cheering us as we went; the citizens came out from their suppers to pledge us lustily with brimming tankards; and as for smiles of hostesses and wenches in the taverns I had enough showered on myself alone, being a gentleman adventurer in the expedition, as would wellnigh satisfy a regiment of horse a whole campaign, as such things go now. What with these oglings and smirkings of the pretty Plymouth lasses and our constant pledgings, I could have been as jolly as any piece of tar-yarn there had it not been for the grievous sights I saw, and our pain therefrom in getting our men aboard, though I think a very willing crew. Most had pledged once or twice too often, and were for ever taking leave and never departing; some could not have gone if they had been willing, at least not on their own legs; others were in pledge, for commodities they had never seen, to cogging hosts, who held their boots or sword or breeches as security. Some even we could by no means come at, save by help of a magistrate's warrant to search some dishonest alehouse. Frank told me what I saw was of no account by the side of what sometimes happened. 'Why, lad,' said he, 'I have known it take two days and all the magistrates in the borough to gather a company, and then not see it done. Nay, it is not an unheard-of thing for this scandal to be the utter overthrow of a voyage, and general undoing of owners, victuallers, and company. Mine are all picked lads, or you should not have seen us come off so easily.' 'I marvel,' said I, and I still do, 'that some among our great lord-admirals have not taken order to end these things, which seem a great scandal to the reputation of our sea-service no less than an injury to the commonwealth, and ought to be reformed.' 'That is well enough,' answered Frank, 'and much to be wished; but to keep a mariner at such times from his ale is a thing more lightly attempted than easily accomplished.' Mr. Oxenham was little help to us. Indeed he had so many pouting lips to kiss in this his own fair town of Plymouth, and so many dainty waists to encircle, that I began to think nothing but a warrant or a file of pikes would ever get him aboard. Still it was done at last, and the sun rose gloriously next morning upon us with our company complete. It was Whitsunday Eve, and the whole town seemed to have made holiday to bid us God-speed that sunny May morning. It was a fair sight to see the hills around in their fresh spring garb crowding down to the harbour, which seemed to spread out its shining arms to embrace them. The Hoe was thronged with a great mass of people in their gayest clothes; every point beside was bright with colour, and a score of small fry were cleaving the clear waters about us. We stood off and on awhile to give them a good sight of us, and bid the fair town 'Farewell' with our great pieces and our music. I think Frank was very proud of his ships, and well he might be, for never can have been a smarter sight in Plymouth harbour than we were that day as we beat to and fro with our great flags of St. George at the main-tops, and our silk streamers down to the blue water, and now and again a white puff from our castles as we answered the ordnance from the platform saluting us. Cheer after cheer went up from the shore folk between each discharge till we could no longer hear them, and stood out to sea, fairly started at last on that most memorable adventure. I say memorable, for surely never was so great a service undertaken with so small a power. We were, men and boys, all told, but seventy-three souls, being forty-seven in the admiral and twenty-six in the vice-admiral, under John Drake, and only one of us all that was not under thirty. The wind was very favourable at north-east, and we stood on all that day and next night. In the morning when I came on deck I found we were going under easy sail, only a cable's length from our vice-admiral. A boat was towing alongside of us, and I saw that some one must have come aboard from the _Swan_. I went aft to our captain's cabin to see what it might mean. I knocked at the door. Frank's cheery voice bade me enter. I opened and went in. Heaven save me from such a moment again! My heart stood still, my brain swam, for there beside Frank sat Harry, with Sergeant Culverin at his back! He sprang to his feet as I shut the door behind me, and stood glaring at me with his hand on his rapier. 'Sit down, Harry!' cried Frank; 'I will have no brawling here.' Harry took no notice, but stood with his breath coming very fast and hard just as before. 'Sit down, sir,' thundered our captain; 'wilt mutiny in my own cabin? Hark ye, sir, on my ship there is no difference between a gentleman and a cook's boy when it comes to giving orders. Sit down now, and take your hand from that weapon, or I shall presently take order to have you in irons.' 'You are right, Frank, quite right,' said Harry with an effort as he slowly sat himself down. 'But how can you have done us this unkindness?' 'Frank, Frank,' said I, finding voice at last, 'you know not what you have done.' With that I tottered to the seat on the opposite side of the table to Harry. I felt undone and crushed. My long grieving and much brooding on my shame had told on me more than I guessed. And now to find after my cowardly flight I had fallen into a trap a hundredfold more dreadful than that I had sought to escape, to find my new hopes shattered at a blow and this awful trial before me, was more than I could bear, and in utter broken despair I buried my face in my arms upon the table to hide my tears. 'I know well enough what I have done,' said Frank, after he had left us thus in silence for some moments. 'Do you think that when two good lads, fast friends, come to me each separately from the side of one fair lady, haggard and woe-begone, and tell me that they want to journey they care not whither, so long as it be far from England, do you think then I know not what it means? Why, man, I have a score such aboard now. For though many think that the greater the thief and blasphemer the better the soldier, yet say I for my work give me, next to him who sails for love of God, the honest lad that sails for love of a lass. As I judge they are half and half aboard our ships now. So think you I could not read the old tale, when I saw it writ so plain? And had it not been so, I should yet have known; for there comes to me an honest worthy soldier who knew better than I. '"Captain Drake," says he, "here is a mighty storm blowing between two valiant gentlemen, who after long and loving consort have parted company, so that they cannot come together again without most nice navigation. I pray you take command," says he. '"How do they bear, Sergeant?" says I. '"Cry you mercy there, captain," says he; "I am no pilot of gentlemen's quarrels, yet I can give you certain just observations, whence peradventure you may take their bearings yourself."' Therewith Frank repeated the whole story as he had it from the Sergeant, till he came to Harry's flight from the inn. Then in a low earnest voice he told clearly, as though it were passing before his eyes, what the Sergeant had seen me do outside with Harry's rapier. I felt so shamed to hear it now that I would have stayed him, but felt I could not speak. 'So, gentlemen,' said our captain, when he ended the tale,' I knew it was a quarrel that might be healed, and knew nothing more sovereign in such a case than the lusty sea. I have known many so healed, when they get far away and see what a little thing it is they wrestled for, beside the prizes a brave lad can win over sea. That is what I have done, and I know I am right; and if you be true men, I would have you shake hands before you leave this cabin.' The sound of Harry's hard breathing had ceased as Frank got on with his tale, and since he described the scene in the inn-yard I felt my brother's eyes had been fixed upon me. Now I heard him rise, and felt his hand laid upon my shoulder. 'Poor lad,' said he very gently, 'poor lad! what fearful suffering, what a terrible war must have been in your good heart! Why did I not know it and help you to victory? You have won alone. I know it now, but God forgive me, with what carnage of your soul, which but for my folly I could have stayed. We have both sinned, and grievously we have both been punished; let us now lay down the scourge.' I looked up, hardly daring to face him. Yet when I saw his look was filled with pity I took courage. Rising to my feet I took his hands and pressed them hard, but I could not speak. So putting his arm through mine, he led me to the door. 'Come,' said he, 'we will go talk together. While our captain finishes writing his instructions we will try to instruct each other how best to show ourselves worthy of her.' I think we both went out very humbled. Not only because Frank had so imperiously bent us to his will and shown us what children we were beside him, but also because he had compared us to the love-sick boys of the crew, and our story to their love squabbles. Yet how could we deny it was different? It was indeed hard to confess how little different it was, and, as I say, we both went out with our pride, the mainstay of quarrels, much humbled. We had both, I know, tried honestly that our quarrel should end here, yet was the rent too wide and deep to be mended so easily. His arm seemed to sit uneasily in mine, and ere we had gone a few paces he took some excuse of a point coming untied to draw it away. Like strangers at last we sat down and tried to talk, but it was very difficult. I would have given my tongue to have gone on with the tale where Frank ended, and to have told Harry how I had seen his dear wife mourning over her child for his loss. Yet half from shame to confess I had gone back to Ashtead, and half in fear of adding to his grief by telling him what abiding love he had left, I held my peace, and we fell to talking in false notes about the voyage, till, to our great relief, Harry was summoned to Frank's cabin to receive his orders for Captain John Drake. As soon as I was alone Sergeant Culverin came up to me with his elaborate salute. 'I trust you will forgive my freedom, your worship,' said he. 'Forgive, Sergeant!' I answered. 'I have nothing to forgive; I have only thanks for the good work you have done.' 'Nay,' said he, 'I did nothing; no more than that astrolabe with which Mr. Oxenham yonder is taking our position. I was but a poor instrument for Captain Drake to shape your courses withal.' 'Still I must thank you, Sergeant, from my heart.' 'I pray you, sir, if you love me, say no more. Let us pass to other things. How does this most uncivil motion sort with your worship's stomach?' 'Well enough, Sergeant; does it quarrel with yours?' I asked, for he looked a little pale. 'To be plain with you, sir, the sea and I are not so good friends as we hope to become. Last night was most evil to me in yonder fly-boat--_Swan_, they call it; yet for liveliness Sparrow would sort better with its nature. There was, moreover, a mariner of the watch who would increase my load by singing continually a most woeful, ancient ballad of pilgrims at sea. Thus it ran, sir:-- '"Thus meanwhile the pilgrims lie, And have their bowlies fast them by, And cry after hot Malvoisie, Their health for to restore. And some would have a salted toast, For they might eat nor sodden nor roast; A man might soon pay for their cost As for one day or twain." And more very sickly stuff to like intent, sir, to a very doleful tune.' 'I fear, Sergeant,' said I, 'your voyage to the Indies will not be as pleasant as you could desire.' 'Indeed, sir,' said he, 'I wish we could fetch thither a-horseback, being, as I think, the only honourable manner of going for gentlemen. Still, since it has pleased God to put this shifty, rude, uncourtly sea betwixt us and the Indies, we must e'en make shift with a ship.' 'I am sorry for you, Sergeant,' I answered. 'A horse indeed would have been a conveyance you better understood.' 'Well, it is not so much that,' said the Sergeant. 'For when I was sergeant-groom under the Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, the word always went that a man who could manage a horse could manage anything, save it were a woman, by your worship's leave. So I think a ship will not come amiss to me, being in relation to a horse but a wet lifeless thing.' 'But yet, Sergeant,' said I, 'of a wholly different nature.' 'I know not that, sir,' said he. 'The ancients were wiser than we in these matters, saving your worship's learning, and, as I have been told, placed amongst their ensigns military the horse, as being sacred to the god Neptune as well as to Mars, and the symbol of immoderate fury of attack on sea as well as on land. Moreover in your tilting of one ship against another you have an image or imitation of the crowning glory of horsemanship.' 'But we English do not use this method,' I answered, 'and hold it only fit for Turks and Spaniards, and such like, who, having no skill in sailing and seamanship, are compelled to use galleys propelled with oars.' 'Mass!' said Culverin, 'had I known that I should have sailed even less willingly than I did. What you say may be right, yet I hold that to sail with a lance at your bows is the more honourable and soldierly method. But let that pass. Doubtless by further contemplation I shall discover further similitudes between the horse and the ship. Since I hear what you say, sir, I see nothing in which they are alike save in respect of their prancing--a quality I would gladly forego in the present case, seeing that I am like to find little comfort in it.' As we spoke Harry came out of the captain's cabin, and Sergeant Culverin had to leave to accompany his master back to the _Swan_. My brother, good heart, did his best to bid me farewell as of old, but what between my shamefacedness to see his careworn look and damped spirit, and his own too recent sense of the great wrong I had done him, our leave-taking was cold and formal, for all he tried so hard to forgive. CHAPTER XVII Our wind held so fair and steady at north-east that on the ninth day we sighted Porto Santo in the Madeiras, and two days later the Canaries. So persuaded was our captain of a very good passage, and so earnest to give the Spaniards no inkling of our purpose, that he would not touch for water, but held on without once dropping anchor or striking sail till the thirty-fifth day. In spite of the terrible shock my sudden meeting with Harry had given to my spirits, and in spite of my despair at being condemned to face my shame and sorrow for I knew not how many months, I could not but feel a calm grow over me as we proceeded. None can tell, save he who has tried it, what it is to a perturbed spirit to sail on day after day over those sunny seas with all the magic of the West before. Less and less I brooded over the old life, and more and more on the glory of the new, till, as Frank had said, the past seemed to grow small, and a faint hope arose in me that my crime was not too great for pardon, seeing that I knew how hard my brother would try to forgive. I employed myself in studying navigation and the Spanish tongue with Frank, nor were ship duties wanting, for it was ever our captain's way to have the gentlemen tally on a rope as well as the meanest mariner when need was. He hated nothing so much as idleness, and those who had no work had always to find play, which he himself was not slow in furnishing. 'I know nothing,' he used to say, 'that breeds discontent and faint hearts like the union of these two, dullness and idleness.' So with games, and music, and rummaging and cleaning arms, our spirits were kept up when they were like to sink for want of work. Frank was very earnest about this on our present voyage, for as we neared the Indies the hands, being young, began to frighten themselves with tales of the great strength and richness of the Indian cities, until, had it not been for Frank's care in stopping and preventing such idle talk with other inducements, they would have come to think Nombre de Dios as big as London and as strong as Berwick. Nor were we allowed to lose sight of the godly purpose of our enterprise. Prayers were ordered every day night and morning, which our captain read very earnestly, never forgetting a prayer to God for the Queen's Majesty, her most honourable council, and the speedy 'making' of our voyage, the same having a very good effect, for the half at least of the crew were as good Puritans as himself. Thus it was in a very hopeful and godly state that, on the evening of the thirty-fifth day we saw the Isle of Guadeloupe towering on the horizon like a priceless jewel in the setting sun. With all our music and many a gay flourish of our trumpets we saluted it, and that night as we lay a-hull our musicians gave us a double portion of melody. With the first morning light we ran in and anchored off a little rocky island three leagues off Dominica, where we lay three days to refresh our men. And here we landed and wandered at will, to taste for the first time the surpassing loveliness of the tropics. How shall I tell of those first days in the Indies? My pen seems a dumb dead thing when I think of it. Much as I had thought, and dreamed, and read of them, this waking, this seeing was far beyond all. On either hand the heights of Guadeloupe and Dominica towered serenely out of their soft beds of lustrous green. The glittering waters between were studded with island gems ablaze with every bright hue which God has made, that we may taste the glory which is to come. All about us was the hum of bright flies, the sparkle of feather and gorgeous flowers, and the rustle of the scented air through the crowded canes as it passed on to wave with dreamy motion the heavy crowns of the slender palms. And over all, with faint and soothing voice, there came in through the dense growth of vine and brake the deep-toned booming of the surf. Such is the pale shadow that I have power to paint of the banquet on which our souls feasted as we lay in the deserted huts which the Indians, who came there to fish, had built. So rich and heavenly was that world that I could not wonder how men were led on to think that a little farther, only a little farther, must be a land where gold and gems would be as the sand and pebbles here, nay, where beyond some glittering hill they would see the open gates of Paradise. Not only by the memory of all that beauty does the time live in my mind, but also because it was here I first had real speech with my wronged brother. As we lay in those Dryad's bowers our sorrow seemed so far away and little in this New World, so dim beside its dazzling glory, that it was for a time half forgotten amidst the thousand new things that crowded our thoughts. Like two Sileni we lay, as Mr. Oxenham had said, in the arms of lady Nature, and all that was sad melted in the glow of her luxuriant life. We had no spirit for the revels of our comrades, for chasing the bright-hued birds, or plucking the gleaming flowers. We were both happier to lie looking over the sea where our dainty ships rocked, and dreamily talk over Harry's Italianate notions that rose unbidden here. Being to me now of undreamed-of interest, since my old faith was gone, they were a subject we could talk on more as we used to do. 'Surely,' I remember him saying, 'surely that Italian friar was right who told me that the soul was not in the body. Can you not feel here, Jasper, how great a thing it is? Can you not feel how there is something that binds you like a brother to all this music of bird and leaf and air and sea? What can it be but the great soul of the universe. That is it, and the friar was right. It is that great soul which is not in our bodies, rather are our bodies in the soul--the soul that is yours and mine and hers and God's.' So would our speech always come back to our sorrow and part us again. Yet were we too drunken with the western wine to feel the past too deeply. Thus, then, once or twice during our stay there we had speech of these things, and I began to hope still more that some day we might be the same again together, and, moreover, to feel that I was beginning to understand what it was he thought of the great universal secret. On the third day after our coming to the island we sailed again, greatly refreshed, and in two days more we had sight of Tierra-Firme, being the high land above Santa Marta, but came not near the shore, that we might not be seen. So without sight of Carthagena we passed on, till on the 12th of July we dropped anchor off the haven whither we were bound. It was a spot our captain had noted on his voyage the last year, not only as being sheltered by two high points from the winds and a very commodious harbour, but also because no Spaniard had any dwelling between this place and Santiago de Tolu on the one hand and Nombre de Dios on the other, the nearest being at least thirty-five leagues distant. Moreover, there was an abundance of food there, both fish in the sea and fowls in the woods around, the most plentiful being certain birds like to our pheasants, which the Spaniards in those regions call guans and curassows. It was by reason of the great store of these delicate fowls that our captain named the place Port Pheasant. [Illustration: Overhung with a dense growth of trees.--p. 239] It must be remembered we had our three pinnaces to set up, for in them we were to make our attack. It was most necessary then to have a hidden place for this work, and it was not a little his knowledge of this secret haven that gave our captain his great hopes of success. He judged no one knew it but himself and those who had been with him in his previous voyage. Being thus perfectly secure, Frank rowed in to see how best to bring the ships to moorings there, and I went in the boat. No place could have been better fitted to our purpose. The headlands were but half a cable's length apart, and so overhung with a dense growth of brakes and trees, all strange to me, that little could be seen beyond save the climbing hills on the mainland. But as soon as we rowed in I could see what a paradise it was. Before us opened a rounded haven, from eight to ten cables' length every way. The waves died languidly away towards the shore in ever-lessening ripples, as though hushed by the surpassing beauty of the place. Where, with loving whispers, they lapped the golden beach, they reflected a picture more dazzling than my eyes had ever seen. Heaped up in wild profusion was a tangled mass of every hue of green that clothed to the water's edge the gently swelling hills. Wherever the rocks could find a place to peep, their own rich colour was almost hidden by hanging bunches of scarlet flowers. Huge rough tree-trunks I could get a glimpse of here and there, with great sinews of rugged bark that stood boldly out from them, and were lost in the glowing brakes which covered the ground. In the branches fluttered birds that mocked the radiance of the flowers, while on every point the crested and bronze-hued pheasants plumed themselves, and screamed defiance one against the other. Lost to all else but this fairyland I was hardly plunged, as it were, into some delicious dream, when I was rudely awakened. ''Vast rowing, lads,' said Frank suddenly, in quick, hushed tones. 'Look! What's yonder?' His keen eye was the first to see it. I looked where he pointed, and in a moment my paradise was tumbled to earth. Away in the trees rose a thin blue cloud of smoke. There was no mistaking it; the hand of man must be there. 'Whose was it?' was what we each asked ourselves with melancholy foreboding. Our captain, though as disappointed as any of us to see a cuckoo in his nest, seemed nothing daunted. Rowing back quickly to the ships, he ordered out our other boat, and manning both to their full holding, not forgetting muskets, bows, and pikes, returned speedily to land. No sooner were we ashore than we could see many traces of men having been there very lately. There were black spots where fires had been, and marks of fresh clearing in the brakes. Setting ourselves in order, we cautiously went forward along a track that seemed to lead to the fire, Frank leading the way in spite of all our efforts to dissuade him. We had not gone far before we came to a tree in the midst of the track, so great that four men at full stretch could not have girdled it about. I saw Frank stop suddenly and look up on the trunk. 'Ah, Jack Garrett, Jack Garrett,' said he, 'what game is this you have been coursing with my hounds?' I followed his eyes and saw a leaden plate nailed to the tree, on which were graven these words: CAPTAIN DRAKE. If you fortune to come to this port, make hast away! For the Spaniards which you had with you here the last year have bewrayed this place, and taken away all that you left here. I depart from hence, this present 7th of July 1572. Your very loving friend, JOHN GARRETT. 'My thanks, Jack Garrett, for your kindly warning,' cried Frank. 'A true Plymouth man are you, though you did whistle away some of my best hounds. See what comes,' he continued, turning to me, 'of sparing these false Spaniards' lives. It is enough to make a man cut the throat of every prisoner he takes--a thing, by God's help, I will never do, whatever it cost me. May they have their reward for their treachery, though, by God's mercy, we are too well furnished to be hurt by the loss of any gear they stole.' 'Where will you go now, then?' I asked. 'No whither, my lad,' said he. 'Here I purposed to set up my pinnaces, and here I will do it. The Spaniards are not here now, and if they keep away but two days, I shall order things so that, by God's help, they shall rue their coming, if that is their mind.' He was very cheerful and resolute with it all, and made us so too, yet I know he was sorely tried, by his frequent speaking of God's name, which was always his way at times when he felt need of all his courage, as indeed he did now; for though we found the place deserted, the fire we had seen being but the remains of Garrett's work, left perhaps as a signal to us to be on our guard, yet there was no telling when the Spaniards would be down on us. No time, therefore, was lost in carrying out our captain's resolve. Harry having, as I have said, a good knowledge of such matters, speedily marked out a piece of land about three-quarters of an acre in extent, of pentagonal form, with one side touching the shore. The whole crew then started cheerily to clear this, hauling the trees as they were felled with pulleys and hawsers, in such wise as to make a rampart all round, a look-out boat being despatched meanwhile to one of the points to watch for any disturbance. All that day we laboured at our fort, and most of the night too; yet next morning much still remained to be done when we saw our look-out boat rowing hard towards us. 'Sail ho!' shouted the steersman, as soon as he was in hail. 'Three sail bearing hard down on us.' 'Blister the fool's tongue!' said Frank beneath his breath, as he stood at my side and saw something like alarm in the younger mariners' faces, but he sang out cheerily, 'Good news, good news, my lads. Now we will trap them here, and never a breath of our coming shall reach Nombre de Dios.' The man reported the three sail, as well as he could tell; a bark about the _Swan's_ size, a caravel, and a smaller craft. All set to work cheerily to carry out Frank's order; for we were in excellent heart again, to see that our captain thought only of offence. Some pieces of ordnance were removed from the ships, to be set by Harry and Mr. Oxenham in the best positions they could find for the defence of our fort. The ships were then warped over to the entrance of the haven, where they were moored on either hand close under the rocks, so that they could not be seen by a ship till she was well within. Each had a holdfast to the opposite point, that they might be warped across the mouth as soon as the enemy had passed in. All fires were extinguished, and the small-shot, gunners, and bowmen who were ashore at the fort were well concealed. So we lay waiting in great anxiety for what was to come. Mr. Oxenham and Harry, by pouring out a fire of jests and comfortable speeches, kept up the youngsters' spirits as well as might be, though I think by their looks there was many a heart thumping hard, when we saw through the bushes a large Spanish shallop rowing in towards our haven. As the shallop came on a bark of some fifty tons and a caravel of Seville build, as Mr. Oxenham told us, hove to right opposite our entrance. The shallop came as far as between the points, and then, after stopping as though to discover the place thoroughly, rowed back to the ships. It was impossible to tell whether they had seen us or not; so, seeing what our aim was, we could but rejoice when we saw them all make sail and stand in. On they came, a pretty sight to see, swaggering in most gallantly. At last they were well inside, in full view of our ships, which yet did not move an inch. 'Something must be wrong,' whispered Mr. Oxenham to me. 'Why the devil does he not warp across, or at least give them a shot?' Suddenly there was a loud flourish of trumpets on board the admiral and the flag of St. George was run up, but still she did not stir. 'Her holdfasts must have dragged,' said Mr. Oxenham; 'I fear we are undone.' A puff of smoke leaped forth from the strange bark, and we looked to see the admiral struck. The boom of the shot rolled across the still waters, waking strange echoes in that land-locked bay, and setting the guans a-screaming their ear-piercing cry. Ere the sounds died away a trumpet brayed answer to our admiral, and we saw the red cross flutter out from the stranger's top. At first we thought it must be some treacherous Spanish stratagem, but all our fears were at rest when, as our ships answered the stranger's salute, we saw a boat put out from the bark and go abroad the admiral. Our fears and pains were all wasted; for she proved to be a bark from the Isle of Wight, belonging to Sir Edward Horsey, the Governor, 'Wild Ned Horsey,' so well known to us, not only for the mad stories of his ruffling youth and his piracies in the narrow seas during the old days, but also for the excellent disposition he made for the defence of the island, and above all for his notable services when he rode at the head of Clinton's horse during the late rising in the North. He was a great gentleman now and high in the Queen's service, yet he could not wholly give up his old ways, and had fitted out this present ship, under Captain Ranse, to try what Popish prizes he could pick up on the high seas or amongst the Indies. He had 'made' his voyage so far as to take a shallop off Cape Blanco, and, what was better, a caravel carrying _Advisos_ to Nombre de Dios. He was thus able, when he heard our purpose, to confirm us from the papers he had seized that as yet the Spaniards had no knowledge of our coming. So very welcome and favourable for our purpose did this seem that Captain Ranse was desirous to consort with us in our venture. Nothing could have been more to the minds of most of us than this, seeing he had thirty good and well-armed men with him, but Frank was little pleased with it, and would gladly have gone forward alone, save that he thought it better to put a good face on a bad matter and consent, seeing how Captain Ranse, if he were evilly disposed, might bring all our voyage to naught. So they were received upon conditions which I, being a scholar, was appointed to draw, whereof having a copy I will set it forth, that men in like case hereafter may see how the Prince of Navigators ordered these things, since unhappy quarrels have many times arisen between captains who have sailed in consort, by reason of their not doing things orderly at the outset, after the ancient usages of the sea. As I sat in our council chamber, which had for its walls the rugged buttresses of one of those huge trees of which I have spoken, and for roof the vast spread of its branches, alive with screaming parrots, I could not but muse on dull-eyed lawyers far away in their dingy Temple; nor, as I wrote the dry note which contrasted so strangely with the splendour of our audacious project, could I but marvel over the might of our great Queen's peace, which in such humble shape could reach even here to aid her loving subjects in ordering the chivalrous brotherhood by which we hoped to add such glory to her name. And thus I wrote the words as Frank spoke them, plain and clear, that none might have to hunt for sense in a forest of sounds. 'I, Francis Drake, general of the fleet appointed for these seas, to wit, the _Pasha_, of seventy tons and forty-seven men, and the _Swan_, of twenty-five tons and twenty-six men, together with three pinnaces unmanned, have consorted, covenanted, and agreed, and by these presents do consort, covenant, and agree, with James Ranse, of the _Lion_, fifty tons and thirty men, belonging to and being under the flag of the Honourable Sir Edward Horsey, Knight, together with a certain caravel to be hereafter measured, and a shallop, her prizes and consorts, to have, possess, enjoy, and be partaker with me and my fleet, and I with them, of all such lawful prize or prizes as shall be taken by me or them, or any of us jointly or severally, in sight or out of sight, ton for ton, and man for man, from this present 13th day of July 1572, till such time as we mutually determine the conditions contained herein.' So it was signed, sealed, and delivered, and all being settled we laboured together harmoniously--the carpenters at setting up the pinnaces, and the rest by spells at completing the fort, exercising in our weapons, the gathering of victuals, and many pastimes which our captain devised. CHAPTER XVIII Just sixteen days after my ink was dry the great bell in the church of Nombre de Dios was calling men to complines as the sun went down. So it might have boomed over the waving forest and darkening sea any time the last fifty years or more. Yet I doubt if the people would have doffed their broad hats, or crossed themselves so peacefully to-night, had they known in what other ears it sounded besides their own. I doubt their prayers would have been more fervent that night had they been aware how the stars, that just began to glimmer, were looking down on four boats crowded with men, that were striking a-hull and dropping their grapples hard by the mouth of the Rio Francisco, scarce two leagues from the point of their bay. Yet there we lay in our three pinnaces and the shallop, seventy-three desperate souls, on the eve of our great attempt. The ships and the rest of the men had been left behind, under Captain Ranse, at the Isle of Pinos, twenty-five leagues away, and we had come on, each man with the comrades he chose, as far as could be. I was with Frank, Harry with Mr. Oxenham, the other pinnace being in charge of John Drake, and the shallop under John Overy, the master of the _Lion_. Everything had been done to encourage the more faint-hearted, and we were most excellently furnished with muskets, calivers, pikes, fire-pikes, targets, bows, and everything such an enterprise could need, apportioned to each man according to his skill and disposition. Yet many a heart must have beat anxiously as we lay waiting for the dark night, and would have done so still more had the mariners been aware of all that their commanders knew. For at the Isles of Pinos we had captured two small frigates from Nombre de Dios, wherein certain negroes were lading planks. From these men, being very kindly used, we heard that their countrymen, the Cimaroons, had fallen upon the town and nearly surprised it but six weeks ago. These Cimaroons were African negroes who, having risen against their masters some eighty years ago, had fled into the woods, and now were become two nations, that lived in the country on either side of the way from Panama to Nombre de Dios, each under its separate king. For defence against these people our prisoners told us soldiers were expected from Panama and elsewhere, if they were not already come. Nothing could have been worse for us; for now we knew that the town would be on the alert, and perhaps full of soldiers. Yet, wishing to make the best of a bad case, our captain freed these slaves and set them ashore, that they might seek their countrymen and bear them a good report of us, in case it might fall out that at a future time the help of the Spaniards' enemies might be welcome to us. We who knew these things kept them to ourselves, very thankful for our increased force. Frank, I know, saw how ill this fortune was for us, yet he was more cheerful and resolute than I had ever seen him when he called the boats about him, that he might say his last words to the crews. 'Come close,' said he, 'that I have not to speak too loud, and so be heard by any negroes in the woods, whereby those in the town might have notice of our coming, which I should much grieve at. For I am loath to put them to all the charge which I know they would willingly bestow for our entertainment, seeing that we come uninvited.' Putting them thus in cheerful heart, he went on to tell them of the vast wealth of the place, which was all open to them, seeing it was unwalled and little defended. Then he spoke again of all his wrongs, both at Rio de la Hacha and San Juan de Ulloa, and of the bitter cruelties of the Spaniards to English mariners whom they caught in Spain; and told them how he was now in certain hope of God's favour to win a recompense for all these things, since it had been vouchsafed to him to get so near his end utterly undiscovered and with so excellent a crew of men like-minded to himself. This cheerful speech much comforted us all, and I saw Harry and the Sergeant lie back and go to sleep, being old hands at the work. But I could not close my eyes any more than the greater part of the men, who soon fell to talking of how strong such a place must be, till Frank, seeing how things were going, called on Mr. Oxenham, who was in the next boat to us, to tell the story of the founding of Nombre de Dios, to keep the men from thinking too much. 'Well, my lads,' said he, sitting up on a barrel, 'it was the early days of the Indies then, when Don Nicuese was named at Carthagena governor, grand-admiral, captain-general, and I know not what _braggadocio_ titles beside, of his new province of Veragua. With 750 men and a fine fleet he set sail, bragging, I doubt not, to his Maestro del Campo, or whatever he was, Lope de Olano, of all that was to come of it; yet ere he was half-way they say his whole force were like to mutiny, because of his cruelty and harshness. To punish his wickedness and tyranny, a _furicano_ burst on him in the midst of his journey. The proud fleet was scattered past recall, and the haughty governor cast away. What miseries of hunger and cold and weariness he suffered none know, but at last he was found by Lope de Olano half-starved, having no food but palm-tree buds and such like wretched stuff, instead of all the dainties he had brought to fill his belly. The only thing that was hot changed in him was his cruelty and harshness, for never in all their sufferings would he bend a jot to his men. 'All that was thus left of his navy came at last to a port which Columbus had once discovered. A mariner who had sailed with the "Old Admiral" said it was a fair place for a settlement, and conducted him thither, getting curt thanks for his pains, you may be sure. The old mariner was right; but he had forgotten the Indians, who so overdid their welcome that Nicuese made haste to depart thence, leaving twenty of his men behind. 'Baffled and sullen, he sailed on to the next port, where he profanely cried, "In the name of God, let us stay here!" and hence yonder town, that is to be ours to-morrow, was called "Nombre de Dios." Then, having but a hundred men left out of his seven hundred and fifty, he laid the foundation of his city; and here, for a while, living miserably, without fit food or clothing, in wooden huts, he resisted the constant assaults of the Indians, till thirty more of his men were lost. 'They dared not stir beyond their camp for food, fever was slowly eating out their hearts, and they were at the mercy of God, when one Calmenaras, putting in to the bay, found them. They were then of all men, it is said, the most miserable, being, as it were, dried up with extreme hunger, filthy beyond all speaking, and horrible to behold. 'Yet through all Nicuese clung to his cruelty and harshness and the King of Spain's commission. Calmenaras took pity on him, and carried him to the new settlement at Darien, which as yet had no governor, that he might be set over the people there. But when they came thither the settlers remembered his tyranny and wickedness, and saw by his demeanour that, though all else was dried up in him, yet the devil was not. So they, being resolved to be rid of him, took an old rotten brigantine, which they caulked with iron, and set their would-be governor therein, with his seventy men, starved and fever-bitten. 'In this, as their only hope of life, and being too sore sick to resist, they sailed; and the sea alone, that tells no tales, knows what their end was. Never more was a man of them heard or seen, and Nicuese was called ever after _Desdichado_.' '_Desdichado!_' cried Frank, as Mr. Oxenham ended his tale; 'and a right name, too; for surely the Lord made him luckless and suffered no angel to prosper him in his ways, because of his wickedness and cruelty, and turned away His face from yonder town which he founded, because He knew the wickedness that would be done there, and the sinews of wickedness that would come thence. Yes, lads, the Lord has deserted Nombre de Dios, and to-morrow, of His justice and mercy, will deliver it into the hands of His people.' Then one struck up that new Protestant ballad they loved so well: 'We will not change our credo For Pope, nor book, nor bell; And if the devil come himself, We'll hound him back to hell.' By this time it was dark night, and we gladly took to our oars again, rowing hard under the shore, that we might not be seen of the watch-house. So we continued till we recovered the point of the harbour, and there we lay to again, to wait for the first gray of dawn, when our captain purposed to deliver his assault. It was still full two hours to wait, and I could see how anxious Frank was as to how his men would get through them. For if it had been hard to keep them from their talk before, it was doubly so now, when no one might speak above his breath. Wearily an hour dragged away, and the men were growing more and more uneasy, shifting about and whispering a great deal as they watched nervously for the first glimmer in the east. 'Would God it were day!' whispered Frank to me. 'How shall we ever pass another hour of this? The poor lads' courage is oozing out at their finger-ends with all this lingering.' 'See, see!' said I; for even as he spoke a faint gray streak appeared on the horizon. 'There it is at last!' 'Never a bit, lad,' answered Frank; 'it is only the moon rising. Still, it shall serve for dawn to-day. No one has seen the sand-glass but I.' There was a merry twinkle in his eye as he passed the word. 'Dawn, dawn,' he said, in low tones. 'Out oars, lads; yarely now, and still as mice, and God help our service.' How pleasant was the dull rattle of oars after our painful silence as we rowed round the point! All was gloom as we bore towards the town, save for a few lights that twinkled here and there, and one that moved slowly across the bay. As we came abreast of this we could see in the growing moonlight that it was on board of a ship of some sixty tons, which had just arrived. Her crew seemed soon to catch sight of us and to take alarm at our numbers; for we saw them cast off their gondola, which shot away immediately hard for the shore, like the ghost of some evil monster. 'Not so fast, not so fast, my gallants!' cried Frank. 'Be not at such pains on our behalf. Come, my lads, we must save them this trouble, and carry the news ourselves. Now, smite for all that is in you!' The pinnace leaped under their sturdy strokes, and we headed to cut off the gliding shadow from the shore. It was a sharp struggle, for the Dons rowed well and their boat was light. Still, our sinews soon told. Seeing they were beaten, they stopped irresolute, and then, with some blaspheming cry, made over to the opposite side of the bay. 'What, so rude?' laughed Frank. 'Will you not stay to fling us one little word of thanks for the labour we save you? Well, better manners to you, and a fair good-morrow. And now, lads, hard for the town!' We could soon see it in the gloomy light, sunk snug amongst the soft, forest-clad hills. I had hardly looked to see it so big; for, by the few scattered lights that twinkled far apart, I judged it was at least as large as Plymouth. As we drew near, a sandy beach showed dimly before us, sloping down from the nearest houses, which were scarce twenty yards from the water. There was no quay, nor any thing but a half-ruined platform, on which stood six great pieces gaping at us. Not a sign of life was to be seen, so without more ado we ran our pinnaces aground and leaped out into the water undiscovered. 'Down with the culverins, my lads,' cried Frank, as quietly as might be. With that a rush was made at the platform, but even as we reached it up jumped a gunner, who must have been sleeping against one of the pieces, and ran off screaming into the town before we could stay him. We could hear his cries die away amongst the houses, and then for a few minutes all was again as silent as death. Still, we knew all secrecy was over now, and we went to our work with a will. Culverin and demi-culverin were tumbled off their carriages and rolled into the sand, and then to our captain's sharp orders we set about our other dispositions. There was a good deal to be done, getting the arms from the pinnaces, lighting our fire-pikes and matches, and getting into our companies. All had been well ordered beforehand, yet, quick as we were, before we had done we heard the troubled waking of the town. First came a low confused sound, rather felt than heard, and then scattered cries, with the brave blare of a trumpet. As the cries spread in the murmur, now on this side, now on that, a light flashed in the church tower, and the great bell began booming out a hurried alarm. Now it seemed that drums furiously beaten were running up and down. Farther and wider spread the cries, and louder rose the murmur. A scream of some terrified woman went shrilly up, then another, and another, and the murmur began to increase to the dull, mingled roar of a multitude suddenly alarmed. Far and near the clamour waxed. Shriek on shriek, and cry on cry followed incessant, till at last the whole town was filled with that strange and terrible sound which is like nothing else on earth; and above all boomed the bell. We were ready at last; so, leaving twelve to keep the pinnaces, we hastened, as had been arranged, to the mount on the east side of the town, which our captain had learned the year before it was their intention to strengthen with sundry pieces of ordnance. This it was necessary to our purpose that we should first hold with a party of our men, so, leaving half our company, of whom I was one, to guard the foot, Frank hastened up the hill with the rest. He seemed a long time gone, as we stood inactive, listening to that terrible tumult, of which we could see nothing, growing ever louder and ever wider amidst the crowded houses, and the great bell booming continually over all. Not a sound came from the mount above us, and we could tell nothing of what was happening to our comrades. At last we heard the clink of weapons coming down, and our captain ran to us with all his men bearing the joyful news that no ordnance had yet been mounted there, though all was prepared for it. 'This is a most merciful dealing of God,' said Frank, 'for now, look you, we shall have all our men for the Plaza. Plague on them, how they squall! We will give them somewhat to squall over anon. Jack, take you Mr. Oxenham and fifteen of his company round by the King's Treasure-House, by the way you know, and enter the Plaza by the eastern end. I will go up with the main battle by the broad street. Give them plenty of music of drum and trumpet, and I will do the like, that they may see they are attacked from two sides, and increase our numbers for us with their fears.' Away went John Drake and Mr. Oxenham with their fifteen men, a drum, trumpet, and five of the blazing fire-pikes. We saw them disappear, yelling horribly, with much grizzly noise of their instruments, to the no little discomfort, I doubt, of those who still slept. In like manner we took our course by the lurid glare of our fire-pikes, with an equal or greater din of trumpet, drum, and arms, being forty-four men in all. The Plaza lay towards the upper part of the town, so that on coming to the top of the street, which, being very sandy, made us short of breath with our running, our captain called a halt. Creeping on under shelter of the houses, I got a sight within the square. In the midst was a goodly tree, and near to it a market-cross. Farther again to the right was the church, from which the great bell boomed continually. From the cross to the church I could see the glimmer of a long row of matches, by whose movement I judged there was a company of harquebusiers gathered there waiting for us, but I could see nothing of them because of the gloom that filled the place. In the farther corner to the left, where, they told me, the road to Panama left the square, rose a house much larger than the rest. Here by the light of sundry lanterns I could see a great throng collected, with several companies of soldiers. I should think there were a hundred matches or more burning there; wherefore, having made a complete discovery of the Plaza, I crept back to inform our captain. 'Hark ye, my lads,' cried Frank, when he had heard my report. 'At the word we will advance into the square. Mr. Overy's crew with the gentlemen to the right, the rest with me to the left. Stand but for one volley, and then close! Forward now, in God's name!' A roar of small shot greeted us as we sallied into the square, and the bullets tore up the sand amidst our feet. I saw our trumpeter fall forward in the midst of a merry blast, and heard Frank utter a sharp cry. But there was no time to see what was happening. Already our arrows and bullets were making the Spaniards sing in the left-hand corner of the square. I discharged my pistol with the rest and then sprang forward by Harry's side, rapier and dagger in hand. Straight at the line of matches we dashed. Every moment I looked to see them belch their fire and hear a storm of hail about my ears. Ten more strides and we should be amongst them. 'Plague on the fools!' cried Harry, who was leading. 'What mountebank dispositions are these?' cried the Sergeant at his side. Not a man was there. It was but a string of matches hung from the church to the cross to terrify us, as if we had been Cimaroons. 'Back, back,' cried Harry, 'back to aid the general.' With an angry roar at being so befooled we ran back under the broad branches of the tree in the middle of the Plaza, and so leaped out to help our comrades. Even as we did so I heard a volley at the end of the square before me and saw John Drake and Mr. Oxenham, with all their party, rush out into the Plaza and with a loud cry hurl themselves at the throng. Now we were all at hard push of pike crowding the amazed throng into the corner of the square. Yet we had work to do, for the Spanish soldiers held their ground well, in spite of the press. For a time the thing seemed to hang in a balance. I remember little but a wild turmoil, wherein I was at point and cut half mad with excitement, and all around were the butt ends of muskets whirling, and pikes and bills clattering, as they were thrust and parried. My ears were full of the din of the fight, the shouts and clang of weapons, and the screams of women flying out on the Panama road; and still, above all, the great bell boomed unceasing. Now they were giving way. Our twelve fire-pikes, being well armed with long steel heads, were doing their work above all the rest. None dared stand before the flaming weapons. Step by step they gave us ground, till suddenly the press broke up, and, flinging down their arms, they fell to running out of the Panama gate as hard as they could skelter. Away we went after them, driving them before us like a flock of sheep. Continually they cast away their weapons, which at last lay so thick that many of our men were hurt by them, not being able to avoid them in the darkness. So we left them to scamper out by their grand new gate, which they had set up to prevent the Cimaroons entering, little thinking the first use they should find for it would be to run out of to save their skins. Being thus in possession of the Plaza our captain made haste to set guards at the entrance of it, and sent a party to stay the bell, which still boomed on through it all; for we knew not how many soldiers might still be in the remoter parts of the town, to muster at its noisy summons. Then he called on a prisoner whom we had taken to lead a party of us to the governor's house. 'What do you think of our venture now?' said Frank to me, his face beaming with triumph. 'Now you shall see where all the mules from Panama are unladen, and what they bring.' 'That is well enough,' answered I; 'but will you not first look to your hurt?' 'Hush, lad,' said he; 'it is nothing--a fly-bite.' 'Nay, but your boot is bloody where the shot tore it,' I said. 'I tell you it is nothing,' answered he testily. 'Hold your peace or we are undone.' I said no more, marvelling at the constancy of this man, who seemed to think nothing of a hurt, which, as far as I could see, was enough to have laid any other man on his back long ago. By this time we were conducted to a great archway in the tall house of which I have spoken, beneath which was tied a splendid jennet, ready saddled, as though for the governor's use. On one side were steps leading upwards, where candles burned and shed a bright light into a large cellar on the opposite side. I could see it was a chamber of great length, partly by aid of the candles and partly by the moonlight that glimmered in. Along the whole length of one side from floor to ceiling was a pale cold glimmer, which looked very strange to me. Several of our men were staring at it with wide eyes and mouths. 'What is it?' said I. 'What is it,' replied Frank; 'why, silver!' I could hardly believe it, yet so it was, a pile of silver bars, as I should judge, ten feet in breadth, twelve in height, and seventy in length. I was altogether amazed to see my dreams of the Indies more than realised, and hardly knew if I were waking or not, till I heard Frank, who had been questioning our prisoner at length, cry out to us: 'Not a bar will I have touched,' said he. 'I brought you not here for that rubbish. In the King's Treasure-House there is better stuff--gold, lads, gold and pearls enough to fill all our pinnaces and more. So thither must we go, and not a bar of this shall be touched.' I think there were many who would have been well satisfied with the silver, and hardly came to obey Frank's orders, but he was so resolute in them that there was nothing for it but to do as he said and return to our strength, which was posted about the great tree under command of John Drake. As we neared them one came running out to say they could not break into the church or stop the ringing unless they fired the building, which they craved leave to do. 'Nay, that you shall not,' said Frank; 'by yea and nay have I sworn never to injure church or woman, whatever come. Let him ring till he bring a thousand devils about us, I care not; but fire the house of God I will not, howsoever it be defiled with idolatry and superstition.' So the bell boomed on as loud as ever, being very distressful to hear so long, and giving me at least a strange feeling of evil at hand, which I would gladly have shaken off. When we came to our strength many of the men, who seemed to have been scattered about the Plaza, came running up to the tree. Amongst these I marked Sergeant Culverin, and saw he had a gay silken sash about him, though I took little note of it then, being more concerned with another matter. For we found most of the men in some alarm, for which I could not blame them, having that ominous sound of the bell in their ears continually. Moreover large masses of inky clouds were rolling up over the town, as though that booming were a witchcraft which was summoning some hellish means to overwhelm us. No wonder then, I say, that some of us had a sense of coming danger. It seems the first fear that beset them was for the pinnaces, since they had heard shots down by the shore; and next for themselves, lest they should be overwhelmed with soldiers and unable to escape, since they had heard news from a negro that 150 small-shot and pike-men were already come to the town from Panama. Therefore, to allay these fears, our captain sent down his brother and Mr. Oxenham to the pinnaces with their party to search into the matter, and then join us at the King's Treasure-House. 'Thither we go now, lads,' cried Frank. 'They say it is strong, but I think there be those here who shall find a way in, since we know what its lining is.' By this time all the stragglers, not a few of whom came from the governor's house, were gathered in, and, much encouraged by our captain's cheerfulness, we all went off to the King's Treasure-House. But just as we neared the place the pall of louring turgid cloud that overhung us was rent asunder. A dazzling flash of lightning lit up the deserted town, and instantly an awful crash of thunder drowned the noise of the bell. A few great drops fell heavily on the thirsty sand, and then in a moment there fell on us such a deluge of rain as none can picture who have not been in the tropical regions. There was nothing but to run helter-skelter to cover, for the saving of our powder and bow-strings. The nearest shelter was a certain piazza or pent-house at the west end of the Treasure-House; and to this we hurried, to find, for our no small comfort, that Captain John Drake was already there with his party, whereby we knew the pinnaces were safe. The flare and crash of the storm was now almost unceasing, so that we could only hear now and again the hissing roar of the rain. Seeing that we had already suffered injury from the wet, and would have been undone entirely had we left our cover, we were forced to wait where we were till the storm abated. It was a great mishap that it fell so, for at our present post it was by no means possible to get into the Treasure-House, since on that side there was a wall of stone and lime, very strong and without openings, over which we might have broken our hearts entirely or ever we could have broken half-way in. Thus we were forced to be idle, and stand listening to the awful voices of the storm which the devilish spells of the Spaniards had brought upon us. Many there who had never seen so sudden or terrible a tempest could hardly be comforted by our captain's promise that it would soon be past. Once more they began to talk together, harping still on the strength of the place, on old stories of the mighty witches there used to be amongst the Indians, and, above all, on the report of the soldiers' arrival, which Jack and Mr. Oxenham had found to be true. 'It was this way,' said Jack, as we gathered round in the pent-house. 'When we came down to the platform we found the pinnace men alarmed for our safety, since they had heard so many shots, and parties of harquebusiers had been continually running down to them, crying, "_Que gente? que gente?_" "Then," said they, "we cried out we were English, whereat the soldiers discharged their pieces blindly and ran away." At last came a negro, who would not go away, though they fired at him three or four times, but ever he cried out for Captain Drake, and craved to be taken aboard. This at last they did, when he told them of the 150 soldiers who had come to guard the town against the Cimaroons.' Not knowing how many might still be in the town, and being broken in spirit, some with wounds and others with the terror of the storm, they began to talk openly of the danger of staying longer. 'Look you,' cried Frank at last, 'what silly child's talk is this? Did I not ever say I would bring you to the Treasure-House of the world? Why, so I have. And do I not say I will bring you off safe? Why, so, by God's help, I will. Is it not for this you have toiled and endured so far? And now you are here at the door, will you run away for fear of a few score of _braggadocio_ Spaniards, who are shaking wellnigh out of their shoes for fear of you? Shame on you, lads! whom I thought were like-minded with me, and resolved to grow rich on these treacherous, false idolaters, come what may. Go all of you who will, and when you get back to England, tell them Frank Drake brought you to the mouth of the Treasure-House of the world, and you were afraid to fill your pockets! Tell them that, and blame not me if they cry you, "Out upon the fools!"' Not a man stirred, though I think there were many had a mind to. It was growing near dawn, and we knew that as soon as the Spaniards had gathered their wits together, and found out how small a number we were, they would return and make an end of us, if they could. It fell very fortunately that the storm now began to abate, so our captain, willing to save more murmuring and not desiring to allow the Spaniards too much time to pluck up heart, gave the word to move. 'Stay you here, Jack,' said he to his brother, 'with Mr. Oxenham, to break open the Treasure-House, and carry down all the gold and pearls our pinnaces will hold. I with our strength will get back to the Plaza, and hold it till we have despatched all our business, and relieved these gallants of their great anxiety in keeping so much treasure.' As he spoke these cheerful words he stepped forward, and to our horror rolled over in the sand. His two brothers had hold of him in a trice, and Jack took his head on his knee. As I saw him lie helpless there, so pale and death-like, and his blood flowing so fast as to fill the very footprints we had made, it seemed that the great bell, which boomed still its unceasing tocsin, was no longer sounding an alarm or spell, but rather ringing out the knell of my friend's heroic spirit. 'Frank,' said Jack firmly, though I could note a strange tremor in his voice, 'you are sore hurt; you must come to the boats.' 'Not without the treasure,' answered our captain; 'not without something for the lads. It is nothing; only a scratch, that made me a little faint.' 'No, Frank,' said Joseph Drake, 'you are sore hurt. Your boot is full of blood. You have lost enough to kill two men already. We will have no more of it.' Sergeant Culverin was now at our captain's feet. He had taken off his gay silk scarf and was very skilfully tying up Frank's leg, to stay the bleeding. 'My hearty thanks, Sergeant,' said Frank, very feebly. 'That is it! Now I can walk and despatch our business.' 'That you never can,' said Jack, 'nor shall try neither. You must come back to the boats, Frank.' 'No, Jack, I will not,' answered our captain, so low we could hardly hear; 'not without gold for the lads.' 'Ay, but you must,' urged his brother. 'We will not stay another moment for twice the gold in all the Indies. Your life, lad, is worth more than that. What say you, mariners?' The sailors all cried out that it was well said, that they had enough already, and not another finger would they stir till they knew their captain was past danger. So, in spite of all Frank's protests, his two brothers raised him in their arms as gently as women, while the Sergeant put a skilfully-contrived sling under his legs, that his hurt might pain him less. So, recovering him a little with some drink, we started to carry him down to the pinnaces. Still he would not be content, though we said we would only take him aboard to have his wound dressed and return. First to me, and then to another he pleaded; but all gave one answer, that they would not stoop to pick up gold if the street were strewn with it, so it endangered his life a jot--not only out of their love for him, but also in regard to the great riches he could bring them to if he lived. This last reason eased his mind a little; but he was more grieved than ever when our surgeon had searched his wound in the pinnace, and told him it stood with his life not to go ashore again. Nor would he be in anywise content till we had promised to take that bark which we had seen before we left the harbour. So as we rowed out whence we came the sun rose gloriously and the bell ceased its clamour; and that most high and noteworthy attempt against the Treasure-House of the world was ended. For such, indeed, it was in my judgment; and, not to speak more, lest modesty be strained, I hold that every partaker in it should deem himself fortunate. Not only did we seventy men, under our unmatched commander, take the town and hold it for nigh on two hours, but of a surety we should have plundered a hundredfold more than we did had it not been for our captain's most unhappy hurt, or even for that storm, whereby we lost half an hour of time, as many think not without reason, through the hellish spells of those who rang the bell. The Spaniards made shift to set one of the culverins on its carriage again before we were free of the haven, and barked at our heels a bit, yet could they not prevent us taking the ship, which we did without great resistance, and found it full of excellent wine, to our great content. This we accepted with much thanks for their loving care of us, and carried away to a certain island about a league to the westward, which is called the Isle of _Bastimentos_, or Victuals, and there we went a-land. CHAPTER XIX 'A very notable piece of service, sir,' said Sergeant Culverin to me the same afternoon, as we sat resting our weary limbs after a very excellent meal, which we made from hens, fruit, and the other good things on the island. 'So it seems to me, Sergeant,' said I, 'though you know I have no experience of such matters; but how goes the general now?' 'As well as we could wish,' answered the Sergeant. ''Tis a hurt wants no Galen or Paracelsus to its mending. Take that of me, sir; I have seen these things, and know. It is but a clean, pretty flesh-wound, and no harm done save the letting of so much blood, which I never saw lost in so large a measure and death kept off. A very tall man our general, sir, a very tall man.' 'I am heartily glad to hear you say so, Sergeant,' I said, being ever willing to humour him for the great service he had done me. 'You have been acquainted with great captains in the Emperor's service, and know one when you see him.' 'Indeed, sir, I do,' returned Culverin, very pleased: 'and I may tell you, at a word, he is one,--a very Gonsalvo, sir. Yet I marvel how he came by such skill in dispositions, being wholly unlearned in the very rudiments of war. Why, sir, I spake to him at Port Pheasant concerning our fort of timber, and, believe me, he knew not the difference betwixt counterfort and cavaliero, or counterscarp and argine. And as for horsemanship, he has no more practice or contemplation of it than his cook's boy; and yet a notable soldier!' 'It is as you say, Sergeant,' I answered; 'and we must the more honour him that, being his own master, he is able by such excellent practice to show how soldierly have been his precepts; and I grieve sorely that his skill and valour has met with no reward to-day.' 'No reward?' said Culverin. 'Has your worship seen the sail that lies before the general's bower, where is the common-stick?' 'No, Sergeant; what do you mean?' ''Tis naught; and yet there are some indifferent foolish toys gathered there that will repay some of the blood that was spilt.' 'Why, how is this, Sergeant? Did not the general charge that no man should load himself save with what came from the Treasure-House.' 'True, sir, so he did; but, as I was saying, saving his most excellent dispositions, he is unlearned in things warlike. If a man make war, look you, he must make it according to the honoured, ancient, universal customs and discipline of war, whereof the honest pillaging of a captured town is one; wherefore I made bold of my bitter experience to supply our general's sweet ignorance, and lead some of the lads, when occasion was, to certain indifferent well-furnished houses. If some thereafter made free with certain trifling bars of silver from the governor's house it was by no furthering of mine. All I did was out of niceness for our general's honour. What think you those Spanish _cabaleros_ would have thought of him if, when they had returned, they had found their houses unplundered? I warrant you, sir, they would have been sore grieved in their soldiership to think that a man who could deliver an assault so boldly against all their force and discipline was ignorant of the most common and ancient usage of the wars.' Here one came to summon me to the general's presence, so I heard no more, though I found afterwards it was even as the Sergeant said, and that, far from coming out of the town empty handed as I thought, almost every man had carried off something, which all being gathered in the common store according to custom, made a show which was no little content to us. Indeed, I think we were all very merry that afternoon, not only as seeing how easily we had captured the town, which bred in us no less courage for further attempts than hope of their success, but also because we had brought off our general safely, in comparison with which gain we held our loss of the gold is nothing, the more so as his hurt proved of no great account; nor was any other of our company more than slightly wounded, save our trumpeter, who had been slain on the spot. Thus we were in a gentle mood to receive the envoy from Nombre de Dios, which was the occasion of the general's summons to me. I found Frank with a cheerful countenance, seated in a kind of hammock, which the mariners had made for him from a piece of sail-cloth. His officers and gentlemen stood about him, to receive the envoy with as much state as we might, whereby, having brushed the dust from our clothes and made what shift we could, we displayed a tolerable front. Mr. Oxenham and Harry were sent to conduct the Spaniard to the presence, and we saw them return with the most point-device little gentleman I ever beheld. He was by his dress a captain of foot, and by his delicate and well-guarded complexion but late come out of Spain. His little black moustache was disciplined to the nicety of a hair, and his whole dress no less brilliant than his countenance, nor more fantastic than his bearing. He approached, making legs very sweetly to us all, and a profound congee to our general, which we returned as decently as we might. After an offering of commendations, so stuffed with unheard-of conceits as I can never remember again, he told us the occasion of his coming. 'Of my mere goodwill, and as it were for my own unworthy honour, most admirable _cabaleros_,' said he, with an infinity of conceited gestures, 'I have conveyed myself festinately hither to your most honourable presence, moved thereto by the wholesome desire, with which my eyes were an hungered, to behold, view, regard, and contemplate the most redoubtable captain and his heroical gentlemen who have attempted so great and incredible a matter with so few, paltry, and inconsiderable valiant numbers; being more especially moved thereto when it was discovered by the most excellent shooting of your honourable arrows that you were Englishmen, and no Frenchmen as we apprehended, seeing that now we knew our foe would hold themselves after the ancient gentle discipline of the wars, and be content with an honourable courteous pillage of our treasure, instead of seeking vulgar and bloody cruelty upon our persons; and being most especially moved thereto because his excellency, our honourable governor, being assured that you were gentlemen Englishmen and no pirate French, gladly consented to my coming; and lastly, being most singularly especially moved thereto, because his excellency, having been informed by certain townsmen that they knew your honourable captain, having at divers times been most courteously pillaged and kindly used by him these two years past, charged me to inquire as follows: '_Imprimis_. Whether your honourable captain be the valiant Captain Drake or not? '_Item_. Whether your arrows, which have wounded many of our men, be poisoned or not? '_Item_. How the said wounds may be cured? '_Item_. What victuals or other necessaries you desire for the speeding of your voyage hence, which his excellency desires to furnish you withal, as far as he dare, having regard to his commission.' This and a very flood more of such-like desperate intemperance of phrasing he graciously voided upon us, the writing whereof, were I able to set it down, would devour more paper than I could ever find digestion for. When he was at a halt at last Frank sat up in his chair and, after a little pause, answered him thus courteously but very curt, because of his weakness, no less than his distaste for Spaniards. 'I thank you for your courtesy,' said he, 'and I pray you, after you have partaken of a poor supper at our hands, to return to his excellency with my most honourable commendations, and inform him thus: I am the same Drake he means. It is never my manner to poison my arrows. The said wounds may be cured with ordinary surgery. And as for victuals, we have already more than enough out of the abundance which he has already so hospitably provided us withal in this Island of _Bastimentos_; while for necessaries, I want for none, save the special commodity which his country yields. Whereof not yet having enough to content myself and my company, I must unwillingly beseech his excellency to be at the pain of holding open his eyes for a space; since before I depart, if God lend me life and leave, I mean to reap some of your harvest, which you get out of the ground and send into Spain to trouble all the earth!' The little gallant seemed a good deal taken aback at this unlooked-for answer, but, recovering himself, promised to convey it to the governor treasured in the inmost sanctuary of his bosom. 'And, if I may without offence move such a question,' he ended by saying, 'what should be the honourable cause of your worthy departing (seeing what are your sweet desires) from a town where is above 360 tons of silver ready for the Plate Fleet, and much more gold in value in iron chests in the King's Treasure-House?' 'Because,' said Harry, whom Frank motioned to speak, 'our captain was wounded, and we value his life beyond all the gold in the Indies.' 'Then, most valiant _cabaleros_,' answered our pouncet-box, 'give me leave to say that, as I am a gentleman, the pre-eminent excellence of your reason in departing is hardly overbalanced by your unmeasured courage in attempting.' With that we fell to supper, during which we did all honour to our guest; all of us, but Frank, being much taken with his fantastic courtesy and pretty humours. Harry and Mr. Oxenham were particularly moved to him, and he to them, so that all supper-time they vied with each other in the extravagance of their compliments, till I thought the little gallant could swallow no more. When he took his leave at last our captain entreated him very courteously, and bestowed certain gifts as most likely to content him. So we conducted him to his boat to make our farewells. 'I protest, _cabaleros_,' said he, a little flushed with a good share of the contents of our prize, 'I protest I have never been so honoured of any in my life.' 'And give me leave to say,' answered Harry, 'I have never seen an embassy so admirably discharged.' 'I kiss your hands,' said the Don, 'and, as I am a gentleman, shall joy no more, till I have the felicity of crossing rapiers with you upon your next attempt.' 'Till then, by my soul's honour,' returned Harry, 'I, too, die; nor could I conceive greater honour than to colour my blade with such courtly blood as your excellency's.' 'Nay, sir, I protest, as I am a gentleman, the honour would be mine. I could desire no higher distinction than to feel your point between these unworthy ribs.' 'I pray heaven,' said Mr. Oxenham, 'your joy come not so soon as to prevent my poor flesh first kissing your very bright particular blade.' 'I kiss both your hands, sir,' said the Don, 'and trust we may be all sweetly sorted to our most gentlemanly desires.' With such like compliment, and an infinite making of legs, we at length took leave of him, greatly entertained with his humours, and delighted with the renown which our captain had won by this and his former exploits. That evening our captain held a council to determine what further we should attempt, and thereto was called Diego, the negro whom we had brought from Nombre de Dios, that he might be questioned as to the present condition of the town. 'Soldiers and gold all the same what little Don tells,' he said, grinning all over his good-humoured face. 'Nombre very full of soldiers, and Treasure-House very strong, all because of my people, the Cimaroons. I know better way to get gold from Dons than to burn fingers after it in Nombre.' 'Say you so, Diego?' said Frank, in his kindly way, which always won the heart of these people. 'A very worthy tall fellow you seem. Let us hear about it, and I doubt not you shall hear of something good too.' 'Yes, I know,' answered the black fellow, showing his white teeth from ear to ear. 'I know Captain Drake; so do Cimaroons. Spaniards beat Cimaroons; Captain Drake beats Spaniards. Mighty tall man Captain Drake amongst Cimaroons.' 'Well, well, good Diego,' says Frank, very pleased, 'but what of the gold?' 'Why, this way,' says the negro, looking very cunning; 'Treasure-House very strong, best get gold before it done got to treasure-house.' 'Yes, but how?' says Frank, 'Why, easy as a fall,' says Diego, grinning with all his might. 'I go to Cimaroons, and say to chief, "Captain Drake wants gold."--"Mass! then bring his nobleness here," says the chief; so you go up through the woods with the Cimaroons, and they show you--and they show you,' he went on, hardly able to speak for glee, 'where to stop the great mule trains that come from Panama to meet the Plate Fleet.' With that he opened his wide mouth, laid his head back, and roared with laughter, rubbing his hands between his knees, and dancing an ungainly measure to the sound of his own merriment. This and other intelligences which we had from the negro, on further questioning him, bred in us great hope of making our voyage, though our other plans failed. For in all they agreed and confirmed what Captain Drake had learned on his two former voyages; which was that on the arrival of the Plate Fleet from Spain great quantities of gold, silver, and pearls came across the isthmus from Panama to Nombre de Dios, partly by _recuas_ or mule trains, and partly in frigates by way of the Rio de Chagres, which ran into the sea nigh to where we were from a place called Venta Crux, within six leagues of Panama. When therefore we had refreshed ourselves at the island two days, our captain sent a party under his brother John to search this river, with orders, after he had made full discovery of it, to join Captain Ranse and the ships at the Isles of Pinos, whither we presently set sail. It was our captain's intent now to attempt Carthagena before the garrison got wind of our being on the coast, but Captain Ranse was not willing to join us, thinking we stood in too great danger after we had discovered ourselves at Nombre de Dios. Frank was not sorry to dismiss him, I know, for at all times he very hardly endured to have another joined in command with him. Therefore, as soon as John Drake returned from his discovery, we parted company with Sir Edward Horsey's crew, and remained to make our voyage, if we could, without them, notwithstanding all the dangers they feared. Yet our captain would not altogether give up his desire to visit Carthagena, whither we sailed with all speed, though much delayed with light airs, calms, and want of hands; for, now that our company was divided between the ships and the pinnaces, each craft was under-manned. So it fell out that a Spanish pinnace preceded us a few hours, bringing news of our coming, and we found they had made so large a provision of horse, foot, and ordnance for our entertainment that, being unwilling to trouble them further, we craved them to bestow on us a great ship of Seville, of some two hundred and forty tons burthen, which we found well laden in the harbour, and this they did, though not so graciously as our moderation warranted. Having in this way, and more certainly by letters found in two other prizes which we took, learned that our presence was known all along the coast, it remained for us to take some course with our difficulties, which at last we did, and in such wise as gave me fresh proof, if any were wanting, of that extraordinary resolution in our captain which seemed to grow every day more constant and heroical. 'There is no shift for it but the Cimaroons,' said Frank to me, as we lay off the islands of St. Bernardo, some three leagues from Carthagena. 'We must take to our pinnaces till we find them, and hide along the coast, so that the Spaniards may think we have departed, which I am resolved not to do till our voyage be made.' 'But how can we continue longer on the coast?' said I. 'It may take us weeks to find the Cimaroons, and we have but little store of victuals.' 'We can make provision with our pinnaces could we find some place to hide. There are plenty of victuallers to be taken all along the coast.' 'That would be possible,' I answered, 'if we could properly man our pinnaces; but this we cannot do, not having hands enough in the ships as it is.' 'And yet there is no other way,' said Frank, musing; and then, looking very hard at me, he went on after a pause: 'What a mercy it would be if one of our ships were taken from us!' 'What do you mean?' asked I, aghast. 'Why,' says he, 'then we should have enough men to man the pinnaces.' 'True,' I answered; 'but how should we get back to England?' 'God would send us means,' says he. 'A smart frigate or so would fall into our hands when we wanted it. Indeed, it would be a mercy if one ship were taken! Then we could make a store-house of the other, and make our voyage with the full-manned pinnaces.' 'Perhaps it would be well,' I answered; 'but such a thing is not to be looked for.' 'Cortez burnt his ships,' said Frank, as though he were thinking, and had not heard me. 'Why should not I destroy mine? Yet I think he cannot have loved his as I love mine, the smartest sailers that ever left Plymouth harbour.' 'Frank,' cried I, 'this is madness; besides, your company would never permit it.' 'Not permit it!' says he, with a sort of dull fire under his frown. 'None of my company must talk so, Jasper. And yet I love the lads for their love of the ships; nor must a captain, who would be cheerfully followed, strain obedience further than is necessary. A great captain, as I trust by God's help to be ere I die, differs only from his fellows in that he is readily obeyed. Any man of ordinary wit can see what should be done, yet must he often abstain from commanding it because he knows how hardly he will be obeyed, and as often, if he do command it, find the labour of procuring obedience too great for his constancy. But your great captain fears not to command anything, seeing he is always cheerfully obeyed, and why, lad? Because by policy he shall cheat those under him into a cheerful willingness towards all he intends.' 'Well,' said I, 'I will call you before all men a great captain, if to-morrow you can make your men cheerfully fire either of these ships.' 'Then, lad,' says he, 'I pray you go fetch hither Tom Moone, the carpenter of the _Swan_. That is my own ship, and that is the one I must burn. To-morrow arise betimes and come with me fishing in the pinnace and you shall see how, by my policy, my brother and his crew shall willingly fire her.' I did all he said, and in the early morning we were off to the fishing, for about the island where we lay was a great store of fishes. As we passed the _Swan_ we fell aboard of her, and Frank cried out to his brother to come fishing with him. John Drake jumped up at once, willingly agreeing to follow us presently. We cast off, but before we had gone but a few strokes Frank asked us if the _Swan_ did not sit very low in the water, which we saw at once that she did. 'Ahoy, Jack!' sung out our captain then, 'what makes your bark so deep?' 'Nay, I knew not that she was over deep,' says Jack, and called to the steward to see what water was in her. Presently there was a mighty splashing, and up comes the steward, wet to the waist, crying out that the ship was full of water. All was bustle in a moment, some of the crew rushing to the pumps and some splashing about the hold to search for the leak, Tom Moone being the most forward there. We fell aboard her again at once to offer our help. John Drake would have none of it, but only begged to be excused his attendance on his brother. 'We have hands enough,' said he, 'and will have her free in a trice. We have not pumped these six weeks, so what strange chance has befallen to give us six foot of water in the night is more than I can tell. But I pray you go on with your fishing; we shall want some good stuffing come dinner-time, after our pumping.' Besides our captain and myself, there were none with us, I think, who had any suspicion of what this strange chance was, so that our men were not a little surprised to find on our return that, though out of their great love for their dainty bark the _Swan's_ company had wellnigh worked their lives out at the pumps, yet had they freed but a few inches of water. 'What, so bad!' cried Frank to his brother, who looked over the side very weary. 'Nay, then, you shall have our help now, while you eat your dinner.' With that, acting his part better than I could have looked for in so plain and blunt a nature, he sprang on board, and with his own hands fell to work at one of the pumps with such good will that I thought to see it burst. All our company, set on by his example, worked no less hard; yet, though we continued in shifts till three in the afternoon, we had freed the water little more than a foot, nor could any man find where the leak was. Wearied out at last, John Drake, with his master and crew, gathered round Frank to consult him as to what order was to be taken, for up till now our general had not said a word, save to encourage men at the pumps, seeing that his brother was captain of the ship. 'What shall we do, Frank?' said poor John Drake. 'We shall have to pump the whole North Ocean out of her before she is dry.' 'Indeed, Jack,' says our captain, 'I cannot tell what order to take to save her.' 'Well, I care not what comes of her,' says Jack desperately. 'I think the devil has got her for good and all. It is some hellish Indian witchcraft of these Spaniards. I am at my wits' end with her, so do what you will.' The whole company were plainly weary of their ship, no less than was their captain, and crowded round to hear what Frank would say, very hopefully; for they had all come to think there was no hole so deep or miry that he could not draw them out of it. 'If you leave it so to me,' says Frank, 'I tell you there is only one way. The ship is dead, that is plain. It is my ship, and it is lost by no fault of master or mariner. If any is to blame it is I. You, Jack, I would have go aboard the admiral with your master and take command of her, and I will be content with a pinnace till I can capture you a smart frigate in place of this rotten tub, and incontinently we will fire her that the Spaniards may find their witchcraft has availed them nothing.' I think this advice astonished the company a good deal, but presently they were very content with it, saying it was most worthy of their general, who was always as ready to take blame on himself as to find resolute remedies for mishaps of others. There were a few who had sailed in her the two former voyages, and would gladly have made an effort to save her, being ashamed to lose her; but when her owner so boldly gave her up and took all blame on himself, they were very glad to be rid of her. In a few minutes the pinnaces were all laid aboard of her, so that every man might take from her whatever he wished, and thereupon poor John Drake, his eyes full of tears, fired her with his own hand. Poor Jack! my heart bled for him, but I knew it was the only saving of our venture. So it came about as Frank had said. Not only had the whole company been glad enough to destroy the ship of which they were so proud, not only had he got his way, hard as it seemed, but by his generosity to his brother, his hearty sharing of their labour, and his cheerful resolution through it all, he stood higher with the whole company than ever he did before. 'Well, Frank,' said I, as we sailed away next day towards the Sound of Darien with the _Pasha_ and our fully-manned pinnaces, 'you have your will, but it was a sorry trick to play them.' 'Nought but a bit of policy,' laughed he, 'such as all commanders must use at times.' 'Save you, lad, from Machiavelli and all his works,' said I, 'for I think you are fast growing Italianate. But, tell me, how was it done?' 'Why, with a spike-gimlet,' says he. 'Tom Moone pleaded hard for his beloved bark, so that my heart almost melted. Then he said he would get his throat cut; but I told him to be secret, to do it close to the keel at night, and lay something over the holes that the flow of the water should make no noise to betray him, and so it was done. It was a desperate piece of service, I know, but Tom Moone shall have cause to remember what he did for me at this pass.' And so indeed he had; for when Frank equipped his fleet for that renowned voyage in which he encompassed the world, he made this trusty carpenter captain of the _Canter_ or _Christopher_, as it was afterwards named. CHAPTER XX By the light of the flaming ship we had set sail. It was a moving sight to see this precious link with home a mass of shooting flame below a pall of lurid fire-flecked smoke. A sea of molten gold was her death-bed, and, as we sailed slowly onward before the gentle night wind, the fiery reflection stretched out after us till it faded to fitful gleams on the crests of the waves, as though they bore us farewell kisses from our lost ship. 'A true swan is she to the end,' said Harry softly, as though moved by the scene. 'Beautiful she was in life, yet nothing in it was so beautiful as her departing from it.' We watched her burn down lower and lower, till she was nothing but a glowing ember on the dark plain of the sea, and then in a moment she was gone for ever. It was like losing an old friend, and there was not one for the next few days who did not feel oppressed with evil foreboding at the loss of that staunch craft that had brought such luck to our captain. We could not even lighten our hearts with the music, for Frank was very earnest to depart as secretly as we could, that the Spaniards might suppose us entirely gone from that coast by reason of the loss of our ship. Thus, attempting nothing that might betray us, we found on the fifth day a most fair haven in the Sound of Darien, where we could anchor the _Pasha_ out of all ken of the Spaniards, and refresh ourselves till such time as the storm we had raised all along the coast should be blown over. It was a place as fair as Port Pheasant, where a man might have been content to dwell all his days. A pretty town we built there, as Diego showed us how, of boughs and brakes and flowers, in a space which we cleared in the dense forest. Here our smith set up his forge, our fletcher his shop for the ordering of our bows and arrows, our butcher his block, and our shoemakers their lasts. Butts were erected for bow practice, a lawn made for our bowls, and ground prepared for quoits, leaping, wrestling, and all other sports that our captain could devise for making us forget our losses and breed a hopeful spirit for future attempts. Half of us worked while the others played, day and day about; but for me it was all play. For my work, having skill for it, was to hunt the livelong day up in the forest-clad hills for the hogs, conies, deer, and birds that lived half tame in their solitudes; or, rocked on those azure seas, to lure the strange fish that swarmed about the gilded rocks, with great pelicans and scarlet cranes for comrades at the sport. At such times, as I lay in some fairy glade above our little town, or half asleep in our little gondola, I could hearken to the merry tinkle of the anvil and the jolly laugh of the bellows mingling with the cries and songs of the mariners at their work and play; and, listening to the homely sounds, mellowed and transformed by the tropic glory of earth and sky and sea, I could fancy that the old life was gone with all its care and hideousness, being changed by the rich spirit of the West to one long May-day. In fifteen days our ship and pinnaces with this light labour were refitted, and our captain with two of the pinnaces set sail for Rio Grande in search of provisions and intelligences. I remained behind with John Drake to search the coast in the other pinnace, in order that if possible we might, by Diego's help, meet with the Cimaroons. For six days we rowed up and down the Main aloof the shore, but found no trace of those whom we sought. In these days I saw much of John Drake, being all day and night in the pinnace with him, and I came to love his simple, steadfast nature more than I ever had before, and wondered to see how great was his control over the men by the very earnestness of his worship of Frank, whose orders to him were as the command of a god, to be carried out at all costs. It seemed as though, when once he had a direction from his brother, all other thoughts were dismissed from his mind. Any possibility of a different course being good could never find a place in him. So day after day we rowed hopelessly along that lovely shore, in spite of the fearful heat. To every suggestion I could make he had but one answer. 'Frank told us to row aloof the shore and find the Cimaroons,' he would say, 'and he knows best. Cheerily, men, now! As like as not we shall find them beyond the point ahead.' To me the thing seemed hopeless. To find a few negroes in that vast wilderness of forest by rowing along the shore appeared little better than a wild-goose chase. Still I believed in Frank almost as much as his brother did, and still more was encouraged by Diego, who continued to urge us on as he sat in the forepart, chin in hand, gazing fixedly into the forest. It was on the seventh day, as we were almost worn out with the growing heat of the sun, and all the shore was hushed before the coming fire of the noonday, that Diego suddenly leaped up and, casting both his hands above his head, gave forth a yell so loud and strident as almost to stop your heart. Again with his hand to his mouth he shot his fiendish call towards the shore, as though to summon a legion of devils to his side. 'What is it, Diego?' cried Jack. 'See, captain, see! There lie my people asleep. I can see. Up there on the hill. I can see a new hut.' To our eyes all was the same wild waste, of foliage, but he saw more, as we soon knew, for faintly out of the forest came an answering shout. 'I knew Frank was right,' said Jack triumphantly. 'He knew where to find them.' And away we went to the shore. Sure enough Frank was right; for as our keel grated on the golden sand two pelicans rose lazily from where they had been standing, a bowshot to our right, and winged their solemn flight along the shore. Something we knew must have flushed them, but we could see nothing in the dense brakes. Diego hailed again, and then we saw a black face peep stealthily at us. Poor folk! they dared not come out, for all we had one of their kin with us. They had been too often betrayed to their tormentors by such means before. '_Que gente? que gente?_' cried the black head over his bent bow, as we could plainly see. '_Gente de Draque!_' cries Diego, leaping out of the boat and running towards them. '_Draque! Draque!_' So it was they always called our general, since his name came hard to their half-Spanish tongues. And what a name it was to them we soon saw. For, after a strange, discordant babbling between Diego and the Cimaroon, a loud cry went up in the bushes and out rushed some score of dancing yelling fiends. Never saw I greater delight or heartier welcome than in these poor folk. For a good space we could do nothing with them, for their dancing and leaping round us and embracing of our feet, especially Captain John's, to his great discomfort, being a plain, simple man, not used to homage. There was no peace for us till Diego begged that we should suffer them to bear us to their huts, which request our captain granted, leaving two men with the pinnace. Their joy was then complete, and each black fellow stood in front of one of our men, bending his back for him to mount, which at last we all did, seeing how earnest they were; and so, with no more ado with the biggest of us than if he had been a baby, they trotted off, laughing and singing up the steep path that led to their huts. We were soon set down in a little hamlet like our own town, but much prettier and more artfully constructed, because of their greater skill. Here each vied with another to set before us delicate fruits and fowls and a certain fermented liquor which they had, very pleasant to the taste and medicinable to the spirits. So like kings we lay in those leafy bowers feasting merrily, each with a grinning henchman or two to do his lightest bidding. Indeed I think, had we permitted, they would have crowned us with flowers, and seen us eat our banquet like that dainty gallant Horatius Flaccus with his boon companions. By the end of our dinner we were all like brothers with these merry folk, after the manner of English mariners, though I think half of our company could not understand two words of Spanish. Their chief was soon in close talk with John and me and Diego, and we broached our business to him. It is an easy embassy when both parties desire one thing. Our wish, no less than theirs, was for them to meet the general and arrange our comedy for the entertainment of the Spaniards. In a very short space it was agreed that we should leave two of our men with the chief and take two of his to the general, in token of pure good-will and amity between us, and that they should come down to a river which ran into the sea half-way between the haven where our ships lay and certain headlands towards Nombre de Dios, which we always called 'The Cahezas.' This river we called the 'Rio Diego,' after our faithful Cimaroon ally. There was some difficulty in choosing our hostages, since every mariner there wished to stay, preferring the cheery homage and good fare of the Cimaroons to hard work and 'Poor John' in the pinnace. At last it was settled by lot, and we bore away again amidst the like rejoicings that had welcomed us, and with a fair wind came the same night to our ship. It seemed to all men a plain work of God for the encouraging of our allies that the very next day our general, with two frigates besides the pinnaces, came sailing into 'Port Plenty.' So he now named our haven, having seen by this first voyage how well we could supply ourselves from the victuallers that sailed to Nombre de Dios and Carthagena, and from the Indians about the Rio Grande, as well as from the Spanish storehouses thereon. 'If a man may judge by this fair beginning,' said he when we came to speak of it, 'no name was ever better bestowed, for besides a great store of provision which we obtained from the river, I have taken five or six frigates and a bark, laden with live hogs, hens, maize, and other provision which we require. But I gave away all the prizes, except the two best, to the Spaniards for their pain in supplying us so bountifully; and there are those we kept.' He pointed to where the two captured frigates lay, and went on to tell me how he had obtained what was dearer to him than victuals, and that was divers opinions of himself that prevailed amongst the Spaniards. It was always his way while he kindly entertained his prisoners to get them to speak about himself, and if their answers were to his mind I think they often got off the more lightly. His enemies, for even that noble spirit has enemies in these backbiting times, set this down to a sordid love of flattery, but I know it was from no such cause. For love of merriment he did it, no less than to encourage his men, who joyed to hear the dread their captain begot amongst the Spaniards. No man ever knew better than he how to win the confidence and respect of his men, and this was one way he used to that end. And no man was ever more laughter-loving than he, and no jest did he love so much as to hear how he frightened the Spaniards. For those reasons and no other he was wont to question his prisoners, and I hold it foul slander to say that heroic navigator was pleased with sordid flattery. I remember well his first words were of this when, the same day that he returned to Port Plenty, I boarded his frigate with Jack. 'Why, Jasper,' says he, taking my hand in his cheery way, 'you have missed a merry time in chasing Cimaroons, though God be praised that has so blessed your search. What think you they say of me, man? It is a jest worth more laughter than all the company could furnish in a month. Why, man, they say it is a devil. None but a devil or a saint, they swear, with but a handful of men could have quietly entered and held the Treasure-House of the mightiest emperor under the sun as we did. And since, being a "Lutheran dog," I am no saint, I must perforce be a devil, and you, my lad, an imp of Satan.' 'By which sharp reasoning,' says Mr. Oxenham, 'they save their gentility when they run away.' 'And like Christian gentlemen,' cried Harry, 'when the fiend appears cry, "Get thee behind me, Satan," and incontinently turn their backs.' 'Yet,' said I, 'it seems to me that they would serve their gentility better by a more courteous appellation of their enemy.' 'And so your true Castilian does,' says Frank. 'For all the wrong they have done me, yet I hold your true Castilian a gentleman and a man of honour, and no coward. Such a one I took off Tolu, and as we supped together on the good things which for our trouble in chasing him he had felt bound to bestow on us, he told a different tale, and set no horns on my head.' 'No,' broke in Harry; 'it was all your most chastened, precise, five-foot-in-the-blade, good manners. "By your most high-bred courtesy," says he, "I now know for truth what gentlemen say of the valiant Captain Drake, whose felicity and valour are so pre-eminent that Sir Mars, the god of war, and Sir Neptune, the god of the sea, seem to wait on all his attempts, which same notwithstanding are eclipsed, overshadowed, and put out of countenance by the nobility and generosity of his carriage towards the vanquished, whereby defeat is made sweeter than victory." And with such like good report he continued to discharge his great pieces in the captain's honour all supper-time till we were wellnigh deafened with the thunders of his courtesy.' 'It was a very high mass of worship,' said Mr. Oxenham, 'till, by this light, we began to doubt if we were not saints after all.' 'God forbid,' says Frank; 'as you love salvation be an English devil rather than a Spanish saint.' 'Well, here are our brother devils,' cried Harry, as the two Cimaroons we had brought were led forward by John Drake. 'Order yourselves, signors, to receive the embassy of the Prince of Darkness.' So the negroes came forward and testified of the joy their whole nation had at our captain's coming, because of the renown he had won amongst them by his proceedings at Nombre de Dios and in his two former voyages, and finally most respectfully told him how their chief waited for him at the Rio Diego, to see if haply it was his pleasure to use them against their common enemies. A council of war was held to consider how far we could trust these people, and what course we should take forthwith: whereat, after his usual manner, Frank listened very attentively to all our advices, and then took his own; which was forthwith to move our whole force up to the Rio Diego, where John Drake and I had discovered an excellent haven amongst the islands that were clustered there. I went on before with Frank in his pinnace to show him where we should meet with the Cimaroon chief, which we did very joyfully at the place appointed. The negroes' joy at meeting our captain was so great that it was long before we could get to any quiet speech with them, but at last we went aside with the chief into the leafy bower which served him for a house, and Frank told him how he wished his people to help us get gold and silver from the Spaniards. 'Gold and silver!' said the negro, a giant in growth and strength who spoke good Spanish. 'Do you mean gold and silver?' 'Yes, surely,' said Frank; 'what else could we want?' 'Why, even that which we want,' said the negro. 'And what is that?' Frank asked. 'Revenge,' answered the negro, 'revenge for all the wrongs those hell-hounds have wreaked on us.' 'Why, so do I,' said Frank cheerfully, 'and therefore will I take from them what I want most and what they love best, even gold and silver.' 'Ah, but they love something better than that,' said the chief eagerly, as though clutching at a hope. 'They love life better. And we want something more than gold, we want blood--Spanish blood! To dip our arms in to the elbow, and our legs to the knees,' he went on, with the glare of a wild beast in his eyes. 'Help us to get that, captain, and you shall have all the gold and silver you can want. But for us it is not enough. What your wrongs have been I know not, but ours are such that gold and silver will not avenge them. Had you felt the lash curl round your ribs, had you seen your comrades tortured to new effort when they dropped to die of sickness and fatigue, had you seen a little part of what happens every day to my people, you would forget gold and silver, and all but blood, and never joy but when you saw it bubbling out from the rent your knife had made.' We were both shocked at the savageness of our new ally, and Frank told him in his plain blunt way that if they attempted anything together the prisoners must be his, as well as the gold, though in the fight they might kill as many as they would. The poor savage was sadly disappointed, and would, I think, have hardly agreed to it if Frank had not fed him with a picture of the havoc our arrows and small shot would make amongst their enemies, and how sorely they grieved over the loss of gold. 'I know, I know,' said the Cimaroon sadly; 'and often we take gold from them, not from love of it, but in despite of them. So be it as you say, captain, for you we will follow to death against the Spaniards, whatever be your will. Yet had I known it was gold you wanted, there is plenty we have taken and sunk in the rivers which you might have had, but now they are so swollen with the rains that there is no coming at it. Nor can we take any till the dry season begins, for in the rainy months they do not carry any treasure by land, because the ways are so evil.' This was most unhappy news. It was nearly five months still before the dry season began. To attempt with our pinnaces to capture the gold frigates coming down the Chagres river was madness, seeing that since our coming we heard they were always guarded by two galleys. To wait five months was to run great risk not only of being attacked in strength by the Spaniards, but also by sickness, which is very rife in those regions during this time. Another council was held as soon as our strength joined us, and once more Frank heard willingly our opinions and followed his own, which was to make a lodgment in a hidden part of the coast, whence, that we might employ our leisure as well as gather provisions, we could from time to time sally out to annoy the Spaniards and satisfy ourselves. Our captain further resolved to establish magazines besides those we already had about Port Plenty, so that if one were discovered we might have others to supply us. To this end the _Pasha_ was brought in through the islands with great labour and much dangerous pilotage within a few bowshots of the Main, and there moored hard by a reasonable island, in such a place as even if she were discovered, which was wellnigh impossible, so shrouded was she by trees, no enemy could come at her by night or even by day without great risk of falling amongst shoals. Our island contained some three acres of good flat ground, which our captain next began to fortify, setting out, after the best manner used in the wars, a triangular fort made of timber and earth dug from the trench about it. Harry having, as I have said, no little skill in these matters was set over this work, Culverin being quartermaster under him. The Sergeant therefore was now in great spirits, for I think the ships, and still more the pinnaces, were as little to his mind as ever. His stiff back and large form could never accommodate itself to the straight quarters and uneasy motion to which he was condemned at sea. Now, it was a real pleasure to see his gaunt figure striding once more a-land, directing the Cimaroons, of whom another band had joined us, as nicely as though he were entrenching the Emperor's own camp. 'Sea wars I will never decry again,' said he, when I went to give him joy, 'especially since Captain Drake is of that profession; yet for dignity, honour, and contemplation how can they compare to land wars? Truly, the world lost much, sir, when Captain Drake became a sailor.' 'Yet he is an indifferent good sea-captain, Sergeant,' said I. 'Yes, sir; too good, greatly too good,' said Culverin. 'Few men, look you, have been born with such soldiership. See, now, the care he bestows in fortifying his camp, after the true manner of Julius Cæsar, and yet he has never read a word of the _Commentaries_. It is there he shows it. For, saving your wisdom, your true soldiership is not valour, as many think. Valiant blades we have in plenty in every land. Your great soldier must know what to fear and when to fear, and so guard himself. To fear valiantly is your philosopher's stone of victory. Take that of me, sir.' I think we were all of Sergeant Culverin's opinion, except perhaps Mr. Oxenham. He was ever a reckless man who could not fear anything, and so, as all men know, was afterwards brought to his evil end on a Spanish gallows. But the rest of us were glad to see what care our general took that we should pass our five months in safety, and above all the Cimaroons, who saw in our preparations a sure token that we were resolved to stand by them. Nor did they leave us without testimony of their satisfaction. It was like fairyland to see how a little town built of Palmito boughs rose up as if by magic upon our island, with fair houses for all our company; and afterwards they so laboured at our fort that in two weeks the ordnance and artillery were all in position within it, and Frank was free to depart in search of victuals and intelligence. On the 7th of October he bid us farewell amidst a merry burst from our music, and bore away for Carthagena, leaving his brother John as governor of the fort over those who were left behind. Both Harry and I remained to assist him in governing the Cimaroons and completing our works. Had we but known the sorrow that was to come on us ere those two pinnaces returned, I think our parting would have been less blithe. But as it was we feared nothing; for our exploit at Nombre de Dios and all that had followed, no less than the constant report we had from the Cimaroons and our prisoners of the terror we had created, had bred in us a sort of reckless courage, as well as a laughing contempt for our enemies, which made us think that no attempt was too hard for us. I cannot wonder at it or blame any for their overweening confidence, seeing what our handful of unknown mariners had done against the mighty power of the King of Spain. Surely never had folly, for I hold contempt of a brave enemy no less, a better excuse. Would it had had a lighter punishment! It was on this wise that it came about. At the Cativaas Islands, some five leagues away from our fort, was a frigate laden with planks. She was a prize Frank's pinnaces had taken in the Rio Grande and left there till she should be wanted. But in a storm she was driven hard ashore and now lay disabled. Out of tenderness for his ordnance and crew Frank ordered that our first care should be to fetch away her timbers and planks, to make platforms for the former and good huts for the latter. For the rains still continued. The island was a slough of mire wherever we worked, and the bowers which the Cimaroons made us hardly availed to keep out the deluge of rain that fell every day. Therefore as soon as Frank was gone we set about our work, John Drake going himself to order the matter in the pinnace called _Lion_. I went with him and about half a crew besides. It was the second afternoon after Frank's departure that we were returning to our fort with a load of planks, when we descried a deep-laden frigate making for Nombre de Dios. 'Will you not attempt her, Captain John?' said one of the men, a quartermaster called Allen. 'Not I,' says Jack; 'though nothing would be more to my mind had we finished the work which our general set us to do.' 'What matter of that?' cried Allen; 'it is but half an hour's work to make her ours. A pretty prize she will be for us, and I don't see why the rest should have all the sport and we all the labour.' 'Well, it is just because the general so ordered it,' says Jack. 'That is enough for me and enough for you.' 'Nay, then,' said Allen, 'I know the general never meant us to be forbidden fair booty. What say you, lads?' and the men all said he was right, and that they were for attempting the frigate. 'Then must you be mad,' cried Jack. 'You know not how the frigate is provided, while you are sure we are cumbered with planks and have no weapons.' 'We have a rapier,' objected Allen, 'and a visgee, and a caliver, and that is enough for Englishmen against any yellow-livered Dons.' 'But the rapier is broken, the visgee old and worn, and the caliver all a-rust,' said Jack. 'I tell you you are mad, and I will have no part with your madness. The general's orders are straight, and I would not depart from them were we twice as many, and twice as well armed.' But the men still murmured and continued to urge him to it, till I wondered to see how he could resist them, and loved him more than ever for his loyalty to his brother's commands. 'Never mind, lads,' said Allen mockingly at last. 'We will go to the fort and wait till the general comes back. He knows how to show Dons what dirt they are under English feet, and he will make us amends when he hears how our voyage was spoilt, because our captain was afraid of a craft only three times his size.' Poor Jack! That was more than he could endure. It touched him in his one weak point, which Allen knew well enough. He was a lion in courage, but yet not brave enough to bear calmly any suspicion of cowardice. 'What!' he roared. 'You dog! Dare you use me so? Then, by yea and nay, you shall have your will, and see who is afraid and who is not.' 'Oh, never mark him, Jack!' I said, wishing to dissuade him from this wild attempt. 'Look not round at every cur that barks! Who doubts your courage is an ass!' 'No, Jasper, hold your peace,' cried poor Jack, more furious than ever. 'Never shall they say to my brother that their voyage is lost by my cowardice. They shall run their heads into danger, but never shall they say mine was not there first. Give me the rapier. Allen, take you the visgee and stand by my side in the forepart if you are a man. Robert shall take the caliver, and Mr. Festing steer. And now, lads, overboard with the planks or we shall never catch her.' In a very short time the pinnace was clear, Jack was standing in the forepart with the broken rapier, and his pillow wrapped round his left hand for a warding gauntlet, for there was no buckler in the boat, and Allen stood by his side. We overhauled our chase very quickly, and were soon but a few boat-lengths from her. I could see she had taken measures to prevent our boarding, and was doubtless well prepared. 'See, Jack,' I cried, 'she has close-fights all round her bulwarks; we shall never board.' 'We shall board her or never another,' said he, with set teeth. 'It is too late to turn now. What I take in hand I carry through. Steady as she goes, and stand by to board!' In another moment we fell aboard of her. I saw Jack and Allen leap up on her close-fights. Then suddenly she was alive with belching flame. There was a roar, a cloud of smoke, a flash of pikes, and in the midst two bodies fell heavily back into the pinnace. 'Shove off for your lives,' I cried, 'before they grapple.' For I could see the frigate was swarming with pikes and small shot. Those in the forepart seized their oars, some thrusting away from our enemies' side, while others swiped at the faces of those who were trying to grapple or stay our purpose with their long pikes and halberds. Amongst these I saw Jack rise painfully and work with a will. Once I saw a pike levelled straight at Allen as he too was shoving off, in spite of an awful wound in his head. I made sure he was gone, but Jack dashed his oar into the pikeman's face and fell backwards fainting with the effort. By good luck at that moment we fell free, and a few lusty strokes fetched us clear. With all our force we rowed out of danger of her small shot; but they neither saluted us again nor made anything of their triumph, believing, as I think, it was best not to tempt us to return. 'Tell Frank how it was, lad,' said Jack, as I laid him down in the stern all covered with blood, and he opened his eyes. 'Nay, lad,' said I, 'you shall tell him yourself.' 'No, never, Jasper,' murmured he; 'my time is come. God has judged me for disobeying Frank's words; he always knew best. But Allen maddened me. Poor fellow! he is sore hurt. See to him, Jasper. 'Tis a brave heart.' 'First I must see to you,' I said, 'and mend your hurt a bit.' ''Tis no good,' he said, more faintly still. 'Mine is past mending. I feel it. What will Frank say of me? Would my death had come any way but this! Yet they will not call me coward again, will they, Jasper?' His voice grew weaker and weaker, and a deadly pallor overspread his face. 'Tell father how it was I disobeyed Frank,' he went on, with long spaces between the words. 'He will forgive me. He knows it always maddened me to be called coward. But what will Frank say? what will Frank say?' Again he urged me to go to the others and see if I could not remedy the evil his disobedience had brought on the company. I found Allen at death's door, cursing himself with his last breath for what he had brought on his valiant captain. Two or three others were hurt, but not grievously; and as soon as I had tended them a little I went again to Jack's side. I could see death written on his face, and gave him some wine to revive him. 'Tell Frank how I grieved for my folly,' he said, speaking with great difficulty. 'And tell Joe never to swerve a hairsbreadth from the course Frank marks. And ask him to forgive me. And, Jasper, say a prayer for me; not for superstition, lad, but just for comfort's sake.' I had not prayed since that terrible night at the inn, which now seemed so long ago and so far away. Yet I could not refuse. So I knelt down, and all the mariners did likewise, uncovering respectfully. I prayed, as well as I could recall it, the prayer I heard on the old preacher's lips at my father's funeral, and repeated the beautiful words of his text, which I remembered so well. 'Now sing a psalm,' said the dying man; 'just for comfort's sake--for comfort's sake.' So on that still and lonely tropic sea we raised with our rough voices a homely English hymn, to the deep diapason of the booming surf sounding outside the islands. As we ended he smiled, and I saw his lips moved. I leaned down to hear what he said. 'Frank will forgive me,' the low murmur said, 'when you tell him how it was. He was always good to us, Frank was, and always knew best. He will understand. Frank always underst----' So his murmur ceased; and that brave youth, my friend, passed peacefully away as the sun went down. And within an hour Allen's soul followed his captain's. Next day we buried them both on the island, thinking much of the high hopes we had of our governor's greatness had he lived, and deeply lamenting the cheerful, steadfast spirit that was gone from amongst us. As for the simple Cimaroons, they were beside themselves with grief, and would have performed strange idolatrous ceremonies about his grave had we suffered it, but the sailors would not let them go near, save once a day to cover it with fresh flowers. This was their only comfort, save a sure hope that, now his brother was killed, Frank would be no longer content with gold, but would want to 'wash his elbows' in Spanish blood. CHAPTER XXI Wearily the weeks went by after John Drake's death. What with the miserable effect it had upon the whole company and the continual rains, it was all that Harry and I could do to keep the men in good heart. Indeed, our lives at that time were far from easy, not only in respect of our spirits, because of our grief, but also in respect of our bodies, because of the wet and cold, and, above all, the legions of a certain grievous insect, which the constant rain seemed to engender of the mud upon our islands. We had suffered from them all along the coast, but never so grievously as here. The Spaniards call them 'mosquitoes.' They are insects of the bigness and similitude of reasonable gnats, but for ferocity, persistence, and trumpeting past anything we know in England. We often marvelled for what purpose they could have been made, unless it were to punish Spaniards. Yet this reason halts, for a mariner who had sailed in a ship of the Muscovy Company reported to us that he had felt and seen them as bad, or worse, in the country of the Samoits and Permians upon the Muscovy Sea. Yet by constant work in strengthening our fort, and hunting with the Cimaroons on the Main, no less than by every pastime Harry could devise, we managed to keep in health till the general returned. It was towards the end of November that he came back, with a prize of some ninety tons, which, as well as his pinnaces, was laden with all manner of provisions, not forgetting several botijos of good Spanish wine. Like ourselves he had suffered much from wet and cold, as well as from want of meat, for he had found the whole coast thoroughly alarmed and prepared for his coming. Yet had he taken not a few prizes, and, what pleased him best, ridden out a storm which lasted many days in the harbour of Carthagena itself, in spite of all the Spaniards could do with horse, foot, ordnance, and treachery to drive him thence. But all the joy with which we might have talked over these things was marred, because Jack was no longer there to take his part. Of Frank's and Joseph's grief over the loss of their brother I will not speak. Yet I know how deep it was, though they said but little. Frank seemed to care no longer to jest over what the prisoners had said about him, and when alone was very stern, though outwardly with the men he would be cheerful as ever. It was all the harder to bear since we were now condemned more than ever to inaction. From what the general saw on his last-made voyage to Carthagena, and the intelligences he had from the prisoners, he was resolved to keep close, that the Spaniards might think us entirely gone, until we could hear of the coming of the Plate Fleet, when with better hope we could make our attempt by land against the _recuas_ that came to meet it. We were well able to lie still awhile, since our magazines were full, and there was no necessity for our putting to sea for intelligence, since the Cimaroons had spies out everywhere for the first tidings of the coming of the fleet. Frank's efforts to keep the men in good heart were redoubled, since, now that the rains were beginning to abate, he knew the sun would increase in power and draw all kinds of noxious humours and exhalations from the sodden earth; against which danger he held there was nothing so medicinable as a cheerful spirit. Till the end of the year things went well, though in spite of all we could do with daily worship, music, and sports, it was plain that crude and heavy humours were being engendered in us by the sudden change we underwent from cold to heat. Our surgeon was ever urging Frank to permit him to rid the men of these humours by strong purgations, but he would not consent to it, rather serving out more wine to those who seemed most oppressed. So we passed Christmas indifferently well; but, our merrymaking over, things went worse than ever, with constant quarrels and murmuring, which Frank bore with very patiently, knowing it was an infirmity of the flesh rather than the spirit. At last some lay down and would not be persuaded to any sport, and before the end of the day our surgeon pronounced ten of them to be sick of a calenture. Three days after half our company was down and several dead. In vain did Frank and the surgeon try every remedy they could devise. On the seventh day Joseph Drake was seized, to his brother's great grief. For some days our general had been very earnest to have made discovery of this terrible disease by ripping open one of those who had died, and now in hope to save his brother he openly proclaimed his intention, but in spite of their sufferings the company murmured so loudly at this profanation of their dead comrades that he was compelled to forego his desire. 'They say I care not what indignity I set on them,' said Frank to me, when I told him what the men were saying, 'so long as I save my brother? Poor lads, they must be sorely sick in body and spirits to say that. They shall see yet how they are all brothers to me, and they shall have their way. Yet I would dearly love to make discovery of the strange matter. It is hard, very hard, to lose Joe as well as Jack.' Yet so he did, and two days after Joseph Drake breathed his last in his brother's arms. I saw tears drop from Frank's eyes as he bent over the fair curly head that lay on his knee, watching the bright young life go fitfully out. Joe had spoken last of his unhappy mother, seeming to lament he had not been more kind to her, and this memory had touched Frank, who was himself sick, more keenly than he could bear. So, as I say, he was weeping over his brother as he died. When the last glimmer of life was gone he laid the fair head on the pillow, and, kneeling down, prayed to God very earnestly that his brother might be the last to die. Nearly all the company were gathered round kneeling very respectfully as the general prayed. When he made an end they all cried 'Amen,' and most tried in vain to keep back a tear when they saw how tenderly their general leaned down and kissed the calm young face of his dead brother. All the time our rat-faced surgeon sat unmoved in the corner of the house where we were. He alone did not kneel, but sat with his case of knives on his knee, and never took his little round eyes off the general. He shifted uneasily when Frank stooped to give his farewell embrace to his brother, and looked more keenly than ever when he rose up to his feet with dry eyes and the old resolute look on his face. 'Now, my lads,' said he, 'you may go. It is over. I thank you all heartily for your prayers. Your duty is done, but mine and Master Surgeon's is only begun. You would not let me do it before, and so we have come to this pass; but, by God's help, this day we will make an end. You thought I used you hardly when I would have done this to one of your mates. So I stayed my hand, knowing how abominable it is to unlearned men. Yet now you shall not hinder me, for between me and my brother's body no one has a right to stand. Go now, and ere long you shall know whether I hold my brotherhood to my father's son higher than my brotherhood to you, my company.' The rat-faced surgeon had opened his case, but the men still were loath to go, as though they would have stayed Frank from his purpose, and again the little black eyes looked keen and anxious at the captain. 'Go, men!' cried Frank in a sharp, biting voice. 'It is I, Captain Drake, who bid you, and whom you know.' Slowly then they left. More than one stopped at the door to look round at the surgeon rolling up his sleeves and shudder, till Frank's set look sent them on their way. He beckoned me to stay; and indeed I think he had need of some one to support him in his terrible resolution. It is a fearful thing to use a body as we were about to do, but what must it have been to Frank thus to desecrate the mortal part of that fair youth he loved so well! It made me sick to see how eagerly the surgeon went to his work. As soon as we had stripped the corpse Frank drew from his pack a book he had often spoken to me about. It was _The Anglishman's Treasure, or the True Anatomy of Man's Body_, by Master Thomas Vicary. This he held open in his hand, and signed to the surgeon to begin. Over the terrible sight that followed let me draw the veil. To me it was as heroic a spectacle as ever Agamemnon presented at Aulis. It was a holy sacrifice by our general of his tenderest feelings. Yet when I think how detestable, inhuman, and sacrilegous in most men's eyes is the dissection of bodies, how it has ever been banned by the Church, how there are many who would have it altogether prevented by law, and how loathsome it is even in my eyes, who so well know its necessity, I hasten from the picture that fills my memory, since I have said enough for men to bear in mind this crowning act of Francis Drake's heroical resolution. Everything he did before and afterwards I think called for less from his noble nature than that. Many high-sounding acts he achieved before his death, in the face of danger and the heat of battle, with a constancy that will make true English hearts beat higher for all time; yet nothing stamps hero on his memory, to my thinking, like what that January afternoon he steadfastly endured on that fever-stricken isle, in cold blood, unshaken, unflinching, and almost unmarked. It was the first experiment in anatomy that our captain made that voyage. I cannot wonder it was also the last. Even the surgeon was more moved than he, and in order to purge the pestilent humours which he swore arose from the body and were the cause of the disease he took so strong a dose of his own compounding that he never spake again, nor did his boy, who also tasted the medicine, recover wholly till we reached England. Frank, therefore, became surgeon himself, and whether from the knowledge he had gained by his terrible experiment on his brother, or whether by using different remedies, or none at all, I know not, but certain it is that from that time no more died, and those that were sick began rapidly to mend. Still we had suffered heavy loss before it was all ended, and many were for giving up our voyage, protesting it was useless to attempt to 'make' it with so maimed a company. But Frank would not hear such counsel, and cheerfully encouraged them to endure a little longer. Our joy then may be judged when on the last day of January some of the Cimaroons, who ever since our first meeting with them had been continually ranging up and down the country to gather news, reported of a certainty that the Plate Fleet had put into Nombre de Dios. A pinnace was at once despatched to the outermost island of the Cativaas to confirm this report, whereby our general hoped to test how far our allies were worthy of trust, since he knew that if it were as they said, the victuallers would be seen flocking to the ships with supplies. Within a few days the pinnace returned bringing the joyful confirmation we desired, and something more which we very little desired, namely, thirteen Spanish prisoners, and amongst them the _Scrivano_ of Tolu and a black-eyed comely girl, his daughter. These had been taken on a frigate laden with victuals, which had been dealt with for the sake of getting certain news of the fleet. Nothing could have embarrassed us more in the last preparations we had now to make for our land journey. To release the prisoner was impossible, since they would have straightway spread the news which it was our business to conceal. While to keep them was to have them in constant danger of being cruelly massacred by the Cimaroons. Frank took every precaution that was possible. The prisoners were landed on 'Slaughter Island,' as we called it, since we had lost so many of our company there, so as to keep the Cimaroons from sight of them, and then speedily set on board our great Carthagena prize, which lay moored hard by the island. Here they were all brought before our general to be questioned. He received them in such state as we could make upon the poop, and presently encouraged them to fear nothing, for they seemed very ill at ease as not knowing what treatment they should get at our hands. In the midst of his speaking I saw the girl draw a knife from her breast, and with the suddenness of a cat spring upon Frank. In truth I think he must have been very near his death had not I seized her hand, being prepared by what I had seen, and held her. It was all I could do to keep her from him, for she writhed and struggled in a frenzy of passion and would not be pacified, till, much against our will, we were forced to bind her pretty hands behind her for the sake of peace, as though she had been a common mariner. Then she stood alone in the midst before Frank helpless, panting, and flushed, a passingly beautiful picture. Her luxuriant black hair was loosened in her struggles and fell all about her face, and her large dark eyes were flashing defiance at Frank as she drew herself up proudly before him, looking like some young tigress fresh caught from the forest in the plenitude of her wild youth and beauty. 'Well, my beauty,' says Frank good-humouredly, 'this is strange woman's work! Why will you force on us such discourtesy as to fit you with such rude bracelets. Your pretty white arms were meant for other work than this.' 'I know that,' she answered scornfully; 'but when men turn women, women must do men's work. You--you are men, and know not what it is for a woman to be amongst such curs as these, who cower to be kicked at the very sight of an Englishman, and let you heretic Lutheran dogs plunder good Catholics as you will and then whine to the Blessed Virgin to help their cowardice. Ah, if we had a few hearts like yours and mine then you should see!' 'God forbid,' says Frank, 'that we meet many men like you, else surely will our voyage take more making than we bargained for.' 'Ah, you are a man,' she said, 'and you know. I am glad I did not kill you now, though I vowed the first time I met him to attempt with my bodkin the life of the Dragon Francisco.' 'Dragon Francisco is good,' laughed Frank. 'Were you twice as wild you should have your bracelets off for that! Loose her, Jasper; she will be quiet now.' 'Ah,' she said again, as I undid her bonds, 'you are a man. It is long since I felt a man's hand.' With that she threw herself at the captain's feet, and, taking his rough hand in hers, kissed it ardently. Then without a word she walked away from where we sat, and quietly fell to twisting up the great masses of black hair that clung about her, which was a wonder to us all. Having got the intelligence we required from the prisoners, it remained but to set a guard over them, both to prevent their escape and to keep an eye on the Cimaroons. I think Mr. Oxenham would have very gladly undertaken this labour for the sake of those same lustrous dark eyes; but Frank would not have it so, and appointed me to it, bidding me treat the prisoners with all courtesy so far as I could, having regard to their safe-keeping. I did not much relish my wardship of the wild girl, though I think I was as much taken with her beauty and spirit as any of us. For Frank would not have her put under constraint, though he suffered me to keep the rest below hatches when night came on. So I allotted her the best place in the poop, and bade her good-night. As the night wore on my anxiety only increased, and, being unable to sleep, I went to walk on deck. It was a glorious tropic night, with the moon flooding the dark forests and studded islands and the slumbering sea with a brilliancy we do not know in the Old World. It was so beautiful that I bade the look-out man go to rest, saying I did not wish to sleep and would keep his watch for him. He seemed very surprised, but thanked me civilly and went below. As I watched alone on deck the Spanish girl kept constantly in my thoughts. Whatever way I tried to think my mind always came back to her, and her white skin and beautiful eyes, so flashing in anger, so soft in peace. I began to dread she would be the cause of contentions amongst us, and to long for the time when we should be well away on our land journey. I was sitting on the forecastle, and had been there perhaps for the space of half an hour, when, just as the Señorita was most vividly in my thoughts, I saw the poop door stealthily open and a strange figure appear. I knew in a moment who it was, in spite of her being so changed. It was plainly the Spanish girl, looking more beautiful than ever in the dress she had adopted. It was nothing more than the ordinary apparel which the Spanish mariners use in those seas, consisting of loose striped drawers reaching just above the knee, and an easy-fitting sleeveless shirt of white material, which she had girt tightly about her waist with a red scarf. Too amazed to act, I could only watch her ripe young figure, which her dress set off to its full beauty, creeping warily forward towards me. Very quietly I sunk lower into the shadow of the bulwarks to watch what she would do. Every now and again she looked round in some new and graceful posture to see if she were watched. At last she reached the foremast, to which was fixed the mutilated image of the Virgin and Child, and there she fell upon her knees and began to pray in a low earnest voice that I could just hear. 'Holy Mother of God,' she said, 'for the last time I beseech thine aid to support me across the dark waters, to guide me through the forest, to bring me safely to Nombre de Dios, that thy loving worshippers may come at my word and destroy the heretics that would plunder the treasure which his most Catholic Majesty would devote to thy service, saving only, if it be not sin, Captain Francisco Draque, whom it were a pity to kill, and the sad-faced man who has warded me so courteously, and who, I think, is half in love with me.' Then she rose and walked with desperate quickness towards the side, but ere she had gone three steps I had leaped down into the waist, and she was struggling frantically in my arms. I was resolved to stay her from the wild purpose her brave spirit was bent on. As she writhed in my grasp I remember being rather afraid that she should fall into the hands of the Cimaroons than that we should be betrayed to the Spaniards. Like an eel she strove to get free, her dress giving her perfect freedom to strain every effort. So tenderly did I feel towards her for the sake of her heroic attempt that I was only thoughtful how not to hurt her, but it was misplaced kindness, for suddenly she slipped from my loosened grasp. In a moment she was at the bulwarks, poising herself for a spring into the water, when suddenly she gave a low cry of horror and sprang back into my arms as I rushed to her side. In an extremity of abject terror, to which her resolution was suddenly changed, she clung about me, trembling from head to foot. 'Save me, Señor, save me!' she gasped, as she sank down clasping my knees wildly. 'O God, O Sancta Maria! see what is coming,--O God, what will they do to me! I cannot bear it. Save me, Señor, save me!' So distractedly did she cling to me that I was obliged to lift her in my arms before I could get to the side to see what had frightened her, and then I could not wonder how her courage had melted, for I saw a sight that made my blood run cold. Close to the ship and moving swiftly towards her swam over half a score of black woolly heads. The ghostly moonlight glittered white on the long wake that stretched behind each, and on their rolling eyes, and, worst of all, on a grizzly knife which each held in his grinning teeth. Like some hellish monsters engendered in the foul womb of the sea they came on with lusty strokes, silent, sure, and determined. There was no time to fetch my caliver or wake the guard had I been willing to do so. But this was far from my wish; for I feared, had they known the negroes' purpose and seen the terror of their pretty prisoner, they would have dealt more hardly with our allies than the general would have liked. Moreover, to be plain, I had a still stronger reason for what I did; for I could not bear to think that those rough men should see my beautiful captive so scantily yet withal so prettily clad as she was. So, drawing my rapier, I sprang to the gangway, for which they were making. 'Back, back!' I cried, as low as I could for them to hear. 'The first man that tries to board has my blade through him.' That, I thought, dismayed them, for each as he swam up stopped without attempting to board, which they might easily have done; for the ship, being full of victuals, was very low in the water, and, moreover, two chains hung down the side by the gangway. I was in no little doubt how I could deal with them should they make any attempt, for I feared that my terrified Señorita would much hamper my movements, since she had followed me to the gangway. Therefore, to further dissuade them, I fell to showing them how ill the general would take what they did, seeing the prisoners were his. Even as I spoke I was much encouraged to feel the Señorita's arm steal round me and draw from its sheath the strong sailor's knife I always wore. I knew then the brave girl had recovered her spirit. I could not refrain from pressing the little hand as it closed round the hilt of the knife, to let her know how I marked her courage. My speech had small effect on the Cimaroons; for though they still held off, yet they seemed not to note my words, but only to glare horribly at the girl by my side. Wondering what next to do, I was all at once aware that most of them had disappeared. There was something so unearthly and magical in this sudden vanishing that my heart misgave me. While I could see my foes I did not fear but that I could deal with them as I wished; but now I was encompassed by unseen dangers, and in that ghostly moonlight, I say plainly, I was afraid. Nothing would have been more to my mind than to cry aloud and wake the sailors. Yet I set my teeth hard and gripped anew Harry's rapier. I felt he would have done as I hoped for courage to do, and I clung to my former resolution. Yet I saw it was useless to wait where I was, so, taking the Señorita's hand, I led her towards the poop. Half-way there she looked back, started, and clutched my arm. 'Look, Señor, look,' she whispered, 'look at the forecastle.' I turned and saw the evil sight I dreaded. Black against the moonlit sky the wet, shining figure of a Cimaroon was climbing over the bulwarks where our head-fast ran out. I knew directly they must have dived to the cable and climbed up by it. In another minute they would all be aboard. Then I knew there was but one thing to do, and ran quickly under the poop-gallery with the Señorita. 'Go in, Señorita,' said I, as soon as we reached the door. 'You must leave me to deal with these alone.' 'No, Señor,' she answered, 'I will not leave. I am not afraid now. It was only for a moment. I will stay and fight them with you.' 'There is no need,' said I; 'I am going to rouse the mariners.' Indeed, it was time. One after another I could see the black forms climb over the bulwarks, dripping and gleaming in the moonlight, and each with his bright knife. A hideous head, too, was glaring over the gangway, as though waiting for the rest. Still the Señorita would not go, but rather stepped out into the moonlight to be farther from the door, which I held open. 'No! I will wait with you,' she said resolutely. 'Why should I not wait and fight beside the sailors when they come?' 'Because, Señorita,' said I, growing desperate as I saw the wet, shining forms creeping athwart the forecastle, 'because they are rough men, and I would not have them see you as you are.' A crimson flush overspread her beautiful face. With wide astonished eyes and parted lips she met my gaze for a moment. 'Ah!' she cried then, just as she had to Frank, 'you are a man!' Dropping the knife as she spoke, she sprang towards me, and before I was aware what she did she had taken my face between her soft little hands and kissed me on the lips. Then she was gone; and even as that fair vision passed I saw black forms dropping from the forecastle into the waist. Loudly then I shouted to my company, and ere the Cimaroons had advanced many paces one of the mariners came running up to me, and then another, and another, blowing up their matches. That was enough for the Cimaroons, who we afterwards found had no heart to stand before gunpowder. One of them uttered a loud cry, and then with one accord they all leaped into the sea. Lustily they made for the shore, and I had much ado to prevent my small-shot men and archers hastening their swimming, but at last I prevailed. After that I set a double watch, but we were no more disturbed that night. Next day I reported these things to the general, who so dealt with the Cimaroons, and took such order for a guard over the prisoners, that the Spaniards were no more molested till we departed on our land journey, though the negroes ceased not to urge him by every device they could think of to permit them to have at least a few to murder, or better than naught, the girl alone. As for me, I craved to be relieved of my charge, feeling that after what had passed it would be better for us both if the captive had another warder; but Frank only laughed, and said he could trust no one, not even himself, with that lump of Eve's flesh, unless it were a sober scholar like myself. With that answer, whereby he showed less knowledge of men than ordinary, I had to be content, and bear myself as soberly and scholarly towards my prisoner as I could make shift to do till the time came for our departure. CHAPTER XXII A fortnight later, in a fair clearing on the summit of those forest-clad hills which separate the Atlantic Ocean from the South Sea knelt eighteen sunburnt, way-worn Englishmen. In their midst rose a giant-tree that reared its head high above all the dense growth around it. In its rugged bark steps had been cut that led upwards to a sort of bower high amidst the massive branches, which might have served as a watch-house to the little settlement that was about the glade. For all around where those gaunt men knelt were strong houses built in the manner of the Cimaroons, some thirty of whom knelt reverently outward of the Englishmen listening to the prayer which the thick-set, curly-bearded man in the centre offered up so earnestly. Earnestly, too, those seventeen others listened, as they knelt in the heart of the Spanish Main, with as stout an air of triumph on their youthful faces as though it were all their own. And no wonder it was so. For each man there had but just ascended to that silvan watch-tower, and there had seen to the northward the ocean whence he had come, and over against it, beyond the rolling slope of gorgeous tropic forest, that silent sea of mystery on which no Englishman had sailed stretched at his feet, as though waiting peacefully for him to come and take possession. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE] To our fancies, heated with the hundred tales we had heard of the inexhaustible treasure which came from that new-found sea whereof the wisest of the ancients were ignorant, it seemed to glitter like a boundless, unfathomable caldron of molten silver. From this, our first sight of it, it seemed but a little step with our elated spirits to enter and possess it; and so it was with uplifted hearts and throbbing pulse that, resting on our weapons, we kneeled and listened to Frank Drake's prayer. 'O Almighty God,' he said, 'who has granted us of Thy great goodness that we should set our eyes at last on that great sea which for all the ages till now no man knew, but only Thou, and which, though Thou hadst kept it hidden as an inheritance for all mankind who served Thee aright, the Bishop of Rome has impiously taken upon himself to give to an idolatrous king and people: Grant to me now out of the plenty of Thy power and bounty life and leave to sail once, if only once, in an English ship in that sea. So shall I, thy servant, and such of those others here to whom Thou wilt vouchsafe the same, enter thereon to the advancement to Thy glory, and the confusion of the lewd priest and potentate who has usurped and abused the vineyard which Thou hadst prepared for Thy people.' So he ceased, and a deep 'Amen' mingled with the rustle of the breeze amongst the vines and canes. Then up sprang Mr. John Oxenham, and held on high his right hand. 'Hearkye, lads,' he cried, very excited, 'you have heard the captain's prayer, and know his resolution. Now bear witness that by yea and nay I protest, as I am a gentleman, that, unless he beat me from his company, I will follow him, by God's grace, into that sea.' So one after another we all protested to the like intent, very earnest and eager for that time to come; and yet, resolute as we all were, how few ever made good our resolve, and notably Mr. Oxenham! Had he but been content to follow Frank, instead of faithlessly trying to be before him, who knows but he too might have died a knight with a golden collar, and not, as he did, like a felon with a necklet of Spanish hemp! But let that pass, for who knows better than I how hard it may be to keep a resolution which in the making seemed so easy? Such falling away we must openly condemn, for the sake of the state and reverence for the laws; yet no wise man will inwardly hasten to loathe sin, since he is well aware that until he has made trial he cannot tell how small a shock of temptation will lay his own honour in ruins. And surely the sight of that golden sea, whereof no man knew the bounds, was enough to turn any man's head. None of us were in haste to leave that glorious sight, feeling as though we could never gaze our fill. To us, the first of Englishmen, was unfolded the portentous secret which the Spaniards had kept so well. That night, then, we lay there to dream over the boundless visions to which our discovery gave birth. On the morrow, refreshed with our rest, and feeling each one of us a new man in the presence of that new ocean, we began our perilous descent towards Panama. And perilous indeed it was, though none of us now could think of danger or anything but the golden sea. We were, as I have said, but eighteen Englishmen. This little band was all we could muster for our attempt. Eight and twenty of our company were lying dead in graves already half hidden in brakes. Well-nigh half the rest were sick; and when these were set aside with a sufficiency of whole men to tend them, and above all to protect our ships and prisoners, eighteen were all we could spare. I had been appointed one of the number, seeing that I was still whole; yet it must be said I was hard put to it to go. For my prisoner coaxed me so prettily to stay and protect her, and pouted so sweetly with her full red lips when I would not be moved, that I more than once came near to yielding, and was not a little glad that we marched as soon as we did. Besides our eighteen we had with us thirty Cimaroons, who lightened the labour of our march not only by their ready bearing of our burdens, which they would not suffer us to touch, but also by their cheerful spirits. They seemed never to weary, and were ever laughing and singing, even when the way was steepest and the brakes most dense. They seemed, now that they were away from the Spaniards and we came to know them better, an altogether docile, childlike people, whom one could but love, for all their hidden fierceness, as one would a staunch and faithful hound. Pedro, their chief, who best knew the danger of our enterprise, had put it hard to the general that he should tarry at a certain town of theirs till a greater force of Cimaroons could be gathered. But this Frank would not hearken to. 'No, Pedro,' said he; 'the time speeds for "making" my voyage, and since I have enough I would not delay an hour though I might have twenty times as many.' A resolute answer which rejoiced and gave heart to us all. So on the morrow of our discovery of the South Sea we began our descent as we were towards Panama. It was our general's purpose to waylay a _recua_ as close as possible to Panama, where the Spaniards would least look for us, in case they had any wind of our still being on the coast. To this end we had made our toilsome march, going a good way about that we might not be descried, and so come down secretly upon the road which led from Panama to Venta Cruz, where, as I have said, the gold was embarked in frigates to be carried down the Rio Chagres to Nombre de Dios. We were the more moved to this course because of our uncertainty whether the _recuas_ went as yet all the way by land to Nombre de Dios. As we were now it mattered little; for by thus striking boldly across the Main we could deal with them before they reached the river, and thus save them the pain of disappointing us. Very warily now we pursued our painful way through the matted forest, in the order which Pedro besought us to adopt. First went, about a mile ahead of us, four Cimaroons, who best knew those trackless solitudes. For not a sign of a way was there, and even had there been one it would have been overgrown by the luxuriant brakes as fast as it was made. We had nothing further to direct us than the broken branches by which our guides marked the way we were to follow. How they could know their road amidst those wellnigh impenetrable woods, where they could not even see the sky above their heads, was more than I could tell. Mr. Oxenham said it was a special instinct which God had given them that they might the better be revenged upon the Spaniards who had so foully ill-treated them. How this may be I cannot say, but I know that Frank and most of the company said openly it was nothing short of a miracle, by which God showed His great love and tenderness towards us. For it is certain that without the aid of these poor folk we could never even have attempted the Spaniards by land. Our general was very earnest to show his gratitude for this mercy by burdening himself with care for their souls. For when he found that they seemed to have no religion, save a sort of idolatrous and superstitious reverence for the Cross, he would not rest till by continual urging them at our halts he brought them to lay it aside and learn in its stead the Lord's Prayer and certain plain doctrines as he thought sufficient for their low understanding. Great as was the skill of our guides in leading, it was little exceeding our vanguard's diligence in clearing the way. For in the front of our main body marched twelve Cimaroons, who with loving care made the way as easy as might be for us and their two chiefs, who were in company with us. Rearwards of all were twelve negroes more, bearing our burdens and watching against any danger that might threaten from the rear. So we marched stealthily through that eternal wilderness of brake, and vine, and flower, and massive overshadowing trees hour after hour, in perfect silence, save for the scolding of the frightened parrots overhead and the strident screaming of the fearless guans. To me that march gave a pleasure and present sense of strong life that I had never known before; nor did my content end there. For Harry felt the influence as strongly as I, and so there was bred between us one more piece of sympathy, which gave me yet further hope that I might win his love again. It seemed to bring back our boyhood, and almost in his old boyish way he came that night and sat beside me. 'Is this not glorious work?' said he, as he stretched his weary limbs upon the flowers. 'I could almost wish it would never end,' I answered. 'It lifts a man out of himself like nothing else I know.' 'That is it,' he mused. 'Indeed, I think there is nothing which will keep a man so continually excited as silently stalking through a boundless forest like this, where a white man's foot has never trod before. As you pick your way at each step, that no stick may crack or stone roll; as cautiously you press through the boughs, that none may break or fly back noisily; as you strain your ear for the whispered order that is passed from your comrade, and peer ever forwards towards where the danger lies, then you know best the pure joy of living, the joy of the tiger leaping on his prey, the joy of the falcon stooping at his quarry.' 'Well said! well said!' I cried, catching his enthusiasm. 'Even so I now at last can say, "I live and know my life. Now live I with the life of my father Adam, the son of God." Now know I that fable for a true allegory, and feel I have dominion over the beast of the field and the fowls of the air, which is called the inheritance of Adam.' 'Truly what greater joy was his than we have now!' said Harry. 'The wild pigs and deer and pheasants are our meat, the bubbling brooks our wine-cups, the leafy boughs our roof, the flowers our beds. His inheritance is ours! 'Slight, it is a time to tempt a man to throw aside the fetters of his clothes and the burden of his arms, and rise up with nought but a spear as symbol of dominion, and live to his life's end a lord of beasts.' 'It is you, Harry,' said I, 'whom I must thank that I too can know 'this intense joy. It was your father's bringing-up of me that taught me to love the out-of-doors.' 'Well, it is mock-modesty,' he answered, 'to say he knew not how to make a man. Indeed, I think Machiavelli did not much err when he praised the education of Achilles, for whom Chiron chose a master half-man, half-beast, that he might be acquainted with both, seeing that without the qualities of one the other will be of little duration. Such teachers we cannot come by now, yet we can make shift with one who forgets not that man is half a beast.' Such talk we had many times afterwards; and I call it a fortunate thing that our march drew to an end before we had quite run wild. On the second day after leaving the spot where we had viewed the South Sea we came out of the forests to a pleasant champaign country, overgrown with mighty grass, so rank that, as Pedro told us, the Spaniards had to burn it thrice a year, lest it grow so tall that the oxen cannot reach to feed on it; which will seem a wonder to those who know not the Western Wonderland, but it is none the less plain truth. Three days we passed through this marvel, suffering grievously from the heat after the cool shadows of the forest, yet being cheered many times by getting glimpses of Panama whenever we passed over the rolling hills that fell in our path. On the fourth day, being the 14th of February, we had for our valentine the blue roadstead of Panama, with its burden of gold ships riding upon it. It was a sight to set every heart there beating faster, notwithstanding the many dangers and excitements through which we had passed since we heard the farewell guns from Plymouth platform. Indeed, it was now that our great peril began; for by hook or crook we had to reach undescried a great grove which lay apart in the midst of the champaign lands, about a league from the town. Our danger of discovery, which would mar all, was now very great; for the Cimaroons told us it was the custom of the ladies in Panama to send out fowlers in search of a certain delicate bird of which they were very fond. Should we fall in with but one of these men, which would be very easy in the tall grass, the alarm would be at once given, and our chance of gold gone--ay, and perhaps our lives with it. Frank therefore bade us break up our order, and, falling into small parties, grope our way as silently and stealthily as possible towards our goal. It was weary work, and anxious. The sun was blazing down upon us with intolerable power. Every few minutes we had to stop and listen. After going thus for a good space with infinite toil we struck a river bed, which was almost dry. This, to our great relief, the Cimaroons said we could follow safely, since it led straight to the grove. So in the end, by picking our way over the stones like cats, we came undescried to our hiding-place about three in the afternoon, and then disposed ourselves to rest, wellnigh exhausted. There was now nothing to do but lie there still as mice till the night fell; for the _recuas_ do not travel by day between Panama and Venta-Cruz, because the way lies wholly across the champaign country, where there is no shelter from the scorching fire of the sun. Moreover it was our captain's purpose, as soon as evening drew near, to send a negro in disguise into Panama to discover whether any _recuas_ were to be laden that night, and at what hour they were to start. As I lay with the rest, half-asleep after my weary march, Frank came to me and asked if I were too tired for half an hour's more work. 'Not if you want it of me,' said I. 'Well then,' says he, 'come with me to the edge of the grove, whence Pedro says we can descry Panama.' 'But to what end?' I asked. 'We shall run great risk of discovery.' 'Not if we are careful,' says he; 'and it is worth the risk.' 'Why, what good will our intelligence be?' I asked, not wishing him to expose himself. 'Not much now,' he answered, 'but, by God's help, some day I will serve Panama as I served Nombre de Dios. If God grants my prayer for life and leave, and we sail that sea, yonder harbour is where we must strike, if we get not our fill elsewhere; and now I have opportunity of learning how the town lies, I will not throw it away. It is thus I have sped so far, and thus I mean to continue. For I hold it not enough for a man to pray earnestly; he must show by fearless, ungrudging endeavour that he is in earnest, and leave nothing undone which may speed the granting of his prayer. God could do all this and more without my help, that I know well; but yet I think He loves best to help men who are ready to show they are in earnest in seeking His help.' So together we went and lay down where we could see the fair city, lying some little way from the harbour on either side of a goodly broad street that led northwards from the sea right through the houses. All was very still, because of the great heat that still prevailed. Yet we could see the convent nestling in its garden of palms, the tall spire of the church, the high bare walls of the King's Treasure-House, as big and strong as that at Nombre de Dios. And beyond all slumbered the gold ships in the roadstead. 'A fair place! a goodly place!' said Frank in a whisper. 'Too fair and goodly for those that possess it. It should be ours, Jasper, and our Queen's; and so it shall be, at least for as long as its plundering will take, if I can come into that roadstead with but two stout well-manned ships. We shall see, we shall see. Let us come away. It is in the Lord's hands to deal with as He wills.' On our return to the strength we found the Cimaroons busy dressing our espial in the costume which the servants in Panama were accustomed to wear. He was a merry, shrewd fellow, who had served a master in the city formerly, and he bade us not to doubt that he would soon be back with all the intelligence we wanted. After his going was another space of anxious waiting, during which we refreshed ourselves with such victuals as we had with us. To every man was given a little _aqua vitæ_ for his comfort. I was surprised to see Sergeant Culverin drinking, as I thought a little too freely, from a private store he had. I went to him, and he respectfully offered me some. 'No, Sergeant,' said I; 'if there is danger before us I would rather keep my head cool.' 'As you will, sir,' he said. 'It may be well enough for a young man, but with an old soldier it is different.' 'Then has not an old soldier as much need of a cool head as a young one?' I asked. 'Yes, perhaps,' he answered; 'but a cool head is little use if your heart is cool too.' 'Why, Sergeant,' said I, very surprised, 'your heart at least will not be faint when a fight is ahead.' 'No, sir,' said he gravely, 'no man shall say that; and yet I like to go about with it that it shall not faint, and therefore I discipline it with a sufficiency of _aqua vitæ_.' 'Well, Sergeant,' said I, still very puzzled at the signs of timidity on the part of the grim old soldier, 'you are the last I should have suspected of needing so base a crutch for his courage.' 'Maybe my courage halts,' he answered sadly, 'maybe it does not. Once I never gave a thought to danger, but when a man has served much he knows. I do not think I have less courage than any man here, but I know what war is better than they. As you shall see more of war, sir, you shall see less of its glory and more of its horror. That is why I wished to come to England; and to be plain with you, I should never have run my head into this wild venture of Captain Drake's had it not been that my poor master---- but I crave your honour's pardon, I prattle impertinently.' 'No matter, Sergeant,' said I; 'it is I who should crave your pardon. But tell me, do you think our danger so very great?' 'Not perhaps if we succeed,' answered the Sergeant; 'but if we fail, where shall we retreat?' 'But we must not think of that,' said I. 'A young soldier need not,' said he sadly; 'but alas! an old soldier cannot choose but think of it, unless----' 'Unless what, Sergeant?' I asked. 'Unless, sir,' said he, grimly smiling, 'in the stead of the ardent spirit of youth, which in you burns up such doubt, a man may come by a sufficiency of this most courageous _agua ardiente_.' With that I left him, revolving much in my mind whether he or I were the braver man. It was not long before our espial came back. We gathered eagerly round him for his news, which as eagerly he gave, seeing he was so full of it that he was like to burst had he not got this relief as soon as he did. And no wonder, for he told us he had found the Plaza full of mules, which men were fitting with packs. On questioning these he found that two great _recuas_, with a little silver and much victuals, were about to start for the fleet that night; but what was better, and what caused his eagerness, was that, besides these, there was preparing to precede them a _recua_ for no less a man than the Treasurer of Lima himself,' who, being bent on returning to Spain by the first _adviso_ that sailed, was starting that very night for Nombre de Dios with all his servants and his daughter, together with one mule load of jewels and eight of gold! CHAPTER XXIII It was midnight. Silence and darkness had fallen on that grass-bound highway that joined the oceans. Not a breath stirred the tall herbage. All was still as death, save for the distant mingled voices of the tropic night. Yet on either side the way, some two leagues short of Venta Cruz, that reedy pasture might have been seen to nod from time to time with a strange unaccustomed motion. Save that, there was nothing to show a traveller that the sea of grass, through which his way led him, held stranger fish than all the rest of the wide expanse on either hand. Yet so it was. Strange fish, both black and white, lay there as still as serpents. For thither had our captain led us as the most fitting spot for our venture, being, as Pedro showed, the farthest from Spanish relief and most convenient for our retreat with the plunder. So there I lay at Frank's side, and about me half our band, cutting strange figures. For Frank had made us put on our shirts over our other clothes, so that we might know friend from foe in the coming struggle. Farther on, upon the other side of the way, was Mr. Oxenham, with Harry and the rest, so placed that he might stop the head of the Treasurer's _recua_ while we dealt with the tail. By this order, too, we might use our bows without fear of hurting our friends. Between Frank and me lay a Spanish soldier fast bound. Our two Cimaroon guides had captured him on our march from the grove where we had lain hid all the afternoon. From him we had gathered intelligence which confirmed all that our espial had told us. Before this Frank had been loath to believe our good luck, thinking so strange a chance savoured of a trap to undo us. But this soldier, as soon as he learned who our captain was, was so overjoyed at knowing he would be softly dealt with that he gave us full knowledge of how to proceed, which he was the better able to do seeing that he himself was one of those hired to guard the Treasurer. All this, he swore, was honest truth, as he was a gentleman soldier. He seemed to wish nothing so much as our success, which we better could understand when he craved in return for his intelligence that our captain would not only save him from the Cimaroons, but also deal with him as he had with others in like place, giving him sufficient of the plunder to keep him and his mistress. He courteously promised in addition to make our names famous throughout all Spain and the Indies if we did this; but I think Frank was not very earnest to have his trumpet blown by such false lips. And I noted that as we lay there he had his dagger ready to curb any desire our prisoner might have to alarm his master when he approached. It seemed hours that we lay there in the dim starlight. The tall grass about us hid everything from us but the white shirts of our comrades. We heard nothing but the drawing of our own breath, the beating of our own hearts, howsoever hard we strained our ears for a sound of the _recuas_. In truth, it could not have been past an hour before a puff of wind from the northward stirred the grass above us, and with it came the distant tinkle of bells. It was but a _recua_ from Venta Cruz, we knew, all of which we had resolved to let pass as only carrying merchandise for the city and Peru. Yet it made my heart beat faster for a while, till the breeze died again; and even as it ceased came another tinkle from the direction of the city. Every man moved to listen better, making the grass rustle, and Frank held up his hand to quiet them. The tinkling died away again as the _recua_ passed down to some hollow, where the sound of its bells was drowned to us. Night is day on this the most notable highway in the world, as I have shown, and great and rich is the traffic either way in the cool hours between sunset and dawn, when the Plate Fleet is lying in Nombre de Dios, and all the Spanish Main is stirring with the life, and hopes, and fears it brings. It was natural, then, to hear on the round stones with which years ago Pizarro had paved the way the clatter of a horse's feet coming up from Venta Cruz, and mingling with the rise and fall of the distant tinkling. As the sound drew near, Pedro, who had been lying with his head pressed against the ground, crawled towards us like a snake. 'It is a _cabalero_,' whispered he. 'How do you know that?' says Frank. 'I can hear he has a page-boy running at his stirrup,' answered the Cimaroon, whose ears seemed to turn to eyes in the dark. 'It is easy to hear on the hard road. Listen!' 'Well, whatever he be, let him pass,' said Frank, for so we had determined. Yet very gladly, I think, would Pedro have made a dash at the gentleman's throat. On came the horse at a gentle trot till, when he came about opposite Mr. Oxenham's party, we heard a plunging, as though he had taken fright at something, and immediately after he dashed past us at a false gallop on the way to the city. 'Why has he changed his pace?' said Frank quickly. 'For no reason that I can tell,' said Pedro, 'unless the others showed themselves.' 'They can never have been so mad,' said Frank. 'And yet I think he must have seen them. Did the page come by us?' 'No,' answered Pedro. 'Did he go back?' asked Frank. 'I could not hear,' said the Cimaroon. 'Surely they must have shown themselves,' said Frank. 'Yet there is nothing for it but to lie still and wait.' I thought of Sergeant Culverin and his _agua ardiente_, but held my peace. Silently we lay again listening breathlessly to the sound of the galloping horse dying away in the distance towards Panama, and the growing clamour of the bells on either hand, not knowing how far we were descried, and being wholly unable to find out. Had the horseman seen anything, and would he warn the _recuas_ of their danger? As we listened the full jangling of the mule-bells ceased and gave place to a fitful tinkle. It was now the sound of mules at a standstill, which shook themselves or tried to lick the places where the flies had galled them. Faint cries of impatient men mingled with the broken sound, and at last we could not doubt but that they had stopped. Frank and Pedro looked at each other blankly. 'They have surely been warned,' said Pedro. 'Still we must wait,' said Frank, with his stern look settling hard on his resolute face. 'It is in God's hand. Peradventure the gold was well gotten by this Treasurer, and it is not His will that we should take it from him.' With this cold comfort we had to content ourselves and listen again. Very soon the bells towards Venta Cruz pealed full again, and in a few minutes Pedro knew they were returning. Our wits were now wholly bent towards the city. Would they come on and trust to the Treasurer's guard? That was all we could ask ourselves. The answer came before many minutes were past. Again the full jangle broke the stillness. They had moved again. As loud as ever it sounded, and our hopes beat high, but only for a short space. Lower and lower sank the sound, till we could hardly hear it. Pedro whispered to Frank, who held up his hand to calm some who had half risen, hoping for an order to pursue. It was plain they were fast losing patience, when suddenly the faint tinkling waxed again, till it burst out with a full-toned peal not half a mile from us. Then I knew it was but a deep hollow in the road that had kept the sound from us. Louder and louder it grew, till we could hear each bell sweet and distinct, for the Spaniards love to have them strong and full-toned for comfort on their long and dreary marches. I saw Frank's whistle, on which he always gave us the signal to attack, glisten in the starlight as he pulled it out. I drew my rapier silently. Now we could hear the men cursing their mules and beating them, as though they were in hot haste. Now they were abreast of us. Still we stirred not. Mule after mule we could hear go by, almost deafening us with the clang of their bells, though not a hair could we see in our dark lair. A whole train so passed, and then came another. Now was our time. The whistle gleamed at Frank's lips. I gripped my hilt hard. Shrilly went up the signal, clear above the jangling bells. In a moment we were on our feet, rushing through the grass breast high on two full trains of mules. Whether there were soldiers there we could not tell, yet no armour could I descry. There was no time to think. Already I heard Mr. Oxenham's voice shouting to the leading carriers to stop, and we were amongst them. Every one knocked over or seized the man in front of him. I rushed with Frank to the rear to stay any man escaping. We knew our other company had stopped the front _recua_, for the mules all began lying down, as is their wont when they are halted. They were soon all stretched peacefully in the way, and it was all over. Not a sign of resistance was there. We hardly knew what to make of it. There was not a Spaniard in all the train, much less a Treasurer and his daughter. 'Hold that false Spaniard fast, Jasper,' cried Frank. 'If he has deceived us, as I fear he has, he shall rue the day.' So I clung to my charge, the prisoner we had brought along with us, while the rest made discovery of our capture. Bale after bale they cut, but no treasure was to be found. Nothing was in them but victuals for the fleet. Frank sent for the chief carrier to learn where the gold was, as we had little time to spare, and then we knew the worst. 'Ah, most worthy _cabalero_,' said the chief carrier, who seemed a very tall, sensible fellow, 'they have played you a trick, for which none is to blame but yourself.' 'But was not the Treasurer of Lima to pass first to-night?' asked Frank impatiently. 'Since you know that I will tell you all,' answered the man. 'Sure enough he was to come with all his gold and family and jewels, but half-way hither a _cabalero_ met us in hot haste, saying he had seen something alive, half white, half black, rolling in the grass, and he feared there was danger. So he urged his Excellency to turn back and send on the victual _recuas_ to try and spring the trap, if there was one. We have done it, and crave indulgence, since it was but our orders, noble captain.' I saw Frank's face darken with anger in the flare of the torches we had now kindled. He turned quickly from the muleteer to us who stood by. 'Mr. Oxenham,' said he sternly, in a firm low voice, 'it was one of your company that spoiled all, for it was ere he reached us that this discreet gentleman changed his pace. What does it mean?' 'Sergeant,' said Harry, who now stepped forward, 'report yourself for punishment!' Very unsteadily the poor Sergeant came up and gave a reeling salute. He was plainly very drunk, yet to judge by his melancholy face sobered enough to know what he had done. 'I could not help it, Captain Drake,' blurted the unhappy man. 'I had not seen a horse for nigh on a year. I could not choose but look when I heard him come. It would have been well, but the Cimaroon who was with me jumped on my back to pull me down, and so we rolled over, and the enemy's horse descried us.' 'Enough,' said Frank sharply; 'you are a fool, and shall smart for your folly, but not now. We have other work. Go! You are Mr. Waldyve's prisoner.' With another salute a little more steadily he faced about and withdrew, crestfallen beyond all words. I could see Frank was consumed with anger, but yet he gave it not rein, for he had need of his calmness. That we were thus disappointed by the folly of one of our own company was bad enough when we had come so near to so great success, but there was worse beyond. Our case was a very desperate one, that was plain. We had failed, and nothing was left us but to escape as quickly as we could to our ships, or at least the forest, ere the Spaniards could gather a force to attack us. How far they had discovered us was our only doubt, and Frank again questioned the muleteer to find out what they knew of our numbers. 'Nay, that I know not,' said the man. 'Yet I am persuaded that unless you make haste away they will be upon you with all the force they can muster. They have good reason to fear your strength, or otherwise his Excellency would have trusted to his own guard. I tell you this because I owe them a grudge for making me a cat's-paw.' 'But why did he not trust to his guard?' asked Frank. 'Why, for good reason enough. "What folk can these be?" he says to the gentleman that met us. "Well," says he, "there are only two who would have stomach for this wild stroke into the heart of Tierra-Firme, where no pirate has ever dared to set his foot before. I tell your Excellency it is Drake or the Devil." "Say rather the Devil Drake," says his Excellency, and thereupon very easily is persuaded to send me on instead of himself.' This answer after his own heart brought a smile to the general's face in spite of his anger, and helped him to calmly choose what course we should take. There were but two. One was to return by the terrible long and painful way we had come; the other the short way along the road through Venta Cruz. The former was the safest, but we were all wearied out and footsore. Moreover, though disappointed of the gold and jewels, we had some two loads of silver to carry. I know not if it were past our strength to attempt it, but I know that desperate as we were over our cruel failure it was long past our inclination. Pedro, who told us all this, stood waiting for an answer as the captain pondered. I knew what Frank was thinking of, for he presently looked hard at the Cimaroon. In success he doubted not their faith. In failure could he trust them? This was the last and greatest of our perils, enough in all to have crushed a heart less stout than his. 'Pedro,' says he suddenly, still staring hard at the chief out of his wide blue eyes, 'will you give me your hand not to forsake me if I do it?' The Cimaroon knew what he meant; so did we all. He drew his muscular black frame to the full height very proudly before he answered. 'Captain Drake,' says he then, 'you and I are chiefs who have sworn company. Rather would I die at your feet than leave you to your enemies, if you dare hold to it, as I know you dare.' With that they gripped hands, and Frank, turning cheerfully to the company, gave us his resolution. 'Seeing we have failed, lads,' said he, 'we must even haste back to our ships as fast as we may, from which we have been too long absent already, that we may defend them in case they be attacked, and moreover to let things quiet down a bit till we can try again. For try again we will, since I am resolved not to leave this coast till our voyage be made. Well, there are two ways back--one the long and weary track by which we came, the other short and quick, but it lies through Venta Cruz.' He paused a moment to see the effect of his words, which seemed to catch the breath of those who listened, and they looked from one to the other as he went on. 'By the long way half of us will drop with fatigue, to be picked up by Spaniards. The short way is easy along the high road. The mules will carry us as far as the town, and then all we have to do is to force a passage. I am for the short way; who is for the long?' Not a man spoke, half of them being still breathless, I think, at the thought of this desperate expedient. Had any other man proposed it we should have set him down for a mad fellow, but we had all come to think that nothing was too hard for us under our heroic general, and not a man demurred. 'Then we are all for the short way,' cried Frank. 'Mount then, and away! There is no time to lose, if we do not want the whole Panama garrison at our heels.' In a few minutes we were all ambling on our borrowed steeds on the road towards Venta Cruz, silent and oppressed with thinking of our forlorn attempt, yet each desperate and resolved to do his best. So we continued till within a mile of the town, where the road entered the forest again. A very perilous pass it looked, and Frank called on us to draw rein. The road was but from ten to twelve feet wide, and on either side a dense wall of tangled boughs and vines, reaching high above our heads, as thick as any well-kept Kentish hedge. For in that land the growth of the woods is so fast and rank that were it not that men were always at work shredding and ridding the way, it would be altogether lost and overgrown in one year. This constant cutting had made the leafy walls on either hand as dense as I have said, so that a man could hardly push through them without hurt. Just as we drew rein I saw dimly, from where I rode in front with Frank, that our two Cimaroons had stopped about half a flight ahead of us. We drew near, and saw they were snuffing the air through their widely-distended nostrils like hounds. 'Small shot in the wood!' they said, as we came to them. 'Where?' says Frank. 'Can you see them?' 'No,' said the elder Cimaroon; 'but we can smell their matches. It is sure the wood is full of them on either hand.' We could neither see nor smell anything, but doubted not it was as these strangely gifted men had said. The Spaniards had been too quick for us; they were ready. Clearly it was to be no Nombre de Dios affair again. 'What is to be done?' said I. 'Why, go through with it,' said Frank. 'Now, lads, the wood is full of harquebusiers in ambush; we must force a passage. Hold your fire till their first volley is spent. Then one old English salute, and at them at push of pike in the old fashion!' Our prisoner and the _recuas_ were now turned away, with strict charge that none should follow us on pain of death. The Cimaroons divided the burden of the silver amongst them, and once more we pressed on. 'Ho! stand!' suddenly comes out of the darkness, and a Spanish captain glittering in brilliant harness steps into the road. 'Ho!' returns Frank, as though the road were his own, 'stand and declare yourself!' '_Que gente?_' says the Spaniard, very proud. 'English,' says Frank, blowing up the match of his pistol; 'what would you?' 'Gentlemen Englishmen,' cries the Spaniard, 'it pains me to be so discourteous as to deny you passage this way. In the name of his most Catholic and Puissant Majesty the King of Spain, I bid you yield yourselves; and promise you, on the word and faith of a Castilian and a gentleman soldier, in that case to use you with all courtesy.' 'Most worthy captain,' says Frank, 'it is utter grief to me that we are in too great haste to grant you this favour, and are forced to inform you, notwithstanding your courteous offer, that for the honour of her most High and Mighty Majesty the Queen of England, Defender of the Faith, we must have passage this way.' A sharp crack from Frank's pistol was the fitting conclusion to his speech, and I saw the Spaniard reel. Then there was a roar in front of us. Long tongues of flame leaped from the thickets ahead on either hand. A hot iron seemed to sear my leg. Frank clapped his hand to his thigh, and the man on the other side of me fell forward with a terrible cry. Thick and fast their shot whistled by. The Cimaroons had entirely disappeared, and we took what shelter we could. The narrow road was now full of choking sulphurous smoke. We could see nothing but here and there the leaping flash of a harquebuss or the glimmer of a match. Almost as suddenly as it had begun their fire slackened, and then a merry trill went up, shrill and clear, from Frank's whistle. We were all out in the road again in a minute. Bow-strings were singing, and small shot barking, as arrows and slugs went tearing into the dense smoke. Then we knew our silence had done its work, and brought the enemy rashly out of their cover. Shrieks, groans, curses, followed our discharge, and gave us courage to advance, which we did at a run through the choking smoke. Still we could not come to push of pike. They seemed to be retreating before us. 'Where are the Cimaroons?' said I, as I ran by Frank's side. 'I know not,' he said; 'God grant they have not deserted us.' The words were hardly out of his mouth when an unearthly yell arose behind us, and Pedro bounded past towards the town. In a moment the air was rent with the horrible screams of his people. Encouraged, as I think, by hearing us advance, they had issued from the cover, where their horror of gunpowder had driven them. Howsoever they had feared before, they were now most terrible to behold. Like incarnate fiends they bounded on before us, leaping, dancing, casting up their arms, and all the while yelling, '_Yó pehó! Yó pehó!_' in most evil sort, and singing unearthly spells, after the fashion of their own savage warfare. Their frenzy seemed to give them more than human power; and even as they ran they leaped so high as I never saw before, nor all the while did they cease to discharge their deadly arrows and awful war-cries. Whether it were witchcraft or not I cannot tell, but very soon we were all as mad as they, and ran so fast that before the Spaniards reached the town gate we overtook many of them. They tried to make a stand, but it was to no purpose. The Cimaroons burrowed into the thickets like snakes, and drew them forth by the heels, never ceasing to yell their rhythmic '_Yó pehó! Yó pehó!_' Half of the enemy we now saw were monks, who kicked and screamed most lustily till they were speared by the maddened Cimaroons. Still a few pikemen boldly held their ground with the captain; and in this struggle a few more of us were wounded. The Cimaroons fought like demons. One close by me was run through with a pike, whereupon, so mad was he, that he drew himself along the shaft till he could reach the Spaniard who held it, and then stabbed his enemy to the death. Such a sight of frantic, wanton daring I never saw. It seemed to strike terror into our enemy; for incontinently with a cry of horror they fled, and we leaped after them so fast that all entered the town together--sailors, Spaniards, friars, and Cimaroons, in one confused throng. We gave them no time to recover their senses, but hustled them clean into the monastery, where we locked them up. In a very short space the town was fairly in our hands, and all quiet. Guards were set at the gate where we had entered, and also at the bridge at the other end of the town, whereby we should have to pass out over the river to continue our way. Then we had leisure to look to our wounds, which, though many, were slight, seeing that the enemy had but powdered us with hail-shot. The man who first fell by me was the only one of the company sorely hurt, and he died very soon after. Our business in the town occupied us about an hour and a half. Amongst other merchandise we dealt in were above a thousand bulls and pardons which had newly come out of Rome. With these the mariners made more sport than was needful, yet the church and all other things ecclesiastic were respected. We found some women there, moreover, with new-born infants, who had come thither because no Spanish child may safely be born in Nombre de Dios by reason of its pestilent airs. These were terribly affrighted by our presence, and would not be content till the general went to them himself as soon as he had leisure, to show it was indeed Francis Drake who had taken the town, whereby they were forthwith comforted, knowing that in his hands they were safe, as indeed they were, even from the fury of the Cimaroons, who very faithfully kept their word to the general, and hurt no one after the fight was done. Our dealings, though not large, brought us no little comfort for the loss of our Treasurer, and it was more heavily laden than when we entered that we continued our way, after blocking the bridge to prevent pursuit. CHAPTER XXIV Of the terrible march we had ere we regained our ships I will not speak. Our spirits were at the lowest ebb by reason of our failure, for what we had seen in the governor's cellars at Nombre de Dios had so turned our heads that we counted the plunder we had got as nothing. Moreover our general was in a desperate hurry to reach the ships before evil befell them, and we therefore marched so rapidly that we had no time or strength to get proper victuals, and were always half fasting. Our boots were worn to tatters, our feet cut and blistered, our wounds galled us, the mosquitoes tormented us, and beneath all, as I say, rankled our failure. Under such a load of trouble I think we should have sunk had it not been for Frank, who never ceased to cheer us with new plans for the making of our voyage. What bred most wonder in me was the order he took to lighten our pains. For if one complained of his worn boots or his wound, Frank would always complain louder, and cry plague on the stones, the boots, the gnats, and everything. I knew his wound was slight and his feet whole, so asked him the reason of his words. 'Why,' says he, 'see you not that the poor lads, however bad they be, will take some grain of courage if they think there is one who is worse and yet can go on? and moreover, where captain and men share alike you are most sure to find yourself marching in company content.' Yet for all this many fainted by the way, and then the Cimaroons would cease their valiant bragging, which otherwise was unceasing since our capture of Vera Cruz, and bear such as could not walk between two of them very loving and cheerful for two miles or more at a spell. The poor Sergeant, the cause of all our woe, plodded on in silence at Harry's heels. He looked like a man who would never joy again, and by no means could I win him to speech. Seven days we toiled thus to the mouth of a river called by the Cimaroons Rio Tortugas, and hither to our great joy came the master, Ellis Hixom, to whom our captain had sent, and took us off to Fort Diego in the pinnace. There was great joy at our meeting in spite of our little plunder, since they had begun to fear we were destroyed. They said they hardly knew us for the same men, except the captain, so haggard and thin and burnt we were, to say no more of the tatters to which the brakes and stones had turned our clothes. Hunger and toil and grief had doubtless made great havoc with us, and the fire of that terrible sun had burnt us well-nigh black. My Señorita, to whom I went for comfort soon after I got to the ships, seemed quite shocked to see me. 'Madre de Dios, Señor!' she cried, clasping her little hands in terror. 'How you are changed! Ah! and you are wounded. It is well you have come back to me to be made yourself again. Indeed I am glad you are come back.' She held out her hands in such frank welcome that I felt half healed already, and sat down as she bade me on her own cushions. 'Indeed I am glad you are come back to us,' she said again. 'Then did not Master Hixom treat you well?' I asked. 'Ah, I hate him,' she said, knitting her dainty brows. 'He is a stock, a stone, a log! He kept us well, but I hate him.' I never knew why she was so hot against him, but I could only smile to think she must have tried her coaxing on him as she had on me, but with less success. He was a flinty Puritan from Plymouth with a wife and children, who would not have unbent, I think, had Princess Helen herself put up her lips to him. She begged me to come and be her gaoler again, and I left her with such hope as it was not hard to give. That evening as I sat with others in the general's bower, talking over what next was to be attempted, we were surprised by Sergeant Culverin saluting in the doorway. 'I come, Captain Drake, by your leave,' says he, holding himself very stiff, 'to report myself for punishment.' 'I shall give you none,' says Frank, but looked very stern at him, for he was ever slow to forget a fault. 'You have suffered enough already with your wound, and what of your fault is unpunished is wiped out by your valiant bearing before Venta Cruz.' For indeed he had done wonders there, and had gotten a sore pike-thrust in the arm, from which he had suffered great pain unmurmuring on our pitiful march. 'By your leave, Captain Drake,' said he, when Frank finished, 'I crave you allot some punishment to me. It was a most grievous breach of the discipline of the wars, and I shall joy no more till it be atoned. Moreover it will be an evil example to the youth of your company, and like to breed much discontent and danger to our voyage if I go unpunished. Therefore, for the love of soldiership, I pray you omit not this just dealing with me. The Signor John Peter Pugliano always held----' 'Peace, enough!' said Frank. 'It shall be as you say, so you will spare us your Italian's wisdom. I reverence your soldiership, and adjudge you the honourable estate of an hour on the hobby-horse.' A rail was soon set up by some of the mariners, who were nothing loath to be revenged on the old soldier. On this he was speedily set with his hands bound behind him, and a harquebuss hanging to each foot. There he sat stiff and upright, as though he were in the emperor's tilting ground again. He gave no heed to the jeers of younger sailors, but sat grimly on uncomplaining. As I passed him presently I could see the pain was as much as he could bear, weak as he was from hunger and his wound. Just then one threw a tuft of grass at him. Then he looked round fiercely, but he only bit his lip to keep in the angry burst that was on his tongue, and stared grimly in front of him again. Then two or three began to whisper it was a sin that such a tall fellow who took his punishment so well should be tormented for what was after all but too deep a pull at his flask. So they went amongst the others, and the jeering ceased. Then they fell to encouraging him and watching the sand-glass, till at last, seeing how stiff and grim he still sat, they went in a body to Frank and would not be content till they had leave to take him down, which at last they did, in spite of his angry protesting that he would sit his punishment out. So their past toils and grief were fast forgotten, and all talk was of what was to be attempted next. Some were for attacking the treasure frigates which were sure to be moving on the coast now the Plate Fleets were in, but others counted this but folly, seeing how strong and well manned with soldiers were the wafters that convoyed them. Others, amongst whom was Mr. Oxenham, were for gathering fresh victuals from the provision ships, which were always unprotected, that we might thereby recover our sick and get sufficient strength for another attempt by land, which now was not to be thought of, seeing that all the Main was alarmed and half our company sick. Pedro was very earnest for us to attempt Veragua, a rich town between Nombre de Dios and Nicaragua, where his former master, Señor Pezoro, had the richest gold mine in all the north side, whence he won daily above £200 worth of gold. All this he stored in a great treasure house, to which Pedro promised he could lead us undescried through the woods and make us masters of the untold treasure therein. Every Cimaroon on the Main would further our attempt, he said, because this Pezoro was known to be worse than a devil to his slaves, and hated more than any man in all the Indies. But our general was loath to undertake so long a march, though sorely tempted by the greatness of the prize. Our company was too much broken by wounds and sickness to venture so far, so it was concluded to send forth two pinnaces, which were all we could man, to try what could be done. Mr. Oxenham took the _Bear_ eastwards towards Tolu to gather victuals, as he had wished, while the general took the _Minion_ to ply towards the west, and have dealings, if it were possible, in the treasure trade, which we knew to be great at this time from Veragua and Nicaragua to the Fleet. As for me, I was far too sick with my wound to join either; but not being quite so spent as some, was able to take my old charge of the prisoners. Being little able to walk, I was almost entirely in the ship with the Spaniards. Indeed I had little duty or pleasure elsewhere. Hixom, our master, was again set over those that remained, and, since Harry, Frank, and Mr. Oxenham were away in the pinnaces, there was no one amongst the mariners with whom I cared to converse so much as the courtly old Scrivano and his friends. And why should I not confess the rest since I have unfolded so much? Whether I did wrong I cannot tell. I had abandoned the guide whom all my life I had followed, because, as I thought, he had only led me astray. It was hard to trust to anything again. Often I would play with Harry's rapier and think. I know not if the quick, hard life I had been leading was to blame, but it would not say me Ay or No! After all my recent toil and labour it was so pleasant, to have her at my side, to look at and talk to. Pleasant, too, it was to see how she was bent on winning me, whether for her father's sake to earn him favour at my hands, or for very wanton love of winning a new kind of conquest, I cannot tell; pleasant, too, to mark how lovingly she sought to ease my pain and beguile the lagging hours, how tenderly she dressed my wound and smoothed my pillow when she bade me sleep. What wonder, then, if I gave myself up to the sweet beguilement! What wonder if, when she had set me to rest and no one was by, I drew the pretty face to mine and our lips met! I know not, I say, how I shall be blamed. She was so sweet and gentle and kind; I was so weak and weary. It was all I had to give; it was the payment most grateful to her. Well! well! It is long past now for good or ill. If any has been so diseased as I in body and spirit and so sweetly tended, lying as I did all day in the murmur and savour of a tropic spring in the midst of those jewelled seas, let him judge me. There were some among my prisoners who looked on with little ease and twirled their fierce moustaches, but the worldly old Scrivano would not have it otherwise. 'Let them be,' he would say; 'it will not last for ever. A friend at court is worth winning.' It was when she told me this that I first knew a sweet fear that all she did might not be done in wantonness or even for the prisoners' sakes. Till then I had thought it was only in their behoof she was kind, and I trod my flowery path with a light heart. Now I began to doubt we were come to where thorns were hidden beneath the blossoms by the way, but it was still too fair and pleasant for me to stop. In my weakness I said there was still time enough. So we continued till near the middle of March, when Mr. Oxenham returned in great heart with a smart frigate laden with a good store of maize and live hogs and hens, which greatly rejoiced us, since we were pining for fresh food. I was nevertheless not so glad to see him back as I had hoped, since now the general was away there was none to prevent him coming on board my ship every day, where he talked so gaily with my Señorita, to her manifest content, that I wished in my heart his voyage had been less fortunate. I was overjoyed when Frank came back, not only because it put an end to Mr. Oxenham's visits, but also for the news he brought. Off the Cabeças he had met with a frigate of Nicaragua, which he had lightened of a pretty store of gold and her Genoese pilot. This man, who but a week before was at Veragua, had assured our general that the whole coast was palsied with fear of him. So fast had he moved and so suddenly struck that it seemed, so the man said, nothing less than magical, and none knew where their dreaded enemy would next appear. The plain truth was that, eschewing armour after the manner of English mariners, we marched more quickly than the Spaniards ever thought possible, and this greatly increased their fears. So from Nicaragua to Carthagena they lay shivering in their beds, never knowing if they should sleep the night in peace. Our pilot was only too glad to join his fortunes to ours on promise that his right should be done him, and had led our captain into Veragua harbour, where lay a frigate laden with above a million in gold, not daring to venture forth. But by a new order of watch which they had taken, the pinnace was descried and the attempt abandoned, since there lay a still better chance in the Chagres river. The galleys that were to waft the gold fleet, the Genoese said, were laid up at Nombre de Dios to be fitted. Thus there was nothing to protect the gold frigates but land soldiers, with whom Frank doubted not he could deal, if he gathered all his whole men together, and to this end he was now returned to join Mr. Oxenham. The frigate which the _Lion_ had captured, being a very smart one, fell in well with Frank's purpose. She was speedily careened, new tallowed, and launched again, as stout a man-of-war as any on the coast. All the best of our ordnance was set aboard of her, and as soon as Easter was past and the men refreshed Frank set sail with her and the _Bear_ for the Rio Chagres. Being willing to break from the dalliance in which I lived, I had craved to be taken with them, for I was fast mending since fresh meat had grown abundant. But Frank would not hear of it, and once more I was left alone with my prisoners, of which in my heart I fear I was glad. Sweet indeed were the days that followed. Every hour my strength seemed to grow, and since there was nothing to do after I had made my rounds amongst the sick, I wandered with my Señorita along the shore or in the woods wellnigh the livelong day, and was never weary. Yet what we spoke of I cannot tell. I can hardly recall a phrase she uttered, yet she chattered like the golden brook, where we loved best to sit, and I listened more willing and untiring than ever I did to the wisest voices of the ancients. Of herself and of me it seems to me now was all her talk, the empty prattle of a child; yet I sat and watched her ripe face and wanted no more. Ours was the life of the lazy pelicans and the scarlet cranes, and all the other shore fowl that breathed around us that tingling tropic life, and crowned with their presence the enchanting beauty of the scene. Once, and only once, I remember she wandered to deeper things. She spoke of the faith of her people, and how she longed sometimes to be a nun, and have done with love and be good again. 'Are you a heretic?' she then said, suddenly looking at me very wistfully. 'I trust not,' I said, smiling, for it seemed a strangely merry thing to me to see her serious. 'Why do you laugh?' she said, pouting a little. 'My Padre says all Englishmen are Lutheran heretics and will go to torment. How can you laugh at that? It makes me very sad to think of you there, and to think I shall not find you in heaven when I come. Why will you be a heretic and pray to the devil?' 'Ah, gentle Señorita,' I answered, 'never think of those things. Your pretty head must not wear such ugly thoughts. Forget it now; go and crown yourself with flowers as you did yesterday, and I will worship a true goddess and no devil, though something of a witch. So you shall see I am a true believer in your loveliness and no heretic. What would you more?' 'Witch or not,' she answered, rising with a smile, 'I have tamed your tongue, my faithful worshipper, and brought it to a most gentle pacing; I may not choose but be carried now whithersoever it will amble with me.' ''Twas but a sorry jade,' I said, as she rose and gathered some bright flowers that seemed to bend down to kiss her hand. 'Yet since you took the rein I think it can never stumble, nor ever falter or grow dull so long as it feels the gentle spurring of your eye.' 'Save us now, worshipper, from your sharp and stinging comparisons,' she said, as she turned on me radiantly, her pliant figure entwined with a tender vine of rose-coloured flowers, and her glossy hair crowned with glowing blossoms, 'and send your goddess a daintier offering!' 'Nay, goddess,' said I, 'it was a bright and glittering offering enough till your radiance put it out of countenance.' 'Then must you offer me something brighter still,' she said, as she sat herself upon a great rock half hidden in flowers. 'See, your goddess is enthroned. To your knees, errant worshipper; I will endure no heretical postures.' So I knelt before her and offered her such dainty sweetmeat phrases as every pretty woman loves, so they be compounded to her taste and served so that she may taste without offence. In such wise my pretty plaything and I played together till the sun began to sink and I returned to my duties, wondering idly, as the wise Sieur de Montaigne tells us in his _Apology for Raymond Sebond_ he did of his cat, whether she played with me or I with her; and wondering, too, still more to think how the magic of the west, or warfare, or whatsoever else it might be, had changed me. It was barely a year ago since I was alone with another woman, the first I ever knew. How different it was then, and yet perhaps how like, if we but knew the springs of our hearts! But enough of that! Let me not speak of those two with one breath. I seemed another man as I looked backward. Yet was there no miracle. For surely it is no more than natural that, when a man has burst the bonds in which he blindly bound down and tormented his soul, it should grow quickly to its proper shape if it finds itself planted in soil that is apt to its true nature. All too soon, as we thought, and yet perhaps not soon enough, Frank came back with the frigate and the pinnace in company with a goodly bark. 'A fat prize at last,' I cried, as he rowed up to the ship, 'and I not there to see. Is our voyage made?' 'Not yet,' said Frank, 'and yet I hope not far from it. Yonder is no prize, but a Frenchman with seventy good Huguenots aboard, whom we have admitted to our company. Let me present to you her captain, most worthy Monsieur Tetú.' He bowed with great ceremony and much spreading abroad of his hands, and I asked if he had any news from Europe, at which to my surprise he seemed very pained. 'Yes,' broke in Frank, 'he has news. Would God he had not!' 'Is the Queen married then?' I asked quickly, for it was always the first inquiry of strangers in those shifting times. 'No!' answered Frank, 'nor like to be, it seems. Be pleased, Monsieur, to tell Mr. Festing what tidings you bring.' And with that the little French captain, with excited gesture and kindling eyes, poured into my scorched ears the black and awful tale of the Massacre of Paris on St. Bartholomew's day, on the occasion of the King of Navarre's marriage with the Princess Margaret. We could none of us speak for a while when he ended the relation of that most foul and detestable crime. I could only feel leap up in my heart a mad longing, like Frank's, to be revenged, and that speedily. It seemed to revive in me all my old detestation of the Papists, and the whole body of them, innocent and guilty alike, seemed again a cursed thing in my eyes. Many a better man than I was seized with the same mad rage when he knew that tale. How could we be otherwise? Yet I contained myself enough to express my pity to the French captain, who seemed well-nigh broken-hearted at the blot upon his country's fame. 'Truly, Mr. Festing, it is hard to bear,' he said, with a bitterness that cut me to the heart. 'I never thought to see the day when I could say that those Frenchmen were happiest who were farthest from France. That is why I have sailed hither and turned my back on her. I wash my hands of her. She is France no longer, but rather Frenzy, and all Gaul is gall indeed.' His attempt at pleasantry touched me very deeply, for I knew how bitterly he felt the loss of his country, and I tried some apology. 'You are kind, Mr. Festing,' he said, taking my hand very warmly, after the manner of his country. 'It is not France--my pure, simple, single-hearted France--that has done this. It is Italian practices that have over-mastered French simplicity. Truly, sir, Italy is an accursed land, that curses all it touches with its noisome humours.' He seemed a brave heart, and was a seaman in all his inches. For my part I conceived a great liking for him, though I think Frank would have been glad enough to be well rid of him and his company. 'Yet I could not say him nay,' he said to me, 'when I saw his poor fellows more than half starved. Moreover he was so mighty civil, and said that five weeks ago he had heard of us and of our great dealings, as he pleased to put it, and ever since he had been seeking, desiring nothing so much as to meet with the gentlemen who had set the whole Spanish Main in a tremble. I was bound to relieve him with our spare victuals, and so was obliged to abandon our attempt on the Chagres river.' 'And then you agreed to venture in company?' said I. 'Yes,' said he. 'Yet I will not say it was without some jealousy and mistrust, for all his civility. Yet, seeing how earnest he was to be our friend, and how strong to hurt us if he were our enemy, we concluded to take him and twenty of his company and venture equally.' 'And is it man for man and ton for ton again?' I asked. 'No, lad, no,' answered Frank. 'That would never do. As I told our Monsieur, though his company was seventy and mine now but thirty-one, mine must weigh more than his, since in our purposed play the principal actors were not numbers of men, but rather their judgment and knowledge; to which arguments he agreed with the best grace he could. The more so as I showed him his great tonnage was no good in our present case.' 'Then are we not to attempt the Chagres fleet?' said I. 'No,' he answered; 'that is where they are looking for us. We must attempt the place where they last expect us.' 'And where is that?' said I. 'Where but knocking at the back door of Nombre de Dios,' he answered, laughing to see my surprise at this his wildest plan of all. 'Now save you, Frank,' said I, 'from a very mid-summer madness! You will never get in there again, or at least get out again if you do.' 'Oh,' says he, ''tis not so mad as that. We have no cause to go in. We will get the gold outside. The great _recuas_ are passing by road now the whole way. What is easier with our present help than to deal with one of them when it is all but home, and thinks all danger is over? Pedro will lead us thither, into the Rio Francisco and then a little march. I have already sent for the Cimaroons. Many times, Jasper, we have struck amiss. God has shown the Spaniards great mercy; yet now, I think, since He has sent us this French company, with tidings of this last most bloody dealing of the Italian priest against His faithful people of Paris, it is surely His will that we shall entreat these idolaters according to their iniquity; and so by His grace we will, and our voyage be made.' CHAPTER XXV In six days all was ready, and our Frenchmen sufficiently refreshed from the nearest magazines to undergo the labour of our desperate attempt. When the hour was come I went to take leave of my Señorita. 'Sweet goddess!' said I, for she would not be otherwise named by me, 'your faithful worshipper comes to crave your leave to depart.' 'Madre de Dios!' she said, looking at me with wide, frightened eyes. 'What new wild venture is this? When will this devil cease to torment my people and set us free?' 'Does my goddess then so long to change her paradise?' I asked. 'Yes,' she answered petulantly, 'for her worshipper loves her not and is faithless, or he would be content to stay here in paradise. But no,' she went on, starting suddenly up, 'you shall not go. I forbid it. You will be killed, and I--I shall be left with these rough men. You must stay and worship me.' 'Nay, let me go and worship you,' said I. 'Lip-service is unworthy to offer at your shrine; I will go and bring you better offerings than that, so you will give me leave.' With such jesting talk I tried to win her free consent, that we might not mar the pleasant comedy we played. Still she would not give it, and I thought she but held it back in her wanton way, wishing for more. But at last her face quite altered, and she turned quickly on me. 'Hold! hold!' she said. 'Your tongue has a devil. You and your captain are devils together. Go to him; but--oh, Gasparo, I have played too long--I have played till play has grown to earnest. Go! but come back to play no more. Come back to love me; or, Gasparo,' she continued, sinking her voice to an awe-hushed whisper, 'I know the devil will come into my heart, too, and drive me to do I know not what.' Just then Frank's whistle sounded a shrill call to embark. I could not think what to say or do. I bent over her to snatch a hasty kiss and go, since it was so we always parted now, but she shrank away. 'No!' she said; 'the play is done. Our lips shall meet no more till they meet in earnest, till they meet in love. Go now, and the Holy Mother be with you!' An hour afterwards I was sailing merrily onwards, bearing room for the Cabeças. 'Our fleet was made up of the new-tallowed frigate and two pinnaces. In them were fifteen English, twenty French, and our Cimaroons; and who amongst them all was so tormented with his crowded thoughts as I, or rejoiced so much in the perilous nature of our enterprise? What would have happened to me and her I cannot dare to think, had it not been that my thoughts were occupied more and more fully each mile we sailed with the wild excitement of our new, most daring enterprise. By the time we had passed the Cabeças, where we left the frigate with a mixed guard, and were sailing with the pinnaces aloof the shore towards the Rio Francisco, all I had left behind was wellnigh lost in what was to come. Arrived at the river, which is but five leagues by sea from Nombre de Dios, we landed very quietly and dismissed the pinnaces, charging those that had guard of them to return to the Cabeças and be in the river again without fail in four days, which time, Pedro deemed, was all that we should want, since now the _recuas_ were coming daily from Panama, and the road by Nombre de Dios was not above seven leagues from the spot where we landed. So we started through the dense forest once more in our old order, yet in better heart than ever, in spite of our miscarriages. For now we knew what the danger was and feared it less. Besides, there was not one of us in whose heart did not burn a mad desire for revenge. The flame of anger which the news from Paris had kindled in all the company consumed every other thought, and none cared what came of him so long as he made shift to strike one good blow in return. A great part of our company had sailed under the Prince of Condé's commission in the old days in the narrow seas, and some even had served in French ships, whereby a sort of brotherhood had grown up between our mariners and the Huguenots--a kindliness which those now with us did not a little to keep warm by the very cheerful spirits with which they infected us. During all the voyage from Fort Diego they had made great light of our perils, and protested a very great readiness for the attempt. Indeed we found their courage very hot, out of their joy, as they ceased not to tell us, at marching under our captain, of whom they had heard so much since they had been on the coast, no less than from the natural disposition of their countrymen for attack, and all services where spirit is of more account than endurance. It was no small hardship to them to hold their peace, and our method of silent and catlike marching, in which, by use, we were now almost as skilful as the Cimaroons, was a great marvel to them, as was the discipline by which it was maintained to their captain. By no means could they come to the same stillness as we, whereat the Cimaroons conceived a great scorn of them, and would give no heed or trust to them. In answer the Frenchmen fell into a great distrust of them, as we burrowed deeper and deeper into the tangled forest and mazy ravines, protesting that it was madness to go on so, since, should the negroes prove false, we could never find the pinnaces again. This was true enough; but Frank gave them to understand such fears were groundless and must not be broached, since we had made long trial of the negroes' constancy, and if they feared that they should never have come. Moreover, he took such sharp order with them, by Monsieur Tetú's consent and furtherance, to have silence observed that in a very short space they were as firmly under his spell as any of us, and things went well again. Having come thus within a mile of the road on the second evening, we chose a place where we might lie and refresh ourselves all night, since the _recuas_ did not reach Nombre de Dios till morning. This was a perilous time for us, for the Frenchmen, being new to the trade, were, for the most part, too excited to sleep. Nor can I blame them, for we lay so near to that great town, wherein were now enough soldiers to have eaten our whole company at a sitting, that we could hear plainly what was passing there. As we lay in the brakes, still as mice, we could mark the lazy challenge of the watch and the noisy laughter of the guard at their cups, mingling with the busy din of the carpenters on the fleet. They had just begun work; for, because of the great heat, they do not work in the day, and all night long there came up from the harbour the sounds of saw, and axe, and hammer, as they wrought busily to get the fleet ready for sea. Soon after we came thither two _recuas_ passed out of the Panama gate and toiled up the hill to us with such a monstrous clanging of bells that we had much ado to keep the Frenchmen quiet, so moved were they at the sound. Soon they passed. We could hear their music die away towards the south, and then on that side all was still, and we fell to listening to the labour in the harbour again. Hour by hour the still night wore on. The Englishmen about me fell asleep, as well as some of the French, though I grieved to see the wine-flasks passing about amongst others more than gave hope of cool heads in the morning. Harry, who lay by my side, was one of the first to compose himself to rest. I saw him take out a little picture from his breast. I knew too well what it was. He kissed it lovingly, and then quietly stretched himself out and lay quite still. The Sergeant slept at his feet. Harry had craved leave for him to come and retrieve his reputation, saying well he was the least likely of all the company to get us descried again. It was in the first gray of the morning that I awoke, with Harry's hand on my shoulder and the faint sound of bells in my ears. His face was radiant, and he held up his finger to bid me listen. Close by lay a Cimaroon with his head uplifted, like a dog when he suddenly hears a strange tread at hand. His eyes were wide open, glistening and bloodshot, and his big white teeth gleaming as he listened intently. I could see he was greatly excited, and so was I to watch him. Suddenly he turned to me as though satisfied. 'What is it?' I whispered. 'The biggest luck ever men done got,' he answered. 'Hark! hark!' 'Yes,' said I; 'I can hear it is a _recua_ from Panama, and a big one by the sound.' 'A _recua_!' he answered scornfully. 'It is one, two, three _recuas_! Now you will have more gold and silver than all of us can carry away!' 'And more soldiers than we can drive away perhaps,' whispered Harry; 'but we must strike all the lustier, that is all.' Our talk was cut short by the word being passed that we should creep on to the edge of the road, which we did very quiet and quickly, being divided into two bands, under the general and Mr. Oxenham, as before, that we might strike head and tail again. By the time we were in our places I could not doubt that what the Cimaroon had said was right. The sounds from the town were hushed as the dawn brightened, and I could plainly hear such a clanging of bells as told me clearly there must be many more mules than I had ever heard together before. Nearer and nearer they drew; and the louder waxed the deep-toned music, so sweet in our ears, the quieter were we. Not a sign was there to tell of our presence, save now and again the dull snap of a bow being bent, or the low sound of breath as the matches of our small-shot men were blown up, or a gentle rustle of the brakes as a young hand moved nervously. Everything was at last drowned in the clash of the bells. Now they had quite passed Mr. Oxenham's party in the rear. Now the clank of arms was abreast of us. I saw Frank's whistle at his lips, once more its piercing note split the air, and we were all on our feet rushing down into the road, shouting, 'Drake! Drake!' like madmen. As I leapt down into it I could see a sight that made my heart bound. Some three hundred mules, laden with little leather bags, and all tied tail to tail, stretched along the road. In front glittered the morions and corselets of some score of soldiers, and at different points in the line and in the far rear, where our men were already engaged, were more. In front of all rode two or three officers in splendid armour. But there was no time to see more. In a moment I had discharged my pistol, and was hand to hand at it with the foot. Harry was by my side at like work, and I could see the Sergeant, sword in hand, making for one of the officers. At our first onset they fell back, being quite unprepared and dismayed with our shot and arrows. Half of them carried their morions in their hands, and none had their matches ready. So we were left to stop the mules, which all lay down quietly as before, but it was only a short respite. The balls and hail-shot were soon flying about our ears up the narrow road. Poor Captain Tetú rushed most valiantly upon them, sword in band, but was doubled up in the road before he came to his distance. For a while it was desperate work. In a confused mass we fought and struggled together, and the woods re-echoed with the explosions of the small shot and the frantic cries of 'Drake! Drake!' and 'Santiago! Santiago!' I was hand to hand again with a soldier, who gave me stiff work, when I heard the plunging of a horse and the whistle of a blade behind me. I made sure my end had come, and turned to hear a thundering shout of 'Drake,' and see Sergeant Culverin dash by into the thick of the foot. He seemed a new man. As he passed he slashed at my opponent and set me free. I could not even then but admire his splendid management of his frantic horse in the press. Hewing and slashing, he made straight for a mounted officer, who was fighting like a lion. Involuntarily I paused to watch and get my breath. Straight at him the Sergeant rode, and with a sudden check of the bit, made his stolen charger rear right up against the Spaniard, at his rein hand, so that he was wholly guarded from the officer's blade. Then as the horse descended the Sergeant's heavy 'schiavona' rang upon the Spaniard's morion. The officer reeled in his saddle, his sword dropped, and his horse turned and galloped madly out of the press towards the town. The old riding-master had been too much for the cavalier's skill. The victory of our horse seemed to paralyse the foot. Resistance ceased. They only thought of escape. Down the road, into the woods, anywhere, they fled to avoid us. 'Yó pehó! yó pehó!' seemed once more to people the air with fiends, as the leaping, yelling Cimaroons danced after them, almost as fast as the Sergeant rode. How far he would have continued his pursuit in the midst of his diabolic company I cannot tell, for Frank's shrill whistle called all back. Mr. Oxenham's work was done as soon as ours, for the Spaniards in the rear, having no officer to encourage them, were soon persuaded to leave the mules in his care. So that now all hands were wanted for the heaviest part of the task, which was to get our plunder into the forest. Like children we went at it, half-mad with joy over our extraordinary good fortune. After all our toil and all our failures we had succeeded at last, and that beyond all our hopes. We found our prize was one _recua_ of fifty mules and two of seventy. Every mule carried three hundred pounds' weight of silver, making in all some twenty-five tons, besides such store of jewels and yellow bars and quoits as made us have no eyes for the baser metal. 'All hands now,' sang out Frank, 'to ease the mules, which must be sore weary, and yarely now! or the Spaniards will be taking pains to stay us doing the poor animals this kindness. And, Sergeant,' he said, as Culverin reined up, 'our horse shall go to the front to give us advertisement of their coming, that we may prepare a salutation for them.' 'An honourable service, Captain Drake,' said the Sergeant, beaming with delight, 'for which I crave leave to thank you.' 'Nay, Sergeant,' laughed Frank, 'it is yours of right. I marked how you took the weather of the cavalier. I never brought up to windward better myself. Away now, for we must work.' And indeed there was need. In spite of the huge loads the Cimaroons could carry, it was no light or speedy labour we had, especially since some were hurt. Yet the only sore wound we had was the French captain's, who was so grievously struck with hail-shot in the belly that he could not walk, in spite of most valiant endeavours. The whole time we worked we could hear the turmoil our visit had caused in the town. Trumpets were braying and drums beating up and down, as though the devil had broken loose, as perhaps they thought he had. We could not doubt that the soldiers we had relieved had given, after the manner of Spaniards, so monstrous and boasting an account of our numbers that the whole garrison was making ready to visit us. Indeed, as our last mule was eased, the Sergeant came galloping in to bring news of a mighty preparation of horse and foot on the march out of the Plaza, as he guessed by the notes of their trumpets. This great preparation was our saving instead of our undoing, for by the time the enemy's horse and foot reached the _recuas_ the foremost of us were already far in the woods, intent on burying some of our silver, which was over and above what we could carry. Being thus busy we could not receive them, and since they had no mind to follow us through the forest, we could not choose but disappoint them in their intention of saluting us. Some fifteen tons we buried, partly under fallen trees, partly in the bed of a river, and partly in the holes of land-crabs, whereof we found a colony, and begged of them this hospitality; and so, with some ten tons of silver and all the gold and jewels, we went on our way, the Cimaroons bearing loads which were a marvel to us all how they did not break their backs. At a fitting place the Cimaroons made a little house for the French captain, for by no means could he be persuaded to cumber us, so that we should carry less of the treasure. He stoutly protested that nothing but a rest would save his life. So, being unable to move him from his valiant resolve, we were compelled against our wills to leave him in charge of two of his men, who vowed they would not desert their captain while there was a spark of life left in him. We had not gone far when the Frenchmen began to cry out that one of their number was missing, and were for going back, thinking him to be lying wounded on the road. Upon this our captain made searching examination to find out how it should be, which he soon did from a Cimaroon. 'I done see him,' said the negro. 'He done got too much pillage and too much wine, so he done go on before in a hurry to get to the ships. I think he done lost his way.' This indeed was true, as we had occasion afterwards to know. Our captain was angry at it, and would not stay longer, being in a great hurry to get to the pinnaces in the Rio Francisco before they were discovered by the Spaniards, as he doubted not they would endeavour, having been so outwitted by us. So we toiled on under our loads, through, a terrible tempest of rain and wind which overtook us, and made our march none the easier by reason of the swollen torrents and mire. Yet if we had heavy loads we had light hearts, and comforted ourselves with a hundred jests at our luck, no less than with a speedy hope of reaching our pinnaces. It was early on the second day that we came to the river, and all quickened their pace to be among the first to tell their comrades the news. Yet were our pains thrown away; for when we had passed out of the forest and reached the rendezvous not a sign of the pinnaces was to be seen, only the river rolling down in double volume, brown and swollen from the rain. 'Where can they be?' said I to Frank. 'Nay, lad, who can tell?' he said, looking very grave. 'Unless,' he added more cheerfully, 'the tempest has delayed them. The wind was westerly. Let us go and have a look out to sea. Maybe they are even now at hand.' In great anxiety we hurried to a place whence a great part of the coast could be descried, and the rest who were not too weary, seeing what the general did, followed. Eagerly, as the sea opened out before us, we scanned its glittering surface towards the Cabeças, whence our pinnaces were to come, and there, to our horror, we saw rowing, as though from the very spot, seven Spanish pinnaces, crammed with men in glittering harness! CHAPTER XXVI Certain men, whom misfortune and loss of riches have driven to seek comfort in philosophy, have devoured much paper and spilled an infinity of ink in dispraise of gold and silver, railing at those metals with a plentiful store of scornful epithets, to show their baseness and want of true value. Had any such been with us now they would have found a very plausible argument for their conclusions. Rolling in gold and silver, we were destitute; though oppressed with wealth, we were poorer than church mice. Willingly we would have given all we had, and more, for one smart, well-furnished frigate in the road. After the discovery of our forlorn state many were so moved that they cast away their gold, and, losing all hope of escape, gave themselves up to despair; and not without excuse. For we could not doubt but that our pinnaces had been taken, and that our stronghold at Fort Diego would be revealed by the torture of prisoners. Thus all hope of ever getting back to our homes was gone; and the greater part of the company, losing all heart, began to murmur and complain very bitterly against the captains who had brought them to such a pass. I can say no more of the depth to which our spirits sank, or the misery of that hour, than that it was one of those times when Frank Drake's nature rose to its greatest height. He leaped upon a log, and with his clear, cheerful voice addressed them without a note of fear or misgiving, where no one else could discern the smallest ray of encouragement or the forlornest hope of safety. 'Shame on you! shame!' he cried. 'What faint-heartedness is this? If you miscarry, so do I. You venture no further than I. And is this a time to wail and fear? If it be, then is it also a time to hasten to prevent what we fear. If the enemy have prevailed against our pinnaces, which God forbid, yet all is not lost. Only half their work is done. They must have time to search and examine their prisoners as to where our strength lies; and then they will want some time to form their resolution, and quarrel who is to command. Ah! you know not Spaniards. Then they will want time to order a fleet twice or thrice as large as needful; item, time to come to our ships; item, time to resolve upon their method of attack; item, time to find stomach to deliver it. And before all this will be discharged we can get to our ships, if you will so resolve, like the men that you have at divers times shown yourselves.' 'But how? how?' they cried, as he paused. 'Why, now you speak like men,' he said, 'and give a captain heart to save you. By land, I think, we cannot come to them, though our Pedro would have us so try. It is sixteen days' journey thither, and before that the Spaniards will have struck. Yet by sea we may. See you those trees God has sent down the river for you by last night's storm? Of those we can make a raft; and four of us sail aloof the shore and call the ships hither. Of those four I shall be one; who will be the others?' The words were hardly out of his mouth when Harry had shouted 'I!' and then followed a clamour of 'I's' in English, French, and Spanish, as half the whites and all the blacks offered themselves when they understood what our captain's words should mean. Finally he chose Harry, as having spoken first, and two Frenchmen, who were great swimmers, because our fellow-venturers boldly claimed, as of right, a half-share in every danger as well as in all plunder. So from despair our captain's resolute words, so cheerfully spoken, raised them all in a short space to a lively hope; and all hands set eagerly to work to bind together some of the trees which the swollen river had brought down. Meanwhile, more grieved than I can say to think that Harry was going to what seemed almost certain death, in spite of what Frank had said, I went to him to try and dissuade him from his purpose. 'Tush!' said he, 'what is there to fear?' 'Nothing for you to fear, I know well,' I answered; 'it is not that. It is what I fear. I have a most evil foreboding that if you go on this venture we shall never see you again.' 'Well, and what matter?' he laughed; 'a man must die once.' 'Yes,' said I, 'but he need not rot to death in a Spanish prison, or die before his time. The Spanish shallops will be scouring all the coast, and must of a certainty pick you up like half-drowned rats ere ever you reach the Cabeças. Why should you do this when there is no need--you who of us all have most to live for?' 'And what have I to live for,' he answered, with clouding brow, 'that others have not?' 'You know! you know!' I said. 'Give me not the pain or shame of saying what. Nay, hear me then,' I went on, as I saw a bitter reply rising to his lips; and then, determined to leave no means untried to preserve him to the woman I had so cruelly wronged, I told him how I had gone back to Ashtead after that terrible night; how I had seen through the window his dear wife kissing his letter and weeping over his child; how I had marked a hundred signs whereby I knew her love for him was only the more pure and ardent for the trial it had undergone. God be praised! if it was He that put the burning words in my mouth with which I told my tale and pleaded my cause. Long had I kept it pent up in my heart, for want of courage to tell him, as well as for fear of increasing his grief and his hate for me; and now it flowed with the full strength of the gathered flood which his long coldness had frozen up in me. What joy was in my heart I cannot tell in words when, ere I had done, he seized my hand in his manly way and said, 'Have your will, brother! Go in my place. If we ever meet again we shall be brothers indeed once more, and brothers we should never have ceased to be had I known you as I should. Let what I do be a token to you. I know the danger of this service as well as you, and never did I think for any man I could turn back from such an attempt when I had offered myself and been chosen. To you, brother, and her, I sacrifice thus my honour in token of how high beyond all words I value this love you have both given me, who deserve it so little.' Bright shone the sun in my heart, bright as the mid-day fire over our heads, as to the music of a hearty cheer we dropped down the river in our frail bark. Frank was steering her with a rude oar which had been shaped from a young tree, the two Frenchmen stood by with poles in case of need, and I managed the biscuit-bag whereof we had made our sail. The Cimaroons had bitterly lamented not coming with us, but them Frank would have stay to succour those who remained, since there we had greatest need of them. 'No,' he had said; 'stay here for a little while to conduct my company by land if I return not. Yet, if it please God that I shall once put foot in safety aboard my frigate, I will, God willing, get you all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies.' With this courageous speech he left the whole company in good heart, because they knew of a surety, since he had so passed his word, that if they were lost it would not be for want of the last effort of the man who best in all the world knew how to save them. Our voyage was evil enough to have damped any spirits less lifted with joy than mine, or less constant than Frank's. The whole time we were up to our waists in water as we sat, and as soon as we reached the open sea we found the swell so big that each wave surged up to our necks, and we had much ado to hold on. Moreover the sun so burned down upon us, all unprotected as we were, that what with the salt water and the scorching, we soon had little skin left that was not all blisters. Yet a very smart breeze was blowing from the westwards, so that we made good progress towards the Cabeças, and so kept up our spirits. It was as the sun was getting low that Frank suddenly cried to me, 'Look! look! Jasper, ahead there off the point!' I looked where he pointed and saw two large pinnaces struggling to weather the headland with oars against the freshening breeze. 'What shall we do?' said I. 'We must drive. We cannot stop. How shall we avoid them?' 'Avoid them!' said Frank, with a merry laugh. 'Why, lad, they are our own, and if we can but make them see, we are saved.' 'Yet perhaps they are prizes to Spaniards,' suggested one of the Frenchmen, 'and are manned by Spaniards.' 'No, monsieur, no,' said Frank; 'you never saw Spaniards row like that. See how they labour, and yet I think they make no head. Pray God they be not cast away on the point!' Indeed as we drew nearer there seemed no small danger of this. The wind was shifting more and more on to the land as it freshened, and we could see they made a lot of leeway. 'They will never do it,' said Frank; 'they are too short of hands. It is hard to be so near safety, yet so far.' Even as he spoke we saw them cease rowing and fall slowly under the lee of the point. In a few minutes they were out of sight, and we blankly confessed to ourselves that they must have resolved to ride out the rising gale and the night in the still water behind the point. It was a bitter disappointment to us, and our new-found joy at finding our pinnaces were still safe gave way to a new-found grief. So intent had we been in watching them that we had not noticed how the shifting wind was driving us a-land. Straight ahead of us was the dark forest-clad point against which the surf was booming and spouting sheets of white spray. It was plain we could never weather it, and that if we continued as we were we must almost certainly be dashed to pieces in the foaming breakers. Eagerly I watched, and tried to persuade myself our raft was bearing better room. Every tilt which the waves gave her I tried to fancy was a change of course, but still we drifted to leeward in spite of the rapid headway we made before the rising gale. All at once, as I watched, our head swung round to leeward and all chance was gone. I looked to see the cause and saw Frank very calm and stern with the helm hard up. 'Now, if ever,' said he; 'pray God to help us. Nay, look not scared, Jasper. It is our only chance. We cannot weather the point, and all that is left is to try and beach the raft this side, and then, if we land alive and whole, make about the point to the pinnaces afoot. All which we can well do, if it please God to send us a big wave and a pleasant beach.' It was indeed a time for prayer. Soon close ahead we could see the breakers rolling in upon the shore rank after rank, a wilderness of boiling foam. I saw the two Frenchmen tighten their belts for the coming struggle. Each of them pulled out a great quoit of gold from his breast. Then they whispered together for a space and put them back. So I kept mine in spite of the danger, if we had to swim, and Frank kept his. In a few minutes we were at the edge of our peril. Frank steadied the raft before the wind like the master hand he was; a raging mass of foam seemed to rise beneath us and shoot us towards the shore. What was in front we could not see. Like an arrow we flew, nor ever rested till we crashed upon the beach. With that hoarse and terrible whistle with which the breakers on a shingly shore seem to draw their monstrous breath for a new effort to destroy, the wave that had borne us went screaming back. In a moment we had leaped on the rolling shingle and rushed up the beach as fast as our remaining strength and our shifting foothold would let us. Again the angry sea swept at us, but it was too late. As once more it retired, drawing its strident breath, we dug hands, feet, and knees into the moving stones till it was gone, and then once more got up and ran. Ere another wave had burst we were in safety, lying breathless upon a flowery bank. Frank was the first to move. I heard him mutter his words of thanksgiving for our safety, and then he called cheerfully to us in high spirit. 'Up, lads, up,' he said; 'we must lose no time. See yonder light to windward; the gale will lessen in another hour, and the pinnaces as like as not will sail. We will go about the point now as quick as we can, and when we see them run our fastest, like men pursued, to give them a rattling fright, that they may prove their quickness to save us since they have been so slow hitherto. It is but fair dealing to put this jest on them for giving us such an evil sail.' This we did, and were no sooner come about the point than we saw the blessed sight of our two pinnaces anchored in a quiet cove. Away went Frank running towards them as hard as he could, and we after him crying at the top of our voices. They seemed terribly afraid to see their captain thus suddenly appear with but three followers, and made the greatest speed to take us aboard. At first Frank did not speak, but sat very solemn and stern, and we, taking our cue from him, did likewise; nor did they ask anything of what our running and sudden appearance might mean. Indeed they feared our news was too terrible for them to be in a hurry to hear it. 'How does all the company?' said one at last. 'Well,' said Frank sullenly, which made them all look more alarmed than ever, till he could bear it no longer, and, bursting into a loud laugh, he drew his golden quoit from his doublet. 'Look there!' he cried, brandishing it in their faces. 'At last our voyage is made!' And so he told them how we had sped, and told the Frenchmen amongst them how their captain was left behind sore wounded, and comforted them by letting them know how two of his company remained with him, and how it was our intention to rescue him. 'And tell me,' he said, 'how it was you discharged not the order I most straitly gave you to be in the Rio Francisco yesterday?' 'We did our best,' said the commander. 'Yet the gale was so strong from the west that with all our rowing we could get no farther than this.' 'Well, God be praised for His mercy,' said Frank. 'Surely is He wiser than man. Had you done as I said, you would have come to the river in the nick of time to be devoured by seven pinnaces from Nombre de Dios, which I doubt not were fitted out for that purpose. I think they have been driven in for fear of the gale, and will be out again as soon as it abates. Therefore we must make shift to continue our way with oars as soon as possible.' And this they cheerfully did before an hour was gone. Their short rest and our news seemed to make new men of them, so that, partly by infinite labour at the oars with our help, and partly by an abating of the wind, we came by morning into the Rio Francisco. There we took all our company and treasure aboard, and so sailed back to our frigate, and thence without mishap to our ships. CHAPTER XXVII Fort Diego was now all astir with preparations for our homeward journey. The first care was to divide our vast booty between ourselves and the Frenchmen; and I, being merchant to the expedition, was so entirely occupied in this that I had no leisure to visit my Señorita, of which it must be said I was secretly glad, for I knew not how to approach her. What little time I had, after my day's weighing and portioning and scheduling was done, I spent in Harry's company. These hours of extreme danger to which we had recently been exposed seemed to have changed the whole world to us. In his gratitude for the poor service I had sought to do him, in his joy to think how his wife still loved him, he seemed to forget all the past and to hold no pleasure so high as being in my company, that he might talk over the old happy days and build plans for spending our new-won wealth, so as best to delight her in the new happy days that were to come. My joy would have been complete had it not been that there still hung over my head the words which my Señorita had used when I bade her farewell. Each hour I felt more keenly I must go to her and tell her plainly that what she wished could never be. I had no doubt of that. To me she was but a plaything. That I was more to her was a thing of which I felt pure shame. I accepted all the blame of it, as a man should. Yet however rightly he may look at it, the task is none the lighter when that man has to go to a woman and tell her he loves her not. The stoutest heart will feel a coward then. It was not till the evening of the third day after our coming, when the plunder was all divided, and we had dismissed our French consorts with their share, that I found heart or leisure to approach her. As I neared the ship where the prisoners dwelt, and which had been hauled ashore for some time past, I could see her stretched lazily in her hammock. It was fastened between the mast and the bough of a tree which grew up hard by and spread its branches over the poop. Here it was that she loved to take her _siesta_, since it was a cool and shady place. As I mounted the poop my discomfort at finding her alone, and at knowing I could not now honestly avoid saying my say, was only increased by her beauty, which never had seemed so great in my eyes. Dressed in a soft loose robe of white, she lay back at full length in her hammock, a picture of womanly grace. One white arm, on which her head rested, was half buried in her lustrous hair. It had become dishevelled in her sleep, and now fell in rich dark masses about her face and neck, enhancing their dazzling whiteness like some frame of ebony in which is set a magic crystal. Her soft cheeks were flushed like those of a newly-wakened child, her ripe lips half parted, her dark-fringed eyelids almost closed. Her other arm lay across her, listlessly moving a fan of crimson feathers. Beyond that languid movement there was no sign of life or motion in her, save the rise and fall of the soft white robe as she drew her breath troublously, like one who is deeply moved. I could not choose but pause, fascinated by a picture whose luxuriant beauty surpassed even the tangled tropic growth that formed its background. But I was soon awakened from my dream, and that rudely too. From behind the mast, where I could not see, came the deep tones of a man's voice pleading very low and earnest. She did not raise her eyes even then, but I could fancy she drew her breath more hardly still. I could not hear the words, and started quickly forward lest I should. Of retreating I never once thought. My coward hesitation was turned to something akin to anger by that half-heard voice, and my only thought was to find out what bold man it was to whom my Señorita gave such familiar audience. She started as she saw me stride to her, but in a moment fell again into her listless attitude, and looked languidly at the man behind the mast. He started too, and I saw to my little ease it was Mr. Oxenham. We stared hard and stiffly at each other, saying nothing. He seemed disturbed by my coming, but hid his confusion by drawing himself to his full height, and gently twisting his well-grown moustache with one hand, while the other rested on his sword. So he stood looking at me and waiting, with eyebrows raised superciliously. 'Has my worshipper no offering for his goddess?' said the Señorita's musical voice. 'I expected something richer than silence after so long an absence.' 'Nay, silence is golden,' said Mr. Oxenham mockingly. 'What would you more? Mr. Festing brings his best.' I know not whether it were self-love or love of her that made their words hurt me so sore, but I know I had much ado to bridle my lips. 'Truly, Señorita,' said I, 'silence is the most precious offering I have to give. Had I never laid on your altar aught less worthy than that, methinks I should have been a more loyal worshipper.' She met my gaze with her dark eyes wide open for a moment, and then dropped them again with a strange little laugh. 'Save me, then,' she said, 'from loyal worshippers! Such barren heretic ritual I call no-worship.' 'Name it as you will, lady,' I answered; 'my comfort must still be that "no-worship" is better than sacrilege. If I cannot be a worshipper, at least I will not profane the shrine.' She flushed a little higher at this, and looked at me again, half inquiring, half frightened, and then once more dropped her eyes. 'Was this what you came hither to say, false worshipper?' she said, as though a little vexed. 'No, lady,' I answered; 'I had much to say, and I came to crave that you would walk with me along the shore while I told my tale, but now I think it needs no telling.' 'Shall he come with us, Señor?' she said to Mr. Oxenham, who still stood twirling the end of his moustache. 'It is for my queen to command,' he said, 'whether I escort her or not.' 'Then, my worshipper,' she said, after a moment's hesitation, 'for this day your attendance is excused;' and with a queenly gesture she held out her little hand for me to salute. It was hard to be dismissed so, although an hour ago I should have looked on any dismissal as the happiest thing that could befall me. Now it angered me. It flashed across my mind to turn roughly away from her, and refuse the caress she offered with such pretty insolence. Yet I hold, however ill a woman may treat a man, yet shall he never better his case by a rude behaviour toward her. So I took the little hand in my fingers, and put it to my lips with ceremonious courtesy, and so withdrew. I turned round at the poop-ladder to descend, and was surprised to see her gazing after me wistfully; but she looked away hurriedly when she saw my eyes upon her, and laughed merrily at something, as I suppose, that Mr. Oxenham said to her. I fancied her merriment seemed to ring a little false; but maybe that was only my fancy. My thoughts were very ill at ease as I sought my lodging. All had gone as I wished. The bonds wherein I had suffered myself heedlessly to be bound to her were unloosed. I was free, and that more easily than I had thought; yet somehow I did not feel released, but rather thrust out and cast away. Harry came in to me later, and fell, as usual, to talking of the joy of our return. Yet to-night it seemed wearisome to hear him. As he pictured the pleasures of his coming life, of the untold joy of living again at Ashtead with the wife whom he had lost a little while and found again, my old library rose up ever in my mind, very cold and dim and lonely, and I found it hard to share his content. As I listened to him my long, low chamber, with its gloomy rows of books, its uneasy settles, and its great stiff chair beside the hearth, became a vivid picture to me, as though I saw it. Each moment it grew more real and gloomy and lonely, till suddenly, I know not how, I seemed to see the beautiful form of the Señorita glowing in the great high-backed chair, and brightening the whole chamber with her sunny presence. I crushed the fancy as it rose, but to little purpose. Try as I would, I could not choose but picture it again and again, not only as Harry talked, but also afterwards as soon as I closed my eyes to sleep. There she always was, in that long, low room, which ever was to me the centre of my life, curled up so prettily in the grim old chair that it seemed quite proud and happy to hold the sweet burden in its rough old arms. As my wife I pictured her there; but all the while I clearly saw what folly it was. How could I, a scholar, wed a wayward piece of Eve's flesh like that, with her wild temper, her empty little head, her utter ignorance of all that made my life? In her whole nature there was not a note to sound in harmony with me. It was a mad folly even to think of it. I knew that; yet how she seemed to brighten the room as she sat curled up in the great chair by the hearth! With great vigour I threw myself into the work of preparation which was going forward, in order that I might forget my foolish fancy. There was plenty to do; for Frank had determined to thoroughly refit and furnish our frigate from the _Pasha_, which ship, being much worn, he purposed to give to the Spanish prisoners, that they might go whither they would. It was then his intention to move with the frigate and pinnaces to the Cabeças, and thence make an effort to recover Captain Tetú and the treasure we had left in the care of the land-crabs. In spite of all my sharp reasoning with myself, I became each day more wretched and distraught as our work neared completion and the day for dismissing our prisoners approached. Yet I was resolved not to see her. 'At her shrine,' I said ever to myself, 'I cannot worship; if I go to her temple again it can only be for sacrilege.' So I went not near her again. But Mr. Oxenham, I think, was continually both on the ship and walking with my Señorita on the shore and in the woods, till the time came for the prisoners departing. It was about a fortnight after our return from capturing the _recuas_, when we had taken all we desired from the _Pasha_, and we no longer feared any danger from our hiding-place being revealed, that Frank announced to the prisoners that they were to be freed on the morrow, and entertained them in the fort by way of taking leave. That night I was captain of the watch. It was close on midnight, as feeling very sad and lonely I was looking out over the land-locked haven to where the _Pasha_ lay ready to sail on the morrow. The moon was rising in great beauty over the dark foliage of the island, and as it shed its light upon the peaceful waters I saw, to my surprise, the _Pasha's_ gondola being rowed toward the shore. I made quickly for the spot where it was likely to touch the beach, telling the guard to stand by and listen well for my whistle, as I suspected some design of the prisoners upon our treasure. Concealing myself in the brakes close to the sea, I waited, and very soon heard the boat grate on the stones. Then I stepped out to see what it might mean; and no less welcome sight could my eyes have seen. For there stood Mr. Oxenham helping the Señorita ashore. I knew it was she, though for some reason I cannot tell she was dressed in the sailor garb in which I had seen her the night of the Cimaroons' attempt upon the prisoners. Whether those two had some wild scheme of escape together, or whether she hoped to pass observation till Mr. Oxenham could conceal her and carry her home in the vice-admiral, which he was to command, I cannot tell. Maybe it was only a romantic fancy of hers to attempt her escape in this disguise, as she had heard of other women doing in old tales, or maybe, knowing well how dazzling was her beauty in that array, she thought thereby to charm her escort the more. This, indeed, I think it did, for as he lifted her out of the boat with great tenderness, I saw him kiss her very lovingly. Then all trace of love or respect for her seemed to leave me, and I felt quite calm as I stepped forward to do what seemed my plain duty, and passed them the challenge. 'What! again?' said Mr. Oxenham fiercely. 'Why, what a meddler are you, that have not heart to love a fair wench, and will yet prevent a man that has!' She started away from him when she saw me. Had she clung to him for protection, I think I could hardly have kept as calm as I did. 'Love or no love, Mr. Oxenham,' said I, 'it is no matter of that here. What you intend I know not, but it is against the general's plain orders that any prisoner should leave the _Pasha_ before she sails, and this lady I must see aboard again.'' 'What a pestilent meddler it is!' muttered Mr. Oxenham, drawing his sword. 'If you want her for your own, by heaven, you shall fight for her.' 'Pray you be content, Mr. Oxenham,' I cried, giving ground, 'or I must summon the guard. What madness is this?' He pressed on so hard, crying fiercely to me to draw, that I saw an encounter could not be avoided; yet I would not whistle for the watch, half for her sake once more, seeing how she was clad and what men would say of her, half for shame of seeking help after Mr. Oxenham's blade was drawn on me. Hoping the better to worst him without doing great hurt, I took my cloak upon my left arm instead of my dagger and drew. He was coming at me with his buckler advanced, and his sword uplifted for a cross-blow like to the _mandritto sgualembrato_, but very unscholarly. So I fell from my draw to the good ward _di testa_, as Marozzo teaches, to receive his blow on my rapier, and hay! straightway in _punta reversa_ threatened my _imbroccata_ at his throat over his hand. He was cleverly ready for it with his buckler, so I lowered my ward suddenly _lunga e larga_, and throwing a resolute _staccato_, under his defence, compelled him to spring backwards out of distance. He came on again immediately with a good down-right fendant, as though he would have broken my ward by main force. I avoided it by a quick _passado_ to the right, pushing at the same time a _stoccata_ which he took again on his buckler. But it was only a feint of mine to make him advance his defence, and so stop him recovering quickly. It served its purpose well. For I was able to cast my cloak over his blade before he could make his recovery, and so, passing my left leg forward, I seized his sword by the hilt. At the same moment I threatened an _imbroccata_ at his face, and while he raised his buckler to bear my thrust, gave his hilt-points such a mighty wrench with my left that, seeing he had not the Italian grip, I was able to tear his sword from his grasp. It was no fair encounter. He was a pretty swordsman at the old swashing sword and buckler play, but having been at sea all his manhood he had never had occasion to learn the new fence as I had, and would not, I think, if he had been able, for, like most Englishmen of that time, he greatly despised it. I could not but be sorry for him to see him stand at my mercy, as he now did, nor could I resent his angry words. 'Curse on your foining Italian birdspit play,' said he savagely as I returned him his sword. 'Curse on your skewer scullion tricks. Did you fight like a man, you should not have won her. Still won her you have, and by that I abide. Take her, and rest you merry with your light-o'-love.' With that he took his sword, and, with a mocking salute to the Señorita, strode rapidly away. I looked for no less in him. For in all points of arms I had ever found him a most precise gentleman, and had no doubt, since he was worsted, he would honourably leave the field to me. So I slowly went to where my Señorita's fairy form leaned against the boat. 'Lady,' said I, 'think not I deal hardly with you, but at a word you must indeed go back.' 'No, no, Gasparo,' she said, sinking on her knees before me. 'Take me, for the love of Mary, take me, since you have gloriously won me. Indeed I do not love him. I did but use him to play upon your love and make it grow as great as mine. Tell me not I have killed it. I did but go with him because he promised to deliver me from my misery. It was only that I hoped to win you at last.' 'Peace, peace, lady, as you value your honour,' said I, at my wits' end how to keep my resolution. 'This thing cannot be. The general would never suffer you to abide with us. It could only end in strife and dishonour. Indeed you must go back.' 'Oh, Gasparo,' she pleaded, clasping my knees, 'you know not what you do. You love me, and know it not. You love me, and send me back to my misery, when we might know such joy together. You cannot tell what it is you condemn me to. You cannot tell the horror of a woman's life when she is wedded to one she loathes.' 'Wedded?' cried I, aghast. 'Yes,' she answered wildly. 'Have pity on me. Do not hate me for it. I did not tell you, nor did the others, because I pleaded with my father to pass for unwed, that I might the better win favour for them. So I said, but in truth it was that I might taste the joys I had never known. I was hardly out of childhood ere they wedded me to an old man for his wealth. He was bitter and cruel and ugly, an ape that I loathed. Yet I had no respite from his detested presence till he went to Lima on his affairs. Afterwards he wrote for me to join him. I was on my way thither when you captured me, and at last I saw my occasion to know for once what it was to be wooed. Oh Gasparo, hate me not for it, but rather pity me. I am beautiful; I know it. I was made for men to love, yet never knew what it was to be wooed by one true man. Pity me and have mercy. I cannot go back now.' Horror-struck to find, as it were, that my sin had followed me even to that far island in the West, where at least I might have hoped to be free, my courage almost forsook me. A destiny, such as one short year ago I might have laughed at as the last to be mine, seemed now for ever fastened upon me. Once more I grasped the hilt of Harry's sword for strength, and then firmly took the little hands in mine and freed myself. She stood up before me then, gazing in sad entreaty in my face as I implored her to go back. I showed her how, even were I willing to do as she wished, Frank would never permit it. I tried, as well as I could for shame, to show her how great was the sin she would bring upon her soul. 'It is hopeless,' she said as I ceased. 'I see it is hopeless to move you. I must even return to the misery you have made doubly hard to bear. Farewell, Gasparo, farewell.' She held out her hand to me as she spoke. I took it coldly, my other hand on my sword. But that was not the end. With a sudden wild impulse she flung her arms about me, and my lips were tingling with one last passionate kiss. She had sprung into the boat and pushed off ere I hardly knew what she had done. 'So, faint heart,' she cried, as she stood up beautiful in the moonlight, 'so I set my sign upon you. When another comes to whom you would give what you deny to me, may she taste my kiss still lingering there and learn, though you know it not, that you have loved before.' With difficulty she rowed herself back to the ship. I watched her shapely figure grow less and less across the moonlit water, till she was lost behind the dark hull, and I was alone once more. CHAPTER XXVIII I never saw my Señorita again. Early next morning the _Pasha's_ anchors were hove up, and Mr. Oxenham went aboard to work her out through the tortuous channels by which she had entered more than six months ago. It took all one day and part of the next to get the ship free, and Mr. Oxenham did not quit her till she was quite clear of the shoals. What passed between him and my Señorita then I cannot say. Whether they found means whereby afterwards letters went between them I do not know, but when years after news of his end came I could not but think it might have been so; and, in spite of seeming contradictions in the varying reports that reached us, I have often wondered whether my Señorita were not the same fair lady for whose sweet sake, less than three years after, when he had won undying honour by having sailed the South Sea first of all Englishmen, he madly did that whereby he not only lost all the wealth he had taken there, but also his trusty company and his fair name, ay, and gave up his wasted life beside as a pirate on a Spanish gallows at Lima. But let that pass. I bear him no ill-will, and trust he rests in peace, as, for all his sins, his courageous spirit well deserves. For such a spirit indeed he had, and, next to the general, our whole company had conceived greater hope in him than in any other. So that, when a few days after the release of the prisoners we came with the frigate and the pinnaces to the Catenas, he was chosen to lead the attempt to recover the French captain and the buried treasure. For in spite of all Frank could say we would not suffer him to go, saying his life was too precious to us now to be risked on so dangerous a service, seeing he was the only man on whom we could count to carry us back to England. Mr. Oxenham undertook the desperate service with the same light heart wherewith he always faced the greatest perils, but was not rewarded according to his courage. For, on coming to the Rio Francisco, he found in most forlorn condition one of the men who had stayed behind with Monsieur Tetú. From him he had news that the brave captain had been taken half an hour after our departure, and his fellow a little later, because he would not cast away his treasure, and so could not run fast enough to escape. Moreover he told us that some two thousand Spaniards and negroes had been digging and ranting up the ground for the space of a mile, every way about the place where they must have learned from the prisoners that our treasure was buried. This Mr. Oxenham found to be true; for, notwithstanding the report, he still would go and see for himself, and was rewarded by the discovery of thirteen silver bars and some quoits of gold, which the Spaniards had not been able to find. At last, then, our voyage was indeed made, and all we wanted for our return homewards was another good stout frigate; and to this end the general resolved to beat the same covert we had always found so full of game--to wit, the coast beyond Carthagena, about the mouth of the Rio Grande. All were very merry over the near hope of our return, except, I think, myself. As for me, I could not but brood over what I had lost or escaped from, I knew not which to call it. I fear I was but a very doleful companion, and Harry, being now in great spirits with all the world, would not let me rest. 'So your Señorita would not stay with you?' he said, with a twinkle in his eye that much belied his pretended seriousness. 'I did not ask her,' I answered. 'Not ask her!' said he, 'and wherefore not, in a devil's name? Why, lad, you were over ears in love with her.' 'You are merry,' said I, a little testily I think, for it angered me that both he and she should say this, while I was for ever telling myself I could not be so foolish. 'I could as soon have loved one of those glistening butterfly-birds that are all sparkle and humming, and nothing of them beside.' 'Well, what of that?' said he. 'Were I Pythagorean, I could find no better case for a true woman's soul than one of those same dainty, merry, little humming birds, that in these past months have so often beguiled us when there was little else to make us forget our troubles.' 'True,' I answered. 'Such qualities will make a plaything, but never a wife.' 'Well, I know not,' he said; 'but I think a wife is mostly what a husband makes her, and doubt if a man may not make as good a one out of a plaything as anything else.' He should have known, yet I could not think him right, nor do I now. I had no heart to pursue such talk then, so when he continued to rally me I hastily told him the truth. 'Forgive me,' he said, growing serious directly, and putting his hand on my shoulder, 'if you can forgive such a brute-beast as I am to torment you thus. What a curst unbroken tongue is mine! You would have kept her marriage from me to shield her fame. Truly, lad, in comparison to you, I deserve no woman's love.' So he said, not knowing himself, for never was woman's love better bestowed than on him, yet he knew it not, and I verily believe, felt that he never could do enough for his wife to repay her generosity in marrying him. She thought no less, and often told me so. What wonder that their lives were happy! We fell in with our French consort again soon after this, and they bore us company till they heard we were going past Carthagena, but this they would not venture with us, since the whole Plate Fleet lay there with its well-armed wafters ready for sea. So we parted company once more at St. Bernardo, and then Frank stood in towards the city, and ran past with a large wind hard by the harbour's mouth, in sight of the whole fleet. Not one dared stir out after us, though we braved them with our music, and the Cross of St. George at our top, and all our silken streamers and ancients floating down to the water defiantly. Perhaps it was a bit of foolish bravado, but Frank laughed and rubbed his hands, and said it was worth another _recua_ to have done it, which the whole company agreed, being half mad to think how we had succeeded in our wild adventure in despite of the whole power of the Indies. The same night we fell in with a frigate of twenty-five tons, well laden with victuals, coming out of the river. We told the crew of our necessity, and used other persuasions to such good effect that at last they were content to go ashore, and leave their ship in our hands. Whereupon we returned to the Cabeças, and there, having rested seven days to careen our ships and prepare them for the voyage home, we bade farewell to our trusty Cimaroons, greatly contenting them with the iron-work of the pinnaces, which we broke up. To Pedro Frank presented a very goodly scimitar, which poor Monsieur Tetú had given him in return for his hospitalities at their first meeting. So greatly did the Cimaroon chief value this toy that he would not be content till Frank had accepted four great wedges of gold from his particular store. It was a private gift to our general, and I think it noteworthy, as showing his just dealings with his mariners and venturers, that he would not keep those wedges, but cast them into the common store. 'Had not the venturers set me forth,' said he, 'and had not you, my lads, so truly borne your parts, I should never have had this present; wherefore I hold you should all enjoy the proportion of your benefits, whatsoever they be.' So we took our leave of the Spanish Main, and, bearing room for Cape Antonio, passed to Havana, where we took a bark, the last of all our captures, which had been many, indeed, both for numbers and humanity in dealing with them, past anything that had been seen before. For at that time there were above two hundred frigates belonging to the cities of the Spanish Main and the Islands, ranging from ten to one hundred and twenty tons. Most of these we dealt with during our stay, and some of them twice and thrice, yet of all the crews we captured we hurt not a single man, save in the heat of fight, nor did we burn or sink one ship save in act of war, nor keep any save for our bare necessity. And so it was that Frank won himself a name of terror along the whole Spanish Main, and therewith a reputation for kindliness and mercy, both of which were never forgotten, and stood him in good stead many a time in after years. He protested that God manifestly blessed him for the just chastisement, tempered with mercy, which he had inflicted on the idolaters; for that He so bountifully supplied us with rain for our necessities, and wind for our speeding, that we had no cause to touch at Newfoundland for our refreshing, but within twenty-three days we passed from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and on Sunday morning, the 9th day of August 1573, swaggered bravely into Plymouth harbour, amidst the thunder of our great pieces, the braying of our trumpets, and the gay fluttering of all our flags and streamers and ancients. It was a sight to make a man forget all his sorrows, to see the Hoe quickly brighten like a flower-bed with the Sunday clothes of the godly people of Plymouth, and yet not godly enough to stay with the preacher when they knew whose salutations were disturbing their prayers. So with one accord they left the poor man, and hurried off to hear the sermon Frank was preaching with his ordnance and his music. 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven?' That was his text, and so well he expounded it with a sight of our ballast to all who came aboard, that I think there was hardly one that day who did not vow he would no longer stand still disputing and railing against Antichrist, but go forth and win gold for God out of the idolaters' treasure-house. Wild were the rejoicings in Plymouth, and there was no one to check them. The Queen's grace was in no mood just then to hide our achievement under a bushel. Nay, rather she liked nothing better than to flaunt it in Philip's eyes, to show him she had a power he little dreamed of to answer the late-discovered felonious practices of Spain against her glorious crown and life. Yet I tarried not longer than our business demanded, for Harry could not rest till he was at Ashtead again, nor would he depart thither without me. In vain I urged him to go alone and let me follow later, after he had seen his wife and all was smooth again. 'No, lad,' said he; 'we fled together, let us return together. It was one cause drove us forth. That is ended and forgotten. If I can go back, it is because you also may go back. Therefore one must not go without the other.' So we rode together, Harry, the Sergeant, and I, and all the way to London it was for us a triumphal procession. The news of Frank's daring exploit had spread from town to town before us. The people were half wild at the tidings, and came gaping to see us with their own eyes, and hear from our own lips the truth of the tale that seemed too glorious to believe; to hear how Englishmen at last had trod that inviolate soil which seemed to give a magic and resistless power to Spain, their dreaded enemy, and had broken its mysterious spell for ever, and how we had so plenteously enriched ourselves out of their very heart-wells in despite of all their boasted power. It seemed a strange and merry thing to them. They could only laugh as though it were some rude jest we had put on the Spaniards, and make merry over Philip's and Alva's wry faces to think of a poor English captain quietly plucking their beards with one hand, and cutting their purses with the other. That looming shadow in the South which yesterday was a monster of terror, to-day was only a bogie to frighten babies withal. So they strutted about, boasting that though the King of Spain might set all the silly geese over the sea in a flutter with his _braggadocio_, yet one quacking of an English drake was enough to set him shivering on his throne. I trust we were more modest than they. Yet in those young days of England's growing strength I cannot blame her if she laughed and crowed like a lusty baby over each new step he learns to take. Our triumphal progress should have put us in good heart; yet, as we approached our journey's end, a weight seemed to settle on us both. As we rode from Gravesend each well-known object served to recall the misery of the day we saw them last; and for the first time, I think, Harry began to doubt whether it would be so easy to bring things back to the old track again. He had sent word forward that he was coming, but no more, not knowing what to write. Thus we could not tell how things stood at Ashtead, or even whether Mrs. Waldyve were there at all. It was afternoon before we reached Rochester, and we stayed at the 'Crown' to dine, but did scant justice to the host's provision. Harry grew only more melancholy when we were alone. 'Would I could tell if she would forgive me!' he said at last. 'How can I hope for it, who left her so basely in the midst of all her grief? Tell me again, Jasper, all you saw when you went back to Ashtead after that sad day.' So I told my tale again, and dwelt on those words she sang, giving him to hope for the best. 'Yet I think I will tarry till to-morrow,' he said. 'It is late; I am weary. It will be too sudden for her at so late an hour. I will tarry, and send her word I am waiting here for her to bid me come. Maybe she is not there, and maybe grief has killed her.' He sank his voice very low as he uttered this new fear, and before I could tell what to answer him--for, God knows, I too had little heart for this meeting--the Sergeant came in and said the horses were ready. Harry looked at me, but I could give him no help. My shame was still quick within me, and my only desire was to put off the end, which I could not foresee, but only fear. 'Sergeant,' said Harry at last, desperately, 'we think it too late to go on. We will lie here to-night, and come to Ashtead betimes to-morrow.' 'Cry you mercy, sir,' said the Sergeant, in a rebellious burst. 'If you can be within two hours' ride of that peerless lady and not go to her, it is more than I have power or discipline for. So I crave leave to ride on alone with all speed.' 'But how know you we are within two hours' ride of her?' said Harry weakly, under the Sergeant's rebuking glance. 'Save your worship,' cried the Sergeant, 'is that what ails you? Then take it from me, you can ride thither without fear of not finding her, for my good friends the drawers tell me she has abode at home ever since your departing, though it is true that none have seen her abroad of late.' And with that the Sergeant brought us our rapiers and cloaks, and for very shame we were bound to take them and beat an honourable retreat along the line which, by accident or design, he had left open for us. So, without more ado, we rode out through the throng which had assembled to greet us when they heard we had come. The good people followed us up the street to the gates, and then fell to cheering us for two heroes, little thinking what sorry hearts those same heroes carried. So they cheered us, and Drake, and the Queen, as we rode out across the low land by the river, nor ceased till we began to climb the downs. The Medway lay glistening in its mazy channels below us as we topped the hill. Rainham church-tower rose dimly before us; on either hand the turf swept downward from the road, broken by clumps of trees in every hollow where they could find shelter from the wind. These and a score of other familiar landmarks seemed to bring the past very near, and only increased my fear that the short time we had been away could not avail to heal the fearful wound I had made. Gladly would I have turned off on the road which led to Longdene, as I had that first day I had seen Harry's wife, but I was resolved to go on to the end with him, not knowing how great his need might soon be of a comforter; for his doubts had infected me with a heart-sickness as sore as his own. The bright picture of her as she was that day faded away as the gables and turrets of Ashtead came in sight, and I gave way to wondering what she looked like now, and of what she thought within those dim walls. And that wondering ceased as we rode under the gateway and dismounted. I could only then think of my brother. He was deadly pale, and clutched at my arm as he trod the steps, and stopped like one about to faint. 'Would she had come out to meet us,' he murmured, 'when she heard our horses in the court. She must have heard them.' I knew not what to say, but pressed his hand and put my arm through his to steady him up the steps. He made a great effort as he reached the top and threw open the door of the hall. There she stood in the lurid torch-light by the great hearth, as though just risen from her seat. She was pale and wild-eyed, and stood irresolute, gazing her heart out at him, with her white hands spread out a little in front of her as though the last spark of hope were dying within her, and she hardly dared to plead. Ah me! it was a picture of long-endured misery as I pray God I may never see again, and, still less, cause. Harry stood, it seemed so long, waiting for some sign from her, but she stood like a statue with no power to move. Then he advanced slowly towards her, and I followed into the hall. I had hardly stepped within when a sudden light came into her eyes as she caught mine. She had seen me then for the first time. She had seen me, and, God be praised, knew by my being there that all must be forgiven. With a little glad cry she sprang forward, and in a moment those two I loved so well, and had wronged so deeply, were locked lip to lip in each other's arms. I heard a stifled sob behind me, and turned to see the tears rolling down the Sergeant's bronzed face. Then we went forth that those two might be alone; but very soon they came and called me back, and fed me with such loving words as I could not have looked for had I been their greatest benefactor and not their curse. Their most gentle dealing with me quite unmanned me, so that I easily was persuaded to lie at Ashtead that night, but on the morrow I thought it best to go. Very dim and lonely was my library that night. My consuming grief was dead, drowned in their happiness and gentle usage of me. Yet it was very lonely. I tried to read, but each book I sought availed less to fasten my thoughts. So I sat musing on all that had befallen me those last months, and trying not to think how empty and sad my great chair looked without the sweet burden which, as it were, I had once seen nestling there. That fancy grew dim as the months wore on, and I was ever at Ashtead as of old playing with little Fulke, or hunting with Harry, or talking over old times with Sergeant Culverin, who quickly settled down as Harry's right-hand on his estate, and so continued till his honest spirit passed away. But with Mrs. Waldyve I read no more then, nor till years after, when, through my thrice-blessed friendship with Signor Bruno, a deep-set faith came to comfort my ripening years and hers. Indeed it was little I read at all, save in books of travel and cosmography. Study seemed a very poor and dry food to me at that time, the more so as there was no longer any one to urge me to it. Mr. Cartwright's strife was now nothing but a din of unmeaning words in my ears. Good Mr. Follet, my only other scholar friend, was dead, and his cherished 'Apology' still-born; for though he bequeathed the manuscript to me to set forth, I found its original obscurity and tangled learning (in so far as it was legible) so over-laid and involved and interlined with added matter from the four quarters of earthly and unearthly wisdom as to be past human understanding. Each day then I saw more clearly that all was changed with me, and grew to know that thenceforth, till age should bring me peace and studious quiet, my content could only be found at Frank Drake's side, or in such great and stirring work as his. And so it was, and not without good reward either, both in honour and riches. Yet there was nothing which my unworthy service earned of Her Majesty's grace and bounty that I valued higher than the loving welcome which was so plentifully bestowed on me at Ashtead each time I came home. THE END 
38795	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "The Spaniard swung round."] WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN BY HERBERT STRANG ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR BY ARCHIBALD WEBB LONDON HENRY FROWDE HODDER & STOUGHTON 1908 OXFORD: HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY Copyright, 1907, by the BOBBS MERRILL COMPANY in the United States of America PREFACE The romancer, in choosing as the setting for a tale the period of a man who looms large in history, finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. He cannot place his fictional near his historical hero without either dwarfing the former until the young reader ceases to find him interesting, or robbing the latter of some of the glamour with which history invests him. In the following pages I have tried to meet the difficulty by making Francis Drake the presiding genius of the story. The deeds of Dennis Hazelrig are akin to those of Drake; the same spirit of adventure dominates them: and when, in the course of the story, the real and the fictitious personages meet, it is, I trust, without loss of dignity to either. HERBERT STRANG. CONTENTS CHAPTER I JETSAM CHAPTER II SEA-GIRT CHAPTER III A WRECK--AND MIRANDOLA CHAPTER IV SALVAGE CHAPTER V THE EDGE OF THE MARSH CHAPTER VI THE SPANISH WHIP CHAPTER VII AMOS TURNPENNY CHAPTER VIII HALF-PIKES AND MACHETES CHAPTER IX AMOS TELLS HIS STORY CHAPTER X THE MAROONS BUILD A CANOE CHAPTER XI THE MAIN CHAPTER XII BENEATH THE WALLS CHAPTER XIII THE TAKING OF FORT AGUILA CHAPTER XIV VAE VICTIS CHAPTER XV A LONG CHASE CHAPTER XVI JAN BIDDLE, MASTER CHAPTER XVII THE DEMI-CULVERIN CHAPTER XVIII JUAN THE MAROON CHAPTER XIX DRAKE'S CAMP CHAPTER XX A RAID THROUGH THE FOREST CHAPTER XXI MAIDEN ISLE AGAIN CHAPTER XXII A FIGHT ON THE CLIFFS CHAPTER XXIII BOMBARDED CHAPTER XXIV THE LEAGUER OF SKELETON CAVE CHAPTER XXV THE MULE TRAINS CONCLUSION LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LOI "The Spaniard swung round" _Frontispiece_. _See p._ 78 Map of Maiden Isle Dennis saves Mirandola "Captain singled out Captain" "The sailor threw up his left hand to ward off the attack" "A shot fell immediately in their wake" Map to illustrate Drake's adventures "The seaman flung him bodily at the fourth Spaniard." ELOI CHAPTER I Jetsam Daybreak! But, eastward, no glory of dawn. Black thundrous clouds roll sullenly across a livid sky, riven at moments by pale zigzags of flame. Rain tumbles in cascades. League upon league of white-crested waves chase one another in fury, hissing, roaring as they hurl themselves upon a stubborn shore, only to be broken and thrown back into the seething turmoil. The wind outstrips them, shrieking as it cleaves a way through the massed foliage, in mad haste to reach the mainland and smite the yielding tops of Darien's palms and pines. The shelving sandy beach is strewed with the jetsam of the storm. Here, a tangled heap of seaweed, left by a breaker when, spent with its own rage, it falls back baffled. There, a log of wood, hard by nameless creatures of the sea, destroyed by the fury of their own element. And here, high up the strand, beneath a bank overgrown with large-leaved plants, lies a human form, huddled, motionless. The waves do not touch it now; the storm has exhausted itself; the tide is ebbing. Minute by minute the sea becomes less boisterous; the strip of sand widens; the rain ceases. By and by the sun breaks through the eastern sky, and, gathering strength, disperses the lingering clouds and flings his radiance over the scene. His beams, falling aslant through a gap in the cliffs, strike upon the draggled form on the sand; it stirs slightly, stretching itself as a leaf uncurls. At last, when the air quivers with heat, and all things lie under a shimmering haze, Dennis Hazelrig heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and looks amazedly about him. His eyes close; for some minutes he remains still; then he lifts himself slightly, falls back with a gasp, and lies again as one dead. But Nature is recovering under the beneficent rays. Pigeons are cooing in the branches above; parrots are screaming; insects drone their burden; and when a mosquito, adventuring forth, alights on a human cheek, and tastes, Dennis is stung once more into consciousness. He starts up, brushes the marauder away, staggers to his feet, and, to prevent himself from falling, clutches at a tuft of grass in the overhanging bank. Its thin blade-like edge draws blood from his hand, and he looks at the red stain as at some strange phenomenon. Then he laughs huskily, checks the sound as though it too is unfamiliar, and laughs again--a short sobbing laugh. "Certes, I am alive!" he mutters. An hour or two passed before Dennis ventured once more to try his tottering legs. The sun's heat had dried his clothes, which, as he ruefully observed, had been so rent by the buffeting waves that they hung upon him precariously. But in the same genial warmth his strength was returning, and though all his body ached, he could now move without a stagger. Catching sight of some clams near him, he was conscious of a vast emptiness within, and felt for the clasp-knife which he was wont to wear slung about his waist. It still hung upon its chain. He had opened and eaten, ravenously, a dozen of the shellfish before he realized that after all his thirst exceeded his hunger, and he looked round for a spring of fresh water. He walked some paces along the shore, groaning with every movement, until his ear caught the musical ripple of a stream, and he saw a rivulet flowing across the sand from a narrow water-course in the cliff. In an instant he was down on his knees, drinking his fill. Refreshed with the draught, he rose and began to consider. He was alive: that was the first thing. It seemed marvellous to him. The tornado had ceased. Looking round, he could hardly believe that the sea now so calm was the same sea which, but a few hours before, had been a raging monster. As far as the eye could scan it stretched away, shimmering in the sunlight, only a white crest here and there giving sign of its late disturbance. Not a sail broke the line of the horizon. What had become of the _Maid Marian_ and her crew and his companion adventurers on board? Had they, had any of them, been cast ashore like himself, on some other part of this strange coast? If he had escaped, why not others? There was something cheering in the thought, and instinctively he braced himself for a search when, remembering that awful night--the amazing suddenness of the blast that struck the bark, rending the sails like ribands, snapping the mainmast like a reed, the tumultuous waves, the crashing thunder, the bursts of lightning, the deluge that poured down from the heavens--as he remembered these battling elements he shuddered involuntarily; could it be otherwise than by a miracle that he had survived? He lived over again his last conscious moments. The mainmast had gone by the board. He heard the hoarse shout of Miles Barton the master, calling upon the men to cut away the wreckage. He was with them at the task, struggling to keep his feet, when the gallant vessel staggered under the onslaught of a tremendous sea, and he was swept off her deck. He heard cries all around him, but could see nothing for the darkness and the blinding rain. Striving to keep his head above water, he felt his strength failing, so puny was it against the might of the passionate waves, when he encountered a floating spar, and clung to it with the tenacity of despair. After that he knew nothing. His grip must have relaxed, for the spar was not near him when he awoke to consciousness on the beach. Yet it seemed that this had been his salvation. He must have held to it until near the shore; then some mountainous breaker had torn him away and hurled him to the spot where he had lately opened his eyes again upon the world. Hapless bark! It was scarcely possible that she had survived the hurricane. And what of the souls on board with him? What of Miles Barton, the bluff sea-dog her master, and his cheery crew, and the score of gallant gentlemen who had sailed out of Plymouth Sound but two months before, gay, high-hearted adventurers for the Spanish Main? Where was Sir Martin Blunt, the blithe captain of the band, and Philip Masterton, and Harry Greville, and Francis Tring, all young men of mettle, whom Dennis was proud to call his friends, and who, though but little his elders in years, had seen and done things in the great world that made him burn with envious admiration? Alas! he could not but fear that the sea had swallowed them. But then again came the thought: might not Fortune have befriended them too? Why imagine the worst? And Dennis thrust sad thought from his mind; hope was not dead. His meal had given him strength to search, and search he would. He looked about him. The sandy beach was narrow. It was overhung by cliffs of varying height, in parts merely a low bank, in parts reaching an altitude of perhaps forty or fifty feet. They were covered with the dense vegetation of the tropics. Some distance to the north of where he stood the receding tide had left bare a long ledge of massive rock, running up into the highest part of the cliff. To the south the shore was less rocky, and within half a mile curved round to the east. It was in this direction that he decided to go. But he had not walked far along the glistening sand when he suddenly bethought himself. Signs of life there had yet been none, save the cries of birds from the trees above him. But what if he came upon a fishing village, and found himself among enemies--the wild red men of whom he had heard, the Spaniards of whose terrible deeds returning navigators made such grim tales for the winter nights at home? Where was he? On some shore of the Caribbean Sea, he made no doubt, for only the day before, when the _Maid Marian_ was sailing merrily westward, Sir Martin had declared, and old Miles had borne him out, that but a few more days would bring them to the point where they expected to meet other adventurers who had preceded them on the same quest for excitement and gain. And Dennis halted as one dazed when the full sense of his calamity was borne in upon him. He was alone!--alone! There might be, for all he knew, thousands of people almost within hail of him; but he was none the less alone, for they would be of another race, speaking another tongue, unfriendly, hostile. He sat down on a smooth rock and, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, stared moodily out to sea. Between him and all that he held dear stretched this wide ocean for thousands of miles. In utter hopelessness he wondered why it had not swallowed him up with all his comrades, instead of casting him here, a battered miserable body. The mood passed. He had escaped the perils of the sea, not by his own strength, but by the hand of Providence. If perchance he had more to fear from man than from nature--why, it behoved him, an English boy, and a Devon boy to boot, to face his destiny with a stout heart. After all, he was of the same stuff as Master Walter Raleigh and Master Francis Drake and many another bold man of Devon. He could not think that any one of them, in his situation, would give way to black despair; and, lifting his aching body from the shore, he walked on: he would at least learn somewhat of his surroundings. The beach, he found, bore gradually to the left, so that he could see but a short distance ahead. Still he encountered no signs of life, save here and there a scuttling crab, and the rank plant growths above him, whence now and again a bird fluttered out and wheeled screaming about his head, and then soared clattering into the foliage. Soon he tired of this monotonous tramping over sand, which appeared to lead no whither; and observing at length a cleft in the rocks, whence a shallow stream swiftly poured itself upon the beach, he bethought himself he might more quickly make a discovery if he pushed his way up the water-course, which must by and by lead to higher ground. He turned in obedience to this impulse, waded through the stream, that wound this way and that between banks thickly covered with vegetation, and after what seemed an eternity to his aching limbs, found himself upon a cliff overlooking the sea. His wandering had brought him by a circuit to a point north of the spot where he had awoke to consciousness. The cliff on which he stood was much higher than the surrounding country. To right and left the ground shelved downwards, and he now perceived that the coast on both sides had an inward trend; that, in fact, the cliff was also a promontory. Turning round, he found that his view was blocked by the trees except in one direction, where a sudden dip in the ground gave him an outlook over several miles. And there, surely, at the far end of the vista, was the sea again. For the first time the suspicion occurred to him that he had been cast upon an island. He went to the farthest point of the cliff to scan more carefully the horizon. Looking across the sea, which from the beach had seemed an unbroken plain, he now saw in the far distance several dark vague shapes rising a little above the surface. These must be islands. To the north, somewhat nearer to him, and somewhat more definite, were similar forms, which seemed to grow in size during the hour or more he watched them, no doubt owing to the fall of the tide. Far to the south he descried a long dark bar upon the horizon; this must be land, many miles away, probably the mainland. His view to the east being almost entirely shut out by the foliage, he could feel no certainty that his suspicion was justified; but he felt a stirring of interest and excitement now: supposing it were indeed an island, how did the discovery bear upon his lot? Once more he turned and gazed along the valley at whose end he saw the sea. It could not be many miles away; perhaps in an hour or so he could reach it. The island, apparently, was not a large one, so that he could not go far without meeting its inhabitants. He looked around for any signs of habitation--a roof-top, a column of smoke; but there was none. Next moment he reflected that, if the island were small, it would not take him long to make its circuit and search every yard of the beach for tracks of his late comrades--of the _Maid Marian_ too. Still cherishing a hope that some might have survived like himself, he set off to descend the cliff towards the beach, every downward step racking his bruised limbs and strained joints. When he gained the beach, he once more tramped southward, his eagerness lending him speed. He passed the water-course up which he had struck inland, and soon after came upon scattered articles of wreckage, among them the broken topmast of the _Maid Marian_. With a sigh for his lost comrades he passed on. The sun had risen high in the heavens, and Dennis was fain to rest. "I'm a poor battered hulk," he said aloud, finding some little solace in the sound of his voice, "and hungry--how hungry I am!" He looked around for food, spied some shell-fish and ate them raw, quenching the ensuing thirst at another stream that rippled down from the interior. The feeling of nervousness lest he should encounter strangers again took hold upon him, and he felt a desire to hide. He found himself casting uneasy, almost terrified glances around him from the nook in which he was now resting, somewhat sheltered from the sun's fierce rays. Then, conquering the feeling, he rose again to continue his search of the beach. He must by and by, he thought, come upon some quay or harbour. When he should see it, he would halt and consider his course of action: whether to advance and risk the meeting with strangers, or to retreat until with recovered strength and a clearer mind he could prepare himself for what might be in store. As he proceeded, he noticed that the jungle frequently approached to within a few feet of the mass of weed that marked high-water. At one spot he discovered, almost buried in the sand, the worm-eaten stern-post of a vessel. He could distinguish one or two letters of her name. Many a ship, he doubted not, had been wrecked on this coast, many a hapless wight had been cast up by the tide, alive or dead. By and by he came, on the southern side of the island, to high cliffs, and he set about scaling that which offered the easiest ascent, to obtain a view of sea and land from this point of vantage also. It was densely wooded, and as he mounted he heard, besides the cries of startled birds, other sounds that struck uncannily upon his ear. In his weakened state any new note in these sounds set his nerves tingling, and more than once he stopped, and could scarcely prevent himself from turning and speeding back to the beach, where at least there was nothing to cause him fresh tremors. Near the top of the cliff the wood thinned away somewhat, and when he reached its highest point he found himself on a stretch of greensward. Northward the ground sloped gently down to a clump of trees, of a species unknown to him, tall, with slender trunks, which it seemed to him he could climb as easily as the masts on the _Maid Marian_. He made his way to them, half minded to swarm up the tallest of the group, so that from its summit he might gain a view, possibly, over the whole island, and solve the question that troubled him--whether somewhere upon it there was a settlement of men. Only when he reached the foot of the trunk did he remember his weakness. He stood leaning against it, and gazing up its length felt that at present his muscles were incapable of the feat. All at once his eyes became fixed in his head. Travelling to the top, where a mass of foliage crowned the towering stem, they had lighted upon a face, that seemed to be peering at him from between the leaves. The feeling of fright that had before almost paralysed him seized him again. But next moment he laughed aloud. "Ninny that I am!" he murmured. "Afraid of a monkey!" He looked again. The monkey, a large long-tailed specimen of its kind, was gazing at him gravely, with a look so human that it reminded him of his old schoolmaster at Winchester. With the sportive instinct of a boy--Dennis was not yet seventeen--he stooped, picked up a stout piece of fallen branch, and flung it upward. "Stir, Sir Monkey!" he cried. "I hail thee as the lord of this island!" The wood struck the branch on which the monkey was perched. Chattering angrily, it flung its long arms around the branch above, and swung itself up, resting there, blinking and showing its teeth at this unmannerly intruder. "A big fellow indeed!" said Dennis to himself. "I will not climb. If the beast is angered, as he seems, he would be no mean foe in his high perch. I'll not try a bout with you, Sir Monkey. For this time, farewell!" And he went on, smiling a little as he became conscious that the meeting with the monkey had cheered him. CHAPTER II Sea-Girt Besides the birds, and the ground animals which he heard at times scurrying through the undergrowth, the sole inhabitant of the island that Dennis had yet discovered was a monkey. Though he was beginning to suspect that his fears of encountering hostile human folk had been needless, he still felt a timid reluctance to leave the coast-line for the interior; and having given up for the present his idea of climbing a tree to obtain a wider view, he contented himself with walking to the top of the cliff, to continue his observations from that point. His native courage was returning; yet, as he mounted the cliff, he moved for the most part under cover of the trees; the dread of possible enemies still made him wary, though every now and then he forgot his precautions, only remembering them again when the sense of his loneliness forced itself upon him, or when he was momentarily startled by a sudden sound. Panting a little from his exertions when he gained the summit, conscious of his bodily weakness, of bruised limbs and strained sinews, he looked eagerly around. Eastward stretched an illimitable expanse of sea; he scanned it longingly, yet doubtfully, for while it was from that quarter, or from the channel between the island and the mainland, that he might hope for rescue from a friendly ship, it was thence also that he might be descried perchance by an enemy. He sat down on the grass, once more yielding to the heavy sense of forlornness, and thinking sadly of his lost companions. How long he remained there he knew not; his mind wandered a little: he thought afterwards that he had probably slept, for he suddenly awoke to the consciousness of a gnawing hunger. He had walked far, and the few shell-fish he had picked up on the shore gave but meagre sustenance. Stiff and cramped, he rose to search again for food. There was nothing edible in his immediate neighbourhood. The trees sprang to a lofty height, and bore no fruit. Plucking up his courage, he made his way slowly down the slope towards the middle of the island. The vegetation grew thicker as he proceeded; there was no path or road; all was a wild tangle. At first he saw nothing wherewith to ease his pangs; never in his life had he taken a thought for his next meal; it was a new experience. Often enough at home he had plucked fruits as they grew; he remembered with a strange homesick feeling many a boyish depredation upon neighbouring orchards, out of sheer mischief, not from a longing for food. But there were no apple-trees or plum-trees here. And when at last he came upon a broad-leaved tree upon which grew huge clusters of a yellowish fruit, in shape like monstrous pea-pods, he hesitated, wondering whether this might not be one of those evil trees of which he had heard, one taste of which would turn his skin black, and fire him with a raging thirst, and afflict him with a madness whose end was death. But his natural appetite would not be gainsaid. With hope and misgiving mingled he at last stretched up his hand and plucked one of the tempting pods, and stripped off the skin, and nibbled a morsel of the soft fruit within. It was delicious; but so was the devil's fruit of mariners' tales--the more delicious the more poisonous. Somewhat anxiously he waited; there was no change in the colour of his skin; he watched it through the rents of his tattered garments; and indeed it seemed to him that any change would be for the better, for he perceived for the first time that he was already black and blue with bruises. He bit off another and a larger piece; then, with the ravenous haste of one long fasting, he let prudence fly, and ate the whole fruit, and another, and another, until he saw with surprise and qualms that his feet were encircled by a ring of empty skins. But he felt astonishingly refreshed and invigorated; he must eat one more; and thus, timorously and recklessly, he made acquaintance with the banana. Of water for drink there was abundance. He drank gladly at a stream, and wandered on. It was strange that he no longer felt alone. He saw no man, nor any trace of one; he had become accustomed now to the rustle of birds and the swish of four-footed creatures moving amid the greenwood; what then caused him to look apprehensively around? What was this odd feeling of expectation that possessed him? There was nothing to account for it, and by and by the nervousness which had left him during his search for food returned in greater force. It was not lessened when he suddenly became aware that the sun was setting. Darkness, he knew, would soon envelop him, and there came with a rush upon his mind the memory of his early childhood, when night, with its silence, its blackness, had filled him with terror. He felt that a night in the solitude of these unfamiliar trees would be unbearable, and, guiding himself by the sunset glow, he hurriedly plunged through the jungle towards the shore. There, under the open sky, he could feel more at ease. His course brought him to the beach on the southern side, where, in the morning, he remembered having seen, though in his despondency he had not heeded, a number of half-rotten staves of casks. These might, he thought, serve him for making a rude shelter. He soon found the spot, and then noticed, what had escaped his dazed observation before, that close by the staves there lay a medley of stripped branches. Had some one, at some time, built himself of these materials a shelter in that very place? He gathered the stuff together and rigged up a crazy hut, such as he had seen erected by shepherds on the moors of Devon. The day had been hot, but he knew from his experience on shipboard that the nights were cold; already he felt a sharpness in the air, and shivered in his tatters. The hut would defend him somewhat from the chill of night. Another fear seized upon him with the approach of dark. His mind had been so occupied with thoughts of human enemies that the possibility of the island harbouring wild beasts had not, in the daylight, occurred to him. The darkness, he knew, brought forth small and great beasts; and he remembered with a shudder the tales told him by one of the hardy adventurers on board the _Maid Marian_--of packs of wild dogs that scoured these tropic woods, devouring sleeping men; of the hideous cayman, that lurked upon the shore, and, having swallowed hundredweights of stones to increase its heaviness, seized upon some unwary creature, and dragged it down into the watery depths, to feast upon it at leisure. All wild beasts, he had heard, were afraid of fire; he had his flint and steel, secure in a leather pouch upon his girdle; but he had no dry timber; the sodden wood of the staves and branches of which he had built his hut would be useless, and he shrank from issuing forth into the now darkening woods to find material that would serve. He comforted himself with the recollection that not once during his tramp around the island had he seen any animal larger than a hare, save the monkey; and he resigned himself to make the best of what he feared would be a cheerless night. The dark fell rapidly, again he had that strange feeling that he was not alone. He went to the entrance of the hut, where he had drawn some of the worm-eaten branches, strung together with a few creepers, across as a door. Peering out, he saw nothing but the darkened cliffs and the sea, heard nothing but the wash of the surf, the rustle of the breeze, and the soft tones of wood-pigeons. He returned to the rear of the cabin, where he had strewed leaves for his couch. As he lay back upon it and looked up to the roof he started, and instinctively seized a branch for protection: above him shone two greenish eyes peeping through one of the many gaps. His hasty movement disturbed the watcher, and Dennis heaved a sigh of relief as he heard a shrill chattering above, and knew it for the gibber of a monkey. Springing up he dashed out of the cabin to drive the intruder away. He was just in time to see the monkey springing up the nearest tree. It was long before he fell asleep. Then his rest was fitful and disturbed, not only through his over-wrought nerves, but by the nocturnal cries of creatures in the forest, and the attentions of insects, which nipped and stung with importunate malice. In spite even of them, however, he slept; and when with the rising of the sun they betook their satiated bodies elsewhere, he lay till the morning was drawing towards noon in the sound sleep of exhausted nature. Opening his eyes upon bright day, he was tempted by the smoothness of the sea to bathe. When he flung off his clothes he laughed to see the parti-coloured patches on his skin. Blue, and yellow, and black, the bruises reminded him of his battering in the storm, and his laughter turned to sighing as he thought once more of his comrades and their hapless fate. But in the physical joy of swimming he again plucked up heart, and he left the stinging water with a most healthy hunger. The recollection of his feast of fruit drew him into the woodland. He wandered long before he lighted upon the banana grove, and though, in the course of roaming, he saw other fruit-bearing trees, he resisted for the present the temptation to climb and taste; when once his hunger was appeased by the fruit he knew, he could more safely make an experiment on the unknown. He saw, too, many animals which had escaped his notice previously. There were hedgehogs, and tortoises, and giant spiders, and scorpions to which he gave a wide berth; but he caught no glimpse of any four-footed beast to cause him dread, and having by this time made up his mind that there were no human beings on the island, he went more fearlessly, with a readier eye to note the features of his new abode. Happening once to halt and glance back he saw, perched in the branches of a tree not many yards away, a monkey. Was it the same, he wondered, as that which had peered at him out of the tree he had thought of climbing, and pried upon him in his humble cabin? It seemed to be of the same size; it had spindly limbs and a long slender tail; but probably there was a colony of the strange creatures on the island. "Good morrow, Sir Monkey," he said, again finding a pleasure in the sound of his voice. "Are you lonely too? You were not, surely, cast like me upon this island, far away from kith and kin. You have a wise and solemn look: what secrets do you harbour in that shallow skull of yours? And what do you think of me, I wonder, when you look at me with those cunning little eyes? I wish you could speak, for here am I prating to myself like an old gossip of eighty." As he moved on it was very soon clear that the monkey was dogging him. He amused himself by putting the matter to the test. When he sat down, the monkey stopped, and remained almost perfectly still, partially concealing itself among the leaves. When Dennis rose and went on his way the monkey followed, springing from branch to branch with amazing dexterity, always keeping at a distance. Dennis became interested, fascinated, as he watched the movements of the agile creature. "Truly, Sir Monkey," he said, "I begin to wish I had a tail." And as the day wore on, and the monkey kept pace with him wherever he went, he began to find in its presence something of the comfort of human companionship. Once, as he sat resting under a tree, the broken skin of a fruit he had eyed longingly fell within a couple of yards of him, and looking up he saw the monkey sucking with relish at another of the same kind. "Aha! my fine fellow," said Dennis, "you have something of a man about you, and mayhap what is good for you is good for me too." And he climbed a tree on which the pale yellow fruit was hanging, and plucked one, and made a wry mouth at his first taste of the tartish lime. Thus the day passed in aimless yet not unprofitable wandering. Warned by his experience of the previous night, he resolved to prepare his shelter somewhat earlier. Where should it be? He was determined not to go back to the cabin, for the insects had plagued him there unmercifully, and he could only ward them off by means of a fire. But flame by night and smoke by day rising from the shore would assuredly provoke curiosity among the crew of any passing ship; and since, of the vessels likely to pass in these latitudes, the most would undoubtedly be Spaniards, he was loath to attract visitors who might prove so eminently undesirable. Yet, as he knew from his experience in woods at home, the insects would be even more numerous inland than at the shore. A fire he must have, and it struck him that if he could find, somewhere in the middle of the island, a sheltered hollow, he might safely kindle there a few sticks, trusting that the over-arching foliage would prevent a glow in the sky, and that the smoke, in the night-time, would pass unobserved. About a mile from the edge of the eastern cliff was a spring whence a little stream flowed westward. At its source but an inch or two wide, it gathered volume on its winding course, and Dennis, tracking it, wondering by what circuit it would finally reach the sea, discovered that it ran at length into a somewhat extensive marsh. He knew nothing about rainfall and land drainage, but being a lad of some powers of observation and reasoning, he was not long in coming to the conclusion that the marsh collected as in a cup the water that fell on the surrounding high ground during such torrential rains as had fallen on the night of the storm. It was clear that there must be an outlet, or the marsh would be a lake, and this outlet he found amid thick undergrowth towards the western cliff near which he had been thrown by the sea. Penetrating the dense jungle, he discovered that the outflow poured through a channel some three feet deep. Only a small stream now trickled down its centre; the banks were sandy and dry, and the interlaced foliage so arched it over, that Dennis decided he might rest in it secure from observation, and even run the risk of kindling a fire at night. It seemed scarcely necessary to bring the staves of his cabin over several miles of difficult country to this spot; the trees themselves formed a sufficient shelter; but with his clasp-knife he cleared away some of the undergrowth, and lopped off a few low-growing branches to make a little enclosure; and by the time the natural shade deepened at the approach of night, he had fenced in a few square yards and scooped out a hollow in the middle for his fire. All the time he was working the monkey watched every movement from a branch overhead. Dennis was not at first aware of the animal's presence, so closely hidden was it by the foliage. Only when he struck a spark from his flint, and after some ineffectual attempts succeeded in blowing up a flame, did the monkey reveal its hiding-place by a little gibber of amazement. "So ho! my friend," cried Dennis, looking up vainly. "You haunt me like a familiar. Have you never seen a fire? Do not let your curiosity tempt you too far, for, much as I value your company, I had rather you remained at your present comfortable distance until I know you a little better. Play the sentinel, Sir Monkey, if you will." Dennis felt very well satisfied with his contrivance as he sat by the fire, eating a supper of bananas before laying himself down on a bed of leaves. The smoke defended him somewhat from the insect pests; the warmth was comforting; and the cheerful glow gave him a sense of homeness and well-being. He fed the fire more than once during the night, waking, it seemed, when the diminished heat warned him that the fuel needed replenishing, And when he awoke from his longest spell of sleep the dawn was stealing through the trees, birds were cooing, whistling, chattering overhead, and the monkey, on a low branch, was watching him with unalterable gravity. CHAPTER III A Wreck--and Mirandola Dennis, as he made his breakfast, pondered deeply on the situation, taking the monkey in to his confidence. "Could we change parts, Sir Monkey--if I were you, and you were Dennis Hazelrig, what would you do? This is your island: we will call it yours; I am your guest. You seem to be a solitary creature like myself: are you miserable, I wonder? Does your loneliness trouble you? There is food for us both: it is so warm that for the present, at least, I need no more clothes than you; neither of us will starve. How old are you? You look wise enough to be very old. Am I to remain on this island until I have a beard as long and white as Sir Parson's at home? Oh, you cannot understand what I say, for all your wise look: you cannot know what a wretched mortal I am. What can I do?" The monkey only blinked at him, and plucked a dark plum-like fruit from the bough and munched it. For a time Dennis sat listless, feeling too wretched even to move from the spot. Then he got up and made his way back to the cliff. He stood on the summit, scanning the whole circumference of the shining sea. Not a sail was in sight. He scarcely knew whether he was disappointed or not. Supposing a vessel hove into view, he durst not try to attract the attention of some one on board. If it were English it would be welcome as a spar to a drowning man. If it were Spanish, he might as well jump into the maw of some sea monster. Yet how could he discover its nationality without at the same time betraying his presence? Several times during that third day he climbed to the same spot, and looked out with the same eagerness; not one glimpse did he catch of a white wing upon the water; and he always turned away with the same uncertainty. He spent hours in roaming, as aimlessly as before, along the beach and through the woodland. Coming in the course of the day to the cliff near which he had been cast ashore, he remembered that hitherto he had not made a complete circuit of the island; the beach northward appeared to be barred by huge masses of rock. In his present mood he had no curiosity to see what lay beyond; he supposed indeed that, if he did care to clamber toilsomely over the barrier, he would simply arrive at a point of the beach which he had already reached from the other side. But later in the day, when the tedium of inaction had become unbearable, he started to explore the lower course of the streamlet on whose bank he had slept. He found that the channel gradually widened, the banks growing higher as he neared the sea. By and by he came upon a wide pool on whose rim a mass of seaweed lay rotting in the sun, and stooping out of sheer curiosity he dipped his finger and, tasting, discovered that the water was salt, as he had supposed. Clearly at high tide the sea came thus far up the gully. The entrance was as yet hidden from him by the jutting shoulder of the cliff, but he could hear now the light rumble of surf upon the beach, and he went on, feeling some curiosity to learn whereabouts on the shore he would arrive. He had taken but a few more steps when, rounding the projecting cliff, he came upon a scene which petrified him with astonishment. Docked in the sand, lying over on her side, was the battered hulk of a two-masted vessel. Her stern was somewhat towards him, and he read, painted there, the word _Maid_; but so familiar was he with her lines that he needed not the rest of the name; this was in very truth the wreck of the _Maid Marian_. Of her two masts only the stumps remained: her deck, inclined towards him, was littered with a medley of rigging; her rudder was gone, part of her bulwarks torn away. There was an uncanny look about the hapless vessel as she lay there on the sandy beach, at the head of a small bay bounded by the cliffs on either side. Dennis felt just such a thrill as he might have felt had he come suddenly upon the body of a friend. The solitude, the silence, intensified by the rustling wash of the surf, the background of boundless sky and ocean, combined to affect him with a sense of desolation. He felt a shrinking reluctance to approach, and when he had conquered this and stood beneath the vessel's quarter, it was some time before he summoned up the resolution to climb on board. Then he mounted slowly, hesitatingly, by the aid of a loose shroud, holding his breath as if fearful of disturbing a sleeper. All was intensely still. Multitudinous insects were crawling this way and that among the litter of rigging: save for these there was no sign of life--where for two months as merry a company as ever trod deck had talked and laughed and jested. Dennis felt a lump in his throat as he recalled the little incidents of the voyage: quarter-staff bouts with old Miles Barton, wrestling matches with Harry Greville, sword-play sometimes with the captain himself. The hatchways were battened down. He shrank from going below. Evening was drawing on; he would leave the wreck now, and return in the morning. And as he set his foot once more on the beach, and began to retrace his steps up the gully, he saw the monkey grinning at him from a tree on the cliff, and was surprised to find how pleasant and consoling was the creature's company. Hard on his discovery of the wreck came another discovery. Retracing his way up the chine, he noticed a green ledge on the cliff, some few feet above his head, on the right-hand side. The thought occurred to him to rest there for a little; he could reach it by an easy climb. When he gained the ledge, he found that it ran back for a longer distance than he had supposed below. At its further end grew a wild mass of bushes and trees, some of which bore a plum-like fruit that he had seen the monkey eating with enjoyment. He went to pluck some of the fruit, and penetrating a little way into the thicket, he suddenly perceived that the bushes appeared to grow across an opening in the rock. He pulled the strands aside, and looked into the dark entrance of a cave. The discovery interested him. Might he not find here a better lodging than the rude shelter he had made on the bank of the stream? It was far above high-water mark, and conveniently placed for refuge, being accessible landwards only by the rocky channel, and wholly hidden from observation at sea. Yet he paused before stepping into the cave. Might it not be a wild beast's lair? True, he had seen no animals which he could have any cause to fear, but at this moment of overstrung nerves he felt a child's dread of the dark. "A proper adventurer, in good sooth!" he said to himself. "The skirts of a nurse would befit me better than an island in the Spanish Main." And without more ado he took a step forward and entered. The daylight was quenched within a few feet of the opening. Striking a spark from his flint, he kindled a mass of dried grass he had stowed in his pouch for this purpose, and started as the brief flame lit the interior, for there, almost at his feet, lay a human skeleton. Incontinently he dropped his torch and fled,--scoffing, when once more in the free air, at his lack of courage. But the wish to make this his abode was vanished. He had no fancy to consort with skeletons, and besides, the damp and musty atmosphere of the cave was unpleasant. Without delay he set off to regain his former resting-place. These new discoveries had introduced a disturbing element into his life on the island. Uninhabited as it apparently was now, clearly it had not always been so. What was the history of that skeleton? Were there others further within the cave? It was not the remains of a castaway, for not even in the fiercest hurricane could the sea penetrate so far. Had some poor wretched fugitive fled there for refuge from a human enemy, and been slain or starved? These questions kept him wakeful long that night, and haunted him even while he slept. With morning light he thought less of the cave and more of the wreck. The _Maid Marian_ had left Plymouth well equipped with stores; the hatchways had been battened down in the storm, and unless the sea had poured in through holes stove in her sides, there must be below decks a considerable quantity of materials that would prove serviceable if his stay on the island was to be lengthened. As soon as he had finished his breakfast he set off to return to the chine. It was no surprise to him now to observe the monkey following, like an attendant lackey. "Come, Sir Monkey," he said, with an attempt at gaiety, "let us go together and inspect our treasure trove." He felt again a strange sense of awe as he climbed into the vessel's waist, and trod her planks delicately. But remarking that her position had been shifted slightly by the incoming tide during the night, and that little streams of water were escaping from holes on to the sand, he reflected that it behoved him to lose no time if he wished to secure her contents, for any day a tempest might spring up and shatter the hulk irretrievably. Gulping down the timidity that still troubled him, he climbed to the quarter-deck, and went forward through the broken doorway into the main cabin. The floor was littered with the possessions of his dear lost comrades. Here was Harry Greville's sword; near it a pistol-case that had belonged to Philip Masterton. He stepped over these and other relics and entered the captain's cabin beyond. Here, too, all was ruin and disorder. Garments, instruments of navigation, an ink-horn, trumpets, a drum, Sir Martin's arms and breastplate, the big leather-bound book in which he wrote his diary of the voyage, lay pell-mell on the floor. Dennis could hardly bear to look upon these mementoes of the lost, and he soon turned his back on them and returned to the open part of the vessel, where he sat for a time, given up to melancholy brooding. At last he rose, threw off the oppression, and ventured to force up the main hatch forward of the mainmast and descend. [Illustration: Insulae Virginis Charta] Even now he could not bear to remain long below. He explored the whole length of the vessel in sections, returning at short intervals to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the cheerful sunlight. On one of these occasions he was amused to see that his faithful attendant had now ventured to quit the security of its tree, and was sitting on a rock within a few yards of the vessel, an interested spectator. His inspection of the contents of the vessel fully rewarded him. In the steward's store abaft the mainmast he found a large number of utensils--an iron pease-pot, a copper fish-kettle, a skimmer, several wooden ladles, a gridiron, a frying-pan, a couple of pipkins, a chafing-dish, a fire-shovel, a pair of bellows, trays, platters, porringers, trenchers, drinking-cans, two well-furnished tinder-boxes, candles, and candlesticks. There were casks of beer and wine, great boxes of biscuits, bags of oatmeal, pease, and salt, whole sides of home-cured bacon, several cheeses, a tierce of vinegar, jars of honey and sugar, flasks of oil, pots of balsam and other salves, a pledget for spreading plasters, a pair of scissors, and several rolls of linen, these last evidently provided for the exigencies of fighting. In the carpenter's store forward there were hammers, awls, chisels, files, a saw, hundreds of nails, both sixpenny and fourpenny. In the armoury were half-pikes, cutlasses, muskets, with bandoliers, rests, and moulds, calivers, barrels of gunpowder and tar, and leaden bullets, such as were to be bought at Plymouth six pounds for threepence. And as to the other appurtenances of a well-found ship, Dennis was almost bewildered by the quantity of them--bolts, and chains, and pulleys, buckets, mops, sand-glasses, horn lanterns, faggots for fuel, fishing-nets, articles of apparel, things for trade and barter: the list would fill a page or two. And he rejoiced exceedingly to find that all were in good condition, even the cheeses: there could not be even a rat on board to commit depredations. Surveying this great and substantial store, Dennis rubbed his head in puzzlement. "'Tis a month's work," he said ruefully, "and for one pair of hands. The grave and reverend signor yonder will scarce assist, I trow, indeed, 'tis to be feared he may be thievishly inclined, and needs must I bestow the goods skilfully. Well, to it; time and tide, they say, waits for no man." He began by carrying the biscuits and other perishables from the hold to the bulwarks, where he rigged up a running tackle, and lowered the bags and boxes to the sand beneath. So intent was he upon his task that it was with a start of surprise and alarm he noticed that the tide was flowing in, and had almost reached the vessel. Threatened with the loss of the precious stores, he was hard put to it to drag and carry and roll them up the beach beyond the reach of the waves, and the sun was far down towards the western horizon before he had them high and dry. By this time the sea was several feet deep around the vessel, and the thought struck him: what if the wreck were to float away on the tide and all the remaining salvage be snatched from him? So grave a misfortune must be prevented. At once he swam out to the ship, and securely fastening to the stump of the broken mast one of the stout cables he found below, he again plunged into the sea, and in a little had wound the other end about two sturdy trees growing out from the cliff. While the wreck remained in its present position it was desirable that he should have his lodging close by. There was no shelter on the shore itself, nor did the cliff promise a comfortable abiding place; and his thoughts returned to the cave, which was a good deal nearer than the spot where he had rested the previous night. Among the things he had brought ashore were a lantern, a tinder-box, and a candle. Fortified with a light, he entered the cave with less tremor than on the previous evening, and looked about him. The cave was deep: his light did not reach the further extremity. The roof was damp and green with moss. There was the skeleton, stretched on the rocky floor. By its side, as he now saw, lay a hatchet of curious shape: a little beyond were some coloured beads. But within the circle of light he discovered no other remnants of humanity; these were not very terrible after all, and he might have taken up his abode there but for the fusty, humid atmosphere. He gave up the idea of sleeping in the cave, but made for himself, just outside and across the entrance, a couch of cloaks taken from the wreck. Before settling himself for the night, he returned to the base of the cliff, opened with the hatchet one of his precious boxes of biscuits, and taking a handful, sat on a flat rock to make an unaccustomed supper. He had barely eaten a mouthful when he saw a brown figure leap from somewhere above his head, swoop on the still open box, clutch one of the biscuits, and spring away with a long chatter of delight. "Ah, knave!" he exclaimed, "my prophetic soul avouched that your gravity cloaked an evil bent. You are a thief, Sir Monkey. But I do not grudge you the biscuit; your constancy in attendance merits some reward. A toothsome morsel, is it not? It pleases me to see your pleasure, and--yes, I have it! You are my sole companion on this island; why should we not be friends? You must learn a rightful humility, to be sure. Regarding me as the dispenser of luxuries, will you not love me, with the respectful love of a dependent? Come, let us see." Rising from his seat in time to forestall a second application to the biscuit box, he went to it, took half a dozen, shut down the lid, and returned to the rock. "Now, Mirandola," he said--"I name you Mirandola for your wisdom, not your larceny--here in my hand I hold one of the twice-cooked, the fellow of the one you found so delectable. Come and take it, and give thanks." But the animal sat motionless on its branch, grinning and gibbering. "You do me wrong to suspect me," Dennis went on. "Well, this is to prove my good faith." He flung the biscuit on to the sand a few yards away, and laughed quietly to see what ensued. The monkey chattered volubly with excitement, swung itself to a lower branch, then back to its former perch, where it sat for a moment blinking and grinning. Then it descended with extraordinary rapidity to the foot of the tree, crouched behind the trunk while a man might count ten, and with frantic haste, as though fearful its courage would not endure, it darted on all fours across to the biscuit, looking in its movements like a gigantic spider. Seizing the delicacy, it sped back to the tree, squatted on the lowest branch, and set its jaws right merrily to work. "That is your first lesson, Mirandola," said Dennis, placing the remaining biscuits in his pouch, in full sight of the animal. "The second begins at once; it enjoineth patience." And heedless of the loud outcry made by the monkey when it saw these choice comestibles disappear, Dennis returned to his couch, and laid himself down for the night. CHAPTER IV Salvage Rising with the sun, Dennis set about making a more careful examination of the hull of the _Maid Marian_. The leaks in her timbers were rather more serious than he had supposed. Clearly they would prevent her from drifting out to sea on the tide, but they would also render her final break-up inevitable in the event of a violent storm from the north-west. There were signs on the face of the cliff that at times the waves dashed over the narrow beach of sand against the wall of rock beyond. In these latitudes, as the fate of the _Maid Marian_ proved, storms arose without warning, and with incredible swiftness; and it behoved Dennis to make all speed in saving the ship's stores. At low tide on this day, and on many that followed, he worked hard at his task. He rigged up a block and pulley in the waist, by means of which he was able to hoist casks and other heavy objects up the hatchways and lower them over the side of the vessel. It was more difficult to convey them from the vessel to a place of safety beyond the reach of the tide. At first he tried to haul them by a rope, but finding soon that he succeeded only in working up a ridge of sand which rendered haulage exhausting and in some cases impossible, he bethought himself of the device of employing rollers, such as he had seen used by fishermen on the beach at home. It was an easy matter, with the tools now at hand, to lop off and strip some straight boughs suited to his purpose, and upon these he brought, slowly and not without pains, the bulkier goods to safe harbourage. The tide always rose about the vessel too soon for his impatience; but the work was arduous, the intervals were really needed for rest, and they gave opportunities of furthering his acquaintance with the monkey. His relations with Mirandola, indeed, were placed on a sound and satisfactory footing long before he had emptied the hull. The biscuits were invaluable. At intervals, now long, now short, he would throw one towards the monkey, which watched all his doings at the wreck day by day with unfailing regularity. Little by little he diminished the length of his throw, until, on the third day after his first lesson, Mirandola had gained sufficient confidence to approach him to within a few inches. On the fourth day, after keeping the monkey waiting longer than usual, Dennis took a biscuit from his pouch, held it for a moment between his fingers, then put it back again. "It is time, Mirandola," he said, "that your education was completed. You are, I verily believe, as wise as a serpent; will you not believe that I am harmless as a dove? This is the same biscuit I stowed but now in my pouch; it is for you; it is yours if you will take it mannerly. No, I will not cast it on the sand; it is more seemly to take it from my hand, and, I do assure you, it will be no less relishable. Come, then, dear wiseacre; have I ever deceived you? Show a little confidence in your true friend and well-wisher." He held forth the biscuit, with an alluring smile. Mirandola cocked his head on one side, gazed at this dispenser of delectable things with a searching solemnity, and then crawled forward with watchful eye, dubiously halting more than once. At length he came to Dennis's feet, and sat up, with so gravely sad an expression that Dennis found it hard not to laugh. Then, thrusting up his long arm, he made a grab at the biscuit. "Not so, Mirandola," said Dennis, holding it beyond the monkey's reach. "Manners maketh man; assuredly they will not mar monkeys. Ape the gentle philosopher your namesake; be courteous and discreet. Now, once more." He lowered the biscuit slowly, keeping his eyes on the creature's face. But with a suddenness that took him aback, Mirandola raised himself on his hind legs, flung out an arm, and, before Dennis could withdraw it, held the biscuit in his skinny paw. "Wellaway!" laughed Dennis. "I may keep my breath to cool my porridge, for all the effect my words have upon your savage nature." Then, to his surprise, the monkey came to him again, and held out his hand. "You shall not be disappointed," he said. "Not for the world would I reject your advances. Here is a biscuit, and with this, shall we say, our friendship is sealed." And it was not long before Mirandola would sit upon his knee, and take food from his hand with all mannerliness; and, its distrust gone, showed itself to be as affectionate and devoted as a dog. Dennis availed himself in other ways of the hours when the tide interrupted his labour with the stores. There was no lack of planking and tarpaulin in the vessel; these he utilized in building on the ledge, and near a fresh spring that ran out of the cliff, a little hut about two trees that grew near enough together to form uprights for his roof. Then he erected two small sheds close by, wherein to shelter his goods from the weather. At first he fumbled with the unfamiliar tools, not omitting to pinch his fingers as he hammered in the nails. But he soon acquired a certain dexterity, and was indeed mightily pleased with his handiwork. Every now and again he made a trip across the island, to discover whether any vessels were in sight. Once or twice he descried a sail on the horizon; once, indeed, he felt some excitement and anxiety as he saw a bark under full sail bearing straight, as he thought, for the shore. But in this he was mistaken; the vessel altered her course, and Dennis, watching her diminishing form, hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. He was in truth too busy for self-commiseration: work filled his days, unbroken sleep his nights. His feeling of loneliness had almost entirely passed away, for Mirandola was his inseparable companion, and it pleased his fancy to talk to the monkey as to a human being. So engrossing had his labour been that he had taken no account of the passage of time. It came upon him with a shock, once, that the unnumbered days were flitting away. The idea that he was doomed to grow old upon this island, and linger out his years in endless solitude, struck his imagination with a chill, and set him climbing the cliff in a kind of frenzy, to scan once more the wide horizon for a sail. If at that moment a vessel had hove in sight, he would have flown a flag, fired a musket, to attract attention, reckless what crew it bore, so deep was his yearning to see a fellow man. When the fit passed, it left him with a new desire. Never yet had the possibility occurred to him of leaving the island. Could he construct a raft, or build a boat--nay, was there a chance of making the _Maid Marian_ herself, battered as she was, seaworthy? The absurdity of attempting to navigate single-handed a bark of near a hundred tons set him laughing; but the idea suggested a new outlet for his energy, just at the time when the conclusion of his salvage work had bereft him of occupation. He became fired with the purpose of saving the vessel. The weather hitherto had been perfect; but sooner or later a storm must come, and then the ship would be ground to splinters against the cliff. Was it possible to float her? He had unloaded what he imagined to be a good many tons of stores; thus lightened, could she be moved? If he could succeed in floating her, whither could she be taken? His tour of the island had failed to discover any harbour; there was little to gain and much to lose by allowing himself to drift about aimlessly in such a hulk. Suddenly an idea struck him. Would it not be possible to devise some means of floating her up the gully, round the shoulder of the cliff? Her draught was not great: at high tide the water was deep enough to carry her many yards beyond her present position, to a point where she would be at once invisible from the open sea and protected from the weather. At the next fall of the tide he made a thorough inspection of the wreck. It was easy to find the leaks, for at every ebb the water that had entered the vessel at the flood gushed out in tiny cascades. Many a time he had seen ships careened and caulked in the dockyard at Plymouth. He had plenty of rope of which to make oakum, and of tar more than enough to meet his needs; in his search through the vessel he had lighted on no caulking iron, but a long nail would serve, and it should go hard with him, he thought, but he would make the old hulk sound and seaworthy ere many days were gone. He found an unexpected assistant in Mirandola. He had teased out but an inch or two of rope when the monkey squatted down by his side and began with his strong nimble fingers to copy him, looking up in his face with an air of such busy importance that Dennis was fain to lie back and laugh. "By my troth, Sir Mirandola," he said, "this is friendship indeed. And you outdo me, on my soul; you pick two inches to my one. 'Tis not the daintiest of work for fingers untrained to it, and if it pleases you, why, I will e'en leave it to you, and admire this unwonted usefulness in a philosopher." But he found that when he ceased, the monkey ceased also. "Poor knave!" he said. "You see not the end. 'Tis but an apish trick after all. Well, God forbid that I should judge your motive; I am thankful for your help, and we will work together." Between them the two collaborators soon had a fine heap of oakum ready for use, and a couple of days' hard work at low tide sufficed to caulk all the seams. Mirandola's share in this second part of the job gave Dennis more amusement. The busy creature solemnly dabbed tar on sound parts of the timbers, and chattered with disgust when he discovered that the stuff clung to his hairy skin, defying all his efforts to get rid of it. "I' faith, I named you more fittingly than I wot," quoth Dennis. "Pico, your illustrious namesake, was a gentleman of rare and delicate taste. Touch pitch and thou art defiled. But a little turpentine, mayhap, will cleanse the outward spots; and as for your inward hurt--what think you of a spread of honey on your biscuit?" Mirandola thought nobly of the new delicacy, and came in time to look for honey whenever he had imitated Dennis with more than usual energy. The leaks having been well caulked, Dennis proceeded to pump the water from the lower parts of the hold. He awaited the next high tide with great eagerness. To his joy the vessel floated, and rode fairly upright on her keel. The tide carried her several yards up the beach, leaving her again high and dry at the ebb. But Dennis now found himself faced by a difficulty. He wished to get the vessel round the shoulder of the cliff, so that the tide might carry her up the chine to the pool below his hut and sheds. The distance was barely eighty yards, but he had noticed, from the movement of a log floating some little way out, that the set of the current was from north to west; so that if once she were allowed to float free, and felt the force of the current, she would probably drift away in the opposite direction from what he desired. On the other hand, if she were driven too high on the beach, she might stick so firmly in the sand that it would be impossible to move her, and then she would lie at the mercy of the first north-west gale. His little nautical knowledge was at first at a loss. "Mirandola, your speechless wisdom is of no avail," he said ruefully, as he sat at his fire one evening, feeding the monkey with pease porridge. "You and I are both landsmen; unlike you, I adventured forth, to gain gold, and fight the don Spaniards, if so the fates should ordain. Here is never a Spaniard to fight, and as for gold, the wealth of Croesus would not at this moment benefit me a jot. If I had been bred to the sea, now, I should not be at this pass." But long cogitation, and another visit to the ship, determined a course of action. The windlass, he discovered, was uninjured, and though it was very stiff, he could still manage to turn it. A big jagged rock jutted out from the cliff near the shoulder round which the vessel must be warped. To this rock he carried a rope from the stump of the mainmast and securely fastened it. This would prevent the vessel from drifting out to sea. Then, with a hatchet from the ship's stores he cut a number of thick branches from the trees along the gully, and pitching them into the pool floated them one by one on to the beach alongside the wreck. There was plenty of rope on board to fashion these into a stout raft, on to which, with the aid of the windlass, he lowered a kedge anchor just sufficiently heavy to hold the vessel in a calm. It was a matter of some difficulty to get the anchor so evenly adjusted on the raft that the latter would not turn turtle; but after some patient manoeuvring Dennis arranged it squarely in the centre, and when the tide came in the whole floated with a fair appearance of stability. Then with a long pole Dennis cautiously punted the raft out beyond the gully, paying out as he went a stout cable, connecting the anchor with the windlass. Some thirty yards beyond the gully, at a point near enough in shore to be beyond the reach of the current, he prepared to drop the anchor. It was too heavy for him even to move; the only plan that suggested itself was to bring about what he had up to that moment been most anxious to prevent--the raft must now be intentionally upset. One by one he cut away the lashings of the outermost logs on the seaward side. At last he felt by the movement of the raft that only his own weight prevented the crazy structure from turning over. He slid from the raft into the sea; the far side sank and the anchor slipped over and went with a thud to the bottom. Then the raft righted itself, and Dennis scrambled aboard. The rest was easy. When the tide ebbed it carried the wreck inch by inch towards the anchor, for with the aid of the windlass Dennis was able to keep the cable constantly taut, while at the same time he paid out the rope connecting the vessel with the shore. A couple of tides brought him in this way up to the anchor; then, transferring the shore cable to a stout tree some distance up the gully, he slacked off the kedge line when the tide was running up, and allowed the wreck to be carried shorewards. In this way the _Maid Marian_ floated slowly up the gully on the flood, and another couple of tides brought her within a few yards of the pool, which he designed for her permanent harbourage. Below this there was a narrow bar that threatened to baulk him. At low tide, indeed, he had to shovel away a large amount of sand in the middle of the channel, and once came near losing his temper with Mirandola, who, with well-meant industry, and a quite innocent pleasure, set about scooping back the sand as it was dug out. But the animal tired of this fatiguing amusement; the difficulty was overcome; and when at last the vessel rode gently into the little natural harbour below the hut, Dennis hailed the success of his long toil with a cheerful "Huzza!" and broached a cask of sack. Of this indulgence he partly repented, for the monkey seized upon the empty can when he laid it down, and drained it greedily. "No, no, my friend," said Dennis, gravely. "Wine maketh glad the heart of man; I do not read that it is anywise a drink for brutes. And all your philosophy would not reconcile me to a drunken Mirandola. 'Be not among wine-bibbers,' says the wisest of kings and men; I bethink me he says also, 'My son, eat thou honey, for it is good!' You shall have honey, my venerable son." CHAPTER V The Edge of the Marsh During his operations about the wreck, Dennis had noticed that the monkey showed a strange aversion for the sea. At low tide, when the vessel was high and dry, he quite cheerfully accompanied his benefactor on board; but as a rule, when he saw the tide rolling in, he chattered angrily, swarmed down the side of the vessel, and posted himself at the nearest point above high-water mark. Only on the one occasion, when he mounted the windlass, did he remain on deck when the tide was at flood; there he seemed to regard himself as out of reach of the waves. Dennis wondered whether the dread of the sea was a characteristic of the monkey tribe, or whether Mirandola had at some time suffered a sea-change which it was determined not to repeat. He took endless pleasure in studying the amiable creature; and when, his work with the ship being finished, he began once more to take lengthy strolls across the island, he drew a new delight from the companionship of the monkey. The friendship being so firmly established, Mirandola showed off his accomplishments with a freedom he had not displayed when he regarded this newcomer with distrust and suspicion. Dennis laughed to see his antics in the trees. He would curl his long tail about a branch, and swing to and fro with manifest enjoyment. Sometimes, clutching a banana with one hand, he would pick another with one foot, and hold a third to his mouth with the second hand. Sometimes when he saw Dennis holding his forehead in a brown study, he would rub his long gaunt arms over his own brow with a wistful look that brought a smile to the lad's face. He was amiability itself, and showed genuine distress when Dennis took occasion to scold him for some piece of inconvenient prankishness. Now that his thoughts were no longer engrossed with his salvage work, Dennis more often speculated on his future. The prospect was not very encouraging. Supposing he could carry out his half-formed purpose of building a boat, what chance was there of surviving a voyage across the ocean in a vessel that, untrained as he was in handicraft, must necessarily be a clumsy thing? And unless he could risk an ocean voyage he felt that he had better remain where he was. No European nation but the Spaniards and the Portuguese had settlements on the American coast. What might be expected at the hands of the Spaniards he knew full well. Had he not heard from the lips of one Master John Merridew fearsome tales of their treachery and cruelty? John Merridew had sailed with Captain John Hawkins to the West Indies, with Master Francis Drake as one of the company. Forced by foul weather into the port of St. John de Ulua, the Captain made great account of a certain Spanish gentleman named Augustine de Villa Nueva, and used him like a nobleman. Yet this same Augustine, sitting at dinner one day with the Captain, would certainly have killed him with a poniard which he had secretly in his sleeve, had not one John Chamberlain espied the weapon and prevented the foul deed. And recalling Merridew's narrative, Dennis wondered what had become of those hundred poor wretches who, when victuals ran short, and the ship's company were driven to eat parrots and monkeys and the very rats that swarmed in the hold, preferred to shift for themselves on shore, rather than starve on ship-board. In imagination he saw that touching scene, when the General, as Merridew called Captain Hawkins, gave to each man five yards of cloth, embraced them in turn, counselled them to serve God and love one another; and thus courteously bade them a sorrowful farewell, promising, if God sent him safe to England, to do what he could to bring home such as remained alive. That Captain Hawkins would fulfil his promise Dennis believed; but how many of those Englishmen were still living? He reflected that he at least had food and present safety; compared with theirs his lot was a king's. But he was not to escape misfortune altogether. One day the storm he had so long been expecting broke over the island, hurling great seas into the mouth of the chine, threatening to dash the _Maid Marian_ against the rocks or sweep her out into the ocean. In the midst of pelting, blinding rain Dennis strove to ensure her safety. She wrenched at her anchor; every moment he feared lest her mooring ropes should be snapped; he could do little but keep a watch on the fastenings. And while he was thus watching, a roaring flood passed through the gully from the plateau above, swamping his hut, washing away some of his hardly-won stores; and the fierce blast tore off the roof of one of his sheds, exposing its contents to all the fury of the weather. Next day he did what he could to repair the damage. Fortunately much of his perishable goods was contained in stout boxes which he always kept securely fastened, and the things he lost were those he could best spare. In the afternoon of that day, he went across to the opposite side of the island, as he was wont to do at intervals, to take a look-out from the high cliff there. He wondered whether the storm had cast any other ill-fated vessel upon the shore. But, scanning the whole horizon, he saw nothing but league upon league of restless sea. "Our solitude is not to be disturbed, Mirandola," he said to the monkey, "for which let us be thankful. Or ought we to deplore it? I wish you could speak, my friend, and tell me something of your history. Are you the last of your race, I wonder? Well, so am I. I have no kith nor kin; nor, as it appears, have you. I have a humble estate in an island--to be sure, somewhat larger than this. Now I come to think of it, this island is yours; it is a mark of nobility of soul--or is it poverty of spirit? I cannot say--that you do not regard me as a supplanter. Good Holles, my steward, would not brook the intrusion of any adventurer on my lands. Heigh ho! How fares the old fellow, I wonder? How he shook his old head when I acquainted him with my purpose to join Sir Martin Blunt in his voyage to the Spanish Main! 'God save you, sir!' said he, and asked whether he should sell my whippets! One thing I know, Mirandola: that if it please God to bring me safe home in season, Holles will give me a faithful account of his stewardship. Let me think I am your steward, good my friend. And now let us return to our honey-pot." On the way back, Dennis struck somewhat to the left of his usual path, to skirt the marsh on its south-western instead of its north-eastern side. It was far larger in area than when he had first seen it; its outlet was too narrow to carry off the surplusage due to the tremendous rains. Dennis was picking his way around the oozy edge, letting his thoughts travel back to the pleasant land of Devon, when suddenly he was brought up short by the sight of a mark in the soft earth, the strangeness of which mightily surprised and perplexed him. Parallel with his own tracks there ran for a few yards a faint ribbon-like track--such a track as might be made by a large cart wheel that had rested very lightly on the surface. It was a single track: following its course, he found that it disappeared into the water, just as he had seen the mark of a cart wheel disappear into a roadside horse-pond at home. He looked around. There was nothing to account for the mark. He scouted the idea that it had been actually made by a wheel; a vehicle must have been drawn by animals, and there were no hoof-marks to match. With all his puzzling he could find no explanation, and though he looked warily about him as he went on his way, with some return of his old feeling of nervousness, he saw no sign to suggest that the island had been visited. It was a day or two before he again found himself near the marsh. He had been fishing from the base of the high cliff that formed his usual look-out. A kind of natural pier of broken rock jutted out from the cliff seawards, and the deep water on each side was the favourite resort at high tide of shoals of small fish, which chose it, he supposed, because the depth was not great enough for the ground sharks that sometimes made their appearance off the shore, and the little fish could disport themselves there in security. Carrying his catch on a string--enough for his own dinner, for Mirandola would not touch it--he passed again by the brink of the marsh, and once more was puzzled by the wheel-like track which he had seen before and been unable to explain. The marsh had somewhat shrunk in the interval; the receding water had left more of the track visible: and the outer soil having been baked hard by the sun, the strange imprint was clearer and more definite. It occurred to Dennis now to attempt to trace the mark in the opposite direction, away from the point where it disappeared in the water. It speedily grew fainter as he came to harder soil, and he lost it altogether where it entered undergrowth which had no doubt been partially submerged when the marsh was at its highest. But after some search he found it again where it emerged from the rank vegetation, and from that point he traced it with little difficulty, for it kept fairly close to the margin of the lake. Its resemblance to the track of a wheel had now ceased; not even the most rickety of carts, driven by a drunken tranter on a Devonshire lane, could have made such erratic movements as must have caused this shallow winding mark on the soil. Dennis followed its curves with persistent curiosity, not unmixed with a vague uneasiness. Mirandola accompanied him, springing lightly from bough to bough of the trees nearest the edge of the marsh, descending with extraordinary quickness and loping along the ground where gaps intervened, or the fringe of the woodland belt took a trend inwards. At length the tracking came perforce to an end. Again the trail disappeared into the water, and Dennis halted, feeling a little vexed that his patience was, after all, to bear no fruit. He looked round for Mirandola. The monkey had disappeared, exploring, no doubt, thought Dennis, a close-packed thicket that came within a few yards of the morass, having apparently crowded out all nobler trees save one slender cedar which, dominating the undergrowth, seemed taller than it really was. Dennis was about to give up the problem as hopeless and go on his way, when suddenly he heard Mirandola chattering in a manner that was new to him. The moment after, the monkey sprang from the thicket into the tree, and climbed with frantic speed to the very top, where he sat gibbering and shaking with terror. Dennis, wondering what had perturbed him, took a step forward, then started back in a cold shiver. A huge serpent was rearing itself from the midst of the undergrowth and winding its coils about the trunk of the tree. Mirandola on the topmost branch had now ceased his chattering, and clung, watching the monster with dilated eyes. The poor creature was helpless. To descend from his perch would have been fatal; there was no other tree at hand to which it might escape. Indeed, under the fascination of the serpent's baleful eyes, as it slowly drew its immense coils up the trunk, the monkey lost all power of motion; and Dennis himself, even with the thicket between him and the monster, felt a sort of chill paralysis as he watched its sinister movements. For half a minute he stood rooted to the spot; then, making an effort to throw off this dire oppression, he tried to think of some means of helping the monkey. At that moment of danger, he was conscious for the first time of the strength of his affection for the animal whose companionship had done so much to relieve the awful solitude of the island. Unless he intervened, Mirandola was doomed, and the thought of losing Mirandola filled him with a fierce longing to slay this monster that was crawling inch by inch towards its prey. His first impulse was to run back to his hut for the gun he kept there ready loaded; but slow as the serpent's progress was, before he could return to the spot the tragedy would have ended. Then he remembered how the reptiles in the woods at home were killed. A blow on the vertebrae crippled them; could he cripple this huge creature, which even yet had not heaved all its length into the tree? His only weapon was the sailor's clasp-knife which he always carried at his girdle. He opened it impulsively, then hesitated. If he failed to hit the vertebrae, and dealt only a flesh wound, he might perchance save the monkey, but could he then save himself? He knew nothing of a boa constrictor's power of movement; yet his instinct told him that, if once enfolded in those monstrous coils, he must inevitably be crushed to death. But he could not stand and see his pet mangled and devoured: the serpent, moving deliberately, as though aware of its victim's paralysis, was not yet beyond his reach. Springing through the undergrowth, he marked a spot some distance from the reptile's tail. The serpent heard his approach, and turned its head slowly in his direction; but a second later Dennis drove his knife with all his force at the centre of the sleek round mass. Next moment he was thrown sprawling on the ground, by a flick of the tail as the upper part of the serpent's body writhed convulsively under the blow. He jerked himself to his feet and leapt away through the undergrowth in panic fear. A few steps brought him to open ground, and then, crushing down his nervous terror, he looked back. The coils were slipping down the tree, and in a moment it was clear that the serpent's power was gone; its huge bulk moved uncontrollably: its motor force was destroyed. Dennis ventured to enter the thicket again. When the serpent reached the ground, it writhed as he had seen injured eels and earthworms writhe, but its movements were all involuntary; Mirandola was saved. [Illustration: "Dennis saves Mirandola."] The monkey was now chattering volubly, but still clung to his perch. Clearly he would not venture to descend while his enemy moved. For some time Dennis watched it; then, feeling that he must put an end to its maimed life, he hurried away to fetch his gun. A bullet in the head: and the reptile lay motionless. Even then some little time elapsed before Mirandola yielded to Dennis's persuasive calls and slid, still somewhat nervously, to the ground. He avoided the reptile's body, and scampered away with shrill cries to the open. When Dennis overtook him, the monkey sprang upon his shoulder, and so they returned to the hut. After this thrilling experience Dennis felt somewhat less at ease in his peregrinations of the island. He had come to think that he had nothing to fear there so long as it was unvisited by men. But the thickets that gave hiding to one huge reptile might harbour many more. Henceforth he walked more warily, and never ventured far from his hut without a gun. CHAPTER VI The Spanish Whip Dennis had given up the idea of building a boat as a means of escape from the island; but now that time again hung heavy on his hands, he reverted to it as a refuge from the tedium of idleness. It promised to give him much labour, for, unless he stripped the planking from the _Maid Marian_, he must needs fell trees for himself, and prepare his timbers as well as his unskill could devise. The trees of the island were for the most part unknown to him; and he was not aware of the Indian practice of hollowing out a cedar trunk with fire or hatchet. In his wanderings he now began to take note of the different species, with a view to selecting one that would best suit his tools. One day, when he was strolling through the woodland on this errand, he was amazed, and not a little alarmed, to hear, from some spot far to his right, what seemed to him to be the ring of axes. He halted, incredulous. The island, he was assured, had no other inhabitant; yet he could not be mistaken; the sound of tree-felling reminded him of home, and he felt a sudden deep yearning for the combes and holts of far-off Devon. But this feeling was immediately quelled by a sense of danger. Who were these woodcutters? No friends, he was sure; he had given up hope of finding friends upon these remote coasts. And if not friends, discovery by these spelt death to him, or slavery to which death would be preferable. He was minded to turn about and seek safety in his hut. Built upon the edge of the chine, it could only be discovered by careful exploration of the woodland, and the chine was all but invisible from the sea. There he might remain in hiding, with a fair chance that he would not be found. But this first impulse passed. He felt an overmastering curiosity to see who these visitors were. Whence had they come, he wondered? Why, if they came from the distant mainland, had they crossed the sea? He could not suppose that wood was lacking upon the shores of the great continent. Slowly, with infinite caution, he began to thread his way towards the sound. There were open spaces amid the woodland; these he durst not cross, but kept always in the shelter of the trees. He dreaded lest Mirandola should betray him by a cry; but the monkey leapt from bough to bough almost noiselessly, as if he too had taken alarm from the unwonted sound. A few weeks before, Dennis himself would have found it difficult to make his way through the woods and the undergrowth without giving signs of his presence by the snapping of twigs or the rustle of parting foliage; but the abiding sense of danger which had oppressed him during his earlier passages across the island had bred in him a wariness of movement that was now almost as instinctive as in the wild creatures whose lives depended on their caution. Guiding himself by the sounds, he was drawn towards a grove of trees that lay about two hundred yards from the southern beach. Only a day or two before he had struck his hatchet into one of them, and concluded from its soft white sappy rind that it would not provide fit timber for his boat. Yet it was clearly these trees upon which the unseen woodmen were at work. He stole forward, and coming to a dense fringe of undergrowth beyond which the grove lay, he edged his way into the thicket, and very stealthily pressed the foliage aside until he got a view of what was doing. The trees grew somewhat far apart, and across a fairly open space he saw the strangers whose unexpected presence was causing him such concern. Five men, stripped to the waist, were hard at work with axes. Four of them had dusky skins of reddish hue; the fifth, a short, thickset, brawny man, the muscles of whose arms showed like great globes, was clearly a white man, though his hands and arms were stained a bright scarlet quite different from the red duskiness of southern natives, or the red-brown caused by exposure to sun and wind. As they moved, the five men clanked the chains that fettered their ankles to stout logs of wood. A little apart stood three men looking on, laughing and talking together in a tongue strange to Dennis. They were big swarthy fellows, with soft wide-brimmed hats, each decked with a feather, brown leather doublets and hose, and long boots. Each bore a caliver and a whip. The sun was high in the heavens, its beams beating down through the trees upon the unprotected backs of the toilers. Sweat was pouring from them. The trees were thick, some at least two yards in circumference; to cut them through needed no slight exertion. The white labourer paused to draw his arm across his reeking brow. Then one of the watchers strolled across from the tree against which he had been lolling, and raising his whip, brought the thong with a stinging cut across the back of the slave who had dared to intermit his labours. A red streak showed livid on the white skin. For a moment it seemed to Dennis, watching the scene, that the victim was about to turn upon his assailant with the axe, his sole weapon. An expression of deadly rage writhed the features of his red, bearded face. His grip tightened upon the axe. But he controlled his impulse with an effort. The warder laughed brutally, flung a taunt, and cracked his whip in the air in challenge and menace. Sullenly the woodman resumed his task, and his persecutor, with another laugh, turned and rejoined his companions, applauded by their grins. Dennis felt himself stung to anger. This swarthy ruffian, he doubted not, was a Spaniard, a subject of King Philip, once the consort of an English queen. It was not a pleasant introduction to the race dominating the Americas. Apparently Mirandola liked them no better than he, for at the first sight of the strangers the monkey had fled away. Dennis found him a good quarter-mile distant when, taking advantage of an interval during which the Spaniards ate and drank, and the flagging toilers rested, he strode away to a banana grove to refresh himself. He watched the group till near sundown. Several trees having been felled, the men proceeded to hack off the branches and to chip away the white rind. Then the strange scarlet colour of their arms and hands was explained. The heart of the trees was a brilliant red. As the rind was stripped off, the Spaniards drew near and examined the core, and under their direction the labourers cut and trimmed certain selected logs. The work was still unfinished when the sun went down, and the leader of the Spaniards gave the word for returning to the shore. The logs were struck off the slaves' ankles and replaced by manacles; then they set off. Dennis followed them at a safe distance, and when he came within view of the sea, there was a small vessel riding at anchor some little distance off shore, and the slaves were in the act of dragging a row boat through the white surf. In this they all put off, and darkness covered them up as they regained the ship. Dennis returned to his hut, joined by the monkey on the way. "Here is food for thought, Mirandola, my friend," he said. "No fire for us to-night! Are you acquainted with don Spaniards and their ways? You kept a wide berth: have you too suffered at their hands? Who is the poor wretch the ruffian lashed? By his looks he would pass for an Englishman: I hope he is not of English breed. Yet I hope he is: what do you make of that, Mirandola? I protest I love your wise and friendly countenance; but there is something warming to the heart in the sight of one of my own kind, if such he be. We must be up betimes, my friend; maybe the morrow will give us assurance." Thinking over the incident before he slept, Dennis wondered why the party had returned to the ship. If the purpose of their visit was to obtain any quantity of this strange red wood, doubtless they had several days' work before them; why had they not camped on shore? Perhaps they felt that the slaves were safer on board; perhaps, too, they did not care to weaken the ship's company during the hours of night. It was a small vessel; probably there was not a large number of Spaniards aboard; but doubtless they were all armed like the three who had come ashore, and their slaves, being fettered, would need but a few to control them. Dennis hoped that when they returned next day they would not make too thorough a search for similar groves elsewhere in the island, for if they should discover his hut, he had little doubt they would seek to impress him into the hapless gang. His sleep was restless. Many times he woke with a start and sprang up trembling, feeling that the Spaniards were on his track. At daybreak he was on his way towards the western shore, and took up his position in the same thicket, the leafy screen being almost impenetrable. The monkey was with him now; but when his ears caught first the measured thud of oars, then the clank of chains drawing nearer, Mirandola chattered angrily, sprang into a tree, and disappeared. The party came into view: five slaves, three Spaniards. The former were, to all appearance, the same as those Dennis had seen on the previous day; but it seemed to him that their armed guards were different; probably the men of the ship took it in turns to come ashore. But if the individuals were different, their methods were much the same. Indeed, before Dennis had been watching the work many minutes, he had reason to know that the warders of to-day were even more ingeniously brutal than those of yesterday. The first thing he noticed was a change in their manner of rendering their slaves harmless. One of them carried a large wooden mallet; the others had between them iron staples with sharp-pointed ends. These staples they drove one by one with the mallet into the boles of the five trees selected for the day's operations. Secured to each staple was one end of a long chain, the other end of which was fastened to the captive's ankle band. Thus the hapless woodmen were fettered not merely by the logs of wood, as on the previous day, but by chains that bound them to the very trees they were to cut down. The staples were driven into the trunks below the line of the cleft to be made; but the chains, though long, seemed to Dennis scarcely long enough to enable the men to escape crushing should the trees happen to fall the wrong way. That was a chance which evidently did not trouble the guards. Dennis wondered why this additional precaution had been taken to ensure the safe custody of the wretched men. Had they shown signs of mutiny? It would not be surprising after the treatment of the previous day. Certainly the ingenious device lightened the task of surveillance, for the wood-cutters, however exasperated, could not turn upon their guards until they had forced out the staples with their axes. The three Spaniards threw themselves down at some distance from the slaves and lolled negligently against the trees. The wood-cutters plied their axes, sturdily, monotonously, never speaking, their faces expressing nothing but a sullen despair. Dennis fixed his eyes on the white man, and felt an eager longing to hear him speak. One word would be enough to show whether he was indeed an Englishman. But the man was as silent as the rest, and nothing was heard save the ring of the axes and the voices of the Spaniards conversing. Five trees lay upon the ground; the warders rose to drive the staples into others. It appeared that time hung heavy on their hands. Some demon of mischief suggested to one of them a means of obtaining a little diversion. His proposal was received with shouts of laughter by his companions. Dennis did not understand what was said, but the meaning was soon made plain. The three men drew lots with three twigs of unequal length, and placed themselves by the side of three slaves--the white man and two Indians--as fate determined. Again they drew lots, and proceeded to fasten their men to three new trees. The other two Indians were set to strip the trunks already felled. It was soon evident that the Spaniards' amusement was to be had at the expense of the wood-cutters. They pooled a number of pieces of eight; the Spaniard whose man first felled his tree was to take the stakes. The three men set to work, the warders standing over them with their whips. The faces of the Indians wore their wonted look of dull apathy; but Dennis saw the lips of the white man tighten, and a grim scowl darken his brow. The sport commenced. Excited by their gamble, the Spaniards urged on their men with loud cries. For some minutes the two Indians smote the trees with feverish energy; the white man plied his axe with measured strokes, neither slower nor faster than before. The warders became more and more excited, and from cries proceeded to blows. One of the Indians flagged, and to stimulate him the Spaniard behind dealt him a savage blow with his whip, and the poor cowed wretch laid on with greater vigour. Hidden in the bush Dennis nervously clutched his sword and felt the blood surge into his cheeks. Fine sport, indeed! The other Spaniards, not to be outdone, began to belabour the backs of their men also, and Dennis, seeing great weals rise on the bare flesh, could scarcely control the impulse to dash at all costs from his hiding-place to the aid of the suffering men. He saw the face of the white man pale beneath the sun-tan and the red stains; perchance the Spaniard would have had a qualm if he had seen the fury his features expressed. But he did not see it; with callous levity he shouted, and brought his whip down with a sickening crack upon the broad red-streaked back. Then, with a suddenness that took Dennis's breath away, the white man's pent-up rage burst its bounds. At the end of his endurance, he swung round with a nimbleness surprising in a man of his bulk, and flung his axe with unerring aim at his tormentor. The man fell among the logs. In a second, before the other Spaniards had time to recover from the shock of this unheard-of audacity, one of the Indians at work on the fallen tree hurled his weapon at the warder nearest him, and struck him headlong to the ground. The third man had sufficient command of his wits to take to his heels and scamper away. The wood-cutters were between him and the shore, and the direction of his flight was towards the thicket in which Dennis stood, all tingling with the excitement of this amazing change of scene. He gripped his sword; but the Spaniard stopped short within a few yards of the bushes, uttered a furious oath, and turning about, kindled his match, preparing to shoot at the slaves, who were hacking with frenzied haste at the staples that held them to the trees. The two Indians who were free were hobbling towards the woodland on the other side, appalled by their own temerity. Dennis heard the Spaniard chuckle as he raised his caliver. The man knew full well that, even if the woodmen succeeded in breaking loose, he would have time to shoot them down one by one, hobbled as they were. Dennis could no longer remain inactive. An enemy of the Spaniards, whatever his colour, was a friend of his. He could not see the poor wretches slaughtered. For an instant he thought of kindling his own match and firing at the Spaniard, who was within easy range. Then, changing his mind, he pushed aside the bushes, sprang into the open, and leapt over the ground with the lightness of a panther. The Spaniard heard his movements and swung round; Dennis saw the startled look of terror in his eyes. Taken aback, he had no time to ward off the musket stock of this assailant who had sprung as it were out of the earth. His cry of alarm was stifled in his throat, and under the blow dealt him with all the force of honest rage he dropped senseless to the ground. CHAPTER VII Amos Turnpenny Dennis felt his limbs tremble as he stepped round the fallen body and went forward. The white man and the biggest of the Indians had already released themselves, and stood as though rooted to the ground with amazement. "I am a friend," cried Dennis, while still separated by some yards from them. "My heart, that's a true word!" gasped the white man, and Dennis thrilled with joy as he heard the broad accent of a south-countryman. "A friend, true; and a blessed word to Haymoss Turnpenny's ears." They gripped hands, and looked each other squarely in the face. There was a lump in Dennis's throat, and a mist of tears in the elder man's eyes. Then Turnpenny glanced over his shoulder with a sudden access of fear. "We bean't safe," he muttered, and there was a world of terror in his gesture and tone. "They'll find us, and then 'twill be hell-fire. Can 'ee hide us?" "Let us first release that black man." "Ay, sure, fellow creature, although black. I'll do it, in a trice." He walked towards the trees where the last man was still struggling to force out the staple. At this moment Dennis saw one of the others, who had released his feet from the hobbling logs, springing past him with uplifted axe, the fire of fury in his eyes. Turning, he noticed that the Spaniard he had felled was moving. He had but just time to dash after the man and prevent him from butchering his prostrate enemy. The Indian drew back in surprise, and Dennis stood on guard until the Englishman joined him. "Bean't he killed dead? Why didn't 'ee kill him, lad? T'others be dead as door nails, and won't trouble you nor me no more." "We'll let this fellow live; he may be useful to us." "Why didn't 'ee kill him with your sword or caliver? He's vermin, as they be all." "Well, his back was towards me," said Dennis. "Besides, a shot would have alarmed his comrades on the ship." "The ship!" repeated the man, looking round again with fear in his eyes. "The ship! They'll find us! We are rats in a trap! Lord save us all!" "Come, we must think of something. Can you speak to these men?" "Ay, in some sort. Not in their own tongue, 'tis monkey-talk to me. Ah! look at 'em, poor knaves." The Indians had fallen upon the provisions brought by the Spaniards for their own consumption, and were devouring them ravenously. Turnpenny called to them in a husky whisper, as though fearful of his own voice reaching the ears of an enemy. Then, taking the dazed Spaniard with them, the woodcutters, hobbled by the logs, made off across the island, led by Dennis to the watercourse at the further end of which his hut stood. Within half a mile of that spot he halted, and got the Englishman to tell the others to remain there until rejoined. With Turnpenny he hastened on. "God be praised I was able to help you," he said. "Ay, but I fear me 'tis to your own undoing. They will come ashore, and catch 'ee, and flay 'ee alive." "Tell me, how many men are left on the bark?" "Ten, lad, all armed to the teeth. Sure they will land when we don't go aboard at night. They will hunt us down. This time to-morrow we'll be dead men, or worse than dead." "Pluck up heart," said Dennis. "There are six of us; I have arms for all; we can post ourselves at a place of our own choice, and make a good defence, I warrant you." "My heart! But what will be the use? Say we beat them off, 'twill be like as if we tried to stem the waves. With a fair breeze the mainland is but a day's sail, and there the Spaniards swarm like cockroaches in a hold. I tell 'ee, lad, whoever ye be, we be dead men!" "I've been nearer death," said Dennis quietly. "Look! There is my hut. I was cast up on this shore from a wreck: I have been here several weeks, months--I know not: it has pleased God to keep me alive here, alone on this island, and I believe there is hope for us all." "Amen! ... My heart! There's a sheer hulk in the pool yonder." "Ay, all that's left of the _Maid Marian_. But I will tell you my story anon. Come away into the hut, and let us talk of what we can do to save ourselves from the Spaniards." As they entered the hut, the Englishman drew back with a startled cry. Perched on a cask sat Mirandola. He chattered angrily at the sight of a stranger. "My one friend on the island, and a faithful comrade," said Dennis. "A gentle soul; he will do you no harm." "A friend, say you? 'Tis against nature to be friends with a spider-monkey. And I be fair mazed; it do seem all a dream, only in the offing yonder there be a real ship, and, say what 'ee will, I be afeard." "We'll first file off these clogging hobbles. And what say you to a mug of beer? It has come far; I have not broached the cask, and maybe 'tis still drinkable." "My heart! I never thought to taste beer or cider again. 'Twill comfort my nattlens, sure, and I was once a good man at a tankard." The fetters were soon struck off; a mug of beer was drawn, and drained at a gulp; but Turnpenny was still ill at ease. He went to the entrance of the hut and looked nervously up and down the gully, listening with head cocked aside. Dennis could not guess at the terrible past which had made this stout English mariner as timid as a child. "Let us get back to the black men," he said, knowing from his own experience the value of action in banishing sad thoughts. "Are they Indians of America?" "Maroons, sir, half Injun, half negro; lusty fighters, and faithful souls when they do love 'ee." "We'll knock off their chains and give them arms. What can they use?" "Not muskets, nor harquebuses, but anything that will dint a blow." "Half-pikes and swords, then. For yourself, take your pick." "Ay, it do give me heart to handle a cutlass again. Here's a fine blade, now, and a musket--give me a harquebus; I could shoot once, but my arm is all of a wamble now. Lookeedesee!" He raised the heavy weapon to his shoulder and tried to steady it. "See! Shaking like a man with the palsy," he said, his nervousness returning. "I be no more good than a bulrush." "Pish, man!" said Dennis cheerily. "You are overwrought; your arm is tired with wielding the axe. An hour's rest will set you up. Come, bring the file and the weapons; we must see that the others are not scared in our absence." The four maroons had remained on the spot where they had been left, keeping guard over the Spaniard, who had now quite recovered from his blow. They eyed Dennis with a wide stare, and fell silent when he approached, seeming scarcely to comprehend the wonderful good fortune that had befallen them. The removal of their fetters and the gift of arms struck them as a crowning mercy; they grovelled upon the ground as in the act of worship. "They take 'ee for a magician, sir," said Turnpenny. "'Tis marvellous to their simple poor minds. All the world be full of spirits to them; a storm at sea be the stirring of witches, and the Spaniards be devils. My heart!" he exclaimed suddenly, "the fear has took me again! When they do miss the sound of the axes they will jealous summat wrong, and then they'll come and we'll be all dead men." "Cheer up!" said Dennis. "'Tis easy to cure that. Two of the men can set-to upon the trees again, and one can steal to the shore and keep an eye on the ship, and acquaint us if he sees any stirring there." "But what of the Spaniard, lad? 'Tis then only one maroon to watch him, and 'tis not enough. If so be the knave be left to himself, he'll run to the beach and give the alarm." "We'll stop that, too. When he has had a portion of food, we will gag and bind him, and all will be well." When the Spaniard was secured, the whole party returned to the scene of the tree-felling, and while one of the men went stealthily forward to spy upon the ship, two others plied their axes upon the fallen trunks. Dennis, more alert of mind than the sailor, foresaw that the trick could have only a temporary success. When the time came for the wood-cutting party to return to the vessel, their non-appearance would awaken suspicion among the Spaniards on board. Believing the island to be uninhabited, they would not guess what had happened; it would not even occur to them as possible that cowed and unarmed slaves would have courage enough to turn on their masters, much less overcome them. But if the party did not return at nightfall, the captain would certainly send some of his men to discover the cause. Of all men the Spaniards were the most superstitious; when they landed, their very superstitions would put them on their guard. Their approach would be cautious; they would probably discover the escaped slaves before these could strike at them effectively; and then, when the inevitable fight came, the party of six, of whom only two could use firearms, and one had partially lost his nerve, would stand a poor chance against men armed cap-à-pie and doubtless inured to the practice of warfare. Besides, even if the landing party could be taken by surprise and routed, the sound of the combat would alarm the Spaniards still remaining on the ship. They would sail away, and in a few days return in overwhelming strength. Dennis was at first staggered by the difficulties and perils of the situation, and he dared not consult with Turnpenny until the sailor had regained his courage. For the present the important thing was to keep him employed, so as to turn his thoughts from anything that would feed his fears. "We must bury these two knaves," said Dennis, glancing at the bodies of the Spaniards. "You and I can do that. Your name, I bethink me, is----" "Turnpenny, by nature, Haymoss by the water o' baptism, sir." "Haymoss?" "Ay, sure, a religious good name, sir; a' comes betwixt Joel and Obydiah somewheres after the holy psa'ms. Born at Chard, sir, in Zummerzet, but voyaged to Plimworth when that I was a little tiny boy, and served 'prentice aboard the _Seamew_--master, John Penworthy." Dennis had heard only the first sentence of this string of facts. He was in the very act of stooping to dig a grave with one of the maroons' big axes, when there flashed into his mind an idea which set him aglow with hope. "Well, friend Amos," he said, so quietly that none could have suspected his inward eagerness, "think you not we may strip the outer garments from these knaves before we bury them? Your back would be the better for a covering, and this leathern doublet would well beseem you." "True, sir, but I never donned a stranger's coat yet. I be English true blue, and though the Spaniard's doublet might span my back, 'twould irk my feeling mind, sir!" "To please me, Amos. I would fain you covered your arms--the red is too like blood, and we may see enough of that ere we be many hours older." To Dennis's gratification the sailor did not again blench at the suggestion of a fight with the Spaniards. He laughed. "My heart! 'Tis easy to see you be a new man in this new world, sir. The stains of logwood don't worrit me; 'tis a noble dye, you must own, and many's the noble garment that has been dyed for a Spaniard's madam out o' the logwood I've cut. But since it offends your innocent eye, I'll e'en don the knave's coat afore I put him out o' sight in earth too good for him." Overjoyed at the man's recovered spirits, Dennis hastened, as they went on with their task, to press his advantage. "You are two enemies the less, Amos--nay, three, counting the knave we have in pound among the trees yonder. What say you to our making a shift to put a few more in the same case?" "What mean you, sir?" "Tell me, what people hath the ship yonder, besides the ten Spanish knaves of whom you spoke?" "Why, sir, as a true man I answer, a black cook--no maroon, but a swart fat knave from the Guinea coast; and three maroons, who fell sick, or rather were well-nigh beat to death, in an island over against the continent yonder we visited on the same errand." "And they are gyved, as you were?" "All but the cook. He goes free, but, my heart! 'tis little he gains by it. He is every man's football and whipping-boy." "Why then do the Spaniards remain aboard the ship when there are so few slaves to guard?" "'Tis first because they be idle knaves, who would never do a hand's turn save by necessity. Item, because they be but poor seamen, and need a dozen to handle a craft, only forty ton burden, that three true-born Englishmen could sail into the devil's jaws. Item, because the spot where she lies at anchor is ill-protected; 'tis rather an open roadstead than a bay, and if a squall should come up sudden, as 'tis nature in this meridian, they'd need all the lubbers' work to get a fair offing." "So three true-born Englishmen are a match for a dozen base cullies of Spain? Is that your thought, Amos?" "Ay, at musket, pike, or quarter-staff; there's never a doubt on it." "Think you two, then, are a match for ten? The balance turns a little in favour of the Spaniards; by right proportion it should be two to eight; but mayhap four maroons on t'other scale would even the odds." Turnpenny desisted from his work, and a shadow of his former fear came upon his face. Dennis did not allow time for the fit to lay hold of him. "There is advantage to him who strikes first," he went on, quietly. "If we wait, assuredly we shall have to fight against heavy odds. But if we assume a bold part, and jump the risks, we may gain all the vantage of surprise, and enforce it with that English blood you hold so high in estimation, to say naught of English thews and sinews. Why, man, that stout arm of yours would fell an ox." "True, sir," said the simple mariner, bending his arm to raise the muscle, and looking at the knotty protuberance with great complacency; "I ha' done desperate deeds of strength in my time. But, heart alive! do 'ee think to capture the ship?" "I think of venturing for it; and, unless I be mightily mistaken, Amos Turnpenny is not the man to turn his back on a venture of that kind." "Not by nature, sir," said the man, uneasiness struggling with simple vanity in his mind. "By nature I be as bold as a lion. But the lion in the story was meshed in with ropes, and could do no harm to a silly mouse; and for four year past, sir, the ropes of mischance have held my spirit in thrall, wherefore it is that----" "That you are afraid? Nonsense! You are the lion; I am the mouse. Let us say that I, by good luck, have gnawed those confining ropes asunder, and now, on this island, you are free of mind as of limb, and a man of heart and vigour." Turnpenny flung down his axe and fairly jumped. "My heart!" he cried, gleefully; "'tis the very marrow of the tale! I be free, free! For four year I have forgot the word. Sound of limb, straight of eye, with all my five wits, praise God above! Speak your thought, sir; Haymoss Turnpenny is your man." CHAPTER VIII Half-Pikes and Machetes The Spaniards had by this time been buried. The two maroons were still hacking at the trees. Nothing had been reported by the man on the look-out. Glancing at the sun, Dennis guessed that it was still two or three hours from setting. But for interruptions there would be ample time to develop his plan. "Come beneath the shade," he said to Turnpenny. "There is much to be said and done. If perchance a man lands from the ship, we must take him prisoner. If several come, we must fight them at the gully. If they lie secure, and we are undisturbed, we shall capture their vessel this night." "I believe it, sir, partly; I'd believe it more firm if I understood." "Give me your judgement on my plan. At sunset we will haul some logs down to the shore and push off in the boat, as if we were the Spaniards with their slaves. You and I will rig ourselves in the doublets and hose of the two yonder; it will go hard with us if, in the dark, we do not mislead the Spaniards into security. We will mount into the vessel, and if luck favour us we shall be masters of the craft before the Spaniards have awakened to the danger." "A noble plan, but fearsome," said Turnpenny, shaking his head. "We shall be two short, sir. We rig up as Spaniards, you and me; granted; but the knaves on deck will see two Spaniards instead of three, and they will want to know what has become of Haymoss Turnpenny." "We will take our prisoner. Then they will see three Spaniards, and if they then miss Amos Turnpenny, let them suppose that the sailor man has turned troublesome, and been left on the island, to bring him to a reasonable humility." "Ay, sure, that unties the knot. But I would not give a groat for my chance of seeing Plimworth Sound again if the knaves spy the head of Haymoss sticking out o' the Spanish doublet. The captain, he be a man of desperate fight; no miserable dumbledore is he; 'tis a word and a blow with him; I've seed him kill a man of his own breed for no more than a wry word." "We must trust to our disguise, and the dark." "But the maroons, sir; they'll be of no use 'ithout weapons, and if they climb aboard with naked steel in their hands, 'tis all over with us." "You and I will mount first." "That would put the knaves on guard at once. 'Tis always us poor slaves that come over side last into the boat and go first out of it, so as never to give us no chance of making off. They need not be afeard; whither could poor miserable wretches escape away? But there it is." "Well, Amos, we must accept the wonted course, though I would fain go first, with you at my elbow." "It is my very own thought, sir. No white man can trust a black un in the deadly breach. But be jowned if I see any ways o' they maroons getting aboard with arms in their hands." "Nor I. Mayhap an idea will enter our conceits anon." "My heart! There be another thing I had clean forgot. We have ta'en their irons off." "We must put them on again. We will not fail for the sake of a clank." "Ay, but there's the rub, sir. The maroons will show fight if we attempt that same. Poor souls! Having no language and no intellecks to speak of, they'll not understand the main of our intent. They will suppose 'tis but a change of masters, and I fear me my few words o' Spanish will not suffice to set their minds at ease." "You made them understand you a while ago; you must try again. But a word more. I judge the sun is grown far on the west; 'twill soon be time to put our fortunes to the hazard. And, lest our dallying here waken the suspicions of the Spaniards, let us don these articles of apparel e'en now, and fix on the irons, and then go down to the shore, the maroons hauling the stripped logs thitherwards. The ropes are handy here." "What, sir, haul logs in the very sight of the knaves?" "Ay, do we not wish to deceive them? If they see two Spaniards marshalling the black men, cracking their whips, moreover, will they not believe 'tis their comrades, bent on finishing the work this night? 'Tis growing towards dusk; the vessel lies out too far for them to mark our lineaments; 'twill lull them into a fool's security." "And so it will. I will presently go speak to the maroons with my tongue, and, seeing that the poor mortals lack understanding, with my fingers and my eyes and my ten toes if the case do require it." Dennis watched the sailor somewhat anxiously. It would be a stroke of rank ill-fortune if they refused to have their manacles replaced. Everything depended on their docility. To his joy, after some minutes of gesticulation, Turnpenny came back, his broad face beaming with conscious self-esteem. "Be jowned if I haven't done it easy!" he said. "I spoke 'em plain, and to make all clear, I put my two hands together, with one finger pointing aloft: that stood for yonder vessel. Then I pointed to this doublet, and to yours, and set my face to a most wondrous frown, by the which they understood that you and me pass for Spaniards. A firk with my cutlass did signify our warlike intent, a thrust of my arms forth and back pictured the sweep of oars; and, to make an end o't, they understand our fixed purpose and are keen set to lend us their aid." "Admirably contrived!" said Dennis. "Now, while I bring the Spaniard to bear us company, do you replace the irons and fasten ropes about the logs. Darkness will steal upon us unawares and prevent the first part of our contriving." As Dennis returned to the gully to fetch the Spaniard, he saw that Mirandola was keeping pace with him through the trees. Since the event of the morning the monkey had held himself aloof, as if scared by the presence of so many strange men. Dennis halted and called to him, but the animal blinked and made no movement to descend. "Ah, Mirandola," said Dennis, as he walked on, "even the wisest of us have our failings. Jealousy, my friend, is a canker. I love thee none the less because I have a new friend. Will you not believe it? Is there not room for both--Turnpenny and Mirandola? If we succeed in this enterprise, you and Amos must be made at one." Some little while later, in the growing dusk, the four maroons were hauling a heavy log out from the undergrowth that fringed the sea. Dennis and Turnpenny urged them with rough cries and persistent cracking of their whips. As soon as they came within view of the vessel the ropes were cast off, and they all made their way back. When they returned with a second log, there came a faint hail from the vessel. "Ay, ay, 'od rot you!" shouted Turnpenny indistinctly in response, knowing that at the distance his voice could not be recognized. "Belike 'tis a call to us to embark, sir," he said to Dennis. "Mark you, they called us; no man dare say they did not call us; and if they do not like us when we appear, 'tis not because we are not proper men." The logs were laid alongside of those brought down the previous day; then the men released the boat's moorings, and hauled her off the shoal where she lay into water deep enough to float her. By this time it was almost dark, and the number of men who clambered into the boat could not easily be counted on board the vessel, nor would it be noticed that the maroons hoisted each a large bundle. At the last moment Dennis had decided not to encumber the boat with the captive Spaniard. He had thought of using the man to reply in Spanish to any hail from the vessel during the passage from the shore; but this might be attended with danger if the Spaniard should have courage enough to risk the inevitable penalty should he raise his voice to warn his comrades. Accordingly he was left on shore, gagged and bound, in a spot where he might easily be discovered by the Spaniards next day if the enterprise failed. There were no wild beasts to molest him, and the place chosen was remote from the haunts of the boa constrictor. The maroons pulled steadily towards the silent vessel, lying low in the water some two hundred yards off shore. Already a lamp had been lit aboard. Every member of the little party in the boat was tense with anticipation. Not a word was spoken. The silence would cause no wonderment among the Spaniards on the vessel; a party of free negroes might have filled the air with their babblement; but the maroons partook of the reserve of the Indian race, and, living, as they did, in a state of deadly feud with the Spaniards, they nourished a deep silent longing for vengeance in their hearts. Besides, these men were cowed slaves, and, after the hard day's toil they were supposed to have undergone, no one would have expected them to be talkative or merry. Stroke by stroke the boat drew nearer to the ship. At length a voice hailed it, and a flare was kindled in the waist of the vessel for its guidance. "Why do you return so late?" came the question in Spanish. Turnpenny answered in passable Spanish, but in a muffled tone-- "Wait till we come aboard." A few seconds later the boat came beneath the vessel's side and was made fast. The biggest of the maroons--he who had flung his axe at the Spaniard--got up and clambered aboard. On his back he bore a huge load of bananas. Close to his clanking heels swarmed a second man; before the first was well over the bulwarks a third was beginning the ascent, each carrying a similar bundle. The fourth man had but just set his foot on the rope ladder that hung over the side when there came to the ears of Dennis and the sailor, nervously awaiting their turn, the sound of altercation above. One of the Spaniards had bestowed a kick upon the foremost of the slaves, and, laughing loud, grabbed at the load of fruit upon his back. The maroon, instead of dropping his burden and cowering away, as was the wont of slaves, held firmly to it, and stepped back to avoid the Spaniard's clutch. "You hound!" cried the man, with an oath, and snatched a knife from his belt. Then, to his utter amazement, the maroon let his load fall indeed, contriving as he did so to rip out of it a shortened half-pike which was cunningly concealed there. The light of the torch fell on the naked steel. With a loud cry of rage the Spaniards who had been lolling on the vessel's side sprang towards the slave, cursing his audacity, shouting to their supposed comrades in the boat below to ask the meaning of this unheard-of act of mutiny. But he stood his ground, glaring upon them, holding his weapon to ward them off. And now at his side his three fellow-slaves were ranged, their bundles lying at their feet, glistening half-pikes in their hands. Yelling with fury the Spaniards, armed at the moment only with their knives, pressed forward to teach these mutineers a lesson. What access of madness had seized them? Where was the abject look of terror with which they usually shrank from their masters? What could the men in charge have been about? The Spaniards rushed to the fray with the violence of wrath and outraged bewilderment. At this first moment the fight was not unequal. The six Spaniards who had been on deck found that with their knives they could not come to close quarters with the four stalwart maroons wielding half-pikes. The latter, moreover, had kicked off the fetters loosely set about their ankles, and moved with freedom. And while the Spaniards were shouting for their comrades in the cabin and, as they supposed, in the boat below to come to their aid, the numbers of the mutineers were suddenly augmented. At the first sound of the scuffle, Dennis and Turnpenny, each armed with a cutlass, had sprung on to the ship, the former by the ladder behind the last maroon, the latter, with a sailor's agility, leaping up to the gunwale and hauling himself over. When they reached the deck they found the Spaniards dancing round the little group of slaves, who were keeping them at bay with valorous lunges of their weapons. No sooner had the two Englishmen joined the combatants than they found that they had now the whole ship's company to reckon with. A huge Spaniard rushed from the main cabin behind the maroon, a machete in one hand, a pistol in the other. There was a flash, a sharp barking sound; one of the slaves staggered and fell. Other Spaniards came headlong out, in their haste not pausing to bring fire-arms. From the forecastle ran one of the sick maroons. The instant his eyes took in the scene, he snatched up a belaying pin from the deck and, weak as he was, threw himself into the mêlée. Now had come the chance for which he had so long hungered, and his black blood seethed as he rushed to pay off old scores. There was hot work then amidships that narrow vessel. Cutlass and pike were matched, not for the first time, against the long Spanish knife. Under the disadvantage of surprise the Spaniards, though they outnumbered their assailants, were not so effectively armed for the fray. The maroons laid about them doughtily; they knew how terrible a weapon was the knife at close quarters, and their whole purpose was to hold their masters off and cripple them if they could. The big Spaniard who had rushed first from the cabin and fired at the maroon found himself immediately afterwards engaged with a lithe young man who, though clad in a Spanish doublet, was certainly not a fellow-countryman of his. Instinctively, as it seemed, captain singled out captain. Dennis made a vigorous cut at him, but the blade was fouled by the shrouds above his head, and the blow, losing half its force, was easily warded off by the Spaniard's machete. He sprang back; if his opponent had been a little nimbler Dennis would have been at his mercy; but the Spaniard was gross with idleness and good living; heavy of movement he failed to seize his advantage, though in the lunge his knife cut the lad's doublet, and gashed his sword arm in the recovery. [Illustration: "Captain singled out Captain."] Dennis was scarcely conscious of his wound. At this fierce moment his practice on the deck of the _Maid Marian_ served him well. To attempt a second cut would have been to give another opening. He shortened his arm and gave point. The Spaniard was no tyro. With a turn of the wrist he parried the thrust, which was aimed low, but could not prevent the blade from entering his shoulder. He staggered and reeled back towards the doorway of the cabin, and the two men immediately behind him rushed into the fight. Turnpenny meanwhile had been engaged in a similar duel, and by the sheer force of his bulk had borne his opponent to the deck. Side by side Dennis and he faced their new assailants. One of these, a long sinewy fellow, had an amazing dexterity with his knife, and a most perplexing nimbleness of movement. Dennis kept him at bay only by the length of his cutlass. For a few moments there was brisk work around the mast. Making a sweeping cut, Dennis somewhat overreached himself, and it would have gone ill with him had not Turnpenny, who had run a second man through, perceived his danger in the nick of time. Springing forward, he pierced the fellow to the heart. Three of the Spaniards had now fallen. The rest, who had barely held their own against the maroons, were stricken with fear when they saw their comrades' fate. Two of them sprang overboard; the remaining four, finding the three maroons now reinforced by the Englishmen, rushed back after their captain into the cabin, and, before they could be overtaken, slammed-to the door and shot the bolt. Dennis snatched up a belaying pin and brought it with all his force against the door, but made no impression on its stout timbers. There was a roar and a flash close to his ear; he felt his cheek singed; one of the Spaniards had fired through a loophole in the cabin wall. The moment after, there was another flash from a loophole on the other side, and one of the maroons uttered a cry of pain. In the open waist of the vessel the little party had no protection from musket fire; the loopholes had doubtless been pierced against the contingency of such an assault as this, and nothing but the darkness could prevent the Spaniards in the cabin from bringing down a man at every discharge. They had the whole armoury of the ship to draw upon; there was no means of checking their fire; and realizing the situation Dennis called on Turnpenny and the rest to seek cover. Some found shelter just forward of the mainmast; two swarmed on to the poop, and, climbing to the edge of its break, held themselves ready with their half-pikes to attack any one attempting a sortie from the cabin. Dennis and the sailor, picking up the calivers they had laid down when they boarded the vessel, dropped down behind a coil of rope towards the forecastle. "My heart!" exclaimed Turnpenny, as he primed his weapon. "'Twas brisk work, and not the end neither." "They are run to earth, Amos, 'tis true, got away like foxes. Our case is not too good. We are baulked, my friend." "Ay, sir. With all the victuals and munitions abaft, the knaves have the better of us. We cannot get at them; say we made endeavour to scuttle the ship, they could shoot us afore we got away." "And there are sick maroons in the forecastle, I bethink me you said. I would fain save them alive. We must do something to bring the knaves to an engagement. There are five of them now. With time to recover themselves somewhat, and fortify themselves with food, they can if it so please them lie low till morning light, then sally out upon us with arms loaded, several pistols apiece, and we, fasting, would be of a surety overmatched." "Ay, and we cannot feed ourselves even on that noble store of bananas, for they lie athwart the very course of bullets from the cabin." "Could we smoke them out? Could we blow the door in?" "With a sufficiency of powder, but the magazine is beneath the cabin." "Is there none elsewhere?" "Why, now I do mind me, the boatswain hath a vast relish for wild fowl, and is never loath to go a-shooting on shore. 'Tis like he hath a little secret store." "Then I will go rummage the forecastle. Do you bide here, Amos, and keep ward over my caliver until I return." When the party boarded the vessel, there had been a dim light in the forecastle. It was now extinguished. Dennis went in through the open entrance; then, feeling safe from the enemy's bullets, he took a candle from his pouch and having lit it, held it above his head. He shrank back, startled for the moment. The pale flame had fallen full on the face of a big negro, crouching in the corner of an upper bunk. A second glance assured him that he had nothing to fear; the black face was sickly with terror. In a flash Dennis remembered the negro cook of whom Amos had spoken. As cook, being allowed a certain freedom of movement about the vessel, the man would probably know where the boatswain kept his powder, and search might be unnecessary. Dennis called to him; the negro only showed more of the whites of his eyes. Dennis beckoned him with his finger; he only cowered and groaned. "'Tis to be main force then, you white-livered rascal!" cried Dennis, and, setting down his candle, caught the man by his waist-band and began to haul his oily mass out of the bunk. "You gibber more brutishly than Mirandola; come, or I'll shake your fat bulk to a jelly." Not without labour he lugged the negro forth, and dragged him aft to the place where Amos was crouching. "Here's a fat knave that's like to dissolve with fright," he said. "I do not understand his monkey-talk; speak to him, Amos. Ask of him what we need to know, and tell him we intend him no harm, and will certainly not expect such a craven to fight." "Ay, sir, 'tis Baltizar the cook, and a very whey-blooded knave. I'll ferret it out of him, trust me." He took some minutes in his scraps of Spanish to make the man understand what was required of him. When he understood, the negro became very voluble. He said that the boatswain did indeed keep a small jar of powder in his sea-chest, but there was a much larger quantity concealed among the ship's stores under hatches. It had been placed there by the mate--"the long knave I spitted," Amos explained--who was accustomed to do a little private trading with the natives of the mainland, and had destined the powder as a bribe for certain pearl-fishers of the coast. "Is it in the fore-peak?" asked Dennis, remembering where he had found powder on the _Maid Marian_. "No, worse luck!" replied Turnpenny, after questioning the man. "'Tis in the lazaretto, and the hatchway being but a few feet from the break of the poop, we cannot come at it 'ithout running the hazard of a shot from the cabin." "'Tis darker now; could I not risk the deed?" "The knaves med not see you, 'tis true; but you could not knock out the battens 'ithout raising a din, and they would know your whereabouts, and not all on 'em would miss your carcase. Be jowned if I'd like to see 'ee make the venture." Releasing the negro, Dennis crouched again behind the coil of rope. "We must find a way to get that powder," he said. "A mariner like you, Amos, ought to be fertile in devices. Come, set your brains on the rack." "I be afeard they be soft wi' four years' misery, but I'll rouse 'em. If I had but the second sight, now, like the old witch as lived within a cable-length o' my grandad's hut on the moors!" But Amos had done his brains an injustice. He had not pondered many minutes before he exclaimed-- "My heart! We have them on the hip! We'll e'en shin up the shrouds and lower the mainsail. She's furled on the yards, but we can unreeve her 'ithout noise, and when she's down, she'll be a barricade betwixt the mainmast and the break o' the poop, and not a knave of them can see what is toward in the waist." Dennis applauded the notion, and the two instantly set about their task. Crawling to the starboard side, they crept along by the rope netting that replaced in the waist the wooden bulwarks which bounded the decks, and reached the shrouds of the mainmast unperceived by the enemy in the cabin. To swarm up was the work of a few moments to Turnpenny, and Dennis was little less expert, having practised himself on the _Maid Marian_ in many details of the mariners' duties. Gaining the yards, they cast off the robands, made the buntlines fast, then, easing the earings, lowered away by the buntlines and the clew-garnets. Scarcely five minutes after they had left the shelter of the rope-coil, a wall of canvas shut the waist from the view of the Spaniards. They had barely finished their task when two musket-shots rang out, and two holes were cut in the sail. Clearly the enemy was on the alert. There was no time to be lost. Turnpenny knocked out the battens as quickly as possible, and lifting the hatch, disclosed a small ladder leading down into the lazaretto. "I will go down," said Dennis, "being of less bulk than you, Amos." He climbed nimbly down, struck a light, and after a little search discovered a jar of powder among a miscellaneous collection of ship's stores. Hoisting the jar up, he gave it into the hands of Turnpenny, climbed up again, and returned with the sailor to the coil of rope, to be out of harm's way while they went on with their preparations. "If we fire the whole jar we shall of a surety sink the ship," said Dennis; "and that I am loath to do. We must needs make a petard; but how?" "That cook knave shall find us a tin vessel, or I'll firk him," said Turnpenny. He went into the forecastle. Dennis heard a brisk exchange of bad Spanish; then the sailor returned, with a small canister out of which he poured a heap of peppercorns. "Most admirable!" said Dennis, who had meanwhile forced off the top of the jar. Making a hole in the rim of the canister near the lid, he filled the vessel with powder and firmly closed it. "There's our petard, Amos. Now to place it." "That be my job, sir." "No, no, we go shares in this work. 'Twas your idea to lower the sail. I carry less flesh than you, and therefore can go more lightly." "But mayhap I be surer footed on the plank, being a mariner of forty year." "I doubt it not, yet the deed shall be mine." Carrying the canister, and in the pouch slung at his neck a handful of powder for the train, he crept to the side of the vessel, ran lightly along the gangway by the rope netting, and lifting a corner of the sail, stood between it and the wall of the cabin. Then he dropped on hands and knees, and wormed his way forward until he touched the wall, following it along until he reached the door. Being beneath the line of loopholes, he was in no danger so long as he moved quietly; but at the slightest sound the enemy would fling open the door and give him his quietus before help could reach him from beyond the barricade. He might have felt still more confident had he known that Turnpenny had crept along after him, and was waiting at the corner of the sail, ready to spring to his aid in case of need. Feeling with his hand for the middle panel of the door, Dennis laid the canister down close against it. To ensure that the hole he had made in it, to connect with the train of powder, should rest upon the planks and not turn over, he pressed a slight dent in the rim. Then he crept backwards the way he had come, laying close to the cabin wall a train of powder from his pouch, not stinting the quantity, so that there might be no gaps in the line. He drew a breath of relief when he came once more to the further side of the canvas and stood erect. There was not a gust of air stirring; the confined space between the sail and the cabin was hot and stuffy; and what with holding his breath during the minutes his task had occupied, and the strain upon his nerves, he had felt almost suffocated. He said not a word when he found Turnpenny awaiting him, but placed his finger on his lips and motioned the man to return. The charge having been laid in safety, it remained to arrange a course of action when the door should be blown in. While the sail was still lowered it would be impossible to dash forward into the cabin. The screen was no longer required now that there was no further need for the open hatchway; to remove it might indeed put the enemy on their guard, but they could not know what to expect, and there would be no time after the explosion to hoist the sail, even if it were possible to spare men for the task. So Turnpenny volunteered to replace the hatch and hoist and bend the sail, work which he would do more quickly and expertly than Dennis. It was then necessary to communicate with the maroons, for to attack the cabin in less than full strength, against superior weapons, would be to court disaster. A loud whisper reached the men who had taken shelter behind some tackle forward of the mainmast, and brought them crawling to their leaders. It was not so easy to attract the attention of the two men who had shinned up the poop, and to whom, though they had probably seen Dennis as he crawled beneath the sail, he had not dared to make a sign. The difficulty was removed by a word from Turnpenny to one of the maroons. The man made a strange clicking in his throat, and within a couple of minutes his comrades had crept noiselessly along the port side of the vessel, and the party was complete. With great solemnity and many repetitions the sailor exhausted his small stock of Spanish in explaining what was required of them. They were all to charge together the instant after the petard had done its work. If the force of the explosion proved sufficient to blow in the door, they would dash through into the cabin and engage the enemy hand to hand. If, on the other hand, the door should be only partially shattered--as Turnpenny pointed out, there was no calculating on the precise effect of a charge of gunpowder--two men were to break it in with a short spar unrigged for a battering ram. Dennis counted on gaining a few moments while the Spaniards recovered from the surprise and shock of the explosion. In that brief interval it might be possible for him and Turnpenny to find the loopholes in the cabin wall and thrust the muzzles of their calivers through. By the time they had fired the door would be burst in, and then it would be a fight to the death. If the occupants of the cabin had felt any wonder or misgiving at the manipulation of the sail, there was nothing during the pause to give them either explanation or reassurance. They might have suspected that the intention of lowering the sail was to screen an approach to the hatchway; but as, according to Baltizar the cook, the jar of powder had been appropriated by the mate secretly, and he was now dead, it would never have occurred to them that their enemy would seek there anything but food. Otherwise they would assuredly have made some effort, beyond the firing of two random shots, to avert their fate. There was absolute silence when Turnpenny had concluded his whispered instructions to the maroons. The vessel rocked gently, almost imperceptibly; the tide was on the turn. Dennis crept once more to the gangway by the rope netting, stole along on bare feet, and stooped with a beating heart to apply the match which Turnpenny had made for him. It had an inch or two to burn before it reached the train of powder; and he stood back against the side, out of danger from the explosion, ready to rush across to the nearest loophole when the moment came. Suddenly a line of flame shot like a lightning flash across the planks. In an instant there was a deafening crash, and though each man of the attacking party knew what was coming, and was beyond reach of actual harm, they were all somewhat dazed by the explosion. But it was only for the fraction of a second. Then Dennis and Turnpenny sprang forward, one on each side of the cabin entrance, towards the loopholes whose position they had marked in the previous fight. For a few moments they were baffled by the blinding smoke, but finding the holes almost simultaneously, they thrust in the muzzles of their weapons, and fired at random into the cabin. A muffled cry from within announced that one or other of the shots had taken effect, but the next instant there was a roar as the Spaniards discharged their muskets together at the gaps rent in the door by the explosion. At the time the Englishmen knew not whether any man was hit, for, dropping their calivers, they seized their cutlasses, and, just as the spar carried by two lusty maroons levelled the shattered door, they dashed at the opening. The light from a horn lantern hanging in its gimbals struggled with the smoke that filled the room. Dennis stumbled over a body that lay across the entrance. He had barely recovered his footing when he was amazed to hear a frenzied shriek from the further end of the cabin, and two men rushed forward with uplifted hands, shouting again and again a single word which, being Spanish, he did not understand. "My heart! they cry for quarter!" cried Turnpenny, as much amazed as Dennis. One of the maroons who had carried the spar, either not understanding or not heeding the wild despairing cry, thrust at the foremost Spaniard with a half-pike, and the wretch fell forward, hurling Dennis to the floor and doubly blocking the entrance. Dennis threw the man off and scrambled to his feet; but before he could take a step forward there was a second explosion, louder and more shattering than the first, and when he recovered his dazed senses he found himself lying at the fore end of the waist, twenty feet away from the cabin. CHAPTER IX Amos Tells his Story "Body o' me! Will 'ee squall like babbies? Make for the boat, you howling knaves!" And then Turnpenny launched into a tirade of Spanish abuse, which came somewhat more trippingly from his lips than sentences of sound instruction. Dennis rose, and staggered towards the sailor. "God be praised! I feared you were dead, sir. The knave has blowed up the powder magazine, and in five minutes by the clock the ship will tottle down by the stern. These black rascals were howling like souls in bale, in the stead of swinging overboard into the boat while there is time. Come away, sir; the craft will sink to the bottom or ever we gain the island." Bruised and sore, dropping blood from his untended wound, Dennis hastened with Amos to the side, and was in the act of following the maroons into the boat when he suddenly remembered the two sick men in the forecastle. "I'll be with you anon," he cried, hurrying across the waist. "What a murrain!" muttered Amos, scrambling back and running after him. "Shall we drown for a brace of savages! Wilful! Wilful!" He reached the forecastle in time to see Dennis hauling from his bunk the fat negro, who lay there huddled and shivering with terror. "Make the fat fool understand!" cried Dennis, shoving the cook into Amos's arms. Then he hurried to the further end, where the maroons lay in a stupor of fright. Having no words to acquaint them with their peril, he sought to move them by signs; but the men gazed at him in fear, regarding him doubtless as a new oppressor. "Amos, leave that lump of jelly and come hither," he shouted. The sailor bawled a word or two in Spanish, and sped the negro towards the side with a kick. Then he made haste to join Dennis. "The wretches are helpless," said the boy. "We must carry them--fair and softly, Amos." "Ay, sir, an you will; but our case is parlous; I fear me our leisure will not serve." "No delay, then. Hoist this fellow upon my back; do you bring the other. We cannot suffer the knaves to drown." They staggered forth with their burdens, Dennis foremost. As he stumbled towards the side he caught sight of a man crawling slowly from the direction of the cabin. The man called to him feebly, but Dennis did not pause until he had reached the gangway by the netting, where he laid the maroon down. "Call to his fellows below there to assist him into the boat," he cried to Amos. "There is a man yet alive; we must save him." "Beseech you let the knave drown," returned the sailor. "'Tis a pestilent Spaniard--a meal for sharks. Be jowned if the lad be not a mere dunderpate," he grumbled, as he lowered his burden into the hands of the men below. Meanwhile Dennis had hastened to meet the wounded man, who groaned miserably as he dragged his limbs along. Half supporting, half carrying him, Dennis brought him to the side just as the second maroon had been bestowed safely in the boat. Turnpenny, still growling under his breath, helped to lift the Spaniard down. Then the boat was cast off, and the men rowed for the shore. "Canst see any sign of the knaves that leapt overboard?" said Dennis, looking around. "Never a hair," replied Turnpenny, "Sure they be swallowed quick by the sharks, and there's an end." Dennis shuddered. It was his first acquaintance with the tragedy of adventure on the Spanish Main, and his unschooled heart turned sick at the thought of the terrible fruit his scheme had borne. He gazed at the dark form of the vessel that was gradually fading into the night. The poop was already under water. He had not foreseen this end to his enterprise; the rapid sequence of events had bewildered him. What had caused the second explosion? Had the magazine been fired by accident? What a mercy it was that he and all his party had not been blown to atoms! He could not but feel a poignant pity for the poor wretches who had thus suddenly met their doom. The boat grounded on the shoals. He sprang into the water and assisted Turnpenny and the maroons to carry the helpless men to the fringe of grass, and to haul the boat up the beach. Then he turned once more to look at the vessel. No longer was her dark form outlined against the starlit sky; she had gone down, leaving no trace. Joining the men on the stretch of greensward where they were assembled, he suddenly heard the shrill voice of Mirandola close at hand, and next moment felt the touch of the animal's paw upon his arm. The monkey had followed the party at a distance when they came down to the shore in the dusk, and sat forlorn on the grass, watching the boat that carried his master away. Could the poor beast think human thoughts, Dennis wondered, as he felt its body trembling against his? Had it believed that it was deserted by the being who had treated it with kindness? Certainly it showed clear signs of gladness now, and its joy at recovering its one friend had vanquished its dislike and suspicion of the rest. "Here we be, sir, ten martal souls," said Turnpenny, "reckoning Baltizar, who in sooth is more like a jellyfish than a man. What be us to do?" "We cannot tramp across the island in the dark, Amos. What say you to camping in the logwood grove? 'Tis nigh at hand, and we can lie there with fair comfort until the dawn." "With all my heart. 'Twill be a drier bed than those villanous knaves yonder can boast." "Poor wretches! How came it that the magazine blew up, think you?" "I know not, sir. I will ask the knave you brought last from the vessel--a deed of merciful madness." He spoke a few words to the wounded prisoner, while the maroons who had formed the wood-cutting party conveyed their sick comrades to the grove. The man replied in feeble accents. "This was the manner of it, sir," said Amos, after a minute or two. "The captain being sore wounded, and two killed outright, the other knaves, seeing how that they stood in danger of being sliced by our bilbos, did incontinently call upon him to render up the vessel, hoping thereby to come off with their lives. But the captain, a tall man and of a good spirit, did resolutely refuse to yield to their entreaties, swearing that he would with his own hand blow up the vessel rather than deliver it to heretics and dogs of English. Straightway he passed into his own cabin, and made fast the door; which seeing, and knowing that what he had said, that would he perform, the knaves began to whoop and hallo for quarter. Then did the captain, as 'tis to be supposed, make into the after cabin and fire his pistol into the magazine, and so dealt the ship that mighty blow." "And this man--who is he?" "A man of Portingale, sir, not of Spain, and so somewhat nearer grace. He thanks you and all the saints that he remains alive, though his limbs be maimed withal." "Let us convey him softly to the grove; on the morrow we will look to his wounds and bind them up with balsam and other salves from the wreck." "Marry, you use him too gently. 'Tis like warming a snake in your bosom; and, since charity begins at home, we will look to our own hurts first." When the party was settled as comfortably as possible in the grove, Dennis and the sailor disposed themselves side by side to sleep. But both were wakeful, for all their fatigue. They lay for a time in silence, each fearful of disturbing the other; but Dennis, hearing at last a long pent-up groan from his companion, asked what ailed him. "Thinking, sir--old thoughts of home." "I have been minded to ask you of your history, Amos, but we have had other matters to speak of. How came you to be a prisoner of the Spaniards?" "'Tis a tale long in the telling, sir, but I will give 'ee the drift of it. I were a young cockerel of twelve when I ran away to sea. It kept a-calling me; night and day I heard the sound; and when I could no longer endure it, I went and joined myself ship-boy to a worthy mariner o' Plimworth. Afterwards he made me his prentice, and so a mariner I have been from that day to this. Ay, 'twas a brave life for a man, in the days of King Hal, lad. I mind me I were but rising seventeen when the French king took a conceit to invade England. My heart! he had reason enough, for King Hal had before sent a power to capture Boolonny, on the French coast, which they did, and burnt it with fire. The French king would have his tit for tat, and he gathered a great power and a mighty fleet to strike at Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. "I was rising seventeen, as I said, and gunner's mate aboard the _Anne Gallant_, a noble galleass. The fleet made a brave show, lying off Spithead, and I was hot to show my mettle; 'twas my first fight, by the token, and sure 'twas a famous fight. The _Anne Gallant_ and others of her sort, with the shallops and rowing-pieces, did so handle the French galleys that our great ships in a manner had little to do. The only hurt we suffered was the breaking of a few oars. We anchored for the night, as did the French fleet, we hoping to come at them in the morning; but when daylight broke, hang me if the French were anywhere to be seen, and though we gave chase they got away and ran into their ports. But a little after, the _Anne Gallant_, with three other galleasses and four pinnaces, was set upon off Ambletoosy by eight great galleys. There was great shooting betwixt us; we drew alongside of the _Blancherd_ galley in the smoke, and leaping aboard her, we took her captive, with two hundred and thirty pikemen and musketeers, and a hundred and forty rowers. Master King Francis got the wrong pig by the ear when he tackled King Harry. "Ah me and well-away! That was over twenty-five year ago. I served many years on merchantmen, under many a master, good and bad. I made one voyage to the Guinea coast with Master Hawkins, and five year ago, being about to set sail to the Indies for to trade slaves with the Spaniards, he sent for me and made me boatswain aboard his own great ship, the _Jesus of Lubeck_, of 700 tons. Marry, 'twas a goodly squadron that sailed out of Plimworth Sound. Besides the _Jesus_, there was the _Minion_ of Captain Hampton, the _William_ and _John_, all great ships, and three smaller vessels, of the which Master Francis Drake commanded the _Judith_. Hast ever set eyes on Master Francis?" "Ay, indeed, once only--this very year, in Plymouth, some months before I sailed." "And I warrant he was stout and brave, and as 'twere a raging fire against the Spaniards, making ready to chastise the villanous traitors and promise-breakers: was it not so, good-now?" "Well, to say sooth, when I saw him he seemed to have no thought of Spaniards: his whole mind was set on a game at the bowls, and he was some little put out when he failed of winning." "Master Francis put out over such a trifle? Why, believe me, with these very eyes I saw him warp his bark clear when beset by Spanish fire-ships and battered by Spanish guns, with as serene a countenance as he were sailing a shallop for pleasure on the Plym. Master Francis put out for losing at the bowls! Tush, lad!" "Nevertheless 'tis true, for I was there present, and saw and heard it." "God-a-mercy!" ejaculated Turnpenny. "And what was the manner of it?" "Why, Master Drake came to two gentlemen bowling on the Hoe, and one of them, being summoned away, left the other to play out the game with the Captain. He was beat, as I said, and being well conceited of his skill, he was for a moment vexed. Then he laughed, and clapped his hand on the shoulder of the other--a stripling he was--and said: 'A rub for me, my lad; 'twas a rare game, and I thank thee.'" "Ay, that was true Master Francis: he is ever gall and honey mingled. Art then of Plimworth, sir? As you love me, your name?" "Dennis Hazelrig, of Shaston." "Of Shaston? I was never there. I will mind of your name. You be gentle, I know by your speech, and Dennis Hazelrig do sound richer to the ear than plain Haymoss Turnpenny, but----" "Come, man, to your story," interrupted Dennis. "Ay, sir, then I must make a tack. I was at Plimworth, a' b'lieve, when the name of Master Drake set me out o' my true course. Well, the ships I named, great and small, sailed right merrily out o' the Sound o' Plimworth; 'twas a day of October, I mind me, the very season o' gales. We had a deal of buffeting afore we made the coast of Guinea, and a deal of hard knocks afore we took on board our store o' negroes for to sell to the Spaniards of the Main." "To sell?" "Why yes, sir; that is Captain Hawkins his trade; and knowing now myself what it is to be a slave, I have a fellow feeling for the poor knaves, black as they be, and bought and sold like cattle. Well, 'twas near six month afore we came to the Indies and did some traffic among the islands. Then by ill hap, as we sailed for Cartagena, we were caught in a most violent and terrible storm, the which battered us mightily for the space of four days; in sooth, we feared we should go to the bottom. The _Jesus_ was dealt with most sorely, her rudder shaken, and all her seams agape. Then, coasting along Florida, we ran into the jaws of another tempest, the which drave us into the bay of Mexico. There we sought a haven, and moored our ships in the port called St. John d'Ulua, where we landed, and our General made proposals of traffic. "The next day did we discover a fleet of thirteen ships open of the haven, and soon we spied a pinnace making towards us. There was in her a man bearing a flag of truce, and he came aboard the _Jesus_, demanding of what country we were. I mind we laughed at the knave; he swelled himself out like a turkey-cock. Our General made answer that we were the Queen of England her ships, come for victuals for our money, and that if the Spanish General would enter, he should give us victuals and other necessaries and we would go out on the one side of the port, the while the Spaniards should come in on the other. But it had so fell out that with their fleet there came a new viceroy of the Spanish king, and he was mightily put out by our General's reply, thinking it something saucy from an Englishman with so small a fleet. The proud knave returned for answer that he was a viceroy with a thousand men, and would ask no man's leave to enter. Our General laughed, and set us laughing too when he said: 'A viceroy he may be, but so am I. I represent my Queen, and am as good a viceroy as he; and as for his thousand men, I have good powder and shot, and they will take the better place, I warrant him.'" "A right proper answer," said Dennis. "And what then?" "Why, Master Viceroy gave in, and swore by king and crown he would faithfully perform what our General demanded, and thereupon hostages were given on both sides. The villanous knave! Our General chose out five proper gentlemen and sent them aboard the Spanish admiral; but the viceroy, stuffed with fraud and deceit, rigged up five base swabbers in costly apparel and sent them to our General, as if they were the finest gentlemen of Spain. Yet did we use them right royally, deeming it to be an act of courtesy and good troth. "Then their ships came with great bravery into the port, and there was great waste of powder in firing salutes, as the manner is at sea. But 'twas not long afore our General became doubtful of their dealings. So did we all, for with my own eyes I saw them, when they moored their ships nigh ours, cut out new ports in the sides, and plant their ordnance towards us. 'So ho!' says I, 'there be trickery and hugger-mugger in brew.' Our master, one Bob Barrett, chanced to be well skilled in the Spanish tongue, and him our General sent aboard their admiral to know the meaning of these same doings. The base villains set poor Bob under guard in the bilbows, and we had scarce seen that mark of their knavery when they sounded a trumpet, and therewith three hundred of them sprang aboard the _Minion_ from the hulk alongside. My heart! Many a time afore had I seen the blazing of our General's wrath, but never so fierce as it blazed then. His eyne were like two coals of fire as he called to us in a loud voice. I mind his very words. 'God and St. George!' cried he. 'Upon those traitorous villains, my hearts, and rescue the _Minion_; and I trust in God the day shall be ours.' And with that, with a great shout we leapt out of the _Jesus_ into the _Minion_, and laid on those deceitful knaves, and beat them out; and a shot out of the _Jesus_ fell plump into the poop of the Spanish vice-admiral, and the most part of three hundred of the villanous knaves were blown overboard with powder. "It was a good sight to see Captain Hampton of the _Minion_ cut his cables and haul clear by his stern-fasts, the while his gunners poured round shot into the vice-admiral that rode ablaze. But there was but four of us to their thirteen. The Spaniards came about us on every side, and began to fire on us with brass ordnance from the land. My heart! 'Twas hot work for us when we scrambled back on to the _Jesus_ as the _Minion_ sheered away. Being so tall a ship we could not haul her clear. She had five shot through her mainmast; her foremast was struck in sunder with a chain-shot, and her hull moreover was wonderfully pierced. Our General gave orders that we should lay her alongside of the _Minion_ till dark, and then take out her victuals and treasure and leave that noble vessel. A right true man is Captain Hawkins. In the midst of that noise and smoke he called to Samuel his page for a cup of beer, and it was brought to him in a silver cup; and he drank to us all and called to the gunners to stand by their ordnance lustily like men. He had no sooner set the cup out of his hand but a demi-culverin shot struck away the cup, and a cooper's plane that stood by the mainmast, and ran out on the other side of the ship; the which nothing dismayed our General, for he ceased not to encourage and cheer us. I hear his voice in my ears now. 'Fear nothing!' he cries, 'for God, who hath preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us from these traitors and villains.' "But on a sudden we perceived that the Spaniards had loosed two fireships against us. The men of the _Minion_ were in such a taking with fear of those monsters that they bided not the outcome, nor did they heed their captain's commands, but in a mighty haste made sail. The _Jesus_ being then alone,--for the _Angel_ was sunk and the _Swallow_ taken, and Master Drake had warped the little _Judith_ clear--our General cried to us to spring upon the _Minion_ ere her sails could draw, which he himself did. As I made to do his bidding, my heart! there came toppling on my head a portion of the main topsail cross-tree, and struck me senseless withal. When something of my wits returned to me, there was I, amid a score of wounded and captive fellows, on the deck of the noble _Jesus_, and a mob of Spaniards around; sure she must have been built under an evil star." "And what befell you then?" asked Dennis, eagerly, for Turnpenny had fallen silent. "God-a-mercy, sir, the fear takes me when I think on't! They hauled me ashore, with certain others of our men, and hanged us up by the arms upon high posts, until the blood gushed out at our finger-ends. 'Tis by the merciful providence of God alone I am yet alive, carrying about with me (and shall to my grave) the marks and tokens of their barbarous cruel dealings. 'Tis by the same wondrous grace I 'scaped handling by the Inquisition, that hath devoured many of my poor comrades. My heart and my reins cry and groan for the terror and pain of their sufferings. God have mercy on us all!" Overcome by the recollection of what ensued upon his capture by the Spaniards, Turnpenny went by turns hot and cold and was unable to continue his story. Many times during the night Dennis was woke from his own troubled slumbers by a cry from his companion, upon whom, now that the time of action had ceased, his former sickly terror seemed to have returned with double force. Both were heartily glad when morning came, and with the new day the necessity of facing their new situation. CHAPTER X The Maroons Build a Canoe The events of twenty-four hours had wrought a surprising change in Dennis's circumstances. The solitude of the island had suddenly become peopled. No longer would Mirandola be his sole comrade and confidant. He was inexpressibly glad of the company of a fellow-countryman; the presence of a group of men of strange races was somewhat embarrassing. Besides Turnpenny, there were now on the island the Spaniard who had been left pinioned on the shore, and the wounded Portuguese rescued from the sinking ship, three survivors of the wood-cutting party, three sick comrades, and the fat negro cook; in all a community of eleven. Small as it was, after his loneliness Dennis felt it to be a crowd. His first care on waking in the morning was to liberate the bound Spaniard, and to bring salves from his store for dressing the wounds of the Portuguese, and of his party; his own wounds proved to be slight. While absent on this errand he left Turnpenny in charge of the rest, and found when he returned that the sailor had already spread a delectable breakfast, having set the maroons to gather from the trees not merely bananas, but several other fruits which Dennis himself, in his dread of eating something poisonous, had not yet ventured to taste. When the wounded man and the sick maroons, who were still bewildered by their good fortune, had been attended to, he held a consultation with Turnpenny. As a result of this he decided to keep the whereabouts of his hut and the existence of the stores a secret from the white men. "They be all villains and traitors," said Turnpenny; "we must e'en keep them prisoners, and give them into the ward of the maroons. Wherefore I say, let the maroons build them a hut a mile or more away from your dwelling. They are idle knaves, and having been so long time slaves, they will be well content to do nothing but keep watch and ward over those that once were their masters. And as for their food, there is enough on the island for a whole city." "And what of us, my friend?" "Why, sir, here we be, two Englishmen, a thousand leagues or more away from home, but a few leagues from the mainland, where Spaniards rule the roast, and like to be discovered any day if another logwood party come ashore. 'Tis not in reason we could do with them what, by the mercy of God and your own ready wit, sir, we did with the knaves yesternight; and if we be found, there's naught afore us but death or chains; and for myself, I'd liever die than endure such things as I have suffered since the fight at St. John d'Ulua." "Why then, good Amos," said Dennis with a smile, "it does seem we must cast lots who shall be king of this island, and the other shall be chancellor, and we will put in practice in our governance the ideas of the incomparable Sir Thomas More, who, though a Papist, did set forth in his _Utopia_ most worthy and admirable schemes of ruling a society of men." "I know naught of Sir Thomas More or what you call Utopia; and as for king and chancellor, I am but poor Haymoss Turnpenny, that cannot read nor write and have never had the ruling of more than a crew of mariners. Call yourself king an 'ee please, sir; but methinks 'twould be more fit and commendable if we seized upon this island in the name of our sovereign lady Queen Bess." "A right loyal notion, and one that we will put in act. But then we must give it a name." "Ay, sure, and what better name than Maiden Isle, after that same gracious lady?" "So it shall be, and I here proclaim Elizabeth, by the grace of God queen of England, France, and Ireland, queen of Maiden Isle on the Spanish Main. But this is idle mockery, Amos. We are not builders of empires, but poor castaways, doomed to linger out our lives in what is after all a desert, or else in painful servitude. There is nothing for laughter here." And then they fell to talking of their chances of one day escaping from the island and seeing the fair shores of England again. It could only be by being taken off by an English ship, or by setting off themselves and risking the perilous voyage across the Atlantic. The latter alternative seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. The _Maid Marian_, even if they could make her hull seaworthy and repair her shattered spars and rigging, would need a crew to navigate her, and the maroons were not sailor men. To build a smaller craft capable of the long voyage was an enterprise beyond their powers. Turnpenny could make a shift to navigate a vessel, but he had no practical skill in ship-building. The other alternative seemed equally unlikely, Dennis learnt from the sailor that the island on which they had so strangely met was situated deep in the Sound of Darien. It was less than a hundred and fifty miles from Cartagena, the capital of the Spanish Main, to the east, and about the same distance from Nombre de Dios to the west; but the trend of the coast caused vessels to stand out some distance to sea in passing, and thus the island was little likely to be touched at by chance visitors. One other course occurred to Dennis, only to be dismissed when he mentioned it to Turnpenny. It was to build a boat capable of conveying them to the mainland, and to take refuge among the Indians or the mixed race of Cimaroons or maroons who had settlements at various parts of the coast. But Turnpenny pointed out that this would expose them to the risk of being caught by the Spaniards, who were constantly at war with the natives, and would at the same time quite ruin the chances of getting into touch with an English vessel. While they remained on the island there was always the bare possibility of some English or Huguenot adventurer coming within reach. Faced by the prospect of an indefinite sojourn on the island, they had only to make the best of it. Turnpenny explained to the maroons the plan arranged for them, and they accepted it without demur. The prisoners were sullen and resentful, perforce submissive, not a little distrustful of their guards, from whom they had deserved no kindness. Baltizar the fat negro was given the task of supplying the party with food, partly from the natural resources of the island, partly from the stores of the _Maid Marian_, which Dennis resolved to share, economically, with the rest. A spot about a mile from the chine was chosen as the site of the shelters for the maroons and their prisoners. Having set the men at work, Dennis returned with Turnpenny to his own hut. Mirandola no longer showed any jealousy of the presence of a third party; apparently he had been cured of it by fright at the prospect of being deserted. Turnpenny, on his part, before the day was out was so much amused at the animal's antics that he lost his first disgust. "My heart!" he exclaimed, when, work for the day being over, the monkey sat on a tub, happily feasting on biscuits and honey: "if 'tis wise looks do make a chancellor, sure the beast be the properest chancellor to your king, sir." "You look pretty wise yourself, Amos," said Dennis, laughing. "We had resolved that the sovereignty of this island belongs to our lady Queen Bess; say then that I am her viceroy, and you my chamberlain; and for Mirandola, why, let us make him our jester." Day followed day uneventfully. Dennis made a still more thorough exploration of the island in Turnpenny's company, and had his eyes opened to many things which had formerly escaped him. Passing the spot where he had saved Mirandola from the boa constrictor, he mentioned the incident, and remarked that he had seen no other reptiles in the course of his wanderings. "'Tis because you knew not where to look," said Turnpenny. "The snakes in this new world be cunning; 'wise as serpents,' says the Scripture, and a true word. They dress their skins so as to look like the trees they live in; 'twould puzzle Solomon himself in all his wisdom and glory to say which is tree and which is the coil of a snake." And as they passed through the thickest woods, which Dennis had prudently refrained from entering, the sailor drew his attention more than once to snakes of various kinds whose coils were almost indistinguishable from the trunks of trees. Once he plucked some fruit from a kind of palm, and, pressing it, squeezed out a juice as black as ink. "That is a good sight," cried Dennis gladly. "I found in the cabin of the _Maid Marian_ a store of paper and quills, but the ink was all spilled, and I had nothing wherewithal to write. So I have lost count of the days, and know not whether I have been on this isle weeks or months. Now I can make a journal." "Not so neither! This juice is good to write withal, but the marks disappear within the ninth day, and the paper is as white as if it had never been written on. 'Tis no matter, indeed; we should be none the happier for seeing the tale of our days." One day Dennis showed Turnpenny the cave in the cliff, which hitherto he had refrained from revealing. The sailor attentively examined the trinkets which Dennis had found on the floor beside the skeleton and carefully collected. He pronounced them to be such ornaments as were worn by the natives of the mainland, and made no doubt that the skeleton was that of some Indian or maroon done to death by brutal persecutors. Dennis got him to continue the story of his life, never yet resumed since his first night on the island. He had been sent, he said, among a gang of prisoners from St. John d'Ulua to Cartagena and thence to a place on the coast somewhat south of Cartagena, where the governor had a pearl fishery. It was defended by a fort, garrisoned by some fifty Spaniards. Expecting reprisals from Hawkins for the treacherous treatment he had received, the governor had ordered the fort to be strengthened, and dispatched several of his able-bodied prisoners to assist in the work. "And I think of my dear comrades rotting in the dungeons of Porto Aguila--for so 'tis named. There was Ned Whiddon, and Hugh Curder, and Tom Copstone, and a dozen more, and for all I know they are there even now, toiling all day, with many stripes from the villanous whips, and groaning all night in most foul and noisome dungeons. Ah! the tales I could tell would make your skin creep and your hair to stand on end. Why, what think 'ee they do if the tale of work seem to them not sufficient? They tie the poor wretch to a tree, and take thorns of the prickle palm, and put them into little pellets of cotton dipped in oil, and stick them in the side of the miserable captive, as thick as the bristles of a hedgehog. This alone causes a most fierce torment, but they are not content therewith. They set the oiled cotton afire, and call on the poor wretch, with loud despitous laughs, to sing in the midst of his torment, and if he cries out in the agony of pain they out upon him for a base miserable coward and villain. With my own eyes I have seen the foul deed, and many more which it is shame to tell of." "How came it that you got aloose?" asked Dennis. "Why, it happened in this wise. The treasure of pearls fished up from the sea-bottom at that place was wont to be conveyed to Cartagena every month by ship. One day the vessel sent with this intent came into the port wonderfully battered by a storm, the which had nigh stripped her of all rigging and had moreover washed half her crew overboard. The garrison at the fort being soldiers, and there being no other mariners at hand, the Spanish captain moreover being fearful of the governor's wrath if the treasure should be delayed, he sent half a dozen or more of his slaves, French and English, aboard that vessel to work her back to the capital city. My heart! I well nigh wept for joy when I heard what was in store, for I bethought myself that of a surety we mariners, French and English, might seize upon that vessel on the voyage and sail her at our pleasure. But it was as if the knave had seen to the very heart of my intent, for when we mounted on ship-board, there were Spanish soldiers set over us, two for one, and with the Spanish crew they were as three to one, and they armed. My device was come to naught. We did each man his best to lengthen out that voyage, if perchance we might fall in with an English vessel and acquaint them with our case; but never a sail did we see till we made the harbour of Cartagena, and all our hopes were dashed. "Then it came to pass that, being a handy man and a stout, I was sold for money to the master and owner of a ship employed in the traffic of timber--that same vessel that lies a fathom deep yonder. At sea I was a mariner; ashore, being stout of the arms, I was made to ply an axe on the trees, as you yourself saw. 'Tis three year or more since I fell prisoner at St. John d'Ulua, and six months since I last set eyes on my comrades at Porto Aguila, and I fear me I shall never see them more." "Why think you they be even now there?" "Why, sir, because the Spaniards be all knaves, and there is no truth nor faithfulness in them, not one. The Captain of that place was the Governor of Cartagena his own son. A son, one med think, would be loving and obedient unto his father, but 'tis not so among these dogs of Spain. Why, body o' me! in the stead of doing diligently the thing his father commanded, this young roisterer must needs build him a house, and thereto he used the labourers sent him with intent to strengthen the fort, and when I came from that place the house was got but a little above the ground, and was not like to be finished for a full year." "Might not other labourers be hired from Cartagena?" "I trow not. The Spaniards are so scared and daunted by the descents of venturers' ships upon their coasts that they are looking to their fortresses throughout the Spanish Main. By long and large 'tis more like the prisoners will be conveyed back to Cartagena for to build new forts there. But this will not be yet, for the Governor of Cartagena holds the pearl-fishery in dear affection, and he will not bring the men thence until he has assurance that all is done as he commanded. No, truly, I believe they be still at Porto Aguila, my dear mate-fellows, and though I praise God for His infinite goodness and mercy in bringing me safe into this haven and out of the hands of those wicked men, I mourn in my heart for Hugh Curder, and Tom Copstone, and Ned Whiddon, and other my comrades; God save them!" Many a time in the succeeding days did Amos relate incidents in the life of the prisoners at Porto Aguila that made Dennis's blood run cold. He now began to understand the deep and fierce hatred of the Spaniards that filled the hearts of adventurers who had returned from expeditions to the American coast. The same consuming desire for humbling and punishing the proud Spaniards burnt in his veins, and he chafed at the idleness to which he was enforced on this remote island. Meanwhile the other inhabitants of Maiden Isle were living what appeared to be a contented life. With abundance of food, and nothing to do, the maroons enjoyed, as Dennis thought, conditions that answered to their idea of bliss. He was therefore a little surprised one day to hear the unwonted sound of wood-felling, and to find, when he came to the spot, four of the men plying their axes lustily upon a huge cedar. They desisted when he approached, with something of a guilty air that puzzled him. They had shown themselves very amiable companions, grateful for their rescue from their taskmasters. He could only suppose that even they had begun to weary of idleness, and had resorted to their former occupation of log-cutting from no other motive than the desire to kill time. But Turnpenny shook his head when Dennis suggested this explanation. "It do seem to me there be another meaning in it, sir. 'Tis their intent, a' b'lieve, to make unto themselves a canow." "But they have no skill to do it, nor fit implements, Amos." "Bless your eyes, sir, you do not know them. Wait a while, and if that be not their purpose, never trust Haymoss Turnpenny." Letting a few days pass, Dennis went again one morning with the sailor to the scene of the tree-felling. The huge trunk had already begun to take shape as a canoe at least twenty-five feet long. The men were diligently working at it, some with axes, others with fire. Its interior had been partly hollowed out, the wood and pith burnt away, and the charred sides scraped with the hatchets. It was clear that within a few days the tree would become a vessel which, whether navigable or not, would certainly float. "'Tis a pretty piece of work," said Dennis to Turnpenny. "Ask them whereto they design it." Turnpenny spoke a few words in Spanish. The answer was surprising. One of the maroons, a man whom the others seemed to have elected as their leader, threw down his hatchet and fell on his knees. Then, in a strange jargon which the sailor had much ado to understand, he gave voice to the sentiments and aspirations of himself and his comrades. They were sick of solitude. They had homes upon the mainland; and yearned to see again their relatives and comrades, to return to their settlement, to share in its life, to seek opportunities of revenging themselves on their oppressors. And so they were making this canoe, in which they would sail over the sea. They were not ungrateful for the kindnesses showered upon them by the white men; indeed, to show their gratitude, they would take them with them, having first killed the two prisoners. Their spokesman on his knees besought the white men to yield to their desire, and come with them. They would supply all their needs, and follow them with all obedience, if they would lead them against the Spaniards. "Tell him to get up," said Dennis. "This is a matter we must think upon." Dennis and Turnpenny held by and by a serious consultation. They felt that they were in a somewhat awkward predicament. The maroons' desire to regain their friends was natural and reasonable, but their departure would deprive the white men of valuable allies. And what of the two prisoners? Turnpenny would not have hesitated to kill them, but Dennis shrank from that course. They might allow the maroons to carry them off; but then the Spaniards would either be butchered as soon as the canoe was out of reach, or they would probably be held as hostages and exchanged for natives held captive by the Spaniards on the mainland. In that case they would certainly report the presence of two white men on the island and the assault upon the lumber boat; a search party would be the result, and Dennis and his companion would be slaughtered or carried away into slavery. On the other hand, if the maroons were allowed to depart, leaving the prisoners on the island, the burden of keeping watch over them would prove a constant source of anxiety. "The canoe is all but finished," said Dennis. "We must let them finish it. To forbid them, poor knaves, would be cruel." "And vain, to boot," said Turnpenny, "for if we took their axes from them, they would use bits of sharp rock. The Indians have hollowed out such canows with instruments of flint from the beginning of the world." "We must let them go, then. For ourselves, I see not at present our course; but we can provide against the worst hap by conveying our stores, secretly and by night, to Skeleton Cave; 'tis a good hiding-place, not like to be easily discovered, and we know not what necessity may drive us to make it our habitation." The transfer of the stores occupied two nights. Mirandola accompanied the two men as they went to and fro between the sheds and the cave, clinging so closely to them that it seemed as if he had some intuition of changes to come. "By my soul," said Turnpenny with a laugh, "he be as faithful as a dog." "And whatever may chance, we will not leave you, Mirandola," said Dennis. "Shall I forget the days when you were the only friend of my solitude? Would you could speak, for assuredly I would ask your counsel on this pass to which we are come." They went daily to the clearing to watch the progress of the canoe. As yet they had given no answer to the maroons; but these were working very diligently at the task, having apparently inferred from the silence of the white men that at least nothing would be done to prevent their making use of the vessel. Dennis and Turnpenny talked over the situation again and again; but their thoughts followed the same weary round. At one moment they were almost resolved to throw in their lot with the maroons and voyage with them to the mainland; the next they shrank from this course as throwing away what seemed their only chance of ultimate rescue--the chance of being found some day by an English vessel. The problem weighed more heavily on Dennis than on Turnpenny. Compared with his former sufferings, it was to the sailor a slight matter. Dennis, lying sleepless at night, envied his friend the soundness of his slumbers. The mariner snored as peacefully on his canvas couch in the corner of the hut as though he were on a feather bed at home. To Dennis the hours of darkness passed wearisomely. He thought of all that had happened since he sailed with light heart from Plymouth Sound, and wondered sometimes whether his comrades had not perchance been happier in meeting swift death in the storm. Then he upbraided himself for his ingratitude to the Providence which had preserved his life and health, and given him the companionship of a fellow countryman. He contrasted, too, his lot with that of Turnpenny's mates on the mainland, dragging out a miserable existence of slavish toil. He recalled the sailor's stories of the tortures they endured--and then suddenly, one night, there flashed upon his mind a possibility which, in his preoccupation with his own plight, had never yet occurred to him. The maroons would shortly leave the island; had Providence arranged this as an opportunity for helping the hapless Englishmen in the Spaniards' power? If Turnpenny and he should accompany the black men, might they not find, at some time or other, a means of rescuing the prisoners--Ned Whiddon, Hugh Curder, Tom Copstone, and the rest? The idea set Dennis throbbing with a new hope, a new aim. Slaves sometimes escaped; the maroons themselves were the offspring of negroes who had made off from the Spanish settlements and formed alliances with the native Indians of the woods. Their communities were constantly being recruited: what if the sailor and he should cast in their lot temporarily with the men about to embark, and watch for opportunities of communicating with the distressed Englishmen! Even if they never found a means of reaching home, it would still be something to the good if their comrades were got out of the hands of their oppressors. At the worst they might form a settlement of their own, and live free, though in exile. The idea took complete possession of Dennis. He felt no desire to sleep. For a moment he was tempted to wake Turnpenny and put the question to him; instead, he got up, and stole quietly from the hut, to think it over more fully under the open sky. He walked down to the shore, and, sitting on a rock, looked over the sea and pondered the matter to the soft accompaniment of the washing tide. It was clear that the Spaniards of the mainland had no suspicion that the island was inhabited, or they would long since have visited it. They might be off their guard. From what Turnpenny had told him he knew the indolence of their temperament--the unlikelihood of their taking precautions against problematical dangers. Unless directly threatened by the vessels of adventurers like Hawkins and Drake, they might be expected to ply their trade--manage their pearl fisheries, work their mines--without great vigilance. True, they had recently set about strengthening their defences; but probably the season of panic had passed; it was years since Hawkins had troubled them. It had already been proved what a determined few could do; if he, with Turnpenny and the six maroons, could safely reach the mainland, might they not bide their time until, Fortune assisting them, they found some means of bringing off the prisoners, or at least of striking a blow in their cause? Surely it was better to make the attempt than to rust in idleness on the island, waiting on a chance that might perhaps never come, and always exposed to the risk of discovery by the Spaniards. The more Dennis thought, the more his imagination was captivated by the idea, and when he at last returned to the hut he was resolved to broach the subject to Turnpenny as soon as he should wake. As he came to the entrance the sailor's voice hailed him. "Be that you, sir?" "Yes. I could not sleep, and went for a walk on the shore." "I had but just waked, all of a sweat, and shaking like a leaf." "Why, what ailed you?" "A dream, sir. Do 'ee believe as dreams come true? My old grandam was wont to say they go by contraries; dream of a weddin', she would say, sure there would be a funeral. And she was a wise woman; ay, sure." "I know not, Amos. We read in Scripture of dreams that most wondrously came true. 'Twas in a dream that Solomon asked of God an understanding heart, the which was promised to him with riches, and honour, and length of days; and Solomon lived long in the land, and became the richest and wisest of kings. Scripture was written for our instruction, Amos, and I would liever believe in Holy Writ than in the old wives' tales of a score of grandams. But what then was your dream?" "Why, sir, if it be not sin to speak it, I was standing alone in a waste place, and on a sudden the voice of Tom Copstone spoke out of the air, and said, 'You and me, Haymoss; you and me, my heart!' And while I was wondering in my simple mind what those words might mean, there was a thick smoke, and a roar as of thunder, and I stood dazed, and the fear came upon me. And then the smoke lifted, and I saw old Tom with 's head all bloody, and Hugh Curder behind him, and behind him again I saw you, sir, and Ned Whiddon, and, God a-mercy! my very own self, as I ha' seen myself time and again in the glass, but sore battered and misused. And I thought sure 'twas my ghost, and the fear of it woke me up, and I rose all panting and trembling, and cried to 'ee, and when there was no answer I broke into a sweat, remembering my grandam's words." "Well, 'tis all safe. I also have had a dream, Amos, and yet I did not sleep. And 'tis to tell you my dream I am here now. Mayhap it will fit yours; God in His mercy send that both yours and mine come true!" CHAPTER XI The Main The dawn of day found Dennis and Turnpenny discussing the scheme which was born of the night's meditation. Remembering his bitter experience of bondage among the Spaniards, and oppressed by his superstitious fear that his dream portended some calamity, the sailor at first refused point-blank to consider Dennis's suggestion. But by and by, when Dennis had shown him how light had been his sufferings, after all, by comparison with those of his comrades, and had declared his belief that the strange coincidence of the dream with his own imaginings was an augury of good, Turnpenny's better feelings got the upper hand of his timorousness, and he threw himself with ardour into a consideration of the project. As soon as it was light, he asked Dennis to lead him to the very spot where the idea had occurred to him. And there, in the little bay beneath the chine, he became the bold-hearted English sailor again. "My heart! we're a-going to do it," he said. "See here, sir." He began with the end of a half-pike to mark out a rough plan on the dry sand. "Here be the fort. Here be the don Captain's new house; the foundations were no more than laid when I was hauled away on ship board. Here, at this angle, be the rooms of the guard; in the cellars beneath my poor comrades lie and groan o' nights. In this quarter be the pearl-fishers, penned up like cattle when their work is done. And here, under the guns of the fort, be the little harbour, with a quay of planking. Nor'ard, a mile or more, is the fishery, where the black knaves have to dive for the baubles, and woe betide 'em if they do not bring up enough to please their masters." "And think you you could pilot us to the place, Amos?" "I've never a doubt of it. Twice have I sailed to it in direct course from Cartagena, and many's the time I have passed it in the lumber ship. 'Tis true I am not so skilled in the landmarks from this side as from the side of Cartagena; nathless I be a ninny, not worth the name of mariner, an I be not able to lay a course thitherwards without losing my bearings." "What is the country thereabout?" "Why, sir, for the most flat and forest clad. Behind the fort there is a hill, fairish high. Once on a time 'twas covered with trees, but a great stretch of the forest was of late burned black by a fire; I mind it well, for the shape of the black patch is like to a monstrous cayman, upwards of a mile long. 'Tis a famous landmark, and clear to the eyes a great way off at sea. Let me but spy that, and I warrant I will steer any bark to it on a straight furrow." "Well, then, Amos, it does seem that with good luck we can make a landing somewhere on the coast, and then it shall go hard with us but we can, by taking thought, devise some plan whereby we may release your comrades from their chains. But we cannot do it without help from the maroons; think you they would be willing to lend us aid?" "My heart! Do but promise them a share of the Spaniards' treasure, and they will be hot to have at them." "But the fishery belongs to the Governor of Cartagena, you said. Imprimis, we are not pirates; nor indeed is there like to be a great hoard of pearls at Porto Aguila, for they will be sent, no doubt, for safety to Cartagena." "Bless your bones, sir, I warrant there be more kept at Porto Aguila than be sent to Cartagena. The Captain, truly, is the Governor's son; but every Spaniard is a shark, and would rob his grandam's grave were he not afeard of ghosts. And as for being pirates, when 'tis Spaniards in question I would be a pirate without the tenth part of a scruple, for 'tis certain the fishery was filched from the Indians; they be the Spaniards' jackals." "Well, let us go to the maroons and put the case to them." Dennis need have had no doubt as to the men's reception of his proposal. To begin with, they were frankly delighted that the white men would accompany them. They had often talked among themselves about the young lord, as they called him, who had led the attack on the Spaniards' vessel, and they were agreed that his presence in the canoe would serve them as a talisman. Then, even without the prospect of plunder from the Spaniards' treasure-house, they nourished a bitter resentment against their old oppressors, and were ready to embrace any opportunity of striking a blow at them. "We are the servants of the young lord," said their spokesman to Turnpenny, "we will do whatever he bids." "Ask them if they know the region." The reply was in the negative. None of them had ever been engaged in the pearl fishery; most of them hailed from the neighbourhood of Nombre de Dios. "Then our whole dependence is on you, Amos," said Dennis. "Ay, sir, and it do daunt me somewhat. In a bark, or a shallop, or e'en a longboat, I could have great comfort; but a canow, sir--a mere tree-trunk hollowed out, wi' no ribs nor planks, no spars nor other gear; 'tis a fearsome and wonderful craft, with a crazy look." "But the maroons are wont to handle such craft, you told me. They will navigate her; you will but have to cry the course." "True, sir, but no master mariner that hath any manhood in him will be content to govern a craft being ignorant of its true nature. Yonder monkey would be as fit." "Ah! We must take Mirandola. The poor beast would, I verily believe, break his poor heart did we leave him here in loneliness again." "Leave the knave prisoners to bear him company, sir." "No, no. Besides that it would be a poor compliment to Mirandola himself, it would have some spice of danger for us. Left to themselves in freedom, the men would of a surety signal to any passing ship, the which being in all likelihood Spanish, the report of our doings would soon be spread abroad through all the coast, and a hue and cry would be raised after us. We must bring them along with us. Trust me, they shall have no chance then of giving the alarm to the enemy, and 'tis not unlike, indeed, they may serve us as hostages." "I fear me they'll be the Jonahs in our marvellous craft." "An ill comparison, Amos. Jonah fled from his duty, and by reason of his wrongdoing peril came upon the mariners. The similitude does not hold." "That be a great comfort, sir, in especial for that there be no whales as I know on in these waters, but only sharks." In answer to a question from Turnpenny, the head man of the maroons said that the canoe would be ready to take the water within a week. But he added that since the young lord had agreed to make the voyage with them, they were willing to remain a little longer on the island, in order to give careful finishing touches to the craft and ensure its thorough seaworthiness. Dennis thanked them, through the sailor, for this mark of consideration, and resolved to use the interval in teaching them the use of the caliver. He could not foresee what might ensue upon their landing; they would be at a disadvantage if they had no other arms with which to meet the Spaniards than axes and pikes. Accordingly, he presented each of them with a caliver from the stores he had placed in Skeleton Cave, and for a certain portion of each day Turnpenny and he instructed them in marksmanship, choosing for their practice ground the deepest part of the chine, whence the noise of firing was least likely to be heard out at sea. The first experiments were disheartening, and at the same time amusing. At the kick of the cumbrous weapons the men flung them down in alarm, crying out that they were possessed with evil spirits. But their timidity was by degrees overcome; and when Dennis, in addition to practising them at fixed targets, rigged up a canvas figure which he suspended on two parallel ropes across the chine and ran from side to side by means of pulleys, they entered with some zest into the sport. At first the figure made many journeys to and fro without receiving a single hit; but within a week the marksmanship had improved astonishingly, and there was not a man of them but might be trusted to hit a moving object at fairly short range. Meanwhile Amos, not content to trust the navigation of the canoe entirely to the maroons and their paddles, had busied himself in rigging up a mast with small sails taken out of the _Maid Marian_. When he at last pronounced the vessel ready, several kegs of water and boxes of biscuits were rolled down to the beach near at hand, and the party awaited only a favourable wind to launch their craft. For some days there had been a dead calm, and when at length a light breeze sprang up it blew in shore. The natives grew impatient, and begged to be allowed to proceed with their paddles alone. But this Turnpenny stoutly refused. With a voyage of thirty or forty miles before them it was needful to spare the men as much as possible, lest when they reached the mainland they should be worn out, and unfit to cope with the labours and perhaps the struggles that awaited them. Turnpenny scanned the sky with a seaman's eye, in some fear lest the wind when it came should prove too boisterous for this strange craft, which he still looked on with distrust. One morning, however, he announced that a fresh breeze had sprung up from the north-west, promising to increase in force as the day wore on. No time was lost. The canoe was carried down to the beach and moored in shallow water; the stores were lifted aboard; then the two prisoners, pale with apprehension, and Baltizar the cook, were conveyed to the vessel on the backs of three stalwart maroons, and last of all Dennis and Turnpenny prepared to wade out. During the proceedings at the beach the monkey had remained perched in a tree, watching everything with many signs of excitement. At the last moment Dennis turned and called to the animal; but it merely gibbered and blinked. "Come, Mirandola," said Dennis, coaxingly, "we cannot go without you. I fear me you feel a declension from your high estate, when you were the sole partner of my solitude; but believe me, I still hold you in dear affection. Come then, and let your grave and reverend presence dignify this our enterprise." But the monkey refused to budge, and Dennis remembered the aversion he had always shown to the sea. He walked towards the tree in which the animal sat, holding forth his hand, using every blandishment; then, when all was of no avail, and Turnpenny called to him from the canoe to leave the unnatural creature, he turned and stepped into the water. He had just laid his hand on the side of the canoe, preparing to leap in, when he heard a shrill cry, and saw the monkey spring down with amazing celerity and run on all fours towards him across the sand, uttering sounds of entreaty. It was as if Mirandola had to the last refused to believe that his master was leaving him, and now that he could doubt no longer, had overcome his horror of the sea and resolved to brave the discomforts of the voyage. He reached the brink of the water and scampered up and down, as though seeking a dry path to the boat. It was impossible to resist his pleading cries. Dennis returned; the monkey with a squeal of delight sprang upon his shoulder; and so entered the canoe, a trembling passenger. The maroons shoved off; Turnpenny ran up his sail; and the craft moved into deep water. For some minutes the natives kept their paddles busily employed, until, drawing out of the lee of the island, the vessel felt the full force of the breeze and began to scud merrily over the rippling sea. "My heart!" cried Turnpenny, "'tis a wondrous neat little craft. I was wrong; I own it free; and if the wind holds she will make good sailing and bring us ere many hours are gone to the coast where we desire to be." "Too soon, if I mistake not," said Dennis. "It will not be well for us to make the shore before dark; we may be spied from the land. In truth, we run a great risk, Amos. Our sail will not escape the eyes of the look-out of any vessel whose track we may chance to cross." "True, sir, there be risks great and manifold. But we must e'en hope for the best. The maroons have rare good eyes; and if perchance they catch sight of a vessel, I will run down the sail afore they can spy us, and we will lie snug until the coast be clear." After two hours' sailing the coast hove into sight as a long blue bar upon the horizon. At midday Turnpenny lowered the sail, for it was clear that at the rate the vessel was going she would run into view from the shore long before it would be safe to attempt a landing. While the crew were eating their dinner of fruit and biscuits one of the men cried out that he saw a sail. Turnpenny took a long look in the direction the man pointed out, Dennis watching his face in keen anxiety. "All's well, sir," said the sailor at length. "She be coasting along towards Cartagena; in an hour she will be clean out of sight, and we're so low in the water that no natural eye will see us, the sail being down." They lay gently rocked by the waves until, after a good look round, he judged it safe once more to hoist the sail. An hour afterwards he declared that he recognized a headland which was no more than three leagues from Porto Aguila. The vessel's head was pointed direct for the land, but the wind dropping somewhat, they were still a long way from shore when the sun went down and the swift darkness of the tropics descended upon them. "We dursn't try to land in the dark," growled Turnpenny. "This craft of ours is only fit for fair weather and easy harbourage, and not knowing the little crinkles o' the coast, t'ud be nowt but a miracle if we 'scaped being stove in." "But there will be a moon to-night, I think?" replied Dennis. "True, a little tiny one, like the horn of a cow. Maybe she will give light enough to guide us to a creek. We must e'en wait for her rising." They had no means of telling the time, and the maroons grew so restless that, while it was still dark, Turnpenny ordered them to paddle cautiously along the shore. "'Tis a creek I be looking for," he said to Dennis, "where we can run the canow with a fair chance of hiding it when day breaks." "How far are we from the fort?" "I cannot tell. I fear me I have overshot the mark with being over cautious." "That is impossible, Amos. At least it is an error on safety's side.--Hist! what was that?" His ears had caught a slight splash at no great distance shorewards. "Nowt to make 'ee uneasy, sir," replied Turnpenny. "'Twas without doubt a cayman slipping off into deep water; and by the token, 'tis a guide for us, for the reptile haunts the banks of rivers, and sure the very creek we be looking for will be somewheres anigh here." The men drove the canoe a little nearer in shore, and in a few minutes Turnpenny, who was in the bows peering intently ahead, whispered that he did indeed see the opening of a creek. Soon the canoe entered a fairly wide water-way, much obstructed with reeds, and darkened by the dense and high vegetation on either bank. Now and again, through a gap in the foliage, the late rising moon shed a wan mysterious light upon their course. As the canoe moved slowly and stealthily up the creek, Dennis was conscious of a strange home-sickness. How many times had he rowed by night on little tree-shaded creeks and river-mouths in far-off Devon! The deep shadows, the narrow paths of ghostly light, the silence, rendered only the more intense by the incessant croaking of frogs, lent a charm to the adventure that almost eclipsed its peril. The creek made several curves within a short distance, and Turnpenny, speaking in a whisper, said that they had now come far enough to escape notice from the sea. "'Tis well, my friend; and now, say: shall we land, or shall we rather remain in the canoe for the rest of the night? I give my voice for landing. We are packed here as close as biscuits, and I would fain stretch my limbs, and moreover get a little to windward of some of these our companions." "I warrant the maroons would liever stay in the canow, sir; and I own I myself am somewhat chary of landing in the dark. I know summat o' these forest lands, and there be fearsome wild creatures in 'em, the like of which you never saw in Maiden Isle yonder. There be wild hogs, of a surety, and monstrous wild cats that climb like monkeys, and see in the dark, and will pounce on a man and carry him off afore he can twink an eyelid. And as for these our bedfellows, my heart! there be worse ashore--muskeeties, and sandflies, and ants in armies, that crawl aneath your clothes, and nip your arms and neck, and make themselves most pestilent ill neighbours. And we cannot light a fire to scare them away, for savage as they be, whether four foot or six foot, they be gentle and mild by comparison with the two-footed enemies the fire would bring on our tracks." "We will lie by till morning, then, and pray the night be not disturbed." The maroons were unmistakably glad when this decision was communicated to them. To their minds the mere darkness was awful, and when to this were added the manifold dangers of the forest, they would rather have faced an army of Spaniards than camp unprotected among the trees. The party spent a restless, uncomfortable night in their cramped quarters. Yet in his wakeful moments Dennis found some pleasure in watching the fire-flies darting hither and thither on the shore, and in listening to the continuous drone of insects, that seemed to his ears a pleasant lullaby. Once a goat-sucker clattered heavily past, uttering its weird cry; now and again he was amused by the question, "Who are you?" shouted from the trees, and recognized it as the cry of some nameless bird. As morning drew on, these sounds were replaced by others. Macaws screeched from the tree-tops, toucans barked like puppies, tree-frogs whistled and boomed, and at intervals the whole neighbourhood reverberated with long howls which Turnpenny said were the morning song of red howler monkeys. As morning began to dawn, and these signs of forest life multiplied, Dennis noticed that Mirandola was becoming much excited; and when the canoe was run ashore under a towering mora tree, the monkey sprang nimbly to land, chattering with delight, and in an instant was springing up into the foliage. "Poor knave!" said Dennis. "It seems we have brought him home, Amos. Would that we too were restored, whole and happy, to our friends!" "God-a-mercy, do 'ee forget Hugh Curder, and Tom Copstone, and Ned Whiddon, poor souls? Do 'ee have more respect for the feelings of a heathen monkey?" "Nay, nay, you mistake me," said Dennis, smiling at the sailor's honest indignation. "I do not forget them. By God's mercy we are here in safety, and ere long I hope to have all your friends to join our little company. Now, master mariner, what is to be our course?" "Why, sir, we must first go and spy out the land." "Through the forest? How shall we find our way?" "Imprimis, this creek runs eastward of the bluff I steered by. Wherefore 'tis our first business to lay our course westward and cut off that headland, as you might say." "But can you be sure of setting your course aright?" "There's the sun above us, and we may catch a glimpse of him here and there among the trees. And 'tis certain we shall encounter brooks wandering like lost children in the forest; only though they do seem lost, we know, being men, and in our right minds, that they be running all the while to the sea. By this and by that we'll come at the place we steer for." "And who shall go on this inland voyage of discovery?" "Why, you and me, sir. God-a-mercy, the very words of my dream! 'You and me, Haymoss, you and me!' 'Tis a good sign, for sure. The maroons shall lie hid in the creek, and keep ward over the prisoners." "But can we trust them? Will they not, having arrived on the mainland, act after their own devices and depart?" "'Tis a risk, in truth; but I will speak to them with all gravity, and bring to their mind the Spaniards' treasure, and the stripes they suffered in bondage. We will see if there be faith in their black blood." After a conversation with the maroons, Turnpenny announced that they had agreed to remain in the creek until nightfall. If the white men had not returned then, they would hold themselves free to act as they pleased. Then Dennis and the sailor set off on their scouting expedition. At the edge of the forest the trees grew fairly wide apart, and the canopy above admitted a few rays which lay as bright spots on the floor of dead leaves. But as the two adventurers proceeded the forest became thicker and thicker, until they walked in a dim twilight. Well covered with vegetation as Maiden Isle had been, Dennis had never imagined anything like the dense woodland through which he was now slowly making his way. It steamed with moisture; the din of early morning had given place to a mysterious stillness; birds and animals were quiet or asleep; and if the silence was broken at rare moments by the long howl of a monkey, the melancholy sound did but enhance the impression of utter solitude. Turnpenny led the way with great wariness; his former experiences of forest life warned him of dangers that might lie in wait--a slumbering jaguar which their footfall might disturb, a snake so cunningly marked that it was indistinguishable from the tree about which it was coiled. Several times he halted, in doubt of his bearings. Once, when he confessed himself beaten, he climbed with a mariner's agility a towering trunk, and declared when he descended that from its top he had caught a glimpse of the open sea and so learnt the general direction in which to go. They came at length to a narrow open space, where apparently trees had been felled at no very distant date. Turnpenny was pointing out a hairy sloth hanging under a branch like a nest of termites, when Dennis touched him on the arm and bade him look across the glade. "What is it?" he whispered. "Methinks the figure of a man, moving among the trees." Though he had spoken under his breath, it almost seemed that his words had been overheard, for the figure halted, then instantly turned sideways and vanished from their sight. "We must after him," said Turnpenny. "Ay, and catch him, or there is an end to our venture and us. He is alone, for he made no sound, and if he had companions near by he would surely have summoned them." Without further pause Dennis ran across the glade, and plunged into the forest on the other side, taking the southerly direction in which he had seen the figure disappear. He had not gone far before he heard the rustle and crash of some one forcing his way through the undergrowth; clearly the fugitive was not a good runner, or he would have been out of earshot before this. Dennis quickened his step, guided always by the sound, ever increasing in loudness. At length he again caught a glimpse of the man, labouring ahead; he gained on him, and was within a few yards when the runaway suddenly turned, and Dennis halted and swerved aside just in time to evade a spear hurled straight at him. It whizzed through the air, flew harmlessly by, and struck with a twang a tree trunk, where it hung quivering. Next moment Dennis sprang forward and closed with the man. He had no time to take note of him, save that he was more than common tall. But it struck him with surprise that he met with no real resistance. The man staggered under the impact; the two rolled on the leaf-strewn ground; and in an instant Dennis was uppermost. He scarcely needed the Devonian trick of wrestling to maintain his advantage; his opponent was already spent. Holding him down, Dennis raised himself at arm's length to recover breath and take stock of the fugitive. He was struck by the glare of inextinguishable hate in the man's haggard eyes. Helpless as he was, there was no yielding in his mien; it was weakness, not fear or cowardice, that had made him such an easy captive. In a few moments Turnpenny came up breathless. Seeing that Dennis held the man firmly down, he did not offer to assist, but halted and threw a keen glance at the prisoner. "God-a-mercy!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "'You and me, Haymoss!' 'Tis the dream come true. 'Tis Tom Copstone, 'tis very Tom! Sir, let him up; 'tis my dear comrade, my messmate in the _Jesus_. Oh, Tom, what a piece of work is this!" Dennis was amazed at the alteration in the man's expression. The fierce blaze of his blood-shot eyes was quenched in a mist of tears. "Haymoss! dear Haymoss!" he murmured, and seemed like to swoon away. Turnpenny was by this on his knees beside his old comrade. "Oh, Tom, to see thee in this sorry plight!" he exclaimed, pitifully. He raised the prostrate figure. Copstone did indeed present a sorry spectacle. His clothes were completely in tatters, he was emaciated almost to a skeleton; his hair and beard hung long, straggling and matted. "Tell me, Tom, me and this true friend, what has brought 'ee to this fearsome pass." "I ran away; 'tis three months since. Three, I say, but I cannot tell; maybe 'tis four or five. I ran away from those devils; 'twas more than flesh and blood could endure." "But whither, whither, Tom?" "I had hope to fall in with a friendly folk--maroons or Indians; for such hate the Spaniards, and whoso hates the Spaniards must be a friend to me. But I found none, and I had perforce to take to the forest, and here I made shift to keep body and soul together with the fruits of the earth. Then I was stricken with the forest fever, and lay for nights and days shivering and burning by turns." "Take time, dear Tom," said Turnpenny, noticing the other's gasps. "We be true friends." "And here is wine from my store," said Dennis, producing a flask. "It will refresh you." The man drank gratefully. "And I marvel," added Turnpenny, "that 'ee be still alive in this fearsome place of wild beasts. Verily the Almighty has kept a guard over you, even as He defended Daniel in the den of lions." "'Tis true; yet I did what I could for myself. Come and see." He led them through the forest, winding in and out among the trees in a manner that seemed to the others nothing short of marvellous, until he came to a great trunk in which there were notches cut, from a point near the base to the lowest branch. By these notches he climbed up, Dennis and Turnpenny following in turn. The steps ceased when the bough was reached; then he ascended some twenty feet through foliage until he arrived at a little hut, formed of branches cunningly intertwined, with a roofing of thatch. "My heart, 'tis a pleasant and delectable mansion!" said Turnpenny, looking admiringly at the leafy structure. "And did 'ee fashion it with your own hands, Tom?" "No," replied the man, with a smile. "Here I found it, as it is. It was made, I doubt not, by Indians, in the time before the Spaniards set foot on these shores. 'Twas here I lay when the fever was heavy upon me, and I thought to die. Oh! how good it is to see your face, Haymoss; but what brings 'ee, old friend, to this dreadful place, and how got you free from the hands of the oppressor?" "'Twas the deed of this gentleman, a man of Devon, Tom, that was cast on an island yonder in the Main, and by wit and courage loosed me from bondage." He told the whole story, to the great wonderment of his friend. "And now we be here to help Ned Whiddon and Hugh Curder and others of our messmates in the fort," he said, in conclusion. "By God's mercy we will snatch them, too, from the house of bondage, and make them free men once more." "Ay, and I will help. The sight of 'ee has done me a world of good; the Lord has put a new song in my mouth. I will lead you. I know this forest in and out, Haymoss, for though I be by rights but a simple mariner, I am made now into a woodsman. For why? 'Cos otherwise I should have been a dead man. The spear I threw but now,--God be praised it failed of its mark, sir! and I bethink me 'tis still sticking in the tree--has served me in good stead many a time and oft. 'Twas the only thing I brought away with me, and without it long ere this the birds would ha' picked my bones." "Think 'ee thou'rt strong enough to lead us to the fort, Tom?" asked Turnpenny. "Ay, sure, and 'tis a good time, i' the heat o' the day, when the Spaniards be mostly asleep. We'll e'en go at once. What be the name of this true friend?" "'Tis Master Dennis Hazelrig, Tom, and a' come from Shaston, and has changed a word with Master Drake." "Ah, Master Drake be a rare fine man and mariner. I warrant he hath not forgot the base dealings o' the knaves at St. John d'Ulua, and in my bondage I looked for the day when he should come with a mighty power and do unto them what they had done to us, and more also. But I could not wait, Haymoss, I could not wait; and now we be met, and Master Hazelrig, and you and me, Haymoss----" "My heart, the very words of my dream! Ay, Tom, you and me and Master Hazelrig, we three, will do what men may do to succour Hugh Curder and Ned Whiddon, and other our dear comrades in distress." CHAPTER XII Beneath the Walls Tom Copstone leading, the party of three swiftly made their way through the woodland. Their mark was the south-western angle of the fort; that was the quarter, said Copstone, whence it might be most safely reconnoitred. The ground rose gradually as they proceeded, and after walking for what must have been several miles they came upon a large open space which had evidently been cleared by fire. "'Tis the black cayman on the hill above the fort," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis. "You mind, sir?" "Ay, the landmark of which you made mention." Skirting the upper side of the clearing for a few hundred yards, being careful to remain slightly within the edge of the forest, they arrived at a spot where, while themselves concealed, they had an uninterrupted view of the country before them. There was a thin belt of woodland beyond the clearing, but the hill then dipped somewhat steeply, and through this dip they saw the fort which held so many bitter memories for the sailors, and the sea stretching out beneath it, a vast shimmering plain. "'Tis bigger than I deemed likely," said Dennis, "the garrison being but fifty, if I remember right." "True, sir," said Copstone, "there be but fifty Spaniards, but there be Indians and maroons within the walls as well, the slaves and pearl-fishers to wit. Aforetime, as I have heard tell, the fishers lived in huts around; but about six year ago a French vessel bore suddenly down upon the place. The Spaniards, some twenty or thirty then, had no warning, and the Frenchmen had an easy job to carry off all the treasure that the captain had stored up, and in the tumult a great part of the fishers made off and were never seen more. Thereafter the Governor of Cartagena gave command that the fort should be strengthened and the workers lodged within: you can see the huts ranged along inside by the wall." "'Twas shutting the door after the steed was stolen," said Dennis, with a smile. "Now let me print the lines of the settlement upon my memory." The fort was a rough square in shape, with a round tower at each corner. In the centre of the enclosure was a long low house, with a veranda, which Copstone explained was the Commandant's new house, but lately finished. Close by was a smaller house, occupied by the captain of the garrison, and beyond this a row of still smaller buildings, devoted to the Spanish troops. From their elevated position they could see that on the eastern side the fort was bounded by a stream which appeared to wash the wall; but Copstone said that between the wall and the stream was a level walk, about twelve feet wide, where the officers were accustomed to promenade in the cool of the evening. The one gate of the fort was cut in the eastern wall, and it led immediately to a narrow pier running into the river, where the vessels were loaded and unloaded. Between the pier and the mouth of the stream a small two-masted bark now lay at anchor; there was safe harbourage, and this vessel probably awaited its cargo of pearls to be conveyed to Cartagena, having brought provisions thence. The northern wall, Copstone said, was built on a rocky cliff about thirty feet high, washed at high tide by the sea, which swept round the north-eastern angle, and formed, with a series of broken rocks and boulders, an effective defence to a great part of the western wall. The southern face of the fort was hidden from the spectators by the intervening trees, but between it and this belt of woodland was an open space some two hundred and fifty yards wide, cleared with the object of depriving possible assailants of cover. About a mile to the right was the scene of the pearl-fishing, and the fishers were at that moment to be seen at work, diving from canoes, in each of which, said Copstone, were two Spaniards fully armed. "And where be our dear comrades, Torn?" asked Turnpenny. "In my time they were lodged in underground dungeons hewn out of the rock beneath the south-east tower yonder." "And there they be still, poor souls," said Copstone. "Ah! many's the hour I've spent in the selfsame dungeons, groaning with the pain of the stripes made by their whips on my bare back." "And 'twas thence 'ee fled, Tom? I marvel how 'ee broke out o' that strong-fast place." "Nay, never a soul has broken out of they dungeons. It was in this wise with me. One day a fearsome storm blew up without a minute's warning. The harbour yonder, that is wont to be safe, was a seething whirlpool then, and a bark that lay beside the pier, laden with a treasure of pearls in readiness for the voyage, was dashed hither and thither by the fury of the waves until she was like to be battered into splinters. There was a cry for all hands to save her, and we were driven out of the gate to do what we could. The sky was black as pitch, though 'twas an hour or two from sunset; and in the midst of that coil, covered by the darkness, I dropped down over the embankment wall, clinging on with my hands, and so worked myself along till I came to the extremity of the walk, fearing every moment lest a wave should come and sweep me away. But by the mercy of God I came safe to the end of the walk, where the round tower juts out--you mind, Haymoss?--its foundations being struck into jagged rocks, with many a cleft in between. There I refuged myself till the night came, beat upon by the waves till the breath was well-nigh battered out of my body. But there, a drenched mortal, I clung until the tempest fell to a calm, and in the darkness I got me away to the woods." "My heart! 'twas a deed of daring and peril," said Turnpenny. "But list! What be adoing down yonder?" The silence below was suddenly broken by the ringing sound of picks. Men were apparently at work on the face of the fort nearest the observers. The labourers were out of sight, and Copstone confessed himself unable to guess what their task might be. The fort seemed complete; for a month before Copstone's escape the work had indeed been hurried on in response to urgent orders from Cartagena, where the Governor desired more men to assist in his own defences. His commands resulted in the prisoners being treated with increased brutality, and Copstone said that it was a stock joke with the Spanish garrison that by the time they had done with the captives at Porto Aguila there would be little work left in them. For an hour or more the three men stood scanning the fort and its surroundings, until Dennis felt that every detail was firmly graven upon his mind. Then, as they had a long journey back to the boat, and it was desirable that they should reach their companions before the fall of night, they set off to return to the creek. Copstone knew it well; under his guidance the others took a short cut through the forest, that saved them, he said, more than a mile, and the short tropical twilight had only just begun when they arrived at the canoe. The maroons had not been disturbed during their absence. One of the Spaniards, who recognized the creek, had tried to persuade the natives to set them at liberty, promising them a rich reward. But they had no faith in him or any of his race, and their answer was to make his bonds more secure. Knowing that they were several leagues from the fort, with a long wooded hill between them, the sailors agreed that it would be safe to kindle a fire on shore, beside which they might camp for the night without molestation by insects. But they had little sleep. The three sat long over the fire, Copstone relating incidents in his prison life that made the blood of his hearers boil with rage and indignation. With the good food given him from the stock they had brought, and the companionship of his countrymen, he had already become a very different being from the famished solitary creature they had met in the forest; and when, fired with passionate hatred of the Spanish oppressors and with pity for their hapless prisoners, Dennis and Turnpenny vowed that they would go through with their enterprise, no matter at what cost, Copstone declared himself heart and soul with them, and only longed for the moment of action to come. But it was not enough to be full of zeal. The greatest courage and determination would not suffice alone to achieve their object. "We are but ten against fifty," said Dennis, "and one of the ten a fat negro whom the sight of a bare blade would cause to shake like a jelly." "Leave him out, sir," said Turnpenny. "He would squeal like a stuck pig if his finger were pinched." "There are but nine of us, then, and what can nine do against fifty?" "If all the nine were men of Devon like Tom Copstone and me," said Turnpenny, "we would face fifty don Spaniards and beat 'em too. But you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as the saying is, and you can't turn a negro or maroon into a true fighting man that will never say die. Men of their sort cannot play a losing game, though they be full of courage if things go well with them." "I fear me even nine men of Devon could not fight a pitched battle against five times their number, whether Spaniards or other. But 'tis not my purpose to approach the walls with a trumpet and deliver a defiance. Our only chance is by surprising the fort in the darkness, and so taking them at a disadvantage. How stands it then, Amos?" "Why, sir, it stands clean topsy-versy, which is to say it is by no means possible. The walls, as you did yourself see, be too high to leap over, and the gate be shut and bolted and barricadoed by night." "But is it watched?" "That I know not. Do 'ee know, Tom?" "Nay; afore dark all the prisoners be thrust into the dungeons, and kept fast in ward until morning light." "And do they set a guard over the dungeons?" "Not as I know, sir. What would be the good? The doors be strong and clamped with iron; the guard house be just above; and we was all so worn with toil and so sick at heart that nary one of us ever had the spirit to attempt a sally. When they had us fast in the dungeons, there they might leave us, with never a fear but we would be safe bound." "Methinks that same security would forbid them to keep a watch seawards. The sea washes the north side of the fort, you said?" "Ay, sir, and even at high tide there is no draught for a vessel of more than twenty tons burden, so they need fear no attack thence. True, they might keep a watch on the harbour when a vessel lies there; but 'tis years since any enemy has appeared, and with the dons 'tis out of sight, out of mind, I trow." "Well, does not that favour us? Grant we cannot scale the walls, nor force the gate, we may still approach the fort from the sea by night, without risk of being discovered, and that is the very thing that we must do. This night is too far spent for us to make any attempt in that quarter. We must possess our souls in patience for yet another day, and truly that is not amiss, for it will give us leisure to spy once more upon the fort. Think you 'tis possible to come where we may view the north side?" "There is but one way; to make a circuit as we lately did, and go further through the woods, and creep down at dusk to the rocks, when the work for the day is over and we are not like to be seen by the Spaniards who keep ward over the fishers." "That is what we will do, then. And now, since we know not what the day may bring forth to try our strength, let us get what sleep we can, and so fortify ourselves." But for many hours Dennis lay awake, thinking over the next day's doings. Up with the dawn, he set the maroons to cut from the trees a number of light tough poles, and these Copstone and Turnpenny, with seamen's skill, quickly fashioned into a rough but serviceable ladder. It was made to taper from bottom to top in three sections, the first seven feet long, the second five feet, and the last, four. The first and second were lashed together with some spare rope brought in the canoe, but the supply gave out when this was done, and Dennis was at a loss for material to fasten the second and third sections together. The headman of the maroons speedily made good the deficiency. Going into the forest, he soon returned with long pliable tendrils of a creeper called bejuca that grew plentifully among the undergrowth, and these, when cut into short lengths, formed lashings as strong as could be desired. The greater part of the morning was spent in constructing and testing the ladder. After the midday meal Dennis and the sailors again made their way through the forest to their former place of espial, waited until they saw the canoes return with the pearl fishers, and then, in the late afternoon, crept down the hillside westward of the fort until they came to the rocks on the shore. From their new position they were able to glance along the northern wall of the fort. The tide was on the turn, and it was clear from the masses of seaweed and the waterworn appearance of the rocks on which the wall was built that at high water the base of the escarpment would be washed by the waves, as Copstone had said. Having formed a careful mental picture of the place, Dennis gave the word for return, and they reached their camping ground just before dark, as on the previous evening. Arrangements were at once made for their expedition. Turnpenny estimated that the distance by water from the mouth of the creek to the fort was about ten miles. It was desirable to start early if the paddlers were not to be overtired when the serious work of the night began. Dennis was in some doubt what to do with the prisoners, but after consultation with the sailors he decided to leave them behind in the charge of the cook and one of the maroons. He deplored the necessity of thus diminishing his little party, but it was clearly impossible to trust the guardianship of the prisoners to Baltizar alone. That flabby and chicken-hearted negro was desperately afraid of being left. He feared the prisoners, although they were securely pinioned; still more he feared the wild beasts of the forest. Turnpenny "gave him a piece of his mind," as he said, and his language was none the less forcible because he eked out his scanty vocabulary of Spanish with racy expressions in his own vernacular. He called Baltizar a slack-twisted nollypate, a wambling dumbledore, an ell-and-a-half of moidered dough, mingling with his expletives an instruction to keep up the fire if he wished to scare the beasts away, and a warning that the Spaniards, if they were allowed to escape, would certainly kill him first. And to guard against the danger that the prisoners might work upon his fears and persuade him to loose their bonds, the maroon chosen to remain with him was told, in his hearing, that if he had any conversation with the two men he was instantly to be knocked on the head. Watching the negro's expression, Dennis felt pretty sure that he would prove a most zealous jailor. The night was still young, the moon had not yet risen, when the canoe floated silently seawards down the creek. The little party of three white men and five maroons was not hilarious; every man knew that he had taken his life in his hands. But neither were they down-hearted, for seven of them had the recollection of a night adventure which had wonderfully succeeded against great odds; and though the odds this time were immeasurably in favour of the enemy, and the task was infinitely more difficult, the very magnitude of what they had set themselves to do fired them with eagerness and hope. The sections of the ladder had been unlashed, and were safely bestowed, with the rope and the tendrils, in the sides of the canoe. In his ignorance of the coast, Dennis ordered the paddlers to put some distance out to sea before heading the canoe westward, so as to avoid any rocks or shoals that might lie in wait for the frail craft. The wind was north-east, and as there was only the faint illumination of the stars, the sail was run up during the first part of the voyage. But when they rounded the headland that lay between the creek and the fort, Turnpenny took in the sail, lest by some unlucky chance it should be observed from the shore, and bade the maroons paddle slowly, for they wished to arrive at the fort when the tide was high, a little before dawn. Slowly as they paddled, however, the fort loomed up on the shore a good hour before they had intended to draw in. None of the party had any means of telling the time; but Turnpenny, experienced in reading the heavens on many a silent night on the deep, guessed it pretty accurately by the horn of the moon just peering above the horizon. To delay their arrival a little, Dennis ordered the men to rest on their oars, and for an hour the canoe rocked gently on the swelling tide. The pause would have been even longer had not Dennis perceived that the inaction bred a certain nervous restlessness in the maroons--an ill mood in which to face the coming ordeal. At last, shortly after four in the morning, the nose of the canoe was turned towards the fort, and the vessel crept in dead silence towards the line of white foam that showed where the tide was lapping the wall. It was still half a musket-shot distant when its progress was arrested with a suddenness that threw the paddlers heavily forward. Recovering themselves, they backed water lustily, but without avail; the canoe was fast on a rock. Instantly three of the men slipped gently overboard to lighten the vessel, kicking their legs busily to ward off any ground sharks that might be adventuring in the neighbourhood. In a few moments the canoe slid off the rock, the men clambered back to their places, and the paddling was resumed. But it was soon discovered that the shock had torn a hole in the vessel's side; she was filling fast; and by the time she came beneath the wall of the fort she was wellnigh waterlogged. Not a man of the party ventured to speak a word; but from the glances they gave one another it was clear that they realized what the accident meant for them. Nothing but complete success could now save them, for if the attempt on the fort failed, it would certainly be impossible to escape on this leaking vessel, and they must fall an easy prey to their enemies. One after another they quietly left the canoe, carrying the climbing apparatus, and their calivers and ammunition, which had fortunately lain on the raised stern of the vessel and had escaped a wetting. They found themselves on the rocks, in two or three feet of water. Turnpenny and Copstone gave their weapons into the charge of two of the maroons while they carefully lashed the two longer sections of the ladder together. Meanwhile Dennis was scanning the wall above him with the object of finding a suitable spot against which to plant the ladder. In spite of Copstone's belief that the fort was not sentinelled, Dennis had taken the precaution to land a little to the west of the tower at the angle, thinking that the sentry, if one were posted there, would probably be taking shelter under the eastern parapet. But so far as he could see in the dim light the line of the wall was unbroken. At the top, however, a battlement slightly overhung it. To Dennis, gazing up, this battlement seemed terribly far off, and his heart sank as he felt that the ladder would certainly not be long enough. But it was possible that the apparent height was deceptive; at any rate the attempt must be made. Accordingly, Turnpenny and Copstone, as he had previously arranged with them, planted the ladder beneath the wall while he mounted. The first steps were easy, but when he came near the top he was seized with a momentary dizziness and had to pause before he ventured to take another upward step. He climbed very slowly: he was now close against the wall, with nothing to cling to, and he maintained his balance only by pressing forward until he was almost flat against the smooth surface. He reached the last rung; it was impossible to ascend another inch; and the top of the wall was still, it appeared, at least twelve feet above him. Even if the third section of the ladder was added, the coping would be still utterly beyond his reach. It was a position in which many a bold fellow might have despaired, and, for a little, Dennis did feel dismay and a touch of compunction for having brought the men below into what appeared to be a hopeless case. But it is such moments as these that prove the grit of a man's character. Dennis was no weakling; and as he stood and leant against that wall, shrouded by the night, he set his teeth and vowed that by hook or crook he would ere long be upon the other side. He looked up and around, to see if there were any notches or seams by means of which he could scale the wall. The moon was creeping round the sky, and now threw a little more light on the scene. Letting his eye travel slowly over every foot of the surface from left to right, he suddenly caught sight of what seemed to be a hole in the wall, some distance to his right, several feet above him, and a yard or so below the parapet. It flashed upon him that this must be a gun embrasure; was it possible, he wondered, to make his way in by that? Carefully descending the ladder, he told the sailors in a whisper what he proposed; they quickly lashed on the last section, and shifted the ladder until it stood immediately below the dark patch which at this distance the embrasure appeared to be. Then Dennis mounted again. Once more he was disappointed. At the imminent risk of falling backwards he crept up to the highest point, but even then he found he could but just touch the lower edge of the hole. He had not sufficient grip on the smooth sill of it to pull himself up: he could not raise himself high enough to peep through. He wondered whether Copstone, who stood nearly a head taller, would have better success; but remembering the man's privations he thought it scarcely possible that he would have nerve enough to mount on this frail ladder, which bent dangerously beneath his weight now that the last section was added, without becoming dizzy and toppling down. Was there any conceivable manner in which the ladder could be still further lengthened? Down he crept again and held another whispered consultation with the two men. At first neither was able to make a suggestion. They stood looking at one another in perplexity. Then suddenly Turnpenny, forgetting himself in his excitement, uttered an exclamation in a tone which sent a shiver down Dennis's back. "Hush, man!" said Dennis in a warning whisper. "What is it?" "Ah, I must talk gentle," said Turnpenny. "Of a sudden I thought of muscles and sinews, and the power of a strong back. Me and the headman of the maroons--not so strong as me, to be sure, but yet with mighty shoulders of his own--me and him betwixt us can raise the ladder aloft, and hold it firm while you mount, and then without doubt you'll be high enough to peep through the port-hole and see all that may be seen." "Art sure you can do it, Amos?" asked Dennis, eagerly. "Why, sir, look at this!" he returned, bending his arm until the muscle showed like a globe of iron. Without more ado, Turnpenny and the maroon hoisted the ladder, and, one on either side of it, supported it with their shoulders. Then Dennis climbed on to Copstone's back, thence to the ladder, and began the ascent. The ladder was more tremulous than ever, and Dennis felt a flutter at the heart as he came nearer and nearer to the top. But the stalwarts below did not yield an inch, and Dennis crawled up and up until at length his head came to the level of the embrasure, and with one more step he found himself able to rest his arms in it. To his joy the embrasure was empty: the gun had evidently been withdrawn; and taking this as a good omen--surely it indicated great security on the part of the garrison!--he hoisted himself up and wriggled into the aperture. Then, breathless, with a hurrying pulse, he crouched to consider his next move. CHAPTER XIII The Taking of Fort Aguila During the morning, while the ladder was being made, Dennis had talked over with the sailors the plan of action he proposed to adopt should they succeed in entering the fort undetected. The first thing was to silence the sentry, if sentry there was. It was quite clear, from the fact of having been undisturbed hitherto, that no careful look-out was kept; but Dennis did not forget Copstone's suggestion that a sentry might be napping behind the parapet, and it must be his first business to assure himself on this point before giving the signal for his companions to make the ascent. He crouched motionless in the embrasure, listening. It had been pierced for only a short gun--a minion or falconet perhaps; and doubtless within three feet of him was a stone walk extending for the whole length of the wall. All was still; there was not a sound to show that, within the enclosure, a hundred human beings were crowded, masters and slaves. But looking through the embrasure Dennis saw a few lights twinkling in the centre of the fort, and he guessed that some at least of the enemy were awake. However great their security, it had seemed incredible to him that the place should be left wholly unguarded, even if only to provide against turbulence on the part of the slaves. After a few moments Dennis ventured to crawl towards the inner end of the embrasure, where he might get a view of the whole enclosure. The thin light of the moon fell on the brightly painted walls of the commandant's house in the centre; there was no light in the windows; no doubt the señor capitan was fast asleep. But a beam of light came from a building somewhat to the right; this was presumably the officers' quarters. The huts along the western wall, in which the slaves slept, were all in darkness. On the farther side of the enclosure, in the round tower beneath which the prisoners were confined, another light shone forth; somebody was awake there. But not a sound stirred the heavy moist air of the tropical night. If there were sentries upon the walls, they were certainly not pacing up and down. Waiting another minute or two, Dennis ventured to peep round the corner of the embrasure. He could scan the whole length of the walk from tower to tower; no sentry was in sight, but he saw the gun below him a little to his right. Taking courage from the silence, he slipped out of the hole, and groped his way on bare feet toward the tower at the north-east angle. Every now and again he paused to listen, and at last, when he came within a few yards of the tower, he heard a sound of deep regular breathing hard by. Evidently some one was asleep. He stole along by the parapet in the deep shadow cast by the moon, until he saw, huddled in the corner between the tower and the wall, the form of a man. He halted to consider. Should he go forward and pounce on the sentry, risking the sound of a struggle if he attempted to gag him, or a cry if he struck at him with his sword and failed to kill him outright? It went against the grain to slay a sleeping man, and the sentry was apparently so fast asleep that it seemed possible for the rest of the party to climb up without disturbing him. But there might be a sentry at the other end. Leaving the man in peace, Dennis stole back again, went on hands and knees where the gun necessitated his coming for a moment into the moonlight, then rose and groped his way along beneath the parapet as before. There was no sentinel, asleep or awake, in this direction. With more confidence now in the chances of a safe ascent he returned once more to the embrasure, and, taking from his pocket a thin piece of creeper, he paid this out through the aperture. He soon felt a slight tug from below. He waited until he felt a second tug, then gently pulled the creeper towards him. To the end of it a stout line was attached--a part of his salvage from the wreck of the _Maid Marian_. This he quickly secured to the heavy gun, and having strained on the rope to convince himself that the fastening would hold, he gave the signal by another tug to his comrades below. Then he crawled into the embrasure, and, leaning out, saw Amos swarming with a seaman's nimbleness up the rope. Giving him a hand when he came within reach, Dennis helped to haul him into the embrasure. "What about the calivers?" he whispered, for the sailor had come up unarmed, lest a clank of steel against the wall should attract attention. "We've tied 'em up in our shirts, sir. Haul on the rope and we'll have 'em up in a trice." The bundle was quickly raised and brought into the embrasure without a sound. "There's a sentry asleep by the tower yonder," whispered Dennis. "Did 'ee not kill him?" "No, you could not kill a sleeping man, Amos?" "I warrant I could, though I'd liever not. But we must do summat with the knave." "He sleeps sound." "Maybe, but any moment he might waken, and then t'ud be all over with us. A sailor's knot and a mouthful of shirt will make all snug." "Very well. We must go quietly." Soft-footed as cats they stole to the careless sentinel, still drawing the long regular breath of placid slumber. Suddenly the sound changed to a low choking gurgle: Turnpenny had nimbly slipped a strip of his shirt into the man's open mouth. In two minutes he lay straight on his back, his arms and legs firmly bound with lengths of the flexible tendril. Then the two intruders moved swiftly back to the embrasure, and signalled to the waiting men that it was safe for them to ascend. Tom Copstone and two of the maroons came up in turn. Then there was a hitch. The remaining three men stood helpless on the rocks, afraid to attempt a feat which had never come within their experience. There was a moment's delay: then Turnpenny slipped down the rope, hitched a loop around one of the men, abusing him under his breath as a good-for-nothing land-lubber, and signalled to the others to haul him up. The two others were brought up in the same way, not without some bumps against the wall; then Turnpenny again came up hand over hand, and the little party of eight stood complete beside the gun. "My heart! 'tis a famous doing!" said Turnpenny mopping his sweating brow. "'You and me, Haymoss,' as I heard in my dream." The next step also had been pre-arranged. Copstone, as the man most familiar with the fort enclosure, was to lead four of the maroons to the quarters of the garrison, dash into the outer room where the fire-arms would probably be kept, and hold the Spaniards in play while Dennis and his companions made a rush for the round tower beneath which were the dungeons. The Spaniards would no doubt be asleep in the inner room, and, suddenly disturbed from their slumbers, they might be expected to hesitate before attacking five well-armed men who stood guard over their muskets. It was scarcely likely that more than one or two would at this dead hour of night be in the outer room where the light was, and Copstone and his men might be safely trusted to account for them. "You must give us a minute, Tom," said Amos, "seeing that we have the greater way to go." "Ay, indeed," said Dennis, "our entrances should fall together. You know the way, Amos?" "Ay, sure, and have good reason to." "Well, then, Copstone will wait until we have had time to reach the tower, then he will perform his part." This conversation had passed in whispers. All having been arranged, they crept down the steps from the battlement to the courtyard, and while Copstone and his four dusky companions stood in the shadow of the stairway, the other three, with rapid, noiseless steps, ran towards the light in the farther corner. The courtyard was covered with grass, except for a small stone-paved space around the buildings in the centre; and Turnpenny, who was leading, kept to the grass, even though their bare feet might make no sound on the stones. But they had covered little more than a third of the distance, and had, indeed, not yet come level with the buildings, when all three were suddenly startled by a low deep growl on the right, from the neighbourhood of the commandant's house. "Crymaces! I had forgot the Captain's dog!" whispered Turnpenny. They had instinctively halted and turned in the direction of the sound. A dark form, still growling, was rushing over the stone court towards them. It made direct for Turnpenny. The sailor threw up his left hand to ward off the attack, but the beast was so large, and came against him with such momentum, that he reeled under the impact, and the sword he held raised in his right hand was almost wrenched from his grasp. Dennis was swinging forward to his comrade's assistance when he saw that no help was needed. The hound had impaled itself on Turnpenny's sword. Amos gasped with relief as he shook himself free; then, whispering "They'll have heard the beast's growls," he set off at full speed for the round house, the two others following close at his heels. [Illustration: "The sailor threw up his left hand to ward off the attack."] They dashed straight for the doorway, which was faintly lit by a light in the guard-room to the right of the passage. In a quarter-minute they were inside; five seconds more brought them to the door of the room, which they reached just as three Spaniards were leaving the table at which they had been dicing, curious, no doubt, to discover the cause of the dog's uneasiness. They were unarmed; their weapons indeed lay on a bench at the further end of the room; clearly the dog's growls had caused them no real alarm, and no other sounds could have reached them. Consequently they stood stock-still, petrified with amazement, when they saw two white men and a maroon with naked swords rush almost noiselessly into the room. "Surrender, villains!" cried Amos, pointing his sword full at the first man's throat. His tone, backed by the sight of the three blades, helped to clear their scattered wits. With fine presence of mind, the man farthest from the door snatched a goblet from the table and hurled it straight at Turnpenny, stooping then to seize his sword that lay on the bench behind. But he had taken only a single step when the maroon, with a cry of fury, flung himself clean across the table, and drove his weapon through the man's body. The other two, less quick-witted and less courageous than their hapless comrade, shrank back and held up their hands, crying aloud for mercy. "Down on your knees, dogs!" shouted Turnpenny. "To the passage, Juan!" he said to the maroon. "Stand by the door opposite." While Amos unstrung his caliver and lit his match, Dennis swept the Spaniards' weapons from the bench out of their reach. Scarcely had this been done when the door on the opposite side of the passage opened, showing a room dimly lighted by a candle-lamp, and eight or ten Spaniards who had been roused from sleep by the noise. "What is this?" cried one of them, fumbling with his sword as he came to the door. Juan, the maroon, stood on no ceremony, but promptly transfixed him, and he fell like a log across the doorway. His comrades immediately behind recoiled in panic; but were pushed forward by the men in the rear, who had not seen what had happened. "Stand, you villains!" called Turnpenny, from the opposite doorway. "I will shoot any man of you that lifts a finger." "Shut the door!" cried one of the men behind. But this was impossible; the door opened outwards, and none could reach it without stepping over the body of the man whom the maroon had killed. They well knew that the first who ventured across the threshold would meet with the same fate, and every man of them shrank from the risk. Dim as the light was, Turnpenny recognized the features of men under whose whips he had many times writhed. "Fling down your sword, Hernando," he cried to the foremost of them. The man hesitated. "Down with it, or you are a dead man," roared the seaman, and there was an accent in his voice that boded ill for the Spaniard if he should delay. His sword fell with a clatter on the stone floor. "Now yours, Fernan, and yours, Manuel," and as these obeyed the curt command the rest waited no bidding, but cast their weapons from them and cried for quarter. "Out with you, into the guard-room," shouted Turnpenny. "Have a care, Juan; let none escape." The big maroon stood in the passage with his back towards the outer gate, and the sight of his ferocious look and his formidable sword was enough. The Spaniards tumbled over each other like a flock of sheep as they surged into the room, where Dennis stood ready to cut down any who attempted resistance. "Ah, 'tis you, José," cried Turnpenny, following the last into the room. "Where are your keys?" The warder edged away, seeking to hide behind his comrades. At a sign from Turnpenny the maroon sprang after him and hauled him back. "Your keys, rascal!" cried Turnpenny, and the cold barrel of the caliver within an inch of his ear jogged his memory. "Mercy! I will fetch them," he said, hastily. The maroon followed him as he ran back into the room opposite, and in a few seconds he returned with his heavy bunch. "Lock 'em in, sir," said Turnpenny, handing his weapon to Juan. "I be going with this villain to loose the prisoners." He caught the terrified warder by the shoulder and pushed him into the passage, where he turned to the right towards the stairway leading to the dungeons. Down he bundled him, neck and crop, and forced him to find the key among his bunch and throw open the door. "'Tis me, comrades," he cried jubilantly into the dark space, "'tis me, your old comrade, Haymoss Turnpenny, come to free 'ee from this cursed hole. Be you there, Ned Whiddon?" "Ay, ay," came the amazed answer. "And you, Hugh Curder?" "Ay, Haymoss, here I be." "Come out, my hearts. Ah, I hear the chains clanking on your poor legs. 'Tis not for long, dear comrades. Come out; this villain warder will ungyve ye; then do the same with the rest of the comrades and follow up aloft. We have arms for 'ee there, dear hearts. God be praised you be alive! José, you villain, loose their fetters. Ned, I will leave him with 'ee; keep an eye on him." Leaving the cowed Spaniard in the safe hands of Whiddon and Curder, Turnpenny hastened back to rejoin Dennis, who had locked the door upon the others, and piled their arms against the wall of the passage. Then the three rushed out into the open, and raced at breakneck pace across the courtyard to the main buildings, whence came the sounds of desperate conflict--shots, cries, and the clash of steel. Copstone, waiting impatiently with the four maroons at the foot of the wall until the others should have reached the far corner of the enclosure, heard the growl of the commandant's dog, and guessed, from the sudden silence that followed, what had happened. Instantly he led his men with a rush towards the main building, where the light indicated that some at least of the garrison were awake. They reached the spot just as the door was thrown open and a man stepped across the threshold, whistling for the dog. Copstone sprang upon him, and toppled him over, and was then dashing past him into the house when he perceived that a group of at least half a dozen Spaniards were coming towards the door, alarmed by the sound of the scuffle. Copstone darted back; the maroons fired their calivers into the doorway; groans proclaimed that some of the shots had told. But there were resolute spirits among the garrison; in a few seconds they came pouring out, and, catching sight of the maroons, evidently believed that they had nothing worse than an outbreak of the native labourers to contend with. Shouting with fury, they pressed forward, slashing with their swords, and forced the assailants into the narrow space between the wall of heir quarters and the commandant's house. When Dennis and his comrades came breathless upon the scene, Copstone and his party were hemmed in by a crowd of infuriated Spaniards outnumbering them by seven to one. The Spaniards had had no time to light the matches for their muskets; the maroons had had no time to reload; and both attacked and attackers were laying about them doughtily with their swords. Whatever the timidity of the maroons in captivity, there was no doubt about their courage when fighting for their lives against odds. Aided somewhat by the darkness, which made it difficult to distinguish foe from friend, they were cutting and thrusting vigorously with their backs against the wall, encouraged by the voice of Copstone, who mingled with English words of cheer a few Spanish exclamations he had picked up during his imprisonment. But steadily as they fought, it would have gone ill with them had not the arrival of Dennis and the others caused a momentary relaxation of the pressure upon them. The three dashed with a resounding cheer upon the rear of the Spaniards. "Stand to it, my hearts!" bellowed Turnpenny. "You and me, Tom Copstone, you and me!" Three Spaniards fell at the first onset. Before the rest had recovered from their surprise, before they had any idea of how small the reinforcement was, three more suffered the same fate. In the confusion, Dennis and his men dashed right through the cordon and ranged themselves alongside the doughty five. Then the Spaniards, finding that their rear was no longer attacked, realized that their enemy had received but a slight accession of strength, and returned to the fight with redoubled energy. For some time it was cut and thrust almost at random, and many shrewd blows were dealt on both sides. So sudden and surprising had the attack been that the Spaniards had had no time to collect their wits and resort to strategy. It had not occurred to them to get at the rear of their enemy over the wall. Again and again they rushed headlong upon the little party; but the maroons and Copstone had taken new courage from the presence of Dennis and the others. Turnpenny was in the centre of the line, Dennis at the extreme right, Juan the maroon at the left next to Copstone. Again and again they flung back the furious assault, and ever and anon above the din of the combat rose the inspiriting battle-cry of Turnpenny, "You and me, Tom Copstone, you and me!" and the answering shout, "You and me, Haymoss; good cheer, my heart!" But eight men, however bold and stout-hearted, could not long contend with an enemy at least four times their number. Scarce a man of them but was bleeding from several wounds. The exertions and excitements of the night had made inroads upon their strength even before the fight began, while the Spaniards were at no such disadvantage; some of them, indeed, had risen fresh from sleep. Gradually the blows of the lesser force weakened. The Spaniards could not all attack them at the same time, so confined was the area of conflict; but when any of their number fell out, from wounds or fatigue, there were new men to take their places. For the others there was no such relief. Each one of them had to meet a succession of Spaniards. Dennis felt his strength giving way. He was not conscious of having been wounded, but he could now scarcely hold his sword from sheer weariness. And he felt that things were going badly with his comrades. Two of the maroons at his left had fallen, whether killed or merely wounded he could not tell. He still heard the ringing voice of Turnpenny, but his heart sank as he realized that in a few more minutes he, at any rate, would no longer have the force to respond. At last, when he felt with a kind of frenzied despair that it was impossible he should strike another blow, there fell upon his ears a new sound from the front--from some point beyond the crowd of Spaniards. Surely there was an English ring in those cheers; it was no mere Spanish yell. It was coming nearer, swelling into a roar. A few seconds later, the ring of steel by which the little party was encircled seemed to be burst asunder; then the Spaniards broke and scattered in all directions, fleeing helter-skelter before knives and swords wielded with the terrible might of vengeance by the hands of a score of men who had but lately lain cowed and crushed in their dungeons. Little mercy they deserved; little they found. Ned Whiddon, Hugh Curder, and many another hunted them into the four corners of the courtyard; the tables were turned, and the freed prisoners smote and spared not. CHAPTER XIV Vae Victis The intention of Dennis had been to release the prisoners and then make for the bark that lay alongside the quay. She was only of some fifty tons burden; her crew would not be a large one; and it ought to be a comparatively easy matter to overpower the men on board and warp the vessel clear before the discomfited Spaniards could recover from their confusion and make an organized attack. But he had not reckoned on the rapidity with which events had moved, and the impossibility of communicating his design to the men who had been released. They had scattered in all directions in pursuit of the Spaniards; Copstone and the maroons were carried away by the lust of vengeance, and, wounded as they were, had rushed away with the rest; and Dennis found that only Turnpenny was left at his side. There were elements of peril in the situation. Some of the Spaniards had swarmed over the wall of the officers' quarters. If they found efficient leadership they might yet rally and prove a very formidable enemy. Dennis and the seaman held a hurried consultation. They were unarmed save for their swords; they had left their calivers in the passage of the round tower, and the weapons were no doubt now in the hands of two of the released prisoners. Adventurous as they both were, it seemed the height of folly and rashness to attempt, they two alone, to cope with unknown numbers beyond the wall. While they were still perplexed as to the best course to follow, they heard a roar and a crash from the direction of the commandant's house, followed by a babel of cries. Running round, they found that the maroons, headed by Copstone, had blown open the door of the house, and were hunting through it in the darkness for the man under whose authority they had suffered so many grievous wrongs. There were only four rooms; it was the work of a few minutes to ransack them thoroughly; not a trace of the commandant or his household could be discovered. "Be jowned if they bean't stolen a march on us," cried Turnpenny, "and made for the harbour first!" "Let us after them at once, then. If they get away ours will be a bad case indeed." Calling to the half-dozen men who were at hand, Turnpenny led the way at a great pace to the gate in the eastern wall of the fort. It was locked. Almost beside himself with baffled rage, the seaman threw his great bulk against the timbers; but they were stout, and even his weight failed to force the lock. "Is there no other way out?" asked Dennis. "Not as I knows on. Where be Tom Copstone? Hey, my heart, be there any other way out o' this yard?" "Ay, there be a postern in the nor'-east tower." The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Dennis dashed towards the tower, the others following him with a rush. The door at the foot of the tower was open; he sprang up the spiral stairway three steps at a time, and almost broke his head against the postern door, that opened inwards and blocked the way. The dawn was bursting in the eastern sky, and Dennis looked eagerly out. The postern faced the sea, and the harbour and quay were hidden from him by the circumference of the tower; but he spied a rope ladder dangling from the opening to the narrow footway below. It was clear that the commandant and his party, while the combat was at its height, had slipped out of the house and made their escape by this exit. By this time Turnpenny and half a dozen others were crowding the narrow staircase. "They have made for the bark," cried the seaman, "and if there be true mariners aboard she'll be warped clear and out to sea." "She is not there yet. We have one chance. Copstone, run back to the gate; blow up the lock and lead as many of your comrades as you can find hot foot along the quay, in case it be still possible to seize the vessel. Amos, can we train the fort guns on the mouth of the harbour?" "Ay, sure, and I'll do it, being once gunner's mate aboard the _Anne Gallant_." "And I can aid you; God be praised that Sir Martin practised us venturers in the usage of ordnance in the _Maid Marian_." He slammed-to the postern door, freeing the stairway, and rushed up to the narrow open archway leading on to the battlements, stumbling in the dim light over the prostrate body of the gagged sentry as he leapt through. Vaulting on to the parapet, he looked down at the quay to see how the men were faring. A cry of bitter mortification burst from his lips as he saw the bark slowly moving towards the sea. Her sails were hoisted on the mainmast, and filling with the light westerly breeze; a group of officers, among whom the commandant was easily distinguished, crowded her deck, in addition to the crew; and there was not one of Dennis's party or the prisoners in sight. But at that moment there was a loud explosion; the gate fell with a crash; and a crowd of men, white and black, headed by Copstone, rushed out on to the quay. They roared with fury when they saw that they were too late. Those of them who had loaded calivers ran along the quay, firing ineffectually at the moving vessel. They were answered with a volley from her decks, and two maroons fell, shouts from the Spaniards acclaiming the lucky shots. But Turnpenny had now taken his post at the nearest gun. "Body o' me, sure 'tis a saker taken from the Jesus herself!" he cried joyfully. "And here be powder and round shot and stone shot, and a half circle for the sighting. Haymoss Turnpenny be no true man an he do not send a good un plump into the midst of the knaves." But none knew better than Turnpenny that, at any considerable distance, it was easier to miss than to hit. Seeing that it was impossible to depress the gun so as to get a shot at the vessel until she had drawn clear of the harbour, he ran to the ordnance on the northern wall, and loaded them in readiness in case his first shot missed. Meanwhile Dennis had spied the muzzle of a demi-culverin projecting from the roof of the round tower, and summoning to his assistance a white man who was among his party, he ran up and began with all haste to load the gun. Before he had finished, there was a flash and a roar from Turnpenny's saker just below. The Spaniards on deck, who the moment before had been laughing at the futile shots from the men on the quay, skipped down the companion way with exceeding nimbleness. Dennis looked eagerly for the result of the shot. That something had been carried away was clear from the clattering noise on board and the rush of the crew towards the stern-works; but neither the fore nor the mainmast had been hit, and the vessel still glided seawards. Turnpenny growled with rage, and ran to the next gun, from which, however, it would be useless to fire until the bark had come quite out from the harbour mouth. Dennis's heart leapt within him as he saw that the course of the vessel would bring her in a few seconds within range of his gun. Now was his chance of showing how he had profited by Sir Martin's lessons in gunnery. How ardently he hoped that the bore was true and the windage not too great to spoil his aim! He waited with lighted match until, sighting with the gunner's half-circle--the quadrant with which every piece of ordnance was equipped--he knew that the Spaniard was well within range. He applied the match and sprang forward to the very edge of the parapet to watch the effect of his shot. There was a sound of rending and splitting from the deck; and through the smoke he saw the mainmast collapse with all its rigging. A great shout from the battlements and from the crowd below acclaimed the famous shot. There had been no time to run up a sail on the foremast; the vessel lost way; and the crew, having been deserted by the officers, huddled into the forecastle, leaving several of their number prone upon the deck. When the motion of the vessel ceased, two of the Spaniards rushed up the companion-way and called on the crew frantically to hoist the foresail. But in vain. The men were helpless with terror. And while the Spaniards were storming and gesticulating, Turnpenny, exerting his immense strength, hauled round the eight-foot minion which had been removed from the embrasure by which the intruders had entered the fort, and next moment a carcass crammed with case-shot plumped amidships of the hapless bark, and the Spaniards, cowering from the flying splinters, scuttled down the companion-way--all but one fellow, bolder than the rest. The vessel had swung round a little, so that her stern-chaser, a culverin twelve feet long, pointed full at the fort. It was already loaded. The Spaniard, with a shout of defiance, altered the elevation of the gun, lit a match, and applied it to the touch-hole. A round shot crashed through the embrasure from which Turnpenny had fired, scattering a shower of stone-chips around, and dealing wounds among the group who were watching and assisting the seaman to reload. The crashing sound brought the Spaniards again from below, and they began feverishly to clean out and reload the piece. But another shot from Dennis's gun fell plump into the round-house on the half-deck; and now the Spanish commandant, perceiving that the men on the quay had sprung into the fishers' canoes that lay alongside, and were making direct to board his vessel, saw that the game was up, and, raising his arms aloft, shouted that he surrendered. "Go and board her," cried Dennis to Turnpenny. "I'll stay by the guns in case he meditates treachery." The seaman hurried away with a mixed crowd of maroons and white men. In a few minutes he was pulling lustily for the vessel. Dennis, with gun loaded, watched him climb the side and receive the Spaniard's sword. Then a hawser was fixed to the headboards, and the vessel was towed back to the quay side. Dennis hastened down. The crestfallen commandant with all his men was brought ashore and escorted to his house, where they were left under guard. Hugh Curder, with three other seamen, was placed in charge of the vessel, and then Dennis re-entered the fort-enclosure with Turnpenny and the rest, eager to see, now that day had fully dawned, what had happened during his absence. He could not repress a shudder as he saw the ground strewn with dead and wounded men; and he was horrified to observe that some of the slave-fishers had broken out of their huts, and were moving about the court-yard, giving the finishing stroke to the wounded of their late masters who were yet alive. Dennis sent Ned Whiddon among them to put a stop to this ruthless butchery; then his intervention was called for at the round tower from which the prisoners had been released. A group of them, headed by a big ruffianly seaman, had burst open the door of the room in which the unarmed Spanish guards had been locked, and were beginning a work of butchery there when Dennis, with Turnpenny and a few others, rushed to the scene. Dashing into the room, Dennis sprang at the ringleader just as he was thrusting at a Spaniard who had thrown himself down on his knees and was pleading for mercy. "Hold, knave!" he cried, hauling the man away. "Zounds! and who be you?" shouted the fellow, recovering himself and lunging furiously at Dennis. "I'll teach 'ee, Jan Biddle!" roared Turnpenny. Seizing the man, he lifted him as though he were a child and hurled him over his head in true Devonian style. Biddle's head struck the floor with a loud thud, and he lay as one killed. "Souse him, my hearts!" cried Turnpenny. "The saucy knave!" And in a few minutes a plentiful drenching from a water-butt at the door brought some glimmering of sense into the man's bruised noddle. Meanwhile the Spaniards who had survived the fight and escaped from their pursuers, had barricaded themselves in the officers' quarters, where they were unmolested while the majority of their late prisoners were on the quay. The victory could not be considered complete while they remained shut up, for they no doubt had arms and ammunition at their disposal. Some of the victors were for blowing up the house and all in it; but Dennis and Turnpenny dissuaded them from this, and declared for insisting on unconditional surrender. To obtain this they made use of the captive commandant. At Dennis's suggestion, Turnpenny put the case to him, pointing out how hopeless was the position of his men, and promising to spare their lives if they surrendered at once. The commandant was then led to the officers' house between two men with drawn swords, and after a few minutes' colloquy the men agreed to hand over their weapons. Dennis meanwhile collected his whole party. They were a very ragged regiment. None was quite so tattered as Tom Copstone, but all were dirty, unkempt, unshorn, bearing many marks of toil and suffering, as well as the more recent marks of fight. Of the five maroons who had scaled the fort wall two were dead; the rest were all wounded. Not one of the little band had escaped unhurt. Dennis had several gashes in his arms. Turnpenny's big face was disfigured with cuts and bruises, while Copstone, who had fought with utter recklessness, seemed to have borne a charmed life, so many were his wounds. The released prisoners had come off best. With the exception of the two men shot down from the vessel, one being killed and the other badly wounded, they had escaped with a few scratches. They were a wild, rough lot, and Dennis wondered, as he looked them over, whether they would show themselves amenable to discipline. The Spaniards having been disarmed and locked in the house, Turnpenny constituted himself master of the ceremonies. After a brief talk with Ned Whiddon and Hugh Curder, his special friends, he said to Dennis-- "Here we be, sir, masters of the fort, twenty-two all told, five being French. We must needs have a captain, and that be you, for 'tis all owed to your wit, and we pay you our humble duty." "Thank 'ee, Amos, but I will not be captain save by the wish of all. Methinks 'tis an office for one older in years." "Be jowned if it be, sir. Comrades, list while I tell the tale of these rare doings." He related to the crowd the story of his rescue from the Spaniards on the island, the capture of the lumber-ship, the voyage in the maroons' canoe, and all that had happened since. "And now, comrades," he concluded, "I ax 'ee, who so fit to be our captain as Master Dennis Hazelrig, of Shaston in Devon? We owe our lives to him, and there be many a thing to face afore we get across the thousand leagues to home. Who but him shall be our captain?" The election was ratified with a great shout. "Thank 'ee, comrades," said Dennis. "'Tis not a post I covet; willingly would I serve under an older man, my good friend Amos, to wit. But I accept your choice. One thing I say. There may be more fighting before us; if we fight, let us fight like Englishmen, not like savages, and treat our enemies according to the manner of civilized nations. Do you agree to that?" "Ay, ay!" shouted the men,--all but Jan Biddle, whose growling protests were howled down by the rest. "Then it is mine to choose my lieutenant. You are all good men and true, but 'tis my misfortune I am not so well acquainted with you as I hope to be. But I know Amos Turnpenny, and you know him also; and----" "I crave your pardon, sir," said Amos, interrupting; "I was gunner's mate twenty-five year ago on the noble _Anne Gallant_, and four year ago boatswain on Captain Hawkins his _Jesus_, and methinks the rank of boatswain befits my stature and my fancy both; and if I may be so bold, I say let these our comrades, good men and true, as you yourself did say, choose among themselves two to serve as mates aboard the vessel." "A wise speech," said Jan Biddle. "There be good mariners among us; ay, and some of us are skilled in the manage of greater vessels than the poor bark yonder. Let us then do as Amos says, and choose who shall come next to our noble captain." "So be it," said Dennis, with a glance at Amos. "Choose then, and we will abide the choice." It was clear that Jan Biddle expected the election to one of the posts to fall upon himself. He could not hide his chagrin when by general consent Ned Whiddon and a man of quiet appearance named Gabriel Batten were selected. Dennis on his part was glad that Biddle was to remain a simple member of the crew; he disliked the man's overbearing manner and the shifty look in his eyes. These matters having been settled, he explained that his purpose was to sail away as soon as the vessel could be got ready, and steer a course for England. It was needful to make haste, for the sound of the firing might have been heard on Spanish ships at sea, and even now an enemy might be making for the spot. The first thing was to inspect the vessel at the quay and see what damage had been done. He asked the two mates and Turnpenny to accompany him to the ship for this purpose. Meanwhile he suggested that the others, with the assistance of the natives, should give those who had been killed burial in the sea, and he dispatched two of the maroons to the creek where they had left Baltizar and one of their comrades in charge of the two prisoners, to acquaint them with what had happened and bring them to the fort. Boarding the Spanish vessel, he found that the mainmast was a complete ruin; it would be necessary to replace it. This Ned Whiddon said would be no difficult matter. A couple of men could soon fell a tall and slender cedar in the woods, and though it was not advisable to spend much time in trimming it, a few hours' work would suffice to fit it for its use. Luckily the step was uninjured, and there was plenty of sound rope on board from which to form new stays. The deck had been a good deal knocked about by the shots from the fort, but the damage done was not such as to render the vessel unnavigable as soon as the mast should be stepped and the rigging repaired. Ned Whiddon undertook to carry out the necessary work with the assistance of men of his choice, and went back to the fort with Batten to make a beginning. Dennis and Turnpenny examined the vessel from stem to stern above and below decks. In the captain's cabin they found a number of small bags which on being opened they discovered to be full of pearls. The commandant had evidently not come empty-handed from the fort. There were also several chests containing pieces of eight, and in the hold were twenty odd jars filled with gunpowder, and more than a hundred jars of wine. "'Tis my counsel to fling 'em overboard as soon as it be dark," said Amos. "'Tis a goodish time since my comrades have tasted strong liquor, and I fear me with such plenty they might drink until they were drunken and fit for nought. And Jan Biddle with wine in him would be no less than a madman." "Ay. Tell me, Amos, what know you of that same loud-tongued mariner?" "Why, sir, I know little. He do say he be an Englishman, and one time second mate on a Dutch privateer; but what be the truth of it none can say. He speaks the French and Dutch tongues as readily as English, and has suffered at the hands of the Spaniards even more than most, by reason of his unruly tongue. He is loved by none, but hath a certain power over men; and I rejoice that he is not chosen for mate aboard this vessel." "I like not his looks. Your comrades have done wisely, I trow, in rejecting him. And now, what think you of the chances of our purposed voyage, Amos?" "My heart! I warrant we can sail her merrily across the great ocean, and with favouring winds may hope to see the blessed shores of England in a matter of two months. And my soul hungers for the sight of the old cliffs. By the mercy of God, who hath marvellously prospered our doings, we will yet again come to haven in our dear native land." "We will new christen her for luck, Amos. Her present name--I cannot say the words--" "_Nuestra Señora del Baria_--a papist name, sir, 'Our Lady of'--I know not what. What name shall we give her?" "What say you to _Mirandola_? Our comrade the monkey has without doubt gotten him away to the woods, and there, mayhap, found old friends of his kind. I hold the beast in affection, Amos, and would fain keep him in remembrance." "The _Mirandola_ it shall be, sir; 'tis a fair sounding name, and, if I may speak my mind, befits a tight little craft somewhat better than a heathen monkey. Though i' fecks, I'd liever call her by a plainer name; yet it shall be as you say." "And now, a matter that troubles me, Amos: what shall we do with the Spaniards our captives?" "Be jowned if I would let the knaves trouble me. Let 'em loose afore we sail. There is much food, I doubt not, in the fort, and abundance in the woods around. The knaves will not starve; t'ud be no great loss if they did; and belike a vessel will come to this place ere many days be past, and then they can tell the tale, with raging and cursing that will harm us not a jot." "It shall be done. And it will be well, I trow, to raze the fort to the ground. It has been built with the blood and sweat of our comrades; to destroy it will be a just reprisal." "Ay, and make the knaves to dismantle it with their own hands. I would fain scourge their naked backs as they have scourged mine, many's the time." "And the ordnance?" "Burst it asunder. Why should we leave it sound to belch its shot, mayhap, on English craft some day? God-a-mercy, 'twas a famous shot of yours, sir, that sent the mainmast by the board, and I don't grudge it 'ee that your aim was truer than mine. 'Tis twenty-five year since I served the ordnance on the _Anne Gallant_." "And I had good practice on the _Maid Marian_. But you have not forgot your cunning, Amos, and I warrant if we have occasion to use the piece here in the stern you will make good firing. Now 'tis time to return to the fort; I would not that Jan Biddle should stir up the rage of our people against those unhappy Spaniards, and 'tis not unlike, we being absent, he may do so." "Ay, 'tis meet we trust not Jan Biddle overmuch. Let us go, sir." They found on returning that Ned Whiddon had already gone into the forest with two or three men to fell a tree for the mast. While he was absent on this errand Dennis set part of his company to collect all the Spaniards' small arms and pile them in readiness for conveyance to the vessel, others to ram excessive charges of powder into the guns, and a third gang to superintend the Spaniards in their enforced task of dismantling the fort. Great charges of powder, of which there was an ample store, were placed in barrels in each of the round towers, to be fired at the last moment, for Dennis did not wish to risk an explosion, which must be heard many miles away, until he was on the point of sailing out on the _Mirandola_. The work of preparation was continued throughout the day, with brief pauses for meals. Ned Whiddon and his party toiled with such right good will that he was able to announce, at nightfall, that after a little more work in the morning the new mast would be ready for stepping. This was especially good news, for in view of the possible arrival of a Spanish vessel Dennis could not feel secure until the _Mirandola_ was fairly out at sea. As soon as it was dark, Turnpenny and Copstone went down to the vessel, and flung overboard the whole store of wine save a few jars which they kept for emergencies. The Spaniards, of whom about thirty had survived the fight, were again shut up in the houses of the commandant and the officers, and Dennis arranged that a careful watch should be kept through the night. Then, tired out with his long labours, he gladly threw himself upon a couch in one of the towers, and slept soundly until the dawn. In the morning, as he went round the battlements with Turnpenny to see that the guns had all been crammed with bursting charges, he was seized with a whim to preserve two of them and carry them home to England. "Me thinks they would make rare trophies for our folks to marvel at," he said to Amos with a smile. "What say you, Amos? Would not one look exceeding well on the Hoe at Plymouth? And I think not Holles, my steward, who is keeping my little place at Shaston warm for me till I attain to man's estate,--I think not even he, puritan as he is, would find cause why one should not stand at my gates." "A rare conceit, sir. Pray you one be the saker stolen by the knaves from the _Jesus_; t'other might be the demi-culverin you fired so famously. They'd be good ballast aboard, moreover; pearls are of greater price than weight; and there be room enough and to spare in the hold." With some trouble the two pieces were lowered over the battlements to the quay and hoisted aboard the vessel, where Ned Whiddon and his crew were already at work stepping the mast and overhauling the rigging. By midday Whiddon declared with pride that the _Mirandola_ was ready for sea. A great cheer greeted the announcement. No time was lost in carrying stores, water, arms, and ammunition on board. When all was safely stowed, Dennis, with Turnpenny as interpreter, had a final interview with the commandant, to whom he made known his intention of blowing up the towers of the fort, but leaving the buildings in the centre of the enclosure intact. He said also that the native pearl-fishers, with the maroons, had elected to coast along the shore in their canoes until they reached a settlement of their own people. Being well provided with arms, they could defend themselves against pursuit even if there should be any disposition on the part of the Spaniards to attempt to capture them. Then, one after another, the guns were fired and burst to atoms by means of long trains of powder. Last of all the charges in the towers were exploded, and as the masonry toppled and fell after each thunderous roar, the little company greeted the destruction with a storm of cheers. When Dennis and his comrades turned their backs on the place and went aboard the _Mirandola_, they left the once stronghold a heap of ruins, amid which the Spaniards were already moving about in desolation and despair. CHAPTER XV A Long Chase The _Mirandola_ was towed out of the little harbour by maroons and Indians in their canoes, and beat out to sea against a nor'-nor'-easterly wind. Thanks to Ned Whiddon and his comrades the bark was in capital trim, and the crew, now after many days free men afloat, were at the top of cheerfulness and jollity. The long voyage home had no terrors for them. They were all sturdy mariners, accustomed to adventure their lives on the deep. They had hardly weathered the headland to the east and stood away for the mouth of the gulf before Hugh Curder began to troll a ditty: "Lustily, lustily, let us sail forth; The wind trim doth serve us, it blows from the north, All things we have ready, and nothing we want, To furnish our ship that rideth hereby; Victuals and weapons they be nothing scant, Like worthy mariners ourselves we will try. Lustily, oh lustily!" "Oh, 'tis good to hear to 'ee, Hugh!" cried Turnpenny. "And I do wish we had a crowdy-kit aboard, for I mind me Tom Copstone can ply the bow, and a merry tune would set our feet a-jog. To it again, Hugh; open your thropple, man, and we'll bear our burden, every man of us." And Hugh Curder, after "hawking and spitting," as he said, because his "wynd-pipe" was "summat scrannied for want o' use," struck up again: "Her flags be new trimmed, set flaunting aloft----" "Not so," interrupted Ned Whiddon. "We bean't got no flags." "Pegs! 'tis in the ditty, Ned," cried Turnpenny. "None but a ninny-hammer would look for sober truth in a ditty. Heed him not, Hugh; to it again." "Her flags be new trimmed, set flaunting aloft, Our ship for swift swimming, oh she doth excel; We fear no enemies, we've escaped them oft; Of all ships that swimmeth she beareth the bell. Lustily, oh lustily. "And here is a master excelleth in skill, And our master's mate he is not to seek; And here is a boatswain will do his good will, And here is a ship-boy, we never had leak." Lustily, oh lustily." "You be the ship-boy, Hugh, seeing you be the youngest of us," said Whiddon. "And you've a proper breast for a singing-boy." "Now the last stanzo, Hugh," cried Turnpenny. "'If fortune then fail not,'--but my scrimpy voice murders it. Sing up, man." "If fortune then fail not, and our next voyage prove, We will return merrily and make good cheer, And hold all together as friends linked in love, The cans shall be filled with wine, ale, and beer, Lustily, oh lustily." "'Tis not worth a crim," growled Jan Biddle, when the song was ended. "'Wine, ale, and beer'--where is it? I'd give a week o' life for a gallon o' home-brewed." "Ay, and what then!" said Gabriel Batten. "Sing the song of ale, Hugh." "Back and side go bare, go bare, Both foot and hand go cold----" "Nay, not that one; 'tis over long, and 'll make us too drouthy. Seeing we have no ale, 't'ud be cruel to sing the praises of it so feelingly. Nay, sing the ditty that serves for warning; 'twill better fit our case." Hugh Curder began: "Ale makes many a man to make his head have knocks; And ale makes many a man to sit in the stocks; And ale makes many a man to hang upon the gallows--" "Oh, shut his mouth!" cried Biddle testily. "We'll all be glumping if we list to such trash. Hallo for the wind to change, for with this nor'-easter blowing we'll never get clear of the coast." The vessel was indeed making slow progress, beating out against the strong wind. Dennis, though elected Captain, had little to do with the actual handling of the ship: in those days the captain was not always a navigator. But the _Mirandola_ was in good hands. Both Whiddon and Batten were practised seamen, and in seamanship, as distinguished from navigation, Turnpenny was incomparable. They had found in the cabin a chart of the coast and the neighbouring sea, by means of which they avoided the shoals and made without mishap towards the mouth of the gulf. Dennis and Turnpenny examined the chart carefully to see if they could distinguish the island they had named Maiden Isle. Several small islands were marked on it as mere dots without names, and they could not for a long time decide which of them was Maiden Isle; but Turnpenny at last fixed on one of them, and his conjecture was proved to be correct in the evening. Whiddon had set the course by Turnpenny's suggestion, and just before dark the vessel skirted the south-eastern corner of the island where he and Dennis had met so strangely. Looking at the chart, Dennis wondered how the _Maid Marian_ had escaped wrecking a dozen times during the hurricane that finally cast her up on the western shore. There was marked a good open channel for vessels of any draught south and south-east of the island, but, as he had guessed, the sea to the north and west was practically unnavigable except by small craft. The _Mirandola_ gave the island a wide berth in passing; the wind was freshening, and there were signs of heavy weather. Dennis felt a little regret at leaving the island unvisited, and abandoning the relics of his friends which he had saved from the wreck; but, like every member of his party, he was eager to lose sight of this hostile coast, and to gain the wide ocean where, given good luck, they would be secure from Spanish molestation and have nothing to fear but the ordinary chances of a long voyage. They made little headway that night. Anxious as they were to run out of the main track of Spanish commerce, they felt the necessity of choosing a safe rather than a short course, and especially of avoiding the network of reefs and islands to leeward. In the blackest hours of the night, indeed, they lay to, Turnpenny remarking that it was better to lose a little time than to run the risk of losing the vessel by a too bold navigation of unfamiliar seas. This caution proved to be justified, for the wind shifted in the night; and when at break of day the _Mirandola_ again got under way they found that she had drifted dangerously near an island which, being very small, was not marked on the chart. A light haze lay over the sea, but it lifted soon, and then vast excitement was aroused on board when the look-out shouted that he descried, under the lee of the island, a vessel under full sail. Turnpenny took a long look at her, and declared that she was a bark somewhat larger than the Mirandola, though at the distance--near four miles, he thought--it was impossible to be sure. "Of what nation is she?" asked Dennis. "No mortal man could say," returned Amos; "but 'tis a hundred to one she be a Spaniard, and we must either fight or run." "Think you she will see us, being so small a vessel?" "None can tell that either. We must look to the worst. True, we have the weather-gage of her; but soon or late she will overhaul us if she gives chase. She has a look of speed, or I be no mariner. 'Tis certain we cannot fight her; our armament will not suffice; furthermore, from her size I reckon her crew be three or four times ours, and our men have no mind to be captured and cast again into a Spanish dungeon." "We must e'en run then," said Dennis with a sigh. "That means we must put about?" "True, and 'tis somewhat in our favour, for you perceive the wind has shifted in the night to west-sou'-west, and belike we can sail close-hauled better than she can." Whiddon accordingly put the vessel about, and set the course so that she could keep the island between herself and the stranger. But in the course of the next hour it was clear that the _Mirandola_ had not escaped notice. The stranger had weathered the island and was manifestly standing in pursuit. The crew of the _Mirandola_ watched her anxiously. They were but twenty-two all told, five of them being French: and although they were all stout mariners with no lack of native courage, the remembrance of their past sufferings did not incline them to run risks. For some time it was doubtful whether the pursuing vessel was or was not gaining; but as the day wore on it became clear that the _Mirandola_ was being outsailed. "'Tis a piece of rare good luck we had the wind against us last night," said Turnpenny, "for in a straight chase in the open we should have no chance against the critter, whereas if we get back among these islands we may give her the slip." "If we do not strike a reef and founder," replied Dennis. Here Turnpenny tried a device that he had often seen practised on the _Anne Gallant_. He ordered two men to go up to the cross-trees with a pulley-block; they rove a line through, and, hoisting up buckets of water, saturated all the canvas. Then he put all the men on to the lee braces, and so got the vessel to lie a point nearer the wind. The two manoeuvres considerably increased her speed, but in spite of all that seamanship could do or devise the gap between the vessels sensibly diminished; the pursuer loomed ever larger down to leeward. Then Jan Biddle began to show himself in his true colours. Dennis had noticed that the man had attached to himself a group of the wilder spirits among the crew, who with an ill grace went about the duties assigned to them by Whiddon, and upon whom, indeed, the mate called as seldom as possible. When it became clear that the _Mirandola_ was being surely overhauled, these men were observed in close talk beneath the break of the poop. By and by Biddle swaggered forward, followed by seven or eight of his comrades, to where Whiddon and Turnpenny stood, forward of the mainmast. Batten was at the helm. "Art mad, Ned Whiddon?" cried Biddle in a hectoring tone. "Dost think thou'rt a mariner? Crymaces! if we trust to thee we'll be laid by the heels in the hold of yonder craft ere night." "Couldst do better, think 'ee?" asked Whiddon quietly. "Better? Who but a slin-pole would have done as 'ee have done? There's but one way to scape out of the clutches of the Spaniards, and that is to put the helm down, come about, and run for it. This craft is better running free than close-hauled." "Know a fool by his folly," said Turnpenny. "Rule your saucy tongue, Jan Biddle, and offer not to teach your betters." "Who be you to talk of betters, Amos Turnpenny--a sluddering rampallian like you? An you will take no counsel we'll e'en see to the manage of the vessel ourselves. Here, comrades, this be enough of these joulter heads; let go the sheets; I will put the helm down and we'll go round on the other tack: we'll have no fools over us, to bring us to harm." But before one of the malcontents could step forward to do his bidding, Turnpenny threw his arms around Biddle, lifted him clean off his feet, and flung him against the bulwarks, where he lay stunned. "And I'll serve any man likewise that dares to raise his voice in mutiny. Get about, you villains, and 'ware lest you be clapped in irons and set awash in the bilge." Dennis had hastened to Turnpenny's side at the first sign of altercation. "When the chase is over we will deal with these fellows," he said quietly. "Meanwhile, Amos, is not that our Maiden Isle on the lewside ahead?" "Surely it is, sir." "Think you not 'twould serve us best to run in among the reefs thereabouts? The bark could not follow us." "True, but we might strike and run aground any moment, and lose our vessel and our lives withal." "Ay, but we are being surely overhauled, and meseems 'twere better to take the risk of running aground than to fall into the hands of the Spaniards. There is a chance of our threading a way through, whereas the stranger, being of greater draught, would not venture her bottom among these uncharted shoals." "Verily 'tis a wise thought--if there be time. What think 'ee, Ned? Yonder, mark 'ee, is the isle whereon Master Hazelrig and I lived secure for a matter of weeks, with food in plenty. Think 'ee there be time to make the shallows afore the Spaniard comes within shot of us?" "Ay, there be time enough, but I fear me we should wreck our craft." "There be no other way, Ned. And I warrant me I could make a shift to steer a safe course inshore, because 'twas on the south side of the isle we landed from the timber ship, and there, i' fecks, be her masts--see, Ned, standing out a little above the sea." "Then do 'ee take the helm, Haymoss, and God save us all." Clearly the course of the _Mirandola_ was being closely watched on the pursuing vessel, for when, tacking in obedience to the helm, she made direct for the south of the island, there came a puff of smoke from the side of the bark, and a shot plumped into the sea about two cable-lengths astern. "'Twas over hurrisome, master don," said Turnpenny with a chuckle; "and call me a Dutchman if 'ee ever get to closer range." He ran the little vessel cleverly inshore and steered past the wreck of the timber ship. Then it occurred to Dennis that there must be a practicable channel not far to the west, or the _Maid Marian_ would have gone aground in the hurricane long before she did. At his suggestion the _Mirandola_ was kept on her course for half a mile beyond the southernmost point of the island. Then, as there was no time to take soundings, she was put before the wind, with the object of gaining the north of the island, where Dennis knew that if the pursuer drew as much water as from her size seemed likely, there was little chance of her being able to follow. The confident bearing of Dennis and Turnpenny had a cheering influence on the crew. Even Jan Biddle, who had now recovered from his blow, and his cronies seemed no longer inclined to quarrel with the handling of the vessel. The pursuer was now out of sight, hidden by the bend of the shore. The _Mirandola_ was making excellent sailing before the wind, and Dennis hoped that if she could elude the Spaniard until dark, there might be a good chance of her escaping any further attentions. The pursuer came in sight again just as the _Mirandola_ was approaching the rocky ridge which had been a barrier to Dennis's exploration of the shore on his first day on the island. He was rejoiced to see that in wearing she had lost a little. Then a sudden idea struck him. Beyond the ridge was the entrance to the gully, and up the gully the broad pool in which the _Maid Marian_ lay. Would not the best course after all be to play a trick on the pursuer? Why not try to run into the pool? When the _Mirandola_ had once rounded the shoulder of the cliff she would again be almost out of sight; if she could run into the gully the pursuers would almost certainly suppose that she had fled round the northern side of the island; and safe in the pool, she might lie there until the chase had been given up. He mentioned his idea to Amos. "Be jowned if it bean't a right merry notion," cried the mariner. But none knew better the difficulty of steering the vessel safely into the gully. There was no time for consideration. If once she passed the entrance the vessel could not beat back again before the pursuer came within range. The slightest failure in Turnpenny's seamanship would run the bark on the rocks. But the old mariner knew the gully. With set lips and a deep indentation between his brows he stood at the helm and gave his orders to the men. "Stand by the halliards," he cried, "and let go the moment I say the word." It was important to have plenty of way on the vessel, for the instant she came to the headland the wind would be taken out of her canvas. Easing the helm gently over, Turnpenny called to the men to let go as the ship rounded the point; in a few moments the canvas was all taken in, and with the way on her she glided up the gully. Within ten minutes from the time when the notion first occurred to Dennis the _Mirandola_ lay side by side with the wreck of the _Maid Marian_ in the pool, invisible from the open sea. "Mum's the word," said Turnpenny when the anchor had been dropped. "Muzzle your jaws for a while. Master Hazelrig and me we knows this island, and we'll mount the cliff yonder and see what the don Spaniard makes of us now." Leaving the men to swim ashore if they chose, Dennis and Turnpenny sprang overboard, soon found their footing, and scrambled up the rocks and the cliff, keeping well under cover. When they reached the top they saw the pursuer about three miles distant. She had shortened sail, and was evidently inclined to give the coast a wider berth than the _Mirandola_ had done. It was growing dusk when she came level with the gully, standing about a mile from the shore. Her movements for a time were erratic; clearly the people on board distrusted the waters round the island, and were somewhat perplexed as to the course taken by the fugitive. At length they decided apparently to abandon the pursuit, for she stood to windward, and the two watchers breathed again. CHAPTER XVI Jan Biddle, Master "God be praised!" said Turnpenny, fervently; "we have escaped out of the hands of the enemy." "And we find ourselves once more on Maiden Isle, the which I never thought to set foot on more. I am glad of it, Amos, for now that we have a bark fit to carry us over the sea, I would fain take with us certain things that belonged to my dear comrades. They will be cherished by their sorrowing folks at home." "True, the sight of such belongings of the dead and gone do have a morsel of comfort in it. And moreover we can take some of your stores, for though our own monkey ship be not ill provided, yet the victuals be Spanish, and 'twill make new men of our comrades to give 'em a rasher of bacon now and again." "Ay, but why monkey ship, Amos?" "Why, sir, I cannot put my tongue to the name your fancy gave the vessel, and to my thinking it is not to compare with _Anne Gallant_, and _Jesus_, and _Minion_, and other craft I have served aboard, to say nothing of the _Susans_ and _Bettys_ that are well beknown in Plimworth Sound." "Well, have your way. To my ears _Mirandola_ hath a pleasant sound, and it will always keep me in mind of my good friend. But 'tis time we returned to our comrades." When they reached the entrance of the chine they found that the crew had all come ashore, save one or two who were curiously examining the wreck of the _Maid Marian_. They could not refrain from shouting a glad "Huzza!" when they learnt that the pursuing vessel was standing away. Jan Biddle and one of his cronies had been rummaging in Dennis's hut and sheds, finding little to reward them, however, almost everything having been transferred to Skeleton Cave. Night was drawing on apace, and though some of the crew were for setting sail in the darkness, the majority agreed with Dennis that it would be better to defer their departure until the following night. This plan would give them a whole day's rest; it would render it less likely that the pursuer would be still in the neighbourhood; and it would enable them to carry more water on board, which was desirable in view of the possibility of a protracted voyage. Dennis and Amos decided to occupy their old hut; the men were given their choice of the sheds, now all but empty, and the huts erected by the maroons near the logwood grove. They all declared for sleeping ashore rather than on board ship, Hugh Curder and Gabriel Batten, however, volunteering to remain on deck as a night watch. Next day, after the stores and things which Dennis wished to take home had been transferred from the cave to the vessel, and several barrels of fresh water from the spring in the cliff had been placed in her hold, the men broke up into little groups and wandered about the island, revelling in their liberty and in the abundance of fruit which they could have for the picking. Several times Dennis went to the cliff top on one side and Amos on the other side of the island to scan the horizon for a sail, but neither saw any sign of one. In the afternoon Dennis ventured to sound Sir Martin's trumpet as a signal of recall, and the men came dropping back in ones and twos and threes in anticipation of departure. The tide was at flood, and Dennis had just given the order to go aboard, when Tom Copstone suddenly exclaimed-- "Zuggers! Where be Gabriel Batten?" "Is he not here?" asked Dennis. "Not the ghost of him," said Amos, looking round on the company. "He were always a ninny-hammer," cried Jan Biddle angrily. "Never did I know such a man for simples and other trash. Sure he be roaming somewheres with his nose to the ground, trying to smell out some herb that will heal a scratch or cure a distemper." "Blow up the trumpet for en," suggested Copstone; "Gabr'el be a vitty lad--none the worse for not being made so rampageous as 'ee, Jan Biddle, for all he do go wool-gathering at whiles." Biddle glared at the speaker, but said no more. Hugh Curder, being the man with the brazen lungs, blew a loud blast on the trumpet which set the cliffs and the chine reverberating. They waited; the wanderer must have gone far indeed if he was out of earshot of that strident blare. But as time went on, and he did not appear, Dennis began to be somewhat vexed. "'Twas thoughtless of the man," he said; "already is the tide beginning to ebb, in two hours it will be impossible to embark this night, and that entails upon us the loss of another day." "Embark without him," growled Biddle. "What is he that he should keep a score of good men waiting his pleasure?" "Nay, nay," said Dennis. "We cannot leave him here. You have had your sufferings and sorrows, from the like of which God save us all; but is there a man of you that hath dwelt alone upon an island, spending nights and days without the sight of a face, or the sound of a voice? That have I done, and not willingly shall I subject a man to a like solitude. There is still a little space during which the tide will serve. Let us scatter in parties, some going this way, some that, and halloo; perchance some of us may light on our comrade." The suggestion was adopted; only Jan Biddle and his few particular friends went about the search grudgingly. But though the men scoured the island from shore to shore, and kept up the quest to the very verge of nightfall, long after the tide had run so low that the idea of setting sail till next day had to be abandoned, they discovered no trace of the straggler, and returned weary and irritable when the trumpet recalled them. "He may come in by and by," said Dennis cheerfully. "If not we must e'en take up the search in the morning. We shall have a whole day wherein to pursue it. Let us now get our supper and commend ourselves and our comrades to God." "Odspitikins!" cried Jan Biddle. "What did I say! What a captain is this! Here be we, twenty-one souls, raped up here for one slummaking micher not worth a varden." "My heart!" shouted Amos, "you were best keep a still tongue in your noddle, Jan Biddle, or with the captain's leave I'll clap 'ee in irons the instant we go aboard, and keep 'ee under hatches for a sluddering mutineer--ay, and larrap 'ee first, I warrant 'ee." Biddle's experience of the strength of Turnpenny's arm did not encourage him to repeat his protest; but when the supper was spread on the rocks above the pool, he carried off his portion to a place apart, and nursed his wrath among a small group of his comrades who followed him. The malcontents numbered eight in all, and four of these were Frenchmen, with whom Biddle could converse freely in their own tongue. Again they slept ashore, except the two who had been selected to keep watch on the vessel. The precaution seemed hardly necessary, for it was unlikely that a hostile ship would appear in the night; but Turnpenny had suggested that it was well to keep up the customs observed at sea. The men chosen for this night's watch were two steady fellows named William Hawk and Luke Fenton. Dennis lay awake for some time, talking with Amos about the missing man. Though he had maintained a cheerful composure before the crew, he was in reality not a little vexed at the delay caused by the thoughtlessness of Gabriel Batten. "Is it true, what Biddle said," he asked, "about Batten's madness for gathering simples?" "Ay, 'tis true. He be a vitty lad, as Tom Copstone said, and a good seaman, quiet withal; but he has a maggot, and 'tis that, without a doubt, that has led him aroaming. There be a time for everything, and though I do not deny that Gabriel's skill in simples has ofttimes served us well, 'tis not to be wondered at that the men make a pucker about it." "Well, we must find him to-morrow. We cannot sail away without him; why, there is not even a Mirandola here now to bear him company." "Be jowned if I don't ballirag en to-morrow for his hanticks, od-rat-en!" Dennis passed a restless night, waking often, to wonder what had become of the wanderer. He resolved to set out himself as soon as dawn broke, and take advantage of his knowledge of the island to search thoroughly. Finding himself unable to sleep again, he got up while the chine was still in darkness, and walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the pool. In the gloom he could just see the dark form of the _Maid Marian_; but then he started, rubbed his eyes, looked again, and felt a shock of amazement when he realized that the other vessel was no longer there. Next moment it flashed upon him that she must have dragged her moorings and floated away on the very last of the ebb-tide, and the fact that no alarm had been given seemed to show that the watchers had fallen asleep, overcome by the sweltering heat of the tropical night. Calling to Amos, he set off at full speed down the cliff towards the opening of the gully, narrowly escaping a serious fall in the darkness. He was much relieved to see, on rounding the shoulder of the cliff, the dark hull of the vessel in front of him. The tide was so low that it was marvellous she had floated so far without grounding, and the thought that she might strike a reef and cause further delay while repairs were made prompted a vigorous shout, to waken the neglectful watch ere it was too late. But there came no answering hail from the vessel; and fearing that, even if she did not run aground, the men on board might not have sufficient seamanship to bring her back in safety, he dived into the water and struck out in her wake. As he did so, he heard footsteps behind him, two or three voices, and the sound of another splash. Evidently some one had followed him. The _Mirandola_ was moving very slowly; the motion of the tide was indeed almost imperceptible, and Dennis, being a good swimmer, soon came under her counter. Catching hold, by a happy chance as he thought, of a rope that had formed her mooring cable, he swarmed hand over hand up the side and on to the deck. But no sooner had his feet touched the planks than two figures sprang towards him, a blanket was thrown over his head, and before he could utter a sound he was flung down, gagged, and pinioned. Even through the thick folds of the blanket Dennis was able to hear a great scuffling on board within a few seconds of his own discomfiture. Then all was still, except for the muffled tones of his captors' voices. He could not hear what they said, but it was not long before he knew from the greater motion of the vessel that they must have hoisted sail. Not for a moment did he doubt the meaning of it all. Who but Jan Biddle and his fellow malcontents would have had the daring to run off with the vessel? The man was a ruffian in looks, and Dennis had already had several evidences of his turbulent spirit. And, lying helpless and half smothered on the deck, he did not have to seek far for the motive of the act. It was not merely chagrin at being denied a rank; the man knew that there were pearls in the hold, a valuable treasure, and his treachery was prompted by cupidity. He had supposed, Dennis suspected, that as a simple mariner among the crew he would get but a small portion of the treasure when it should be divided, and persuaded some of the men to make this attempt to secure the whole. Angry as he was, Dennis could not withhold a certain admiration for the man's daring; and then he fell a-wondering why he had not been struck on the head and killed outright; a ruffian like Biddle would hardly have spared him from any feeling of compunction. How long Dennis lay half stifled under the blanket he could not tell. Hours seemed to have passed when it was at last removed, and he could breathe freely. And there, beside him, lay Amos Turnpenny, gagged like himself. Jan Biddle and several of his comrades stood over them, grinning with malicious triumph. "Pegs, Captain," said the man, "you do seem betoatled. Thought the vessel had broke a-loose, I reckon. And so she had--eh, comrades?" "Ho! ho!" laughed the men, vastly appreciating their leader's joke. "Now, we be eight, young master captain,--stout fellows, but a small crew for this vessel. You be in our power, you and Haymoss too, for all he be a rare fustilugs; and down a-hold lie Bill Hawk and Luke Fenton, that kept but a ninny-watch, to be sure. Wherefore we be twelve all told, enough for the manage of this craft. Haymoss will not be boatswain, to be sure, nor you captain; I be captain; boatswain is French Michel yonder; but 'ee can take your choice,--help to work this vessel, or walk the plank. Now I will loose your gags, and you and Haymoss can talk the matter out, and when ye've made up your minds we'll unbind 'ee, or tumble 'ee overboard, according." Left to themselves, Dennis and Turnpenny were not long in deciding on their course of action. They were at present outnumbered; they had to accept the inevitable. Their assistance would be very valuable in the working of the vessel, and Biddle, in spite of his assured bearing, was by no means so confident in his seamanship and skill as he tried to make himself appear. After his treacherous conduct he had no reason to suppose that Turnpenny would lift a finger to make good his deficiencies; on the other hand it was not to the interest of the prisoners that the ship should come to grief through mishandling, and Biddle knew that in extremity Turnpenny's instinct of seamanship would forbid him to hold aloof. But while Dennis and the mariner agreed that they had no choice but to accept the position with what grace they might, they resolved to bide their time for getting the vessel again under their control and returning to the island. "My poor comrades and me be parted again," said Amos, with a sigh. "'Tis true it will not be so bad for them upon the island as 'twas for us. But there they be, and there they must bide until we can fetch 'em off." "And mayhap the Spaniards will land before we can get back to them, and then God help the poor fellows. There is little chance we two can overpower these eight villains; we can but hope on." Having acquainted Biddle with their decision, they were cast loose, and sat beneath the break of the poop watching their captors' attempts at navigation. The vessel had rounded the easternmost point of the island and was running before a south-south-westerly wind. But it made little progress; as the day wore on the breeze died away, and the island was still in sight as the sun gradually sank in the western sky. The mutineers cast somewhat anxious glances around, as if fearing that the comrades they had betrayed might even now find some means of following them. But as the island gradually faded into the dusk their spirits rose, and having broached one of the few jars of wine which had been left in the cabin, they began to boast of the success of their trick. Biddle even acquainted the prisoners with the manner in which it had been carried out. In the darkness they had surprised the watch on board, and cut the cable mooring the vessel to a tree at the side of the gully; then seven of them had lowered the jolly-boat and in it towed the ship past the shoulder of the cliff until the sails caught the wind and it was carried free of the shore. He told Dennis exultantly that if he had swum out three or four minutes earlier the plot would have been defeated, for only he was then on board, at the helm. But just before Dennis scrambled on board the others had clambered up by the fore chains, and his cry and plunge having been heard, there had been time to arrange for his reception. The crescent moon, which had somewhat favoured the attack on the fort, had now increased in size, and threw a thin silvery light upon the sea. Biddle, among a little group of his comrades, was still recounting his achievement for the benefit of Dennis and Turnpenny when the look-out shouted that he spied a vessel to windward. "What care I for a vessel to windward!" cried the man. "We'll give her the slip in the dark. I, Jan Biddle, be captain now; ay, what did Hugh Curder sing t'other day? Here is a master excelleth in skill, And our master's mate he is not to seek. That be Dick Rackstraw, Haymoss, a merry soul, not a glumping galliment like 'ee. And here is a boatswain will do his good will---- not you, Haymoss; you be boatswain no longer; 'tis French Michel, a deal better man. And here is a ship-boy---- why, hang me if we won't make a ship-boy of our noble captain, comrades. 'Tis a stripling, to be sure, and I warrant will be none the worse for a smitch o' tar on his fingers. Ees, we'll make him ship-boy, we will so. Ho! ho! And here is a ship-boy----" But his mirth and the gleeful shouts of the others were suddenly checked when the look-out cried that he saw a second, and then a third vessel. Biddle sprang up with an oath and ran to the taffrail. What he saw did not lessen his alarm. The three strangers were coming up on a broad front, half a mile between them. They were evidently bringing a freshening breeze with them, for they had not been visible when darkness first fell. It was clear to a mariner's eye that the bark would have to show her best sailing powers if she was to escape. She had been sailing under foresail and mainsail only, but now in frantic haste the crew, in obedience to Biddle's orders, set the topsails and the topgallants. But before the effect of this was apparent the approaching ships had crept up within gun range. It was not long in doubt whether they had seen the _Mirandola_, and were making straight for her. A flash was seen from the bows of one of the vessels; a few seconds afterwards a muffled roar was heard. "Blank charge!" said Turnpenny to Dennis. "'Tis a word of warning." Biddle only shouted a defiant curse. The bark was now feeling the full force of the wind, and was making good headway. It appeared likely that, running before the wind, she could hold her own with the strangers. A minute later another gun was fired, and this time with no harmless intent, for there was a great splash in the water a little ahead of the _Mirandola_ on the starboard side. After a short interval, a third discharge shook the air, and the mutineers raised an exultant shout when they saw the splash some distance astern. It was clear that, if the guns had been fired with the same elevation, the chase was drawing away. The dropping of a fourth and fifth shot still farther astern left no room for doubt. "What say you now, master boatswain as was!" cried Biddle, triumphantly. "Bean't Jan Biddle as good a mariner as Haymoss Turnpenny? Here be a master excelleth in skill." "My heart! it be a true saying, don't halloo till 'ee be out o' the wood," said Amos, grimly. "Zuggers! but you be a molkit, Haymoss, a molly-caudle to be sure. Go aft, Haymoss, and cuddle the ship-boy and say your prayers." Turnpenny raised his arm to strike the insolent fellow, but Dennis whispered him to let it pass; there was nothing to be gained by a fight at the present moment, even supposing they prevailed against the odds. Hour after hour the chase continued. The moon went down, but still the three vessels could be seen in the dim starlight. Clearly the _Mirandola_, good sailor as she was, could not shake them off. Biddle ceased to boast; his blustering confidence was changing to dismay, for he now perceived that though he had drawn further and further away from the vessel that had fired, her consort to windward was becoming more clearly visible. He had not reckoned on so obstinate a chase; moreover, being unable to read a chart, he had no idea whither the vessel was heading. There was no chance of doubling. To alter the course would be to lose time, and allow the persistent pursuer to make up on her. She seemed indeed to be gradually decreasing the distance between them, though the other two were out of sight. So the chase went on through the hours of darkness, and daybreak showed two vessels far astern, but the third without doubt creeping up slowly but surely. Biddle, weary with the long night's work, was in a sullen rage; the other men watched the pursuer with undisguised terror; Dennis and Turnpenny, holding themselves aloof, looked on with curiosity and something of amusement. "Jan Biddle be no fool," said Turnpenny once. "I could not have handled the craft better myself. But 'tis not an end." Then, when the spirits of the crew were depressed to the lowest, an early morning mist settled down upon the sea, blotting the pursuer from sight. "Jaykle! 'tis a mercy!" cried Biddle, rousing himself. He instantly changed the course of the vessel. "We'll fool them this mizzly morn," he said. "Mum's the word now, comrades." Dead silence was maintained on board, and for some hours the bark made steady headway through the mist. Dennis could not but admire the mutineer's fine recklessness. Without any sure knowledge of his bearings he held the vessel steadily to the wind, though she might at any moment strike a coral reef or even run aground on one of the innumerable islets that studded the gulf. He was bent only on escaping the dreaded grip of the Spaniards. At length the fog began to clear, dissipated by the increasing heat of the mounting sun. The crew strained their eyes through the eddying mist, to assure themselves that the pursuer, as they hoped, had been deluded by the change of course. But they were appalled, and looked from one to another with a gasp of dismay, when they saw, less than half a league distant, a large Spanish galleon holding exactly the same course as themselves. Far down on the southern horizon another sail could be seen. "What I'd have done myself," said Turnpenny to Dennis. "The Spanish skipper be no fool neither. When the mist came down he guessed the manoeuvres of Master Jan, and afore he was closed in by it he had time to signal the others to make off, one east, t'other sou'east, while he held on the same course, thereby making sure that we'd still be in sight of one or other of 'em when the mist lifted. Ah! lookeedesee, sir; there's a flag a-running up the galleon's forepeak. 'Tis a signal to the others to come and join the chase. Be jowned if Jan Biddle han't got to run the race all over again!" CHAPTER XVII The Demi-Culverin Jan Biddle's face was the image of despairing rage when he saw how he had been outwitted. But he stuck gamely to the helm. The _Mirandola_ was now carrying every stitch of canvas possible; her only chance, and that but a slight one, was to fly on before the wind. Dennis was tingling with excitement. Here was the bark, cutting through the water at a spanking rate; there the larger galleon, speeding after her under press of sail, and two other vessels equally large coming up from the south. He had forgotten that he was a prisoner--forgotten everything but the fact that the implacable enemy was at his heels. Suddenly he saw the galleon luff up in the wind, and noticed a lift of the foresail. "Now she's at us!" cried Amos at his elbow, scarcely less excited. From the bows of the galleon came a spout of white smoke, blown back amid the sails and rigging, and disappearing in a long wispy trail to leeward. The report of the gun followed close, and the shot plumped into the sea less than twenty yards astern. "Be jowned if it do not put me in mind of brave doings on the _Anne Gallant_" said Turnpenny. "'Twas well aimed; an they get our range, 'tis heigh for our pearls and pieces of eight!" A second shot came, falling about the same distance short of the mark. A third and fourth followed at intervals, neither hitting the vessel, each failure greeted with a yell from the crew, who seemed now to have lost their terror in the sheer excitement of the chase. On swept the gallant _Mirandola_, showers of spray flashing over her bows, her slender masts swaying and creaking under the stress of her bellying canvas. Then a shot whistled over the masthead. "Too high, too high!" shouted Amos. "She's got our range now, to a surety; would they but depress the gun and our cockle-shell would be shivered to splinters. Jan Biddle be a better man than I took him for; see the sinews of his arms as he grips the helm. My heart! but he be a mazy Jack to think he can 'scape that tantarabobs. Ah!" His final exclamation was occasioned by the effect of another shot from the enemy's bow-chaser. It struck the taffrail, and cast up a huge splinter which flew straight across the poop. Next moment Jan Biddle was stretched senseless beside the helm, and the helm taking charge, the ship ran off before the wind. The crew were aghast. Biddle was their captain, but he was more; he was the soul of their enterprise. Without him they were as a flock of sheep. Not a man of them was fit to direct. Some cried out for surrendering; the bolder spirits howled them down, swearing it were better to sink with the ship than to return to the servitude from which they had but lately escaped. When Biddle fell, Amos, with the instinct of the mariner, had rushed towards the unmanned helm. "Sir, 'tis our turn," he called to Dennis. "Let us do what we can to save this vessel, and od-rabbit the mutineers!" He leapt to the helm, seized it in his iron grip, and brought the ship once more to the wind. "See!" said Dennis at his side. "Yonder streak on the horizon is surely the mainland. Is not our only chance to win the coast? We cannot escape by mere sailing, but there will be shallows amid which perchance we may slip away as at Maiden Isle. Shall we not attempt it, Amos?" "Ay, ay, sir. We'll run inshore, and methinks I know a trick will help us." At this moment another shot fell and ploughed up the deck, striking up a shower of splinters in all directions. Again arose cries for surrender; but Dennis shouted to the frantic men: "Amos is at the helm. Trust to him. Remember what he did at the fort. Never surrender to the dogs of Spain. We will 'scape them even yet." At his words they plucked up heart; all they wanted was a leader; and when Turnpenny declared that land was in sight, and that he'd be jowned if he didn't cheat the don Spaniards, they answered with a cheer. Outclassed as the _Mirandola_ was in sailing before the wind, it occurred to Amos that she might show to better advantage in working to windward. Accordingly he altered her course a few points. The immediate effect was that the enemy gained a little, and with a broader target succeeded twice in hulling the vessel. Apparently the shots did little damage, for she still rode the waters buoyantly, and after some time, to the joy of the crew, it was seen that the gap between the two ships was sensibly widening. But now a more serious danger threatened the gallant bark. The second of the enemy's vessels, which was some distance to windward when the mist lifted, was rapidly making towards a point where she might intercept the _Mirandola_ and drive her back towards the galleon which she had just escaped. Turnpenny's seamanship was capable of no more. To tack would have been to run into the lion's jaws; to bear up would have been equally hopeless; all he could do was to stand on, and possibly weather the vessel ahead. He explained the difficulty to Dennis, who was still at his side. Dennis knew no trick of navigation that would meet the case; but racking his wits to find some means of helping the hardy mariner, he suddenly asked himself whether it were not possible to use one of the guns he had brought as trophies from the fort. They were big guns, quite disproportionate to so small a vessel as the _Mirandola_. To fire them might do more damage to her than to the enemy. But it was a moment when something might well be risked, and he mentioned his idea to Turnpenny. "Good-now, 'tis a brave notion!" cried the mariner. "Do 'ee grab the helm, sir; head her straight for the coast; Ise warrant 'ee I'll soon give the villain a mouthful of iron." Amos rushed amidships, called all the crew about him, set some of them to rig up the tackle blocks by which the weapons had been lowered into the hold, and himself knocked off the hatch and descended. His first proceeding was to unloose William Hawk and Luke Fenton, the two men who had been surprised by the mutineers, and had since lain side by side in no enviable state of mind or body. "Od rabbit 'ee for a brace of numskulls!" he exclaimed. "Get 'ee up and come show a leg, now." With their assistance he slung the demi-culverin by its pomelion, and the men above hoisted it to the deck; the carriage followed, then its ammunition, and Amos set about mounting it. There was no time to lug it to the quarter-deck. Amos ordered the men to place the carriage, consisting of two "cheeks" or side-pieces held together by thick cross-pieces of wood, on the waist; then the cannon was slung on to it, the clamps were fixed over the trunnions, and a quoin was driven under the gun to prevent it from sagging towards the breech. When mounted on the fort it had not been secured by breechings, but Amos quickly made ready a length of stout rope, fastened one end to the gun, and clinched the other to ring-bolts in the vessel's side. This would check the recoil when the gun was fired. Amos was now in his element. He had not been for nothing gunner's mate aboard the _Anne Gallant_ twenty-five years before. He lost no time in loading the piece with round shot; then, all being ready, he ran back to instruct Dennis how to bring the vessel round when he gave the word. He found that Biddle, who had merely been stunned by the flying splinter, was now sitting with his back against the taffrail, watching these proceedings in a sullen envy. "The Spaniard will draw closer when we yaw, sir," said Amos, "but that we cannot help; and 'tis a mercy we are out of range of her bow-chaser." "Is she not beyond range of our gun, Amos?" "Nare a bit, sir. Our demi-culverin is bigger, I'se warrant, than any gun she has aboard. Point-blank her range be a hundred fathoms; but I reckon I can hit the knave at six hundred at the least. Put the helm down when I call, and then I'll send an apple aboard will be ill to digest." He returned to the gun, and sang out to Dennis; he put the helm down, the vessel yawed, and when she lay broadside to the pursuer, Amos carefully laid the piece, aiming directly at the fore-mast. He waited till the vessel rose on the next wave, then gave the word to William Hawk, who stood by the breech with lighted match. The match was applied; there was a deafening roar, followed by a sound of rending; the _Mirandola_ quivered from stem to stern; and through the smoke it was seen that the gun had jumped clean out of the carriage and was lying against the step of the mainmast. Amos ran to it in haste, fearing that it might have burst in the discharge. But it was uninjured. Several planks amidships had been started; the mainmast was heavily scored; and a number of round shot were rolling about the waist. Amos shouted to the men to remount the gun and sponge it out, while he ran to the side to see what the effect of the shot had been, calling to Dennis to put the helm up again and head the vessel on her former course. The smoke had cleared away, and Amos saw that the pursuer had gained considerably, and was still coming on apparently undamaged. But a few minutes later he uttered a shout of glee. There was a bustle in the forepart of the Spanish ship; men were crowding to the gunwale; and Amos perceived that they were letting a sail down over the side. "I hit her betwixt wind and water," he cried to Dennis. "They are letting down a sail to stop the leak. True, I aimed at the foremast, but she rose somewhat quicker than I did guess and so 'scaped with a hulling." "But she has gained on us, Amos. The hurt she has suffered does not abate her speed." "Truly, so it is, but I will give her another so soon as the gun is righted, and call me a joulter-head an I do not deal her such a blow that she'll tottle like a man fair buddled." Dennis called to Luke Fenton to take the helm, while he went forward to scan the horizon for the hazy streak which he had taken, half an hour before, for the shore-line. He had barely reached the cut-water when he heard the roar of a gun and the sound of a crashing blow. For an instant the vessel's head fell off, and turning hastily he saw Jan Biddle rushing to the helm. A round shot from the enemy's bow-chaser had fallen smack upon the poop, smashing the binnacle, and killing poor Fenton instantly. Only Biddle's prompt action had saved the ship from yawing and presenting her broadside to the pursuer. Seeing that the helm was in safe hands, Dennis turned once more and glanced anxiously towards the shore, which was now beginning to loom large to windward. Was it possible, he wondered, to reach it before he could be cut off by the second Spanish vessel? He measured the distance with his eye, and his heart sank as he perceived that, if she held her present course, the Spaniard could not fail to run across the bows of the _Mirandola_ long before she could gain the coast. It seemed that he must choose between surrendering and fighting against heavy odds. But certainly one ship would be easier to deal with than two; might not another fortunate shot from the demi-culverin cripple the vessel in chase, and so enable the _Mirandola_ to get away from one of her pursuers? Dennis did not forget that there was still a third vessel somewhere to leeward, but she was at present out of sight. By this time the gun had been righted and reloaded. Dennis hastened to rejoin Amos. "Shall I take the helm again, or leave it to Biddle?" he asked. "Fegs, I say leave it to him, and do 'ee take the match, sir. I'se warrant 'ee'd be quicker than Billy Hawk. Biddle will port the helm when I give the word; he hates you and me, but he hates the Spaniards worse." This time the gun had been loaded with chain shot. At a hail from Amos, Biddle put the helm down, the vessel swung round, and as soon as she was broadside to the enemy Amos carefully laid the gun, loosening the quoin, and thereby elevating the muzzle, which he pointed straight for the pursuer's foremast. But the enemy was now more alert. At the first sign of the _Mirandola_ yawing the galleon began to swing round by the stern, so that the two vessels came broadside on within a few moments of each other. Those few moments gave time for Amos to resight his gun. Dennis stood ready, match in hand. "Now!" said the mariner, as the _Mirandola_ sank on the roll while the galleon rose. The gun spoke. Only a second or two later it seemed to the crew of the _Mirandola_ that the end of all things must have come. With a thunderous roar the whole broadside of the enemy burst upon them. Some of the enemy's shots passed clean over the smaller vessel; her masts almost miraculously escaped harm, but her hull was struck in half a dozen places, and her long-boat splintered to atoms. And the big gun, breaking loose from its extemporized breechings, recoiled obliquely across the waist, smashed through the forecastle, and plunged with a resounding splash into the sea. Some of the men were groaning in pain; the Frenchmen were flat on their faces beseeching their saints; Dennis found himself in a heap by the break of the poop; for the moment Amos was not to be seen. Dennis picked himself up and peered through the smoke to see whether the enemy had suffered any hurt. To his joy he saw that both the foremast and the mainmast of the galleon had been shattered. Turnpenny's shot had cut away the shrouds of the foremast, causing this to snap off, and struck the mainmast fair and square. The enemy's decks were smothered under a medley of spars and rigging; it was clear that the galleon was out of action, and already the _Mirandola_ was rapidly drawing away. This her crew perceived, and the air was rent with a tremendous shout of triumph. But their exultation was short-lived. Half a minute later Amos came up the hatchway and hurried aft. "Sir, there be three terrible rents in the hull below water. I feared as much when I felt the shots strike the vessel. The galleon's masts must have fallen just as the knaves were a-firing, and so the most of her shots struck us low." "Can we stop the leaks?" "I fear, I fear! But we'll try." In a few minutes a sail was lowered over the side, and at the same time two of the men ran below and tried to stop the leaks from within. But in spite of all efforts the water gained, and in the course of half an hour it was plain to all on board that the vessel must founder unless she could be run ashore in time. While the men were still doing their best to check the inrush of the water, Dennis and Turnpenny went forward to calculate their chances. "'Tis a good ten mile away," said Turnpenny, "and we be going slower every minute." "True. But see, the other vessel yonder, that might have cut us off, has altered her course. She is standing to her consort's aid." "God be praised for that, but I fear we shall be water-logged in no long time, and then she can overhaul us at her ease. In an hour we must take to the jollyboat. 'Tis a God's mercy that was not smashed up like the long-boat." "Then we'll put our stores aboard her at once, so that we lose no time when the moment comes. And I do not give up hope, even now, of running the bark ashore." But in half an hour it was clear that the case was hopeless. The men came running from below with the news that the water was gaining more and more rapidly; the vessel was settling down; her motion had almost ceased. And the situation was rendered the more alarming by the fact that during this half-hour the uninjured galleon, having found apparently that her consort was in no immediate danger of sinking, had again altered her course and was now in hot pursuit. It was to be a race to the shore. The jolly-boat had already been stored with provisions, water, and a number of calivers with their ammunition. At the last moment Dennis and Turnpenny brought from below the bags of pearls from the cabin in which they had been locked. Then Dennis ordered the boat to be lowered, the crew quickly went down the side and entered her. Two of the men had been so badly hurt by the enemy's shot that they had to be lowered into the boat. Fenton was dead, so that the whole effective company now numbered only nine men. The wounded men were laid in the bows, Dennis took the tiller, and the remaining eight gave way with a will, knowing that hanging would be their mildest fate if they fell again into the enemy's hands. CHAPTER XVIII Juan the Maroon It was now past midday, and the sun's rays beat down upon them with cruel power. Yet none of them was glad when the wind freshened, bringing a touch of coolth; for it filled the sails of the vessel in chase, which loomed ever larger and larger in their wake. The land appeared to be very close, but to Dennis's anxious eyes it scarcely seemed to grow closer. For mile after mile the rowers toiled on in the sweltering heat. Dennis ventured to leave the tiller for a few moments to give them water when they flagged. One of the men collapsed, and Dennis crawled to his thwart and took his oar, bidding him go to the tiller. So the chase went on, until, when the boat was still more than a mile from land, the enemy began to fire. The mere sight of the shots splashing in the sea astern stirred the wearied rowers to renewed efforts. When, after a few minutes, a shot fell immediately in their wake, sending up a terrific burst of spray, their energy seemed to be doubled again. [Illustration: "A shot fell immediately in their wake."] Dennis now had his back to the shore. It could not, he thought, be more than half a mile away: how far would the enemy venture to follow them? Surely she would not come much farther, at the imminent risk of running aground on a shoal. He saw a man at the chains taking soundings. Then suddenly the vessel was thrown into the wind, and she fired the whole of her broadside, in the hope, no doubt, that at least one shot would strike the target. The men were so played out that they were not able even to raise a feeble cheer when they found that they had escaped scot-free. Any gladness they may have felt was extinguished as soon as the smoke cleared away and the enemy perceived that they had failed to hit the boat. The galleon had hove to: the Spaniard was lowering her boats; and in a few minutes all three, long-boat, cock-boat, and jolly-boat, crowded with men, came sweeping across the water. But they were as yet half a mile away; looking over his shoulder Dennis judged that his boat was now within less than a quarter-mile of the shore. Calling cheerfully to the men for a final spurt, he bade the steersman run them aground on the first shoal or spit of land that presented itself. A minute later the boat was brought up with a jerk. The men flung down their oars and began with desperate haste to gather up some of the stores and the weapons. "Billy Hawk, take the treasure," said Turnpenny. But Biddle was too quick for him. Hawk managed to secure one of the goatskin bags; Biddle seized the two others. There was no time to make any alteration. Trembling with their exertions, the men were staggering up the beach, some loaded with articles from the boat, some carrying the two wounded men. Amos, remaining till the last, drove a boat anchor through the bottom and hastened after the others. But the Spaniards' boats, fully manned with crews fresh and vigorous, had sped over the water at a tremendous rate, and it seemed to Dennis, looking back and marking how near they were to land, that after all he and his party stood but a poor chance of getting away. In the three boats there were at least sixty well-armed men. It was clearly their intention to run ashore and continue the pursuit on land. Within half an hour they must be upon them. There was only a few yards of beach. The thick vegetation came down almost to the water's edge. It was a wild part of the shore; not a path was to be seen through the undergrowth, and beyond rose the forest. But the foremost of the fugitives had struck out a way for themselves through the plants, and Dennis and Turnpenny hurried along, bringing up the rear. The fugitives were greatly impeded by the necessity of carrying the wounded men and the stores. Even when they reached the forest, where there was less undergrowth, their pace must be slower than that of the Spaniards, who had only their arms to carry. And to avoid them was quite impossible, for the Spaniards were not unused to tracking runaway slaves, and would not fail to follow up the broad trail left by the party. "'Tis vain to go farther," said Dennis to Amos, as they hastened on. "We must be caught. And we shall need all the poor remnant of our strength. Yonder is a thick clump of bush where with our calivers we may perchance give pause to the enemy. I will run on and tell our comrades ahead to betake themselves thither." "Ay, do so, though meseems 'tis but to stay for our death. You be lighter of foot than me. I will go into the thicket and there hide." Dennis ran forward, but had not gone far when he found the two wounded men lying on the ground, deserted by their bearers. The rest of the party had disappeared. Part of the stores also had been abandoned. Clearly the men had bolted, perhaps in panic fright at some noise in the forest, perhaps--Dennis saw in a flash the explanation. Among the things abandoned there was no sign of the bags of treasure. Even at this critical moment Jan Biddle's cupidity had got the better of all other feelings, and he had made off with the booty and his fellow mutineers. Dennis bent over the wounded men. One was past help; the shock of being left to his fate had hastened the end that was probably in any case inevitable. The other man Dennis helped to bring back to where Amos had taken up his position. "Where be Billy Hawk, then?" said Turnpenny, when Dennis had acquainted him with what had happened. "He had one of the bags of pearls. Od-rat-en for a traitorous faggett!" But his attention was immediately diverted from Billy Hawk's shortcomings by the sight of the enemy making their way through the trees. Dennis and the mariner had no hope of saving themselves. They two could not contend long with numbers so overwhelming. But they were resolved not to surrender. They knew well--Amos by experience, Dennis by the tales he had heard--what their fate would be as captives. Their whole aim was to sell their lives as dearly as might be. Amos had already kindled matches for their calivers. These as they burnt gave out an acrid smoke, which was bound to attract the attention of the Spaniards if they came near. Confident of their immense superiority in point of numbers, even if the whole band of fugitives stood up against them, the enemy were pressing forward without caution. Dennis for a moment debated with himself whether to fire on them or let them pass. He owed nothing to Jan Biddle and the mutineers. Twice had they behaved treacherously towards him; they would receive no more than their deserts if he allowed the Spaniards to go by unmolested. But then he reflected that after all some of the fugitives were his fellow-countrymen; all had been miserable slaves; and what he had learned of the Spaniards' dealings with those in their power made him regard them as enemies of mankind. Turnpenny for his part had no scruples. To him, as to the majority of the Englishmen of his time, the Spaniard was a hateful oppressor, who appropriated the riches of the New World in order to set the nations of the Old by the ears. Even if he had not suffered personally at their hands, the whole race of Spaniards was in his eyes no better than vermin. So when Dennis gave the word, he levelled his caliver with right good will at the body of men that presented so easy a target, as they came hurrying through the forest. The two fired together; one man fell; the rest halted, looking about them with an air of fright that set Dennis mightily wondering. While they hesitated, Amos and he reloaded with what haste they might, and had not completed that troublesome process when the enemy, plucking up courage, advanced again in somewhat more extended order, firing as they marched. Bullets pattered on the tree trunks all around. Dennis had come scatheless through the action at sea, but now he felt a burning pang in his forearm, and saw that the sleeve of his doublet was singed. But at the same moment he heard a deep sigh from the wounded man who lay at his feet. The poor wretch had again been hit. There was no time to attend either to him or to his own wound, for the Spaniards, taking heart at the cessation of the fire from the copse, were preparing to make a rush. By this time both Dennis and Turnpenny had reloaded, and stood waiting to make a last stand against what they felt must be an irresistible attack. To their amazement, however, just when they were expecting to hear the order to charge, they saw that a number of the enemy had swung round, and were facing towards the coast, the direction in which they had come. Next moment there was a yell from among the trees: "Yo peho! yo peho!" The strange cry was taken up at point after point, until the whole surrounding forest seemed to ring with fierce whoops and battle-cries. Then they caught sight of dark figures flitting among the trees beyond the Spaniards, who had now clearly given up the idea of advancing, and were crowded in a serried mass to meet another foe. There was the sharp crackle of fire-arms, followed by the twang of bow-strings. A long arrow whizzed past Dennis's ear, perilously close. The newcomers had formed, as it appeared, an immense semicircle about the Spaniards; several of these had fallen, and the semicircle seemed to be drawing ever closer. "The maroons! O Jaykle!" whispered Turnpenny. Driven together now into a compact body, the Spaniards fired a volley. Before the smoke had cleared away, from all around the maroons, dusky forms clad in smocks that reached their knees, were among them. Then began a desperate hand-to-hand fight. The Spaniards, in their turn outnumbered by three to one, were wielding their swords with the courage of despair against the javelins of their furious yelling enemy, striving to break through the ring. "Yo peho! yo peho!" The maroon war-cry rose ever fiercer and fiercer. It was an affair of a few minutes. Half of the Spaniards were on the ground; the survivors broke and scattered, some speeding towards the copse, forgetful that their first check had come from thence. Turnpenny levelled his caliver and fired at the foremost of them. "Shoot 'em, sir!" he cried to Dennis, who had hesitated, feeling some compunction. "Shoot 'em, or we shall have the maroons in upon us, and they will not stop to ask our names." Dennis fired. The Spaniards broke away to the left, and dashed into the forest, pursued hotly by the exultant maroons. Seeing that the tide had passed them by, Turnpenny stepped out into the open and, raising his arms, shouted "Amigos!" at the top of his voice to the maroons within hail. One or two let fly their arrows at him; some were about to fire; but a big fellow among them called loudly to them in a tongue that the Englishman did not understand. "My heart, 'tis Juan!" cried Turnpenny, and as the man advanced towards them Dennis recognised the leader of the maroons he had rescued on the island--the man who had with Amos supported the ladder for his climb into Fort Aguila. Juan shook hands with them with every sign of delight. While the others continued the pursuit, he explained to Amos that his attention had been attracted by the sound of firing at sea, and from a point some distance along the coast he had watched, from among the trees, the race in the boats. Never loath to seize a chance of striking a blow at the hated Spaniards, he had hurried with his comrades along the fringe of forest. He was overjoyed to think that the men whom his sudden onslaught had saved were his old friends and the leaders of the attack on Fort Aguila. He invited them to accompany him to his village deep in the forest, and wound a horn to recall his comrades. Within a few minutes they were all assembled. The Englishmen recognized among them some who had been with them at the attack on the fort. Soon they were on the march. They took no prisoners; it was not the maroons' way to spare any Spaniard who fell into their hands. Four of them carried the twice-wounded sailor, but ere they had gone far he succumbed to his hurts, and they buried him under leaves in the forest. An hour's march brought them to the maroons' village, built on a hillside circled by a narrow river. It was surrounded by a broad dyke, and a mud wall ten feet high. It had one long street and two cross streets, very clean and tidy; and the huts of mud and wattle, thatched with palm-leaves, and with doors of bamboo, were kept with a neatness that surprised the Englishmen, who mentally contrasted them with the dirty cottages of labourers at home. Juan made them very welcome, supplying them with a feast of wild hog, turkeys, oranges and other pleasant fruits. "I'feck, it be a dinner fit for a lord," said Turnpenny, appreciatively. He related the events that had brought them to the straits in which Juan had found them. When the maroon learnt that some of their party had deserted with the treasure, he despatched a band of his men to follow them up. And then he told his visitors a piece of news that mightily cheered them. El Draque, he said, the Dragon, the great English sea-captain, had lately raided Nombre de Dios, the port whence the great treasure fleets were wont to sail for Spain. Then he had disappeared. The Spaniards were in a state of nervous dread. So bold, so sudden were his movements, that not a settlement on the coast but lived in constant terror of his appearance. The very mystery that surrounded him, their ignorance of his whereabouts, added to the fear his name inspired. "They do not know where he is," said Juan, with a chuckle; "but I know. He is a long day's march from this place, in a little harbour that no passing ship can spy. And there he waits till he can swoop like a jaguar on the dogs of Spain." "My heart, it be joyful tidings!" said Turnpenny. "I knew Master Francis would come again to these shores, to have a proper tit-for-tat for the base dealings of the Spaniards at St. John d'Ulua. Good-now, sir, shall we take a journey and see the worthy captain, and peradventure join with him in spoiling the knaves?" "With all my heart, Amos," replied Dennis. "Without doubt Juan will furnish us with a guide." Turnpenny spoke to the maroon. "Better than that!" he said, after a brief colloquy. "He says he will e'en come himself with a party. Master Francis, he says, does hurt to no woman nor unarmed man; he is kind to the maroons; and not a man of them but loves him and would serve him to the death. Ay sure, a noble man is Master Francis, that loves God and hates the Spaniards; and Ise warrant we could do naught better than join ourselves to him. Crymaces! he will list with a ready ear to the tale of our adventures." "'Twill be overlong for the captain," said Dennis, with a smile. "But I would fain see him and speak with him, for he may perchance spare a vessel to go and seek for our poor comrades penned up in Maiden Isle." "God-a-mercy, I had a'most forgotten, sir. True, there be Tom Copstone, and Hugh Curder, and Ned Whiddon all lone and lorn. Master Francis will help us to save them, or he be no true man." CHAPTER XIX Drake's Camp Early in the afternoon of the second day thereafter, Dennis and Turnpenny, with Juan and a company of maroons, came to the outskirts of a large clearing at a little recess of the shore. A bark and three trim little pinnaces lay rocking in a secluded roadstead. Neatly thatched huts of the maroons' pattern bordered the clearing. At one end of it stood two archery butts at which men were shooting; a smith was lustily plying his sledge at an anvil; and in the middle, on a stretch of sward, two stalwart bearded figures were disporting themselves at a game of bowls. "I'fegs, 'tis very like home," said Turnpenny. "'Tis Master Francis himself, as I live, and Master John Oxnam, a gallant soul; and there be Master Ellis Hixom, the captain his man, and a very worthy gentleman. And Bob Pike, busy with the rum bowl--a good man, when not betoatled with the drink. And O cryal! lookeedesee, sir; Bob hath a monkey at his elbow, and hang me if he be not teaching the poor beast the taste of rum. Oh Bobby, Bobby, the drink will be your undoing, an ye have not a care. They spy us, sir; 'tis a right merry sight, good-now, and warming to the heart." A maroon came from among the company to meet them. He greeted Juan warmly, looking with surprise and curiosity at his white companions. Then they advanced into the clearing. Bob Pike, a red-faced mariner, sitting on a tub, looked up as they approached, and raised his bowl unsteadily, singing-- "Let us laugh, and let us quaff, Good drinkers think none ill a. Welcome, Haymoss; I know not where be coom from but here be a sup for 'ee, comrade. Let us trip, and let us skip, And let us drink our fill a. Why, what ha' taken the wink-a-puss?" His exclamation was occasioned by a surprising action on the part of the monkey that had been crouching at his feet. With a chatter of delight the animal had sprung up and was bounding on all fours towards Dennis. Next moment it was on his shoulder, stroking his cap with its paw. "Fi, Mirandola," said Dennis, with a laugh, "hast forgot my admonitions to soberness? Has all thy philosophy and my instruction not steeled thee against temptation?" "My thirst to staunch, I fill my paunch With jolly good ale and old," sang Bob Pike; "though in truth it be new rum, for ale, under this sky, would turn as sour as whey. Good-now, Haymoss, come and take a sup with me, soul. I drink to you with all my heart If you will pledge me the same." "Stint it, stint it, Robert Pike," said the elder of the two players, looking up. "You'll be but a buddled oaf an you go this gait. But odds-an-end, who be this?" "An Englishman of Devon, so please you, captain," said Dennis, doffing his cap. "Out of sky, or earth, or sea, for I swear you are not of my company?" "Out of earth and sea, sir, newly come to bid you my duty." "And that is Amos Turnpenny, an I be not in a maze. We will finish our game anon, Jack," he added, turning to Oxnam, "for there is a tale hangs by this. Come, young sir, methinks I know your face, though rabbit me if I can mind the when or the where of seeing it." "It was on an occasion like to this, sir," said Dennis. "You were at play with Sir Martin Blunt on Plymouth Hoe when----" "Stay, I mind it well, and you were the youth that beat me! I was in somewhat of a dander, to be sure. Are you of Sir Martin's party? Sure I looked for him months agone to join me, and wanting him has not been to my comfort. Is he at hand?" "Alas, sir, Sir Martin has been at the bottom of the sea the washing of many a tide. I alone am left of all his company." "God rest his soul! He was a right good man. But tell me, then, how it chanced that you alone escaped. And what brings you here in company with this ancient mariner? Furthermore, what strange affinity hast thou with this monkey, who is friends with that besotted knave alone, and that only for the love of liquor?" "Mirandola and I are old friends, sir. How he comes to this place it passes my wit to guess; but he was my sole companion and friend on the island whereon by God's mercy I was cast alive, in the same storm that wrecked the _Maid Marian_ and swallowed all my dear comrades. There I spent many a day and night without sight of human face or sound of human voice, until Spaniards came purposing to cut logwood, with slaves of whom Amos was one, the only white man. He had the good hap to escape their hands----" "Nay, captain," Amos broke in; "it was not good hap, but the wit and spunk of Master Hazelrig. He saved us from the knaves, and led us to the taking of their vessel, in the which we purposed to sail away; but the knave captain blew it up with powder; wherefore it was we came to the main in a canow of the maroons' devising, and did take that strong fort and fastness of Aguila, where----" "Stay, stay!" cried Drake. "Ods my life, this your tale makes my noddle buzz with amaze. What is this about Fort Aguila?" "Why, sir, 'tis as I say," replied Turnpenny. "We did sail to it in the canow, which ran aground and was stove in. But we mounted those walls by a ladder, and crept upon the fort by night, and drew out of their dungeon all my comrades--Ned Whiddon and Hugh Curder and Tom Copstone, and nigh a score more. And we dealt the knave Spaniards many a dint, and took the fort, and blew up the towers, and sailed right merrily away in their own vessel with great store of pearls and pieces of eight. And the vessel was named in the Spanish tongue _Our Lady of Baria_, but Master Hazelrig he could not abide the Papist name, and called her by the very name he had afore bestowed on this heathen beast, Mirandola to wit, whereas I would liever have called her Susan or Betty----" "Jack, is 't not a midsummer night's dream? A very mingle-mangle of madness! Tell on; I have a soft ear for mariners' tales." "I' fegs, 'tis no mariner's tale, sir, but very truth. We sailed away, but the morn after, when it was mizzly, we spied a vessel that straight gave chase, and but for the little small harbour of Maiden Isle, whereinto we ran and lay hid and so diddled that knavish vessel, we had e'en fallen again into those cruel hands." "When shall we laugh, Jack?" cried Drake, smiting his thigh and loosing a mighty roar that caused the archers to pause, and drew the smith from his anvil, and at last brought the whole company crowding round. "Why, friend Amos, that knavish vessel was my own tight bark the _Pascha_ yonder, and 'twas I myself that chased thee, ay, and would have caught thee, too, but for the huffling of the wind. If 'twas thou handling the vessel 'twas a mighty good piece of seamanship. And mine was a knavish vessel, good-now! Ho! ho! 'tis a merry world." "Be jowned if Ned Whiddon thinks so, or Hugh Curder, or Tom Copstone! There they be, poor souls, marooned on that same island, which indeed we took and named Maiden Isle for behoof of her gracious Majesty. We fled from that craft which in our thought was a knavish vessel of Spain, and remained a night and a day to refresh ourselves, intending to sail thence on the morrow. But one of our company, Gabriel Batten, a quiet good soul, but somewhat of a drumble-drone, did go astraying after simples, and when the time came for us to embark, ods-fish, he was not with us. In that night, Jan Biddle, a man of Belial, made off with our vessel; but Master Hazelrig spied her ere she ran clear, and we swam to her and clomb aboard, and were vumped topsy-versy by those knavish mutineers. But they loosed us when she had made an offing, and right well it was for them, for we were chased by three galleons of Spain, and hardly escaped ashore in our jolly-boat. And then be jowned if Jan Biddle and his villainous crew did not skip off hippety-hoppety with the treasure we got with our pains at Fort Aguila----" "Aha! I owe you a grudge for that, Master Hazelrig," cried Drake. "I had heard of the pearl-fishery, and was e'en chasing you, supposing your craft was a merchant vessel out of Venta Cruz or Cartagena, to inquire somewhat of the defences of that same fort. I came by chance to the place, and lo! it was a ruin. You beat me at bowls, young sir; art minded, meseems, to beat me at other games." "Truly, sir, had I but known you were in these seas, I would surely have joined myself to your company, with your good leave, and served you with all diligence." "Wilt serve me now, lad?" Drake shot a keen glance at him. "I am preparing a sore dint for the Spaniards, and have but few men for the job. Wilt join me?" "I could desire nothing better," said Dennis, with a flush of pleasure; "but----" "Say on; let me hear your but." "Some half a score of Englishmen, the comrades of Amos, lie marooned on yonder island, sir; and we came hither, when we heard of your presence, to beg a vessel to go and fetch them off. Methinks one of the pinnaces yonder----" "Knavish vessels, good-now!" "Crymaces, sir, will 'ee remember that against me?" Amos broke in. "A man must say what a' thinks, but thinkin' don't alter what is. 'Twas your vessel; then 'twas no knave." "Save as the Spaniards think it so. Well, I would fain help Englishmen in so hard a case, but at this present I cannot spare a pinnace; nay, I cannot even spare a man. Yet when the matter I spoke of is brought to an end, and falls out to our liking, I will go myself to that island and bring off your comrades; for in truth I have a mind to see the haven into which you fled and so 'scaped my knavish tricks. Methinks it should prove a secret and comfortable place for myself. In brief, I give you my word. Now, what say you to my proposal." "Sir, I am yours," said Dennis, "and I thank you for your good will." "Ay, and me likewise," said Turnpenny, "and Ise warrant a man of my muscle can do summat against those villain dons--lookeedesee!" He exhibited the knotty muscles of his arms with a simple vanity that set Drake and Oxnam a-laughing. "But not the monkey," added Drake, as the animal chattered in concert. "He is prone to utter his voice out of season, and an indiscreet cry might be the undoing of my purpose, and me." "How comes the monkey here, sir?" asked Dennis. "We brought him with us from the island; indeed, he would not be left; but he deserted us some ten miles beyond Fort Aguila, and I supposed he had gone among his kind and thought never to see him again." "Why, we found him among the ruins of that fort, and meseems he saw some likeness between Bob Pike and Turnpenny----" "God forbid!" cried Amos earnestly. "In muscle, not in manners," said Drake laughing. "Howbeit, he hitched himself on to Pike, and hath accompanied us ever since, and I trow not what Pike will say if the beast transfers his allegiance. But good-now, the sun goes down; 'tis time to make our evening devotions and then to supper. Methinks you, Master Hazelrig, have good cause to render thanks to the Almighty Father for the wondrous things He hath wrought in your behoof; and we have great plenty of fish, fowls, rabbits and the like, which, I doubt not, will be comfortable fare to you after your late privations. Come with me to my hut: I would hear of your adventures more at leisure." And thus Dennis became one of the company of Francis Drake. CHAPTER XX A Raid through the Forest Though Dennis had accepted Drake's offer on the spur of the moment, he saw no reason to repent when he talked the matter over with Amos next day. The rescue of their comrades on the island was indeed deferred; but it was impossible to attempt that rescue without a suitable vessel and a due equipment of men and stores; and since the men had plenty of food on Maiden Isle, the delay of a few weeks would make no serious difference to them, unless--and this possibility gave Dennis some concern--they were molested by Spaniards. He hoped, however, that if an enemy did appear on the island the men would have sufficient warning to give them time to take refuge in the cave, where with good luck they might remain concealed until the danger had passed. Before the day was out Dennis had made acquaintance with the members of the little company at Port Diego, as it had been called. From Ellis Hixom, Drake's right-hand man, he learnt something of their adventures since they left Plymouth in May, only a month after the _Maid Marian_ set sail. Early in July they had arrived at Port Pheasant, a secret anchorage discovered by Drake on a former voyage, and so named by him "by reason of the great store of those goodly fowls which he and his company did daily kill and feed on in that place." On the 20th they sailed for Nombre de Dios, and a week later made a night attack on that unhealthy town, which once or twice in the year emerged into importance when the galleons came there from Cartagena to take in their cargoes of gold and silver sent for shipment by the governor of Panama. The moon was rising as they stood in for the shore; but Drake, finding that his men were full of superstitious terror of the night, persuaded them that it was the dawn of day. They landed on the sands, beneath a battery, and only a few yards from the houses which were built on the shore, with the forest behind. The single sentry was slumbering, but he was roused by the sound of their climbing up the redoubt, and fled to give the alarm in the town. They spiked the six big guns in the fort, but ere they had finished they heard the great bell of the town church booming out; drums beat in the narrow street; it seemed that there was warm work before the little band of fifty. Drake divided his men into three parties; one of twelve to guard the boats, the second of sixteen, with his brother John and John Oxnam, to enter by the east gate of the market-place; while himself, with about a score, would march in at the other end to the sound of drum and trumpet, with torches glaring at the end of their pikes. He gave the men orders to make all possible noise, so as to delude the garrison into the belief that his force was stronger than it really was. The market-place was crowded with a mob of mingled soldiers and citizens when Drake and his men entered with great clatter from the side nearest the sea. The intrepid band was met by a hot volley, to which they replied with their calivers and a flight of arrows; then, not waiting to reload, they charged with a fierce shout, to do the rest of the business with pike and sword. As the same moment Oxnam and his company dashed in at the other side with a great blast of trumpets. The Spaniards, scared by the noise and the torches, still more by the knowledge that El Draque was among them, did not stay to fight the matter out, but flung down their weapons and rushed away in disorderly flight along the road leading through the forest to Venta Cruz. Drake re-formed his men, and, under the guidance of Spaniards he had captured, made for the governor's house, where the mule trains from Panama were unloaded. The door was wide open, and by the light of a torch the Englishmen saw a vast pile of silver bars standing in the passage. But Drake had learnt that in the King's treasure-house on the eastern side lay a goodly store of gold and jewels, far more than they could carry. Accordingly he would not allow the men to break their ranks and despoil the governor, but led them back to the market-place to prepare for the more serious work. Meanwhile the men on guard at the beach, hearing the din, and seeing by the light of the torches men running this way and that in the streets, began to be alarmed, especially when they learnt from the negroes who had joined them that the garrison had been newly strengthened. In their panic they sent word to Drake that the pinnaces were in danger of being taken. Drake had no sooner sent his brother and John Oxnam to allay their fears and assure them that all was well when a terrific thunder-storm burst upon them, wetting their bowstrings and the charges of their guns. They ran for shelter to a shed at the western end of the King's treasure-house, and there, while they repaired the damage, the men began to mutter among themselves of the peril they were in, and some talked of flight. As soon as the storm had ceased, Drake, seeing that the adventure was in jeopardy unless he led the men to action, ordered Oxnam to take a party to break open the treasure-house while he held his ground in the market-place. But, unknown to the men, he had been severely wounded in the leg at the first onset, and fell faint from loss of blood. He perceived that some of his men had already laden themselves with plunder from the houses and booths in the market-place, and knew that they would be glad of any excuse to get away to the boats. It was no longer possible to hide his wound, and the men, seeing it, begged him to return to the boats, and paid no heed to his entreaty that they would leave him to fend for himself and possess themselves of the treasure so nearly within their grasp. The possibility of losing their captain took all the heart out of them. They carried him hastily down to the beach, got aboard the boats, and shoved off just as dawn was breaking. It was a disappointing end to the expedition; but only one man of them, a trumpeter, had been killed, and they were all glad enough to get off so lightly. Since then they had cruised up and down the coast, capturing Spanish vessels here and there, and making themselves a terror to the whole Main. They had suffered many losses, by sickness and in fight; John Drake had been killed in leading a mad attack on a frigate; but small as the company was, every man was now cheerful in the expectation of gaining great plunder in the approaching expedition to Panama. Dennis and Turnpenny were welcome recruits, and none were more eager than they to set off with the great captain, and go whithersoever he might lead. [Illustration: Map to illustrate the adventures of Drake in 1572-73] One day, about a week after their arrival at the camp, Drake called his men together in council, and unfolded to them his daring plan. The Spanish treasure fleet, he had learnt, had arrived at Nombre de Dios, and was awaiting there the consignments of gold and jewels which were brought by long mule trains across the isthmus from Panama. He purposed to ambush one of these trains in a lonely spot on the north road. Solemnly he placed before the men the dangers of the expedition. They had a march of sixty miles before them, through poisonous jungles and fever-haunted swamps. It was an enterprise for none but hardy and courageous men, ready to endure labour and fatigue without murmuring. Of his original company he had only forty-two left. Some of these were sick, others were required to guard the ships; and when Drake had weeded out the least fit of the rest, he had only eighteen Englishmen for the adventure. To those he added thirty maroons, making a little company of forty-eight all told. Dennis observed with admiration how carefully all things were prepared. The men were provided with spare boots, so that they might not go footsore and be troubled by the jiggers of the jungles and the leeches of the swamps. The bows were all re-fitted, the arrows and fire-arms cleaned and scoured; large stores of dried meat and biscuit were packed in bundles; and bottles were filled with wine and rum, for it was unsafe to drink the water of the rivers. It was a bright February day, Shrove Tuesday, when the adventurous band set out, the ships in the harbour dipping their colours and the trumpeters sounding "a loath to depart." The Englishmen carried nothing but their weapons, the baggage being strapped to the shoulders of the stalwart maroons. They marched in the coolest part of the morning, from sun-rise to ten, when they paused for dinner. Soon after noon they were afoot again, and at four halted for the night, the maroons building for them with extraordinary rapidity little huts of grass and palm-leaves, where they ate their supper over cheerful wood-fires, beguiling the evening hours with song and talk. It was a new life for Dennis, and full of strange charm. He spent many an hour in the company of Drake and Oxnam, listening with a boyish admiration to their talk, revelling in their tales of fight and adventure. The great captain exercised a wonderful fascination upon him. Drake was at this time little more than thirty years old, below the medium height, but with brawny limbs and a broad chest. Brown hair clustered close on a bullet-shaped head; his beard grew thick and strong; his face was ruddy and pleasant to look upon; and the honesty of his soul spoke out of his large, round blue eyes. His voice was clear and musical, and he had a natural eloquence, set off by the burr of his native speech. Nothing impressed Dennis more than to hear the Captain, every night at sunset, recite the evening prayers and collects bare-headed among his men assembled. "By Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night"--there was something very real and earnest in the petition, uttered in the shade of the forest where wild animals dwelt, and in a country where every man was a foe. There was no doubt about the reality of Drake's religion; and it was part of his simple belief that he was chosen of God to scourge a pestilent enemy of mankind. The order of the march was the same every day. Four maroons led the way, marking a trail by flinging broken branches or bundles of leaves upon the ground. Then came twelve more maroons, followed at an interval by Drake and his eighteen Englishmen, and two maroon chiefs. The rear was brought up by the rest of the maroons. After four days' tramping through swampy woods, much entangled with undergrowth, steaming with heat and infected with noisome odours, they entered a pleasanter country, where the trees grew larger, and with branches so thickly interlaced that they were defended from the sun's rays and found their path less obstructed by creeping plants. The ground rose gradually, and Pedro, the maroon chief, told Drake that on the summit of the ridge they were ascending, half way across the isthmus, there grew an immense tree from which he could descry the North Sea whence he had come and the South Sea whither he was going. At ten o'clock on the eighth day of their march they came to the place, and while the dinner was being got ready, Drake went with Pedro to the tree of which he had spoken. Ascending big steps cut on the bole, they reached, near the top, a pleasant thatched arbour, large enough to seat a dozen men. The sky was clear; no haze blanketed the view; and looking forth, Drake caught, thirty miles away, the sparkle of the southern ocean on which no English boat had sailed. The soul of the great mariner was strangely moved: he fell on his knees, and "besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship on that sea." Then he called up Oxnam and others of his company, and told them of his desire and prayer. Dennis never forgot the scene in that shady bower at the tree-top: the kindling face of the sturdy captain, his shining eyes, the fervency of his speech. They went on again, and in two days more reached the wide savannah, with grass as high as corn, and great herds of black cattle. Now and then they got a glimpse of Panama, the city of their dream, and by and by, when they were near enough to see the ships riding at anchor in the roadstead, Drake called a halt: they had come within touch of danger and must walk warily. Resting in a grove some three miles from the city, Drake sent one of the maroons, dressed like a negro of Panama, into it as a spy an hour before dark. He was to find out on what night, and at what hour, the mule train set out with its precious burden for Nombre de Dios. He had learnt from Pedro that the first stage of the journey, from Panama to Venta Cruz, was always performed by night, because by day the open plain was scorched by the sun. But the second stage, from Venta Cruz to Nombre de Dios, was accomplished by day, the road lying among cool shaded woods. It was clear that the first stage offered the best chances of a successful ambush, and Drake had resolved to intercept the treasure-train between Panama and Venta Cruz. The spy returned sooner than he was expected. From old acquaintances in the city he had learnt that a train was to start that very night, its departure being expedited because a Spanish hidalgo, the treasurer of Lima, was in haste to reach a ship waiting at Nombre de Dios to convey him to Spain. His train consisted of fourteen mules, of which eight were laden with gold and one with jewels. Two other trains, of fifty mules each, would follow, with provisions for the fleet and a quantity of silver. Within an hour of the receipt of this news, Drake and his men were afoot on the road for Venta Cruz, some twelve miles away. Before starting, the English men all put their shirts on outside their other garments, so that they might have some means of telling friend from foe in the darkness. When they had marched about half the distance, two of the maroons, going ahead as scouts on the narrow track between long grass, detected the smell of a burning match, and creeping stealthily on, guided by the scent, and the now audible sound of snoring, came upon a Spanish sentry fast asleep by the roadside. In a trice they pounced on him; they stuffed a gag into his gaping mouth, put out his match, tied his arms to his sides, and haled him back to the main body. This danger removed, Drake divided his band into two companies. One of these, under John Oxnam and Pedro the maroon, he stationed in long grass fifty paces from the road; with the other he went to the same distance on the other side, posting them so that, if it came to a fight, their fire would not harm their comrades. He gave strict orders that no man should stir from his post, but that all should maintain perfect quiet, and, if any travellers should come from the direction of Venta Cruz, that these were to be allowed to pass without molestation. Dennis and Turnpenny were placed among Oxnam's party, and lay side by side in the grass. The night was so dark, and the stalks so long, that they could scarcely see each other, much less any other of their company. For a time all was quiet; nothing was heard but the faint critch of insects among the herbage. But by and by Dennis caught a slight murmur from some point near at hand. He lifted his head to listen. Yes, it was certainly a man mumbling. Then he heard a glug-glug, as of liquid poured from a narrow-necked vessel, and immediately afterwards a deep sigh of contentment. Again there was silence; but after a while another glugging and another sigh. "Begorz!" whispered Turnpenny, "'tis some bosky lubber a-puddling of aqua vitae. St! Here be bells a-coming, on the neck of moyles, Ise warrant. St!" The sound came from the direction of Venta Cruz: evidently a train was returning to Panama. Almost immediately afterwards there came a fainter tinkle on the other side; the treasurer of Lima was on the road, but he would not reach the ambush until the train from Venta Cruz had passed. Nearer came the sound, growing now into a loud clanging. Dennis held his breath. The Venta Cruz party was to be allowed to pass; it would meet the other travellers, and give them the word that all was well. But what was this? Some one was rustling in the grass near him; some one was moving forward; and, peeping up, Dennis saw an Englishman, as he knew by his shirt, creeping towards the road through the long stalks, and a maroon following. At this moment his ears caught the sound of a horse trotting. He could not see the road; the men who had gone through the grass were also out of sight; but suddenly the trot changed into a gallop, and he heard the horse clattering at a furious rate down the road. His heart gave a jump; he felt a hot flush surge through him: the rider, whoever he was, had been startled, and was now doubtless dashing on to warn the coming train. Who could the fool be who had so flagrantly disobeyed the captain's orders? Had he been so mad as to expose himself, in his shirt over-all, to the view of the horseman? Turnpenny was as wrathful as Dennis. "Be jowned if I don't deal en a whap in the niddick," he whispered, "as'll make en twine like an angle-twitch." The sound of the hoofs died away, and Dennis expected that the clanging of the bells would cease also, and all be brought to nought. To his surprise there was no change: the bells drew nearer and nearer; now he heard men's voices; and then, with a suddenness that made him jump, a shrill whistle-blast rose high above all other sounds. It was the signal for the attack. Dennis and the sailor rushed through the grass; on all sides white-clad forms rose from their lurking-places and made towards the road with a cheer. They sprang at the muleteers, toppled them over, and without a shot fired the long line of mules was in the raiders' hands. With many a laugh and jest the sailors hauled the packs from the backs of the mules and slit them with their hangers. But soon the mirth was turned to melancholy. "Od-rat-en, what have we here?" cried Turnpenny, lifting a soft mass on the end of his weapon. "Bless my bones if it bean't a bunch of yokey sheep's wool!" "And here 'tis nought but dried meat as tough as leather." "Ay, where be the goold, where be the goold?" cried Robert Pike, breaking from the grasp of a maroon. "Cap'n said there was nugs o' goold as big as goose-eggs, and be jowned if I can see a farden's worth!" "And the gewgaws for the rory-tory madams o' Spain--where be the gewgaws?" cried another of the seamen. "Here, you codger"--seizing one of the muleteers--"where be the gewgaws adiddled to?" He shook the man till he gasped for breath, then hauled him before Drake, who had come into the midst of the enraged sailors. He bade the muleteer speak. The man told how the horseman, trotting by with a page at his stirrup, had been startled to see a ghost-like figure rise out of the grass at the side of the track, and galloped on to warn the treasurer. Superstitious as the Spaniards were, they knew so much of the daring of El Draque that the treasurer did not for a moment doubt he had to deal, not with a ghost, but with a very real and substantial enemy. The warning had reached him just in time. He drew his mules, bearing the treasure, to the side of the road to allow the train of merchandise to pass; the loss of food and wool could be endured patiently if the gold and jewels were saved. Then, when the din ahead confirmed his suspicions of an ambush, he turned the mules' heads back towards Panama and slipped away. Here was a pretty end to the adventure from which all had hoped so much! Loud was the outcry against the wretched man whose rashness had had so untoward an effect. While Drake took hurried counsel with Oxnam and Pedro the maroon, the men went about growling, accusing each other, threatening terrible punishment for the offender. Of them all none was louder or more vehement than Robert Pike. "An I catch the knave," he shouted, "Ise fulsh en, Ise thump en, Ise larn en a thing or two as the wink-a-puss won't forget." But as he spoke he lurched towards Amos, who caught him by the collar as a sudden suspicion dawned. "Be jowned if I don't b'lieve 'twas 'ee, Bob Pike! You hawk-a-mouth knave, I smell 'ee, I do. You been puddling aqua vitae, dang my buttons an you bean't. You bandy-legged piggish lubby, you, 'ee'll fulsh en, will 'ee? and thump en, will 'ee? and larn the wink-a-puss a thing or two, will 'ee? The Old Smoker take 'ee for a lubberly knave and a jackass." "And 'ee for a gabbing rant-a-come-scour!" retorted Pike, when he got his breath. "What be 'ee jowering at me for? I only supped a little small drop to keep me awake, and when I heard the moyles a-coming, od-rabbit-en, thinks I, Ise nab the first; and when I got to the road, 'twas no moyle, but a fine horse and rider, and I rose up to see what he was, and a knave maroon pulled me down and sat upon me like to squeeze out my vitals, and so the villain Spaniard got away." "You bosky knave, I'll----" But what Turnpenny would have done remained untold, for at this moment Drake called all the men together. "'Tis no good crying over spilt milk, my lads," he said. "An we do not shift for ourselves betimes, we shall have all the Spaniards of Panama upon us pell mell. To go back the way we came is a four leagues march; we all be wearied and for-done, and meseems 'twere better to go forward two leagues into the forest. True, the town of Venta Cruz stands in the way, but 'tis better, methinks, to encounter our enemies while we have strength remaining than to be encountered and chased when we be worn out with weariness. We will e'en eat our suppers while we may; there be great store of meat and drink in the mule-packs; then will we mount upon these beasts, so that we do not weary ourselves with overmuch marching. And then, if God will, we will ding a blow at the enemy for our honour; and mark 'ee, my lads, we are disappointed of a most rich booty; but surely God would not that it should be taken, for that, by all likelihood, it was well gotten by that treasurer, and not by evil courses." And, taking what comfort they could from their captain's explanation, they set off on mule back as soon as supper was over, and came in an hour to the woods a mile out of Venta Cruz. There they dismounted. Drake bade the muleteers remain out of harm's way, and led the men over a cobbled road ten feet broad, running between great walls of vegetation. Following his custom, Drake sent forward two of the faithful maroons to reconnoitre. They came back with news that, half a mile farther on, the enemy were hidden in the thickets; they had heard the rustle of their movements and smelled the pungent smoke of their matches. "Let no man fire till after the enemy hath dealt us a volley," said Drake; "methinks they will first parley with us." He led them quietly forward. A few minutes later a dark form appeared on the darker road. "Hoo!" came a voice. "Halloo!" replied Drake. "What nation are you?" called the man in Spanish. "Englishmen." "In the name of the King of Spain my master," cried the captain, "I charge you to yield, avouching on the word of a gentleman soldier that I will deal with you most courteously." "Come on, my lads," quietly said Drake, taking a few quick steps forward. Aloud he cried: "For the honour of the Queen of England, my mistress, I must have passage this way." At the same moment he fired his pistol. The Spaniards in ambush, mistaking the shot for a signal from their own officer, poured in a volley. Drake blew his whistle, and instantly his men sent a spattering shower of bullets and arrows into the brushwood, following it up with a charge. The Spaniards bolted like hares, and at Drake's command the maroons of his party swarmed forward to cut the enemy off from a stronger position in the rear, shouting their terrifying war-cry, "Yo peho! Yo peho!" Back went the Spaniards, scurrying along to the shelter of the town, the maroons leaping and dancing after them as their manner was in war, the seamen not far behind, adding to the uproar with English yells. Within a few yards of the town wall the enemy attempted to rally, posting themselves across the road and in the woods on both sides. But the maroons swept upon their flanks, Drake and his men charged full at the centre. For a few moments the place rang with the clash of sword and pike and the cries of the combatants. Then as one man the Spaniards wheeled about and scampered through the open gates of the town, with Drake's whole party at their heels. On they went into the streets, seamen and maroons, thrusting and slashing without pause or respite, yet strictly observing their captain's injunction to spare women and unarmed men. In five minutes they were masters of the town. For little over an hour the men ran hither and thither, gathering what spoils they could in the shape of articles easily carried. Then, just as dawn was breaking, and they were snatching a hasty breakfast before departing, a dozen horsemen dashed in at the Panama gate. Not until they were within point-blank range of the musketeers whom Drake had posted there did they perceive that the town was in the enemy's hands. The sentries fired; half of the horsemen fell; the rest fled back hastily into the forest. But Drake feared they were the advance guard of a larger force. It was dangerous to delay. He whistled his men together; and in a few minutes they marched out of the town with their spoils, some little compensation for the lost treasure of the mule train. The toils and sufferings of that homeward march lived long in the memories of Dennis and Turnpenny. Drake forced the pace unmercifully, anxious to get back to his ship. Food ran short; he would not stay to hunt wild hog or deer. Several of the men had been wounded; there was no time to tend their wounds. Their clothes were torn to tatters; their boots, even the extra pairs, had given way, and they were driven to bind their feet with rags. The faithful maroons served them nobly, carrying all the burdens, building huts for their rest at night, bearing upon their shoulders some of the seamen who were too exhausted and footsore to tramp any longer. A maroon went forward to warn the waiting company of their approach. On the afternoon of the 23rd of February, three weeks after they had started on the expedition, they tottered out of the forest towards the beach, just as the pinnace, sent by Ellis Hixom to take them off, scudded inshore. There on the glistening sand the little company of men, haggard, worn-out, half-famished, raised their husky voices in a psalm of thanksgiving, praising God because they saw their pinnace and their fellows again. CHAPTER XXI Maiden Isle Again As they sailed back in the pinnace to the secret haven, the weary adventurers were surrounded by their comrades, and feasted their ears with wondrous tales of what had befallen them. Ellis Hixom also had a story to tell. A few days after the departure of the company, there had staggered into the clearing three men in the last stage of exhaustion. Two were English, one French. They were pitiable objects, their eyes bright with fever, their cheeks haggard with famine, their feet blistered and bleeding from long wandering in the woods. Each man carried a bag of pearls. And they told a pitiful story. They had escaped, they said, from captivity in Nombre de Dios, and set out with three comrades, bearing plunder from the houses of their captors. It was well known along the coast that Drake was somewhere in hiding, and they marched eastward, hoping by good hap to light upon his encampment. But as they rested one night, the leader had overheard a plot on the part of three of the men to slay the rest and make off with the booty. Fearing that if it came to a fight he and his two comrades would stand but little chance against the others, who were men of exceeding great strength and ferocity, the three had slipped away in the darkness and had since been tramping for days through the forest, unable to find sufficient food, and subsisting on berries and mushrooms. Once they had almost stumbled into a village of maroons, and fled for their lives, dreading lest they should be taken for Spaniards and slain before the error was discovered. "And where are they now?" asked Drake. "On the _Pascha_, sir," replied Hixom, "where they are slowly recovering of their calentures." "And the name of the leader?" "Jan Biddle, by his own account a skilful mariner and----" "Ay, I have heard tell of him," interrupted Drake with a grim smile. "Master Hazelrig," he added, calling Dennis up, "I learn that the captain of your mutineers waits your judgement on my vessel." He repeated what Hixom had told him. "What is the name of the other Englishman, Master Hixom?" asked Dennis. "Dick Rackstraw, methinks. The Frenchman's name is Michel Barren." "Then what has become of our comrade Billy Hawk, I wonder? Biddle and his crew deserted from us with the treasure, when we came ashore in our boat. Billy Hawk went after them; I fear me there has been foul play." "We will enquire into that matter when we gain our haven," said Drake, "and see what Master Biddle has to say for himself." As soon as he reached the haven, Drake boarded the _Pascha_ and called Biddle and his companions before him. He listened patiently to the man's wild tale, then sent a boat ashore to bring off Dennis and Turnpenny. Biddle's jaw dropped when he saw them come over the side. He attempted to bluster it out, but Drake cut him short. "You are a foul liar and a mutineer," he said sternly. "Art a murderer also? What didst thou to Billy Hawk thy comrade? Answer to the point, villain." "Afore God, sir, I know nought of him. With me came but four men, and two of those lie dead in the forest, of a strange sickness that got hold of them after that they had drunken of the water of a certain river. Of Billy Hawk I saw nor heard nought." "My poor comrade!" said Turnpenny. "I fear me he be gone or alost." "These are your men," said Drake, turning to Dennis. "The punishment of mutiny is death. Do with them as you list." "I would fain leave them in your hands, sir," replied Dennis. "For me, I would not that any man should die." "I will consider of it. Have them put in irons and carried below." Next day he decided, on Dennis's intercession, to content himself with holding the men closely confined in the vessel. The bags of pearls were taken from them and handed to Dennis and Turnpenny. And ere the day was out Robert Pike was sent to join them. Drake had learnt of the mischievous part the man had played, which had resulted in the failure of his attack on the mule trains. "A little darkness and solitude may teach him to refrain from the bottle," he said. The enterprise had so nearly succeeded that when Drake declared he would make the attempt again, as soon as the time came for another convoy of treasure to cross the isthmus, every man of his company eagerly besought him for a place in the expedition. But Dennis reminded him of his promise to lend him a pinnace in which to sail to Maiden Isle and bring off his comrades. "I will hold to my word," said Drake. "You and your brawny henchman have suffered less than the most of my men, by reason, I wot, of your being inured to hardships on your island. Some days must needs pass before we are ready to attempt other enterprises. The island is but a day's sail, you said?" "Ay, sir, and with good hap we should return on the second day, or the third at most." "Then take the _Minion_ pinnace, and good hap go with you. You will need men. Choose out eight according to your mind, and a few maroons also. Juan was with you, I bethink me; he will doubtless serve you right faithfully. In sooth, I shall be mighty rejoiced to have with me the dozen men you go to find, for if they be in spirit and body like to you and your henchman, they will be most serviceable when I make my next journey to Panama. I would go fetch them myself, as I had purposed, but that our preparations demand my presence here." Next day, then, the _Minion_ pinnace sailed out of the little haven with a crew of eight Englishmen and five maroons, three of whom were the men who had accompanied Dennis from the island. Mirandola also was on board. He had disappeared when Dennis set off with Drake to cross the isthmus, but had evidently kept a watch on the settlement, for the day after they returned he came out of the forest and attached himself to his old master with demonstrations of delight. A brisk breeze was blowing off shore; the pinnace was a first-rate sailer; by midday they were in sight of the island, and in the afternoon they rounded the shoulder of the cliff, Turnpenny steering the vessel into the gully. Dennis, standing in the bows, caught sight of a group of men beyond the pool, near his sheds. They were partly hidden by the foliage, and when they saw the strange vessel making straight towards them, with the evident intention of coming to an anchorage, they took to their heels and disappeared. "Poor souls! they take us for Spaniards," said Turnpenny. "I warrant they be most desperately in the dumps. 'Tis nigh a month since we departed hence." The pinnace dropped anchor beside the _Maid Marian_, and the men went ashore. "Blow a blast," said Dennis to one of the men, who carried a trumpet, "with notes that will be familiar to their ears." As the shrill notes rang out, he stepped ahead of the men, with Mirandola on his shoulder. Before long a man appeared among the trees far up the chine. "Hallo hoy!" shouted Turnpenny. "Be that you, Tom Copstone? Come, comrade, never be afeard. We've come to take 'ee off, poor soul, and bring 'ee to Master Drake, who will make us all rich with much gold and treasure. Come, my hearts, Ned Whiddon, and Hugh Curder, and all." Turnpenny's well-known voice was more successful than the trumpet's notes in banishing the men's mistrust. Soon they came hasting down the gully, Copstone leading. "I said it! I knew it," he cried, as he approached. "'You and me, Haymoss'--the blessed words stayed in my noddle, and I knew 'ee would come back somewhen, dear soul. But we be in piteous case. 'Tis a long ninny-watch we ha' kept, and hope was wellnigh drownded, sir. We could not make it out; we was mazed, every man of us; but you be come back, praise be to God." He told how the disappearance of the _Mirandola_ had filled them first with consternation, then with bitter rage. Some of the men declared that they had been decoyed to the island; that they had been betrayed and deserted for the sake of the treasure. From the first Copstone and Whiddon had absolutely refused to believe that Dennis and Turnpenny had wilfully left them; Hugh Curder, indeed, had made a shrewd guess at what had actually happened; but the rest clung to their first notion, gave way to bursts of rage and reviling, and as the days passed, settled down into a state of moody despair. Copstone had tried to induce them to fit out the _Maid Marian_ for sea, but he had found it impossible to whip up enough energy among them. They had some reason for their reluctance, inasmuch as, the stores of the _Maid Marian_ having been put aboard the _Mirandola_, there was no provision for a long voyage. The fruits of the island would spoil in a week or so, whereas if they clung to the island they were at least sure of finding a sufficient subsistence. But they had been troubled even on this point, for some of the men fell ill through recklessly eating fruits and berries without first ascertaining whether they were fit for food, and with broken health their spirits had been still further depressed. "Poor souls!" said Turnpenny. "'Ee do look a wangery and witherly crew. But 'ee be all here, all twelve, not a man lacking? My heart! where be Gabriel Batten?" "He never come back!" "Never come back! What do 'ee mean?" "We looked for en, up along and down along, but nary a crim of him did we see." "Ay, and another be gone, too," said Hugh Curder. "But a sennight agone, poor Joe Toogood vanished out of our sight, and we never seed him again." "Be there devils upon the island, Haymoss?" asked Ned Whiddon, anxiously. "Be there pixies that lead poor souls into some ditch or quagmire, where they be swallowed quick in the pluffy ground? Once we was bold mariners all, but now we be poor timorsome creatures, afeard when the wind soughs in the trees." Dennis remembered the boa-constrictor from whose clammy coils he had saved the monkey that now sat upon his shoulder. "'Twas no sprites nor pixies, comrades," he said. "Without doubt they came unawares upon a big serpent that charmed them first with his fiery eyes, and then swathed them in his fearsome coils till he had crushed the life out of them. Poor souls! poor souls!" "But now 'tis time to be merry, lads," said Amos quickly, "for here we be, and our pinnace yonder is named the _Minion_, the same as the bark that Captain Hampton handled so cunningly at St. John d'Ulua; and we be goin' to take 'ee all back to Master Drake, who lies by a secret haven, in little small huts built by the maroons; and there be archery butts, and a smith's anvil, and other such homely things. And we have seen wondrous things, my lads--the blue south sea beyond, and the treasure town, and Master Drake be set on leading us forth to adventure for gold and jewels beyond price. 'Tis time to be merry, souls!" And catching the infection of his cheery good-will, Hugh Curder flung his hat in the air and began-- Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need. Dennis had transferred to the _Mirandola_--now, alas! at the bottom of the sea--the greater part of the _Maid Marian's_ stores that he kept in his sheds; but there was a goodly remnant still in the cave, and this he determined to put on board the _Minion_ and carry to Port Diego. The afternoon was too far advanced for the work to be completed that night; so he determined to sleep on the island and make an early start next morning. As soon as it was light he sent a number of Turnpenny's old comrades in different directions across the island to get a supply of fresh fruit, while the men he had brought from the mainland set about carrying the stores from the cave to the pinnace. They had not been long at the work, however, when Ned Whiddon came hurrying back. "God-a-mercy, sir," he cried, "we have spied a crew of strangers on the south shore, and in the offing two vessels at anchor. They be all clad and armed in the Spanish fashion, and when they set eyes on us they gave chase, and but that we know the island now as well as we know the lanes to home, none of us would have 'scaped." Other men came in while he was speaking. Dennis trembled for the fate of those who had gone towards the northern shore and had not yet returned. "'Tis ill news indeed," he said. "Run, Curder, after the men that have gone northward, and warn them that Spaniards are here to trouble us, lest they have not already discovered it. Comrades," he added, addressing the men about him, whose countenances bespoke their alarm--"comrades, we must take counsel together. What think you, Amos, we should do?" "Why, sir, we should steal out in the pinnace as soon as our men be back along, leaving these stores, and thread a way betwixt the reefs to nor'ward; for the knaves could not follow us save in their boats." "Ay, sir," said Copstone, "that be the true way of it. God send the tide be high enough to serve." "Then get aboard and make all ready to depart. Amos, look to all things, and make the rest of our comrades to embark as they arrive. I will run to the top of the cliff to spy if the coast be clear." But on reaching the spot whence he had often before looked so longingly and vainly for a sail, he made a most unwelcome discovery. About a mile to the south-west of the island lay a large vessel, which, since she was busily engaged in signalling, was clearly a consort of the two ships that Whiddon had seen. Keeping well under cover, Dennis raced along to a point half a mile south, whence the whole southern offing was visible. There were the two vessels; and, even as he looked, a boat was lowered from the nearest of them, rapidly filled with men, and was rowed towards the beach. The sight was enough to cause the boldest heart to quake. If the pinnace ran out of the gully, she would have to pass within half a mile of the ship, for the tide was low, and even the little _Minion_ drew too much water to make her way northward until she had run at least half a mile out to sea. This would bring her under the guns of the third vessel, and the Spaniards must be poor marksmen indeed if they failed to hit her at this range. He was beginning to retrace his steps when Turnpenny came up hurriedly. "We be all aboard, sir, save yourself and Nick Joland. Have 'ee seen him?" "No." "He be but late better of a fever, as Tom telled me; pray he be not swooned." At this moment they heard loud shouts to their right. Running down through the trees, careful not to expose themselves, they saw four Spaniards chasing this very Nick Joland, a thin cadaverous-looking man whose stumbling gait betrayed his weakness. He was making almost in a straight line for a large bignonia bush that stood alone at the end of the narrow clearing just below where the two men were watching. With one accord Dennis and Turnpenny stole to the bush and dropped down behind it. "Let Joland pass," whispered Dennis; "then we can tackle the knaves as they come up." "Without arms?" replied Turnpenny. Dennis nodded. In a few moments the fugitive, panting hard, ran past the bush. The four Spaniards, running in a body, were close at his heels. "Now!" Dennis whispered. They sprang out with a yell, and though they were unarmed, the odds were not utterly against them, for the Spaniards were startled by this unexpected onset. A single blow from Turnpenny's sledge-hammer fist stretched one of them senseless on the ground. Dennis felled his man, but his arm was less powerful, and the Spaniard began dizzily to regain his feet while Dennis grappled with another. As he rose he reeled just within reach of Turnpenny's arm. Catching him round the middle, the seaman flung him bodily at the fourth Spaniard, who was making furiously at him with drawn sword, Their heads collided with a terrific thud, and down they fell on the grass together. [Illustration: "The seaman flung him bodily at the fourth Spaniard."] Meanwhile Dennis had come to grips with the third man, a heavy and muscular fellow, who had only been prevented by the suddenness of the onslaught from using his sword, which he was unable in the surprise of the moment to shorten before Dennis was within his guard. Dropping the weapon, he strove to crush his antagonist by sheer strength. But Dennis was a wrestler. He neatly tripped the Spaniard, who fell, dragging his opponent with him. With a tremendous effort, he heaved himself uppermost and pinned Dennis to the ground. His hand was already on Dennis's throat when suddenly a bright object hurtled through the air, striking him with terrific force on the side of the head. His grip relaxed, he fell with a groan upon Dennis, the object that had struck him clattering to the ground. Dennis was up in a moment. The strange missile was the headpiece of one of the Spaniards. It had fallen from his head in the tussle, and been picked up by Nick Joland, who, seeing the diversion in his favour, had hurried up at the critical moment in time to save Dennis from strangulation. "Dead as door-nails!" said Turnpenny succinctly, seeing Dennis glance at the Spaniards on the ground. "'Tis a terrible heave-up, sir; we were best to run back along to our comrades in the pinnace, for there be gashly work afore us. And we will take these knaves' swords and calivers. Crymaces! there be more running towards us, and a round dozen; we durst not bide their coming. We have but bare time to get back to the chine. Stir your stumps, Nick Joland; we can't save 'ee twice, man." CHAPTER XXII A Fight on the Cliffs The three doubled back towards the chine, which was little more than half a mile away. The Spaniards saw them ere they disappeared among the trees, and followed with loud shouts, quickening their pace when they reached the spot where their comrades lay. But the Englishmen, knowing the ground, came in good time to the edge of the gully, where a steep and winding path led down to the ledge on which the huts were built. From the summit the ledge was not visible. "Shall we run down at once, or give them a taste of their own lead first?" asked Dennis, halting for a moment. "Give the knaves a taste, to be sure," replied Amos. "They know not how many we be, nor can they see through the trees; and we must needs check them, to give us time to acquaint our comrades with what is toward, and set our defences in order." While speaking he had kindled the matches taken from the Spaniards. The calivers were already loaded. Crouching behind the thick bushes that lined the edge of the gully, they fired when they caught sight of the Spaniards advancing among the trees. Two of the enemy fell; the rest halted; and while they stood considering whether to advance, the three Englishmen hurried down the path, guessing that the Spaniards would hardly venture to follow while they were ignorant of the size of the force with which they had to deal. Arriving at the ledge, Turnpenny gave a hail to the men on the deck of the pinnace, bidding them leave the vessel and bring their arms and ammunition with them. They had been much alarmed by the continued absence of their leaders, and by the sound of the shots, and asked anxiously, when they reached the ledge, what was to be done. Dennis rapidly told them what he had seen from the summit of the cliff, and how for the present the Spaniards had been checked, and then, taking Turnpenny and two or three of the others aside, began to concert a plan of defence. The position was naturally a strong one. The ledge was accessible only by the narrow path from the cliff-top, and by a few yards of steep ascent from the base of the gully. It was protected from attack from above by the overhanging cliff; it could only be assaulted from below if the enemy got into the bed of the gully, either by coming in boats round the shoulder of the cliff, or by clambering down the sides inland. The gully was forty yards across; the opposite bank was steep and much overgrown with vegetation, trees and bushes growing thick to the very edge. Down the middle ran the stream from the marsh, very shallow after a season of dry weather. On their own side the defenders could pick off the enemy if they came to attack them along the narrow path; they were only in danger if the Spaniards took post on the summit of the cliff opposite, and they could not reach that spot except by making a long circuit about the marsh in which the stream took its rise, or by clambering down the southern bank some distance up-stream, wading through the water and climbing the other side. This would be a matter of an hour or two at least--an invaluable respite which Dennis resolved to make the most of. He sent one of the maroons up the path to keep watch on the enemy, and another to cross the gully, clamber up the opposite face, and hide among the trees there to give notice of an approach from the north-east. The other maroons, with several of the Englishmen, he set to fortify the extremity of the ledge with a wall of branches, so that the party might be screened from gunshot on the far side. Turnpenny, with the strongest of the mariners, went down to the pinnace, and at the cost of great exertion brought up the falcon and rabinets which formed, with the addition of a saker, her armament. The saker was a muzzle-loader weighing more than half a ton, and too cumbrous to be hauled up the steep cliff; but the falcon was less than half that weight, and the two rabinets weighed only three hundred pounds apiece. The falcon was seven feet long, had a bore of two and a half inches, and threw a shot of three pounds weight, with a similar weight of powder. The rabinet was only two and a half feet in length, its bore was one inch, and its shot weighed only half a pound. Both guns had a point-blank range of from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty yards, and, mounted on the ledge, in embrasures of the extemporized wall, they would prove very effective weapons of defence. While the guns were being hauled into position, others of the men brought buckets of water, filled at the cliff stream, and emptied them into the casks which during the months spent on the island by Dennis and the sailors had been depleted of the stores they had held when brought from the hold of the _Maid Marian_. Two casks still remained full of cider, but this having gone sour in the heat, it was poured away, the casks were swilled out, and re-filled with water. It was fortunate that a pure spring welled in the cliff, for the water of the rivulet draining the marsh was unfit for drinking. All the men worked with a will. They knew not as yet how many the enemy numbered, but since there were three vessels, of which each, if fully manned, might contain from forty to seventy men, they had to reckon with a force that might be from a hundred and twenty to more than two hundred strong. The odds were tremendously against them. All told, they numbered only twenty-six, of whom six were maroons. But they had only two courses open to them: to fight, and at least sell their lives dearly, or to yield, and be shot or hanged or haled away to a slavery worse than death. Not one of them hesitated in his choice. As a last resort, Dennis had the cave to fall back upon; but he was loath to retire to it until he had made a good fight at the gully, for while, from the ledge on which his hut stood, he could command the entrance of the gully, and to some extent protect the pinnace, the cave was deeper in the cliff and out of sight, and however strenuously the party might defend itself there, the pinnace would then be at the mercy of the enemy. It was true that, even if the pinnace were carried away or destroyed, a canoe could be dug out by the maroons, so that they would still have a means of leaving the island; but Dennis was determined to sail the _Minion_ back to Port Diego and to Francis Drake. Midday came, and passed. The maroons had finished their wall; the guns were mounted and charged; the water-casks were filled: and still there was no sign of the enemy. But the scouts had not returned, and Dennis began to feel somewhat uneasy. What were the Spaniards doing? "Have we left aught undone, think you?" he said to Turnpenny, as they sat on upturned tubs eating their dinner. "Nowt, sir, as I can see. But methinks 't'ud be well to withdraw the muzzles of our guns somewhat. If the knaves come on t'other side and spy them, they may sheer off and seek some other way of troubling us; and I would that they came to close quarters here, where we can strike them down." "'Tis good counsel. Not perceiving the guns they will be the more emboldened to attack us, and 'twere well we have occasion to teach them a sound lesson." Accordingly the guns were withdrawn so that their muzzles did not project from the other side of the wall. Hardly had this been done when the nose of a boat was seen shooting round the shoulder of the cliff. "Lookeedesee!" cried Turnpenny. "The knaves that followed us did assuredly go back to their comrades and tell them of the gully and the path downwards, and they have sent their cock-boat to spy the place from the sea." "Let us keep out of sight and watch what they do," said Dennis. The boat, filled with armed men, came under full sweep of oars up the entrance to the gully. When it was still some distance from the pinnace the men rested on their oars, and one rose in the bows to look about him. For some time he saw nothing to indicate that the place was defended, and his fellows in the boat began to talk over the situation, the sound of their voices coming clearly to the men behind the wall. Then, as the boat again moved towards the pool, some one in it suddenly caught sight of the barricaded ledge, and the voices broke out once more in eager discussion. The upshot of this was that they came to the conclusion that the pinnace had been abandoned to her fate, and with a shout of triumph they bent lustily to their oars and came on with the evident intention of securing the vessel. But they were now within range of the calivers of the defenders. At a sign from Dennis eight of the men stepped forward to the wall, lit their matches, and, resting the weapons on the top, fired when he gave the word. Several of the oarsmen were seen to fall back; the boat came to a stop; and while the Spaniards were hesitating whether to advance or retreat, eight more men sent a hot volley among them, working havoc in the crowded boat. Cries of pain were now mingled with their shouts; the defenders heard a loud word of command; and the rowers began to back water so as not to present the side of the boat to the hidden marksmen. When the boat was out of danger it swung round on the current, and in a few minutes disappeared past the shoulder of the cliff. Scarcely was it out of sight when the maroon who had been sent up the cliff to the south came running down the path. He reported that he had stealthily spied upon the Spaniards who had been baffled when Dennis and Turnpenny vanished over the edge; they had returned to the southern shore, where they rejoined a larger party which had assembled there. A council had been held on the beach; horns were sounded, no doubt to recall scattered bands who had been ranging the island in other directions; more men had been sent off from the ships; and the whole force, numbering, as near as he could guess, nearly two hundred men, had set off with matches already lighted, marching northward. Moreover, the third vessel, which had been lying off the south-western shore, was working slowly up the coast. "'Twas from her, without doubt, the boat put off that we have lately routed," said Dennis. "The men aboard will tell what they have seen. What will be the upshot, think you, Amos?" "Be jowned if I can tell, sir. My counsel is, let the maroon go back and spy upon them. An the knaves march directly northward they will come upon the gully just above us, and methinks, however stout they be, they will not dare to come down the path, where we can shoot them man by man." It was done as he suggested. Within half an hour the maroon came back with the news that the boat had been run ashore on low ground to the west: many wounded men had been lifted out of it; and the majority of the Spaniards had hastened across country to rejoin the marching force. It halted while a consultation was held; then the march was resumed, but this time in a more easterly direction, which would bring them to the gully at a point about midway between the ledge and the morass, where the banks were sufficiently low and the stream sufficiently shallow to permit them to cross without difficulty. "They be coming about to fire down at us from t'other side," said Turnpenny. "Over the wall," added Copstone. "We can fire back," said Whiddon. "Zuggers! but twenty of us cannot keep two hundred in check," said Hugh Curder, anxiously. "Say you so?" said Dennis. "Master Drake with but few more did assault and take a whole town. The Spaniards have learnt the worth of an English mariner; they will not approach us rashly. And they know not the ground as we know it. 'Twill be a matter of time to cross the gully and climb the bank and creep along through the trees on the further side until they face us here. There is--you know it well--a space on the opposite cliff where the trees grow somewhat thin: a space which the knaves must cross an they wish to gain the edge. Might we not ensconce ourselves on the hither border of that space, and fire upon them as they come? We are not able, 'tis true, a poor twenty, to withstand the fervent assault of two hundred; but we can assuredly delay them, and teach them somewhat to respect us, and give time withal for our wall to be increased in height; meseems it is lower than is proper. What say you, lads; shall we do this?" "But how get back to this our fort, sir?" asked one of Drake's men. "We must fall back before them if they push on, and then methinks they might drive us over the brink, so that we fall headlong to the bottom, and break in pieces." "Nay, Wetherall," replied Dennis. "We would take two, or even three, calivers apiece, whereby we twenty become sixty, and I warrant me we could do so much damage among them that they would pause ere they resolved to bring it to a push. And while they paused, we should have time to scramble down through the trees and shrubs, and up this side again, and come to our wall, mayhap, before they won to the edge. Assuredly we can do them more hurt yonder than if we wait until they stand in serried mass face to face with us above. Shall we do it, lads, for the honour of England?" "Ay, ay, sir," shouted the men, fired by his enthusiasm and confidence; and Hugh Curder began to troll-- "And hey for the honour of old England, Old England, Old England!" The move was instantly begun. Dennis bade four of the maroons weave more branches into the wall. The rest of the men, with two loaded calivers apiece--three were found to be too cumbrous a load--followed Dennis down the cliff, forded the stream on rocks just above the pool where the pinnace and the _Maid Marian_ lay, and clambered up the opposite cliff by a zigzag path, assisting themselves by the branches and projecting roots of trees. Arriving at the summit, they waited only to light their matches, then hurried forward through the undergrowth to the edge of the somewhat open space which the enemy must cross. Each man posted himself behind a convenient tree. For two hundred yards in their front there were only a few scattered trees and bushes. Dennis wished there were time to fell these and so deprive the enemy wholly of cover; but even if they could have been cut down, there was no means at hand of dragging them away, and they would give less protection if left erect than if they lay lengthwise across the space. About half an hour after they had thus taken up their positions, the maroon who had previously been sent across the gully as a scout came running back to announce that the enemy were approaching. They were marching with great caution, the soldiers blowing on their smouldering matches to keep them alight. Dennis ordered the maroon to post himself behind a tree, and the little party waited in breathless silence for the enemy to appear. At last one or two men could be seen among the trees on the other side of the clearing. They halted, evidently waiting for the main body to appear before they moved across. Dennis took advantage of the interval to whisper his orders to the men. If the enemy did not come on in a mass, and at the charge, only alternate men were to fire the first volley, then, if they had time, to reload their pieces, still having the second loaded caliver in reserve. In a few minutes the gleam of the Spaniards' headpieces and shoulder-plates was seen as they joined the advance scouts among the trees. Then, as it were out of the leafy wall, some twenty men marched resolutely forward in closed ranks, clearly without any suspicion that the woods beyond were occupied. Dennis waited until they were half-way across the open space, then he sounded the "Hoo! hoo!" which was the maroons' signal in wood fighting. The calivers flashed from the belt of trees; several of the enemy fell; the rest, startled and confused by this sudden and unexpected attack, rushed back instantly upon the main body, while the men who had fired began in all haste to reload. But they had no time to complete the priming of their weapons. A shout was heard from beyond the clearing. Immediately afterwards a tall Spaniard, whom his dress marked out as an officer, dashed forward at the top of his speed, carrying a short heavy pistol of the kind known to Englishmen as "daggs." With a yell the whole body followed at his heels. For a moment it seemed to Dennis that nothing could stay the rush; he and his little party must be overwhelmed. But he called aloud to his men to hold their fire until the Spaniards should come within point-blank range. One man, Nick Joland, in sheer nervousness, fired wildly before the proper time; but the rest, being old mariners who had borne a part in many a scrimmage before, had sufficient self-command to obey his orders. On came the Spaniards, and some of the waiting Englishmen knew them to be trained soldiers, infantrymen reputed the finest in the world. But none of the seamen quailed. They knew what was at stake. When the enemy were within forty paces Dennis gave the word. Twenty calivers sped forth their deadly missiles, and every shot took effect. Even the splendid courage and discipline of the Spanish soldiery was unequal to the strain put upon it. Twenty of them lay writhing or motionless upon the ground; the mass behind recoiled, and fled to cover, some to the few trees and shrubs that dotted the open space, others to the thick wood beyond. Among those who had been struck down was the gallant captain. He had just risen on one knee when one of his men sprang from the shattered ranks to his assistance. Reckless of consequences, the brave fellow rushed to the middle of the clearing, fully exposed to the marksmen, and, lifting the wounded officer, carried him bodily among the trees. His courage drew a great cheer from the Englishmen, not one of whom raised his weapon to shoot. "My heart, 'tis a brave lad," roared Turnpenny; "and withal a mighty." The advance had been checked; the enemy had disappeared; but the voice of another officer was heard haranguing the men. Soon bullets began to spatter among the trees behind which the Englishmen lurked, and there were signs that the Spaniards were spreading out with the object of taking them in flank. It was time to retreat if they were not to be cut off. The enemy's movement would take some time,--after their check they would hesitate to make another direct attack across the clearing; and Dennis hoped to be able to clamber down the cliff and regain the ledge before the Spaniards discovered that their opponents had disappeared. The word was passed quietly along the line; the men snatched up their weapons; and running fleetly to the edge, leapt, rolled, swung themselves down with all possible haste. They had crossed the stream and were half-way up the opposite side when the movement was seen by one of a flanking party of the Spaniards. A loud cry proclaimed his discovery of their flight; he fired his caliver, and Hugh Curder gave a yell; the bullet had struck his foot. But by the time other Spaniards had come to the brink of the cliff, and, kneeling down, fired across the gully, the whole party had reached the ledge, and dropped down panting behind the wall, where for the moment they were safe. CHAPTER XXIII Bombarded Bullets pattered upon the wall and the cliff behind; but Dennis and his men, lying low, took no hurt, and made no reply to the Spaniards' fire. This presently ceased, and Dennis, peering with caution through one of the embrasures in the wall, saw the summit of the opposite cliff lined with the enemy, who were clearly examining the position with careful interest, and discussing it with animation. At length, firing one or two shots as by way of farewell, they withdrew from the edge and disappeared among the trees. "God be praised for all his mercies," said Amos, rising to his feet. "But I know not what is to be the end of this." "Nor I," said Dennis. "'Tis not to be believed they have left us altogether, but rather that they have retired to consider of the next move. They can do us no hurt from the cliff yonder except they bring great guns from their ships to bombard us. Nor can they assault us from below, for the ascent is steep, and however bold they may be, they will not come up merely to be shot at. We must e'en wait and be ready." "Ay, and think on Jan Biddle and what his villainous knavery has brought us to. But for him we should by this be snug in Plimworth, a-kissing of our wives and little ones--those that have them. Ah! sweet Margery Tutt! What a power of mischief one base villain can do!" The day passed in quietude, the men cleaning their weapons and still further strengthening the wall. The tide rose in the gully, gently dandling the pinnace as she lay at anchor in the pool. Many a longing glance was cast at the little craft, many a sigh broke from the breasts of the mariners as they saw in imagination the dear cliffs of England, which even the most confident among them scarcely hoped ever to behold again. Darkness fell. Nothing was heard save the rumble of the surf beyond the entrance of the gully, and the lapping of the waves against the base of the cliffs. Looking seawards, in the starlight Dennis saw the mouth of the little harbour like a deep blue cleft in the blackness. He had just divided the company into watches, to keep guard over the ledge while the others slept, when Juan the maroon caught his arm and pointed to a small dark patch at the bottom of the cleft. It seemed to be moving towards them. At the same time there was a series of flashes from the cliff opposite; bullets flew among them, one hitting Ned Whiddon in the arm. Instantly all the men sank below the level of the wall, and Dennis, crouching close against it, looked through one of the embrasures at that dark object slowly approaching up the gully, looming larger every moment. The meaning of it had already flashed upon him. A boat, perhaps the same as had appeared earlier in the day, was coming in to cut out the pinnace. The outbreak of firing from the cliff was intended to mask the movement and deter the defenders from interfering. "You see their cunning," said Dennis to Turnpenny, who had crept to his side. "By day they would not dare come within the range of our calivers; they know that by night we can but fire at random, and endamage them little." "My heart, but we must save the pinnace!" said Turnpenny. "She is all our hope and salvation." "Not all, Amos," replied Dennis. "You forget the canoe which the maroons built for us; they will build another. But I am not content to lose the _Minion_; how could we face Master Drake and confess we had lost her? I would fain save her, but how?" "Ah, if we had but torches to light the scene!" said Tom Copstone--"like to those we had at Fort Aguila yonder." "Thanks for that word!" cried Dennis. "Quick, Amos, into the shed! I bethink me there are barrels of oil that we did not place aboard the _Mirandola_. Broach one, man; tear some of your garments into rags and plentifully soak them in the oil. These we will light and fling down into the pool." Skipping back from the wall, Turnpenny and Copstone went into the shed and crept back in less than two minutes with armfuls of drenched rags. These they kindled and threw hastily over into the pool below. The enemy opposite poured in a hotter fire, but the little company kept close and none was hit. The device was not a moment too soon. By the light of the blazing rags it could be seen that the Spaniards had swarmed on board the pinnace, hauled up her anchor, and fastened her head rope to their boat. She was indeed already moving slowly towards the sea. "Fire, my lads!" cried Dennis. "Let them not all escape." Half a dozen of the men leapt forward, and, heedless of the enemy's bullets, discharged their calivers at the men on the deck of the pinnace. Cries proclaimed that some at any rate had hit the mark; but in an instant afterwards the _Minion's_ deck was clear, the Spaniards having sprung overboard or gone below. Still the vessel slowly receded. As she was between the towing-boat and the ledge, the rowers were protected from the Englishmen's bullets, and they uttered a derisive yell as foot by foot they drew the vessel nearer the sea. "The falconet, Amos!" cried Dennis. "'Tis time to use our ordnance." "But we be too high, sir. I cannot lower the muzzle so as to bear on the pinnace." "You will be able to do that as she draws nearer the shoulder of the cliff. Lay the gun in readiness." "Zuggers, sir, but if I hit the poor little craft 'twill smash her." "I care not. If we cannot keep her whole, neither shall the Spaniards have her whole. Lay the gun, man." "My heart, and so I will, and the knaves shall have a plumper, od-rat-en!" The entrance to the gully was dimly lit by the burning rags floating in the wake of the pinnace. Amos had shoved the gun through the embrasure, and, with his eye along its upper surface, watched the little vessel as she floated on towards the open sea. The firing opposite had now ceased; it was as though the Spaniards, sure of success, disdained to waste more powder and shot. Apparently they were watching the departing pinnace with so much interest that they had not observed the muzzle of the falconet projecting from the wall. The vessel was now at the very entrance of the gully. In another half minute she would round the shoulder of the cliff and disappear. But before that half minute was past there was a flash from the ledge; a round shot flew seawards; and next moment there were shrieks from the Spaniards who, now that they were out of range of the defenders' small arms, had again come on deck. The shot had struck the vessel square astern. Her rudder was shattered; she swung round on the tide, and in another instant ran aground on a shoal and stuck fast. A mighty cheer rose from the ledge when the men saw the effect of Turnpenny's shot. "'Twas famous, Haymoss," cried Copstone. "Man, 'twas a thumping twack!" And Hugh Curder in his glee lifted up his voice: "Then next the blacksmith he came in, And said 'Twas mighty hot!'" "Smother you!" cried Turnpenny. "Think of the little poor craft yonder; 'tis like striking a 'ooman, and goes to my heart." "But 'ee'd do that in kindness, Haymoss," said Copstone. "See, the knaves cannot pull her off; she be firm on the rocks, and with the tide falling they'll never move her. They'll think twice before they try that same device again." An angry volley from the cliff opposite set them all scurrying again to cover behind the wall. It proved as Copstone had said. After vainly endeavouring for some time to haul the pinnace from the shoal, the occupants of the boat cast off the rope and disappeared. The flames of the burning rags went out one by one; black darkness settled over the gully; quietness reigned all around; and leaving three men to keep the first watch, the rest drew their garments around them and sought sleep, wondering what the coming day might have in store. Dennis passed a miserable night. He could not share the childlike elation which Turnpenny's successful shot had produced in the minds of the mariners. He felt that this enemy was not to be baulked; every little set-back would only strengthen the Spaniards' resolve to crush their opponents; and by this time they could be in no doubt how small was the company resisting them. His head ached with thinking before he fell asleep, and when he woke, before dawn, it was with throbbing temples and anxious heart. And when he got up and looked towards the sea, he felt his spirit die within him; for there, just past the shoulder of the cliff and some distance out to sea, lay one of the enemy's vessels, moored at a point which he had fondly believed to be unapproachable by any craft of her size. She had been descried by the men of the last watch, but the meaning of the move was not clear to them as it was instantly to him. The ledge was just within range of her guns, for although the shoulder of the cleft hid the pool from any vessel in the main channel, it was just within sight from the spot to which the enemy's vessel had worked. "Jaykle! the skipper must be rare and bold," cried Turnpenny. "And a mariner of right good skill," said Dennis. But their admiration was turned to grave alarm when, with a roar, the whole of the vessel's broadside was suddenly fired, and the round shot came hurtling up the gully. To reply was impossible. The small guns on the ledge were too light to carry the distance. And there was nothing to be hoped for from bad marksmanship on the enemy's part. The first discharge had no effect except to displace masses of rock and earth from the cliff below the ledge. "They cannot raise their muzzles high enough to hit the ledge," cried Turnpenny in delight. But this fond hope was shattered at the next broadside. One shot struck the hut; another tore a great gap in the wall; a third chipped off large pieces of rock; several men were wounded. "Our wall is vain now," said Dennis. "Another shot will tear it away, and we shall have no defence against the calivers of the enemy when they again appear on the cliff. Ah! and there they come. We must run for the cave, Amos; 'tis our last refuge. Lead the men thither; let them carry our arms and munitions, and what water and stores they can. I and Copstone and one or two more will strive to make reply to the enemy while aught of our wall remains." Bullets were already falling on the ledge. Led by Turnpenny, most of the men, loaded with things, scuttled along the face of the cliff into the thicket that half concealed the mouth of the cave. Dennis with three companions fired back at the opposite cliff; but in a few minutes another volley of round shot came crashing up the gully, and scarcely a man on the ledge but was wounded by splinters of rock, though none was directly hit by the shot. It was hopeless to cling to the position longer. "Follow me, lads," cried Dennis; and, rushing down the ledge to where it widened and was overgrown with bushes, he and his comrades joined the others safely in the cave. CHAPTER XXIV The Leaguer of Skeleton Cave "Save us all!" cried Turnpenny, "we be like rats in a trap." "The knaves cannot get at us, for this present at least," said Copstone. "True, not without being well whopped; but they can block up the entrance, and keep us mewed up until we must either yield or starve, or perish of thirst." "Keep a good heart," said Dennis, cheerfully. "We will not yield or starve yet. Since I set sail from England in the _Maid Marian_ yonder many a marvellous thing has befallen me. I met a countryman when I had given up hope! Why may not things we do not foresee happen again?" "Ay, true," said one of Drake's men; "and perchance Master Francis himself may come to our aid." "That is but a poor chance," said Dennis. "It were better we trust in God and our own wit. We are safe at present; let us see what shelter our cave affords; I confess I have not hitherto fully explored it." Lighting a torch, he walked inwards, with two or three of the men, and found after a few yards that the floor sloped slightly downwards, and that the cave widened out on both sides, so that, if the enemy discovered it, and fired into the opening, the inmates could find shelter out of the line of fire. The air was close, but as it did not become oppressive so soon as Dennis expected, he was tempted to believe that there was a hole somewhere in the roof which served to ventilate the cave. But though he looked carefully along the whole vault, which extended for some thirty yards into the cliff, he found no such opening, and concluded that the comparative freshness of the air was due merely to the spaciousness of the cave and the width of its mouth. The day wore away in quiet. Careful watch was kept at the opening, and occasionally Spaniards were seen moving up and down the gully and on the opposite cliff; but no assault was made, and it seemed as though the enemy was content to wait until hunger and thirst had done their work. An inspection of the stores showed that there was only two days' food; all the water they had was contained in three buckets; and this, in that climate, and the state of excitement to which the men were wound up, was but a pitiful supply if the investment was to be protracted. Especially was it unfortunate seeing that several men were wounded, some seriously. Their injuries were dressed as carefully as possible with the limited appliances at hand; but in the course of the day one poor fellow died, and was solemnly buried in a grave dug with their weapons in the floor. Among the occupants of the cave was Mirandola. The monkey had taken refuge in a tree while the fighting was in progress, and Dennis thought that the poor animal would certainly flee to the woody interior of the island, far away from the din and turmoil. But at nightfall the monkey stole into the cave, and attached himself to Dennis, whom he followed about like a shadow. The hours of darkness dragged slowly along. Almost as soon as it was light, a round shot came crashing into the opening, scattering stones and earth in all directions. The Spaniards' inaction during the previous day was explained: they had evidently brought from the vessel in the offing a gun, perhaps more than one, and mounted it on the opposite cliff. The effect of the shot, which luckily harmed no one, was to send the men in all haste to the sides of the cave. But the crash and the smoke made Mirandola shriek with fright. He ran deeper into the cave, and when Dennis, with a torch, followed to soothe his terror, he discovered that the poor beast had taken refuge on the top of an irregular pillar of rock that stood out from the wall about three quarters of the way from the entrance. He tried to coax the monkey to descend, but without avail. The top of the pillar being beyond his reach, he called Turnpenny, and, climbing on to the mariner's broad shoulders, reached up to seize the monkey. But Mirandola retreated and disappeared. "The beast is deaved, to be sure," said Turnpenny, "and lacks his little wit. Let him bide, sir." "Nay, he has been our partner so long that I am not willing to lose him, and he will surely be stifled if we do not bring him nearer the opening. Hoist me, Amos." He swarmed to the top of the rock, the sailor handing up the torch after him. It took a few moments to become accustomed to the blackness, and in the red flickering light he failed to see any sign of the monkey. But he perceived with surprise that the pillar did not abut immediately on the wall, as he had supposed. Behind it he saw what appeared to be a deep black hole, which seemed deeper when he inserted his torch. Into this Mirandola, his nerves completely unstrung by the shattering explosion, must have run for refuge. Dennis crawled in, and holding the torch over his head, was still more amazed to find that he had come to the entrance of a second cave, apparently larger than the first. The floor of it was many feet below him: he hesitated to risk a dislocation of his ankle if he sprang down; so he retreated, and called to Turnpenny, informing him of his discovery. "Sling up a rope," he said; "you and Copstone keep a firm hold upon it on your side, while I let myself down on the other side and see what is beyond." Lowering himself through the aperture, he found the monkey sitting on the floor. "Come, Mirandola," he said, "you taught me the merits of some of the fruits of this island; hast more to teach me, old friend? Let us go on together." He found that the floor of this cave also inclined downwards, and he went very cautiously, lest he should come unawares upon a chasm and fall headlong to his doom. The atmosphere was damp and close, but not foul, and as he proceeded he saw by the flickering of the torch that there was a slight current of air. No wall blocked his way, but by and by the cave narrowed and the roof came lower, and he had to stoop, and at last to crawl, to avoid knocking his head. He had still not reached the end of what was now a tunnel, when the torch went out. For a moment he hesitated whether to go on in the darkness; then, deciding that it was not worth while to run any risks when he could procure another light within a few minutes, he hurried back, got another and a larger torch, and asked Turnpenny to accompany him. The two together came to the spot where the first torch had been left, and went on. The rough irregular fissure grew no narrower, but its slope became steeper at every yard. "God-a-mercy, it likes me not!" murmured Turnpenny, who was filled with superstitious fears in face of the unknown. "Meseems we be going down into the very bowels of the earth, or mayhap lower. Dost fear no goblins? Dost not think we may come upon the Old Smoker?" "Never a whit, Amos. Why, man, the floor here is wet. Touch it with your hand. And as I live, here are seaweeds and shells! And look; surely that is a glint of light yonder that comes not from our torch. Here is a very pool; duck your head, man; I gave mine a rare crack just then, the roof comes so low. Crawl after me. I smell the sea, Amos; and ah! look! here we are on the shore. Have a care; we must not be spied." Crawling actually through the water, they found themselves on the shore at a point not far north of the spot where Dennis had first opened his eyes on the island. The hole in the cliff was almost hidden by the overhanging plants. Mirandola had halted; to go through water was not to his taste. Cautiously raising themselves, Dennis and Turnpenny parted the screening leaves and looked out to sea. There, a little distance out, was the vessel that had fired on them. The tide was low; she had had to shift her position further into the main channel. In the little bay which here indented the shore a boat lay on the sand, two Spaniards leaning against its side, keeping guard over it, no doubt, while their comrades were engaged in investing the cave. "One thing is plain," whispered Dennis; "here at least is a way of retreat should we no longer be able to remain in our cave. And when water fails, we can creep out by the hole in the night time, and fill our buckets at one of the rills that trickle from the cliff." "Ah! that is something, sir," said Turnpenny, "but I would fain knock those knaves yonder on the head and take their boat. We might then make a shift to row away from this isle." "A good wish, Amos, but hard to come by. We could not do it in daylight, and methinks the Spaniards would not do us the grace to leave their boat here on the shore for us to make free with at night. But assuredly we can keep a better watch on them here than from the cave above, where we cannot show a head but with great peril; let us therefore return and send one of the maroons hither as a sentinel." There was great excitement among the men when they were told of this discovery. Though it seemed impossible that the passage to the sea could avail them much, the knowledge that it was open to them gave just that dash of comfort which is all the world to men in extremity. And when, as the day wore on, the enemy's guns began to play regularly on the mouth of the cave, and brought down in front of it great masses of the cliff above, they did not get into a state of panic, but almost gaily made air-holes through the loosely piled earth with their weapons, chuckling at the thought that the besiegers were no doubt flattering themselves with the supposition that the hapless garrison was being gradually entombed. But it seemed to Dennis that an attempt should be made to turn this strange discovery to account. Clearly it was possible to leave the cave, but supposing they all made their way to the shore, what then? They might take to the woods in the centre of the island, and for a time, perhaps, elude the enemy; but it would only be a matter of days before they must be hunted down. They could not, a mere handful, risk a stand-up fight against a force six or seven times their number. And it was in the highest degree unlikely that the enemy would leave any of their boats on shore during the night. Still, there was just a chance that a boat might be so left, and Dennis arranged that Juan the maroon should go before dark to the exit on the shore, to see what he could discover of the Spaniards' arrangements, and then to steal up the cliff and learn how they encamped during the night. The night was still young when the maroon returned. He had seen the boat put off, conveying officers to the vessel. Then, waiting until it was dark, he had climbed the cliff, and found that the enemy had formed a camp on the summit immediately above the ledge, at some little distance from the brink. No pickets were posted; the Spaniards had evidently recognized the hopelessness of any attempt to escape either up or down the gully. Juan had then crept round to the northern cliff, and discovered that the two guns which had played on the cave during the day were left in charge of two men. Dennis was somewhat surprised that the main camp of the enemy had not been made there instead of on the southern cliff, until he remembered that only on the latter were there springs of fresh water. "'Tis as I feared, you see," he said to Turnpenny. "The boat returns to the ship at night--just as the boat was wont to return to your lumber-ship. It was but a poor hope, and that is dashed." "And so 'tis. The only thing that we poor souls could do would be to crawl out by the hole, and fetch a long compass to the cliff yonder where the guns be, and blow them up for the knaves. If there be but two men guarding them, 't'ud be no hard feat." Dennis did not reply. He seemed to have fallen into a brown study. "I'se warrant I could do it, with Tom Copstone and Juan, and maybe another of the maroons. 'T'ud not save us, to be sure, but 't'ud at least give the knaves a turn, od rabbit en!" "Amos," said Dennis with apparent inconsequence, "if you were a Spanish officer----" "God forbid, sir!" interrupted the seaman, fervently. "It is impossible, I own. Still, if you were a Spanish officer aboard that vessel yonder, and in the blackest hour of night you heard a great uproar on this island, and saw the flashing of guns, what would you do?" "I'fecks, I would think there was a rare randy afoot, and straightway lower a boat and come with all speed ashore to lend a hand." "And you, Copstone,--what would you do?" "Come with Haymoss, to be sure, sir. You and me, Haymoss----" "The words of my dream again, sir!" cried Amos in excitement. "There be summat in your mind, sir; tell it out, and, souls all, lend an ear." And then Dennis unfolded a scheme which Juan's report and Turnpenny's suggestion had set working in his mind. For some minutes the little group around him hung breathlessly upon his quiet words; then Turnpenny exclaimed-- "We'll do it, we will so, and be jowned if the knaves will not wish themselves anywhere but on Maiden Isle. Come, my hearts, the sky is black and lowering: 'tis the very time o' night for our intent, and with God's help we will prosper in our doings." And then the rough seaman fell on his knees, and with clasped hands recited the prayer for help in time of need, and every man of the little company responded with a low fervent "Amen!" Half an hour later, Turnpenny, with Copstone, Juan, and a second maroon, bade farewell to his comrades and clambered down into the second cave. When they were on the farther side of the dividing rock, their weapons, with four belts packed full of grape shot from the stores of the _Maid Marian_, were handed down to them, and after a final "God speed!" from Dennis they started on the way to the sea. An hour passed--an hour during which the rest of the company sat in hushed expectancy, scarcely speaking a word. One of the maroons had pushed his way through the heap of loose earth piled at the mouth of the cave, and crawled stealthily to the ledge, where he crouched amid the ruins of the sheds. Presently, from the opposite cliff, came a slight booming sound like the cry of a night beetle. The maroon, invisible in the black shade of the cliff, crept back to the cave. Immediately afterwards the whole company, man by man, crossed into the inner cave, the two men most seriously wounded being lifted up one side of the pillar, and lowered gently down the other. Dennis leading, with Mirandola close behind, they made their way by torch-light down the sloping floor, then, extinguishing the torch, crawled out at the narrow aperture, and, after Dennis had taken a careful look round, stood up, a silent band of twenty-one, on the sea-shore. The two men whose wounds forbade exertion were left in a sheltered spot below the bank; then the rest followed Dennis up through the vegetation, in single file. It was so dark that no man could see the man before him, but each one grasped the caliver of the man ahead, thus guiding themselves through the jungle. Up they went, quietly, almost as surely as if it were broad daylight, for Dennis knew every foot of the way, which he had trodden many times since that day long before when he had begun his exploration of the island. Winding in and out, he came at length by a long circuit to the high ground approaching the southern bank of the gully. And there he halted. Through the trees before him he saw the watch-fires, dying low, of the enemy encamped on the clearing beyond. All was silent. If any sentinels were awake, they were not conversing. The camp was as quiet as though it were an abode of the dead. Suddenly the deep silence was broken by the boom of a beetle. It died away. So natural a sound was it that the Spanish sentinels, if any were on guard, would never have suspected that it came from the throat of a maroon. Even Dennis's company might have been deceived had they not known that the sound had been made by one of themselves, the maroon at their leader's side. Scarcely had it died away when two sharp cracks rent the air from some point beyond the camp. Then came an instant change over the scene--a change which Amos and Tom Copstone had fired to bring about. A loud cry rang out in the camp, followed by a din of many voices and the clash of arms. Some one cast fuel on one of the fires, and the flame, leaping up, shone on a camp in commotion; men were hurrying this way and that, calling to their fellows excitedly. What was this that had disturbed their slumbers? Was some one signalling to them from the vessel out at sea? Could it be that El Draque had sailed up out of the night? Into the midst of this noise and confusion broke a shattering sound, the roar of a piece of ordnance. Then the din was redoubled, and with the astonished cries of some were mingled the shrieks and groans of wounded men. Still Dennis and his little band stood motionless amid the trees, but every man now held a lighted match. Another deep reverberating roar thundered forth, with more cries and yells in the camp. Amos and his comrades had disposed of the men guarding the guns, and had turned these upon the enemy. "Now!" cried Dennis. Then a mighty shout broke from the throats of the little company, and with the roar of lusty British seamen mingled the weird "Yo peho! yo peho!" of the maroons. A volley flashed from the muzzles of nineteen calivers, and nineteen men dashed forward towards the camp, shouting like a hundred. On they rushed through the trees into the clearing. "Yo peho! yo peho!" And with yells of panic fear the Spaniards, like a flock of sheep, ran and ran and ran, helter-skelter, flinging their arms away, tumbling over one another, falling, rising again, pelting headlong through the woodland towards the marsh. Again the guns on the opposite cliff thundered, but the shots did not now come plunging into the camp. How were the Spaniards, scared out of their wits, to know that Turnpenny and Copstone were now firing into the gully, lest they should hit their comrades? But in a few moments there was no risk of this, for Dennis wheeled about and led his men at a mad scamper down by the way they had come, never stopping until, bathed in sweat, panting for breath, they stood on the sea-shore, at the place from which they had started. And now Dennis looked again towards the sea, and strained his ears to catch a sound he expected. Would his expectation be fulfilled? Would Fortune favour him? Would the Spanish officers aboard the ship do as Copstone and Turnpenny in their place would have done--lower boats in all haste and come to the aid of their comrades in peril? None knew the anxiety that troubled Dennis in those minutes of waiting. If the Spaniards were poltroons, if they were scared by the sudden outbreak and feared to venture shorewards in the dark, his bold scheme would fail, and then what the end would be he hardly dared to think. It was with real agony of soul he listened, listened for the sweep of oars. Hark! On the silence of the sea comes a thud, a measured beat, growing in loudness, drawing near. As yet he can see nothing, but his comrades hear the sound; their hearts leap at it; they can scarcely check a shout of joy. On comes the boat; they hear the splash of oars, and voices, and by and by the grating of a keel. They wait in panting silence. Men are wading through the water; arms clash; a loud voice gives an order; and now a score of dark forms can be seen running up the beach, making for the very path lately traversed by the nineteen. The men, lurking beneath the bank, hold their breath; Dennis feels as though his very heart-beats must be heard; but the Spaniards pass, and disappear, and are now hasting up towards the camp. The sound of their footsteps dies away; Dennis can scarcely bear to wait, so eager is he to pursue his scheme to the end. At last he gives the word, and eighteen men rush after him, noiselessly on the sand, towards the boat, a hundred yards away. The two Spaniards left on guard catch sight of the running men when they are half way across the beach. Why should they suspect that these are not their comrades who lately parted from them? What has happened? They are nervous, unstrung. "What is it?" they cry; but the words are choked in their throats, for two men have sprung upon them, and next moment they lie stunned on the sand. Four men return and bring their wounded comrades with what haste they may. Then lusty arms shove the boat from the shoal; nineteen men leap in after the two; the oars are out, and the boat's head points towards the vessel lying at anchor. But it pauses as it comes level with the shoulder of the cliff. The four bold fellows who have so manfully played their part beyond the gully are not forgotten. And but a few moments after the boat has stopped, four figures come swimming out with mighty strokes, and are hauled aboard, dripping wet, but exultant. Again the oars strike the water and the boat moves out to sea. A dark hull looms up in front. Dennis whispers an order; all the oars are shipped but two; and the boat goes slowly, with no sign of haste. A voice hails it from the deck. "All's well!" calls Juan. The boat is now under the vessel's quarter: a lamp is slung over the bulwark to guide the returning crew; a rope is thrown out to steady her; and Turnpenny begins to clamber up by the battens. Before Dennis reaches the deck he hears a cry, then a heavy thud, and as he springs aboard he sees Amos with a prostrate Spaniard between his legs. Up they go, all twenty-five; only a dozen of the vessel's crew are left on board; and the long pent-up excitement of maroons and British mariners bursts forth in a shout of triumph; the ship is theirs. "Heave up the anchor, my hearts!" cried Turnpenny. "Loose the mainsail, Tom; the wind serves." "Stay, Amos," said Dennis, "we must not forget the pinnace. We cannot return to Master Drake without her." "Nor shall not," replied the seaman; "but we'll first give the knavish vessels yonder a taste of our lead, an ye will but give us leave." "A right good notion, Amos, if we can win to them at this low tide." "That we can, sir; trust me." With her courses set, and Turnpenny at the helm, the vessel stood out half a mile until all danger of striking a shoal was past; then she was headed southward. Meantime Dennis superintended the loading of all her ordnance, five guns on each side. Soon they saw the dark hulls of the two Spanish vessels anchored off the south-west corner of the island. "There's room enough betwixt 'em, sir, for us to pass and rake 'em with a broadside. Not a man aboard 'em will suppose this craft is manned by any but their own comrades, nor will they know better till they hear our popguns." As they approached, a voice hailed them from the vessel on the port side, asking the meaning of the uproar lately heard. "A fight ashore, but it is now over," sang out Juan the maroon. The _Minion_ came between the two vessels. So confident was Turnpenny in the unpreparedness of the Spaniards that he hove to, not a dozen yards separating the ships on either side. The guns were manned; the matches, already lighted, were screened from observation; then, at the word, the five guns on the starboard side belched forth their heavy charges of round shot. Almost before the roar had died away the gunners rushed to the larboard. Again there was a mighty thunder and crash as the shots raked the hapless vessel. Through the cloud of smoke the adventurous bark was got under way. In a few minutes she ran clear; Turnpenny put the helm down, and she beat up against the wind until she reached her former anchorage westward of the gully. Then Dennis, with Turnpenny and a dozen men, got into the boat which had followed astern at the end of a rope, and rowed for the entrance between the cliffs. There was no guard over the pinnace. The Spaniards who had been surprised in their camp had fled to the other side of the island. Even those who had lately landed, hearing the thunder of the guns to the south, had rushed inland, believing that El Draque, the terror of their coasts, had suddenly come upon them. Unmolested, Dennis and some of his party landed on the rocks. Turnpenny made a rapid inspection of the pinnace. "Her stern works be sore battered and her rudder shivered to splinters," he said, "but she will take no water, a' b'lieve. With a strong pull we will have her off, sir." The rope by which the Spaniards had attempted to tow her was still fixed. Under the haulage of twelve sturdy mariners she was slowly shifted; she floated; and in twenty minutes lay alongside the Spanish vessel. Then, the men giving a parting cheer that echoed and re-echoed from the shore, the ship stood away under full sail with the pinnace riding merrily astern. And when morning broke the long coast-line of the mainland was already in sight. CHAPTER XXV The Mule Trains "No Bobby Pike this time," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis, as they lay eating their supper amid the scrub a mile or more south of Nombre de Dios. "And with all my soul I hope the Frenchmen be sober men, for to fail of our purpose now through any frowardness would break Master Drake his noble heart and send me into a decline." "Hush!" returned Dennis, in a voice equally low. "List to the church bells, Amos, and the clatter of the hammers. Does it not mind you of home--the church on the cliff, and the busy carpenters in the docks below? My soul yearns for home, Amos." "Ay, and so do I. But I would fain return home with full hands--money enough to buy a little fishing craft, and a cottage by the sea. 'Tis five year and more since I sailed in the _Jesus_ out of Plimworth Sound, and there was Margery Tutt a-waving her little handkercher to me, thinking, poor soul, to see me again within a twelvemonth. And I warrant the pretty maid counted the days and went to every wedden in church, to larn the fearsome promises word by word, so that she might not fail when we should come to stand afore holy pa'son. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow': so it runs for the man to say, and here I be, five year after, with not so much worldly goods as I had then, saving some few pearls; and I warrant some knavish land-lubber has come along and snatched up my little Margery, and I'll find her a bowerly 'ooman that has clean forgot poor Haymoss Turnpenny. Ah me! I be sick of adventures, be jowned if I bean't." "Be of good cheer, Amos. If Fortune stand our friend, we shall have more gold and silver than we can bear away before this night be ended; and then Master Drake will sail away home, and who knows?--Margery may be looking for you even yet. 'Twas seven years that Jacob served for Rachel." "Ay, but always within arm's length. I warrant he kept an eye on the wench. There was never a thousand leagues of sea betwixt him and the maid. Od-rat-en, if I find Margery have changed her name with any lubberly chaw-bacon, dang me if I don't deal en a clout he'll remember, good-now, I will." Turnpenny relapsed into silence, brooding on his melancholy forebodings. It was the night of March 31. Some forty men lay in the scrub overlooking Nombre de Dios, awaiting the clang of mule-bells that would announce the approach of a treasure train from Venta Cruz. Half of them were French, for a week or two before, as Drake and his men were sportively pitching stones at the land crabs on the beach, a ship came down from the west, whose captain proved to be a French Huguenot named Le Testu, with a company of some seventy men and boys. They were perishing for want of water. Having obtained from Drake, ever generous to adventurers like himself, the supplies they needed, they prepared to join themselves to him, in the hope of obtaining some share of Spanish gold. Drake hesitated to admit the Frenchmen to a partnership, for he had but thirty-one men left, and feared that the seventy would claim too large a portion of the booty if his projected attack on the mule-train should succeed. But the matter was compromised by Captain Le Testu joining Drake with twenty men. These, with fifteen Englishmen and a few maroons, sailed in two of Drake's pinnaces for the mouth of the Francisco river, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. The rest of the company were left at a secret spot in charge of one Richard Doble. When the river mouth was made, Drake sent a few maroons back with the pinnaces, ordering them to remain in hiding with Doble and to return in four days' time to take off the adventurers. Dennis and Turnpenny were among those who accompanied Drake in the _Minion_. They had won great praise from him for their exploits in Maiden Isle and their capture of the Spanish ship, whose stores of food and ammunition were very welcome. The damage to the pinnace was speedily repaired, Drake saying with a laugh that had she been rendered unseaworthy he would have pinioned Dennis between decks and kept him there until they dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound. The adventurers were encamped on rising ground above the town. Taking a lesson from the previous failure, the men spoke in the lowest of whispers, even though they were a mile away from the track. All through the night they heard the clatter of hammers from the bay, where the Spanish shipwrights, avoiding the heat of the day, were preparing the ships of the treasure fleet for sea. The ambuscaders were grimly resolved that the cargoes should be less by the weight of a good many tons of silver and gold. The hours passed too slowly for the impatient adventurers. But at length, a little before dawn, they heard a faint tinkle of bells afar in the woods, and soon the maroon scouts came in with the news that three trains, numbering nearly two hundred mules in all, were approaching from Venta Cruz. Such good fortune was unlooked for; and though the scouts reported that the trains were escorted by soldiers, not a man gave a thought to the odds against them. Instantly they all seized their calivers and bows and arrows, and hastened to the trackway, where, as before, they posted themselves in the long grass on either side. On came the mules, their bells jangling and clanging in musical discord. In the grass lurked the raiders, silent--though Turnpenny gave Dennis a nudge and whispered, "'Tis All Fools' Day!" Suddenly there sounded a blast from Drake's whistle; the men started up, and, sending a volley of bullets and arrows at the Spanish infantrymen that guarded the convoy, made straight for the heads of the leading mules. Nothing loath to rest a while, the mules behind lay down contentedly on the ground. But the soldiers, who had blown on their matches as they marched, to keep them alight, rallied in a group and fired back at the assailants. A maroon was killed outright: Captain Le Testu fell seriously wounded; but the rest, kneeling down and supporting their weapons on the prostrate mules, briskly returned the fire; then, springing up before the enemy could reload, charged upon them with fierce cries and drove them helter-skelter towards the town. Immediately afterwards two men came rushing up to Turnpenny. "Be jowned if it bean't Billy Hawk and fat Baltizar!" he cried in astonishment. "Oh Billy, poor soul, what a scarecrow 'ee do look! Get out, you jelly!" he cried to Baltizar, speeding him with a kick. "You be fat as butter; all is well with 'ee; get 'ee to the town after your masters, and thank God your oily carcass be not left to fatten the land.--Billy, dear heart, what hath happed to thee?" Hawk told his story while Turnpenny and the other seamen, selecting the mules that bore the heaviest loads, with nimble fingers cast off their packs, unstrapped them, and helped themselves to the precious contents--bars and quoits of solid gold, and silver uncountable. He had followed Biddle and the other mutineers in the hope of persuading them to return to their duty; but they had soon fallen upon him, robbed him of his bag of pearls, and left him bound in the forest. There he had been found by some fugitives from the routed Spaniards, who carried him to their vessel, and conveyed him to Nombre de Dios. Believing him to be one of Drake's men, they tortured him to make him confess where his captain's secret haven was, which he stedfastly refused to do; and since then he had been kept in slavery, drudging as a muleteer between Nombre de Dios and Panama. "God be praised we have found 'ee!" cried Turnpenny. "You shall come back with us, and I'll give 'ee a share of all my treasure." The raiders did up in bundles and bestowed about their persons as much as they could stagger under, and set to work to bury what they could not carry in the burrows of landcrabs and under the great trunks of fallen trees. For two hours they toiled on; then, hearing the clatter of hoofs from the direction of the town, they seized their booty and made off to the woods. Up came a troop of horse; but when they reached the mules they halted, for they heard in the woods the "Yo peho!" of the maroons, and shrank from engaging those terrible forest fighters. Staggering under the weight of their treasure, the raiders tramped with what haste they might through the jungle. They had not gone far when Captain Le Testu lay down groaning; weak from loss of blood, he could go no farther. Two of his men volunteered to stay with him, and help him on after he had rested. The others hurried on, and after struggling through the forest for two days and nights, drenched by terrible rainstorms, burnt black by the torrid heat, reached their landing-place on the bank of the Francisco River. It was four days since they had left it; the pinnaces should have been there awaiting them; but not a sign of them met their hungry eyes. Instead, seven Spanish pinnaces were observed rowing from the island, where the maroons had been ordered to shelter with Richard Doble. The drenched and footsore raiders were aghast. Had their enemies captured the pinnaces, and slain their comrades? Were they to be imprisoned in this swampy jungle, with no means of sailing or rowing away to Fort Diego? Loud murmurs, cries of despair, curses at being deserted, broke from the seamen. They cried out that they were betrayed; that the Spaniards would fall on them and overwhelm them; that they would never see home again. Drake expostulated with them; the maroons offered to lead them the sixteen days' journey overland, and promised, if the ships proved indeed to be taken, to give them shelter in their villages. But the men cried out the more; some threw down the treasure they had dared so much to win; some began to cry out against their leader himself. Then Drake showed the stuff of which he was made. "Silence, you knaves!" he cried. "Am I any whit better off than you? Is this a time to yield to craven fear? Nay, but rather to pluck up heart and play the man. If the Spaniards have in truth taken our pinnaces, which God forbid, yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, and, if they compel them by torture to confess where our ships are, time to execute their resolution after it is determined. Before all these times be taken, we may get to our ships if ye will. We may not hope to go by land, for that the journey is too long and the ways too foul. But we may surely go by water. Look at the trees here rolling down upon the flood, thrown down by the storms that beset us so sorely. May we not build ourselves a raft, and put ourselves to sea? I will be one; who will be the others?" "That will I," said Dennis, stepping forward. "And I too, good-now," cried Turnpenny. "Nay, Master Hazelrig, you I will leave to command these timid rascals if ill befall me; but Amos I will take, and go fetch those laggard pinnaces." Then the maroons, taking hands and forming into a line, stepped into the river and intercepted the trees as they came down on the torrent. With their hatchets they lopped off the branches; they bound the trunks together with leathern thongs taken from the mules, and with tendrils of creepers from the jungle. A stout sapling was reared as a mast, and with his own hands Turnpenny rigged up a biscuit sack for a sail, and fashioned a crutch in which another sapling might serve as a rudder. The raft being now ready, Drake selected two of the Frenchmen who could swim well to accompany him and Turnpenny. The four men stepped on to the frail craft, and as she was hauled off over the bar at the river mouth, Drake cried out: "Be of good cheer, my hearts. If it please God I put my foot in safety aboard my frigate, I shall, God willing, by one means or other get ye all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies." And the seamen, with new hope born within their breasts, sped their gallant captain with a cheer. "My heart, 'twas a fearsome voyage!" said Turnpenny, relating the adventure to Dennis afterwards. "We sat inches deep in water, holding on for very life, and the sea came tumbling aboard, swingeing us to the armpits at every surge of the waves. We scudded along before the wind, but though 'twas strong, it scarce tempered the great heat; and what with the parching of the sun, and what with the beating of the salt water, we had all of us our skins much fretted away. We had sailed for six hours, and were making our third league, when God gave us the sight of two pinnaces bearing towards us. 'God be praised!' cried our captain; 'there is now no cause to fear.' But the sky was become dark, and the men on the pinnaces as they laboured towards us, the wind driving the spray into their eyes, did not perceive us; and the gale being exceedingly fierce, they bore up to the lee of a point of land, and vanished from our sight. Whereupon our captain ran ashore to windward of the headland, and being mightily enraged for that the knaves had not obeyed his command to wait us at the river, he was minded to play a trick on them and turn their hearts sick with very fear. So when we did land, we ran in great haste towards where the pinnaces were at anchor, making such speed as if we had been chased by the enemy. My heart! their eyes were astare with fear when they espied us. They hauled us aboard their boats, crying out, this one and that, 'Where be our comrades?' 'How fares it with them?' and other such questions, to all which our Captain in a cold voice did answer only 'Well!' Whereupon they began to lament with tears, crying out that verily their dear comrades were dead or in captivity. "Our captain for a space looked sternly upon them in their misery. But then, being willing to rid all doubts and fill them with joy, he took from out his shirt a quoit of gold, and bade them praise God, for their comrades were safe and had of that treasure enough and for all. Then he commanded them to get their anchors up, for that he was resolved that very night to come back to the river. And we rowed hard through the darkness and in the teeth of the gale, and here we be, with blistered skins indeed, but sound men and hearty." Dennis had collected the men on the shore, and built a fire to keep their spirits up. With great joy they heard their comrades hailing them as the vessels came up out of the dark, and they begged Drake's forgiveness for their mutinous murmurs. As soon as day dawned they embarked; the pinnaces ran before the wind, picked up Richard Doble in his frigate, and before noon arrived safely at Port Diego. The treasure was carried on shore, and in the middle of the smooth open space, amidst cries of wonderment from those who had not had a part in the adventure, Drake weighed the gold and silver on the steward's meat-scales, delivering to the Frenchmen the half agreed upon. These then sailed away westward, to get news of their ill-fated captain. Drake was not easy in mind about Le Testu. It was pitiful to think of him wounded and left with only two of his men deep in the woods. So while his vessel, the _Pascha_, too foul to be easily fitted for the voyage home, was being stripped to equip the Spanish frigate Dennis had captured, he prepared to lead an expedition in search of the French Captain. But his men raised such an outcry at his leaving them that he gave the command to Oxnam, contenting himself with accompanying them to the Francisco River. Oxnam had not gone far up stream when a haggard figure emerged tottering from the reeds, and falling on his knees, burst into tears and thanked God that help had come. Not many minutes after Drake had left him and his comrade with Captain Le Testu, some Spanish arquebusiers came upon them. The Captain bade the two men flee, and they ran off in haste, carrying their treasure. But the Spaniards gave chase, and this man, fearing that, burdened as he was, he must be overtaken, flung away his possessions one after another. Among them was a box of jewels, and this his comrade, cupidity getting the better of his fear, stopped to pick up. The delay was fatal. He was caught and carried away with the captain. The other fugitive was not farther pursued; he reached the river after wandering for several days, during which he had seen a great host of near two thousand Spaniards and negroes searching for the treasure that had been buried. Hearing this, Oxnam was not willing to return until he had seen whether anything was left. The Spaniards had dug up the ground over nearly a square mile; but Oxnam found in the crab-holes a small quantity of gold, with silver weighing about five hundred pounds. Loaded with this, his men returned to their pinnace, and came merrily back to Port Diego. Now all thoughts turned longingly homewards. The value of the treasure taken from the Spaniards was near £50,000, and it was not to be supposed that so great a loss would be accepted by them with equanimity. Before long ships of war would doubtless be fitted out to punish this audacious sea-rover who had made himself a terror throughout the Main, and Drake thought it but prudent to get away with his booty before his little band was overwhelmed. He still needed a vessel to serve as victualler to the frigate in which he purposed to sail for England. With his usual daring he set off for the mouth of the Grande river, running right under the guns of Cartagena. In the middle of the night he chased and boarded a frigate that endeavoured to slip past him to the west, and, returning to his secret haven with his prize, he unloaded her cargo of maize, hens, hogs, and wild honey, and prepared for the voyage home. All hands were set to break up the pinnaces, which had been brought in sections from England and were now, after a year's sailing, past further service. Their timbers were burned on the beach; their ironwork was given to the maroons. The two Spanish frigates were overhauled, their keels cleared of barnacles, their spars and rigging put in good repair, their holds filled with a plentiful store of food. Then, when all was ready, Drake invited Pedro, the maroon chief, and three of his best men to choose some reward for their good and loyal services. Pedro took a great fancy to a splendid scimitar which had been given to Drake by Captain Le Testu and had once belonged to the King of France. Drake would rather he had chosen something else, but he handed over the weapon with a good grace, and accompanied it with a present of silk and fine cloth for the maroons' wives. Pedro was so much delighted that he begged Drake to accept four wedges of gold in return, which the Captain threw into the common stock, saying it was only just that those who had shared with him the dangers and hardships of the adventures should share also in the full profits. Dennis did not part from Juan without giving him a token of his thanks and a memento of their common adventures. He had lost almost all that he had saved from the _Maid Marian_; with the _Mirandola_ it had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; and the division of the spoils of the mule-train would not be made until they reached Plymouth. But he had always kept the sword of Sir Martin Blunt, and this he gave to Juan, who received it with great satisfaction. On the 17th of July the company went aboard the two frigates; the anchors were heaved, all sail was set, and the little craft stood out to sea. The flag of St. George flew at their maintops; silk streamers and ensigns dipped down to the water; a parting salute was fired; the trumpeters blew a blast; and the English mariners shouted a farewell cheer to the maroons gathered on the beach. Down in the hold lay Jan Biddle, repenting in darkness, it is to be hoped, his treacherous conduct. He alone of the company had no treasure to rejoice in; Drake had sternly decreed that he should go home empty-handed, a prisoner throughout the long voyage. High up in the rigging sat a monkey, blinking and chattering, wondering perhaps into what further perils his adventurous master would lead him. "There is our Maiden Isle," said Dennis to Turnpenny, as they sailed merrily northward. "My vice-royalty was but brief; and methinks 'tis but a poor jewel in the crown of Queen Bess. Yet will it be a precious jewel in my memory, for there I found a true friend in thee, Amos, and we two have been enabled by God's providence to do somewhat for our countrymen in distress." "Good-now, Master Hazelrig," said Drake, coming up to them; "art wishing to return and set up a monarchy on yonder small isle?" "Nay, sir, it is already bespoke for our gracious queen, though meseems the sovereignty belongs rightly to Mirandola, who now sits aloft, with a most forlorn and wistful look." "Well, my lad, maybe you and I shall live to see Her Majesty's sway extend over all these islands, and far beyond. Meantime, what think 'ee is my dearest wish at this moment?" "I know not, sir." "Why," said Drake, with a smile, "'tis to bowl at the jack once more on Plymouth Hoe." Conclusion Little more than three weeks later, on Sunday, August 9, 1573, about noon, the congregation in St. Andrew's church at Plymouth was startled into wakefulness by the booming of guns. The vicar was in the midst of his sermon, and the good people were torn between their desire not to offend the worthy parson and their longing to see what was happening at the harbour. A few minutes passed; then a whisper began to run through the church: "Master Drake is home again!" One looked at another; anxious eyes were cast at the high pews where the gentry sat; then, careless what squire or parson might think, by ones and twos and threes the people stole from the church, and, when once outside, set off running with all their might to the harbour. And before they got there a merry peal of bells rang out behind them. The ringers in the belfry, knowing, we must suppose, that their vicar was an easy man, a patriot, and a Devonian to boot, were handling the ropes most lustily. The two little frigates had just dropped anchor, and the men were putting off in boats. On shore men shouted, women wept and waved handkerchiefs, boys yelled and dodged among their elders; but nobody minded hustling and knocks, for was not Master Drake home again? Deafening cheers rent the air as he landed; hundreds thronged around him to clasp his hand. "Good-now, dear friends," he said with a laugh as he passed through: "ye'll do me more hurt than the Spaniards ever did." "Huzzay! huzzay! Spaniards be jowned! What have 'ee got in thikky ships, Master Drake?" "Where be Bobby Pike?" cried a buxom dame with half a dozen children clinging to her skirts. "Here I be, Mally," cried the seaman, catching her in his arms, "and i'fecks, I'll be sober for ever more, my lass." "On my soul and body there be Ned Whiddon, and Tom Copstone, and Hugh Curder, and Billy Hawk!" cried several voices in the crowd. "Huzzay! huzzay! we never thought to see 'ee more." "And Haymoss Turnpenny! Od's my life, what a day for Margery Tutt!" And when Dennis, with Mirandola on his shoulder, returning glance for glance with interest, got clear of the press, he saw Amos marching along with a girl on each arm, his ruddy face beaming like the rising sun. "Why, Amos," said Dennis, "are there two Margerys?" "My heart, I know a score!" cried Amos. "But this be Margery Tutt, sir, thikky wench on my left. Loose my arm, lass, and drop a curtsey to Master Hazelrig, for 'ithout him I'd never have been here this day. She've waited for me, sir, bided single for my sake, and there's no landlubber to whop after all. T'other wench be Tom Copstone's Joan; his mother's most terrible jealous, and she've got a hold of Tom now; so 'You and me, Haymoss!' he sings out, and I've got his Joan under convoy till the old 'ooman 's done a-kissing of him. Margery, lass, if 'ee be willing, I'll go up along and see pa'son this very day and ax en to call us next Sunday, for I've gold and silver and pearls, lass, and won't they become your little plum neck! Master Hazelrig, I do pity 'ee, I do so. Bean't there a lass to welcome 'ee? Good-now, bear up, for 'ee be but a stripling yet." And then he was borne away by the crowd, and Dennis saw him no more that day. Dennis found himself, when the treasure was divided, the possessor of £2,000 in money in addition to the pearls he had got at Fort Aguila. He devoted a goodly sum to the erection of a monument in his parish church to the memory of Sir Martin Blunt and the other adventurers who had sailed in the _Maid Marian_ eighteen months before. A smaller amount sufficed for a stone over the grave of Mirandola, who died in the following winter. The greater part of the money Dennis gave into the hands of John Holles, his steward, who received it with all due gravity, expressing the hope that his young master had had his fill of adventuring and would now remain at home. For a time Dennis was content to live in his rambling old house at Shaston. But four years later, learning that Drake was fitting out five ships for a voyage round the world, he asked to be allowed to join the expedition at his own charge. His offer was accepted, and he shared in the joys and sorrows, the failures and successes, of that three years' voyage. With closer intercourse he admired the great Captain more and more; and Drake on his part came to regard him with peculiar affection. During the five years spent on shore after his return, Sir Francis, as he now was, paid many visits to the house at Shaston, and often played bowls with Dennis on the lawn behind. In 1585, when Drake went out to the West Indies with a direct commission from the Queen, Dennis was of his company. He was one of the first to enter the town of St. Domingo when it was assaulted; and in the subsequent attack on Cartagena he was seriously wounded. To his great disappointment, he had not fully recovered in time to take part in the famous expedition to Cadiz, when Drake "singed the King of Spain's beard." But next year, when all England was stirred at the news that the long-expected Armada was at last approaching, Dennis joined Drake on the _Revenge_, and had his part in the work of fighting in the Channel and the North Sea. At the conclusion of this year Dennis, now in his thirty-fourth year, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire. Her name happened to be Margery. Soon after the marriage Dennis took her to Plymouth on a visit to his old comrade Amos Turnpenny, who was now blest with a family of five boys and five girls. "Do 'ee mind, sir," said Amos with a twinkling eye--"do 'ee mind the day when we landed, and you axed me whether there were two Margerys? Seems as if there be, sir; ay, and more; your madam be one, and my 'ooman be two, and my darter yonder be three, and Tom Copstone's darter be four, and I shouldn't be mazed if there was five some day. 'A good name,' says the Book, 'is rayther to be chosen than great riches.' Margery be a good name, to be sure--a better name than Mirandola, poor fond beast! Next to Margery comes _Anne Gallant_, and that be my second darter yonder." Dennis Hazelrig became a man of weight in his county. His wife and little daughter--the fifth Margery--dissuaded him from joining Drake and Hawkins in their fatal expedition to the Main in 1594, and he found an outlet for his energies in organizing the yeomanry of Devon. When James the First came to the throne Dennis received the honour of knighthood. None of his old friends was more delighted than Amos Turnpenny, who was by this time nearly eighty, and a hale old grandfather. "Ay, I says to Tom Copstone when I heard the news, 'Tom,' says I, 'we've a king again now, my lad, though by all I hear tell he bean't so proper a man as King Hal. But he do have his good points too. What be fust thing 'ee done, think 'ee?' 'Be jowned if I know,' says Tom. (He do have common ways o' speech, poor soul!) 'Why, 'fecks,' says I, 'he bin and made Master Hazelrig a noble knight, and we must call en Sir Dennis to's face for ever more.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'we won't mind that,--night or day,' says he--'you and me, Haymoss?' And be jowned if they were not the very words of my dream!" 
19206	----	Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main by G A Henty. Contents Chapter 1: The Wreck on the Devon Coast. Chapter 2: Friends and Foes. Chapter 3: On the Spanish Main. Chapter 4: An Unsuccessful Attack. Chapter 5: Cast Ashore. Chapter 6: In the Woods. Chapter 7: An Attack in Force. Chapter 8: The Forest Fastness. Chapter 9: Baffled. Chapter 10: Southward Ho! Chapter 11: The Marvel of Fire. Chapter 12: Across a Continent. Chapter 13: Through the Cordilleras. Chapter 14: On the Pacific Coast. Chapter 15: The Prison of the Inquisition. Chapter 16: The Rescue. Chapter 17: The Golden Hind. Chapter 18: San Francisco Bay. Chapter 19: South Sea Idols. Chapter 20: A Portuguese Settlement. Chapter 21: Wholesale Conversion. Chapter 22: Home. Chapter 1: The Wreck on the Devon Coast. It was a Stormy morning in the month of May, 1572; and the fishermen of the little village of Westport, situate about five miles from Plymouth, clustered in the public house of the place; and discussed, not the storm, for that was a common topic, but the fact that Master Francis Drake, whose ships lay now at Plymouth, was visiting the Squire of Treadwood, had passed through the village over night, and might go through it again, today. There was not one of the hardy fishermen there but would gladly have joined Drake's expedition, for marvellous tales had been told of the great booty which he, and other well-known captains, had already obtained from the Dons on the Spanish Main. The number, however, who could go was limited, and even of these the seafaring men were but a small proportion; for in those days, although a certain number of sailors were required to trim the sails and navigate the ship, the strength of the company were the fighting men, who were soldiers by trade, and fought on board ship as if on land. Captain Drake was accompanied by many men of good Devon blood, for that county was then ahead of all England in its enterprise, and its seamanship; and no captain of name or repute ever had any difficulty in getting together a band of adventurers, from the sturdy population of her shores. "I went over myself, last week," said a finely-built young sailor, "and I prayed the captain, on my knees, to take me on board; but he said the tale had been full, long ago; and that so many were the applicants that Master Drake and himself had sworn a great oath, that they would take none beyond those already engaged." "Aye! I would have gone myself," said a grizzly, weatherbeaten old sailor, "if they would have had me. There was Will Trelawney, who went on such another expedition as this, and came back with more bags of Spanish dollars than he could carry. Truly they are a gold mine, these Western seas; but even better than getting gold is the thrashing of those haughty Spaniards, who seem to look upon themselves as gods, and on all others as fit only to clean their worships' boots." "They cannot fight neither, can they?" asked a young sailor. "They can fight, boy, and have fought as well as we could; but, somehow, they cannot stand against us, in those seas. Whether it is that the curse of the poor natives, whom they kill, enslave, and ill treat in every way, rises against them, and takes away their courage and their nerve; but certain is it that, when our little craft lay alongside their big galleons, fight as they will, the battle is as good as over. Nothing less than four to one, at the very least, has any chance against our buccaneers." "They ill treat those that fall into their hands, do they not?" "Ay, do they!" said the old sailor. "They tear off their flesh with hot pincers, wrench out their nails, and play all sorts of devil's games; and then, at last, they burn what is left of them in the marketplaces. I have heard tell of fearsome tales, lad; but the Spaniards outwit themselves. Were our men to have fair treatment as prisoners of war, it may be that the Spaniards would often be able to hold their own against us; but the knowledge that, if we are taken, this horrible fate is certain to be ours, makes our men fight with a desperate fury; and never to give in, as long as one is left. This it is that accounts for the wonderful victories which we have gained there. He would be a coward, indeed, who would not fight with thumbscrews and a bonfire behind him." "It is said that the queen and her ministers favor, though not openly, these adventures." "She cannot do it openly," said the old man, "for here in Europe we are at peace with Spain--worse luck." "How is it, then, that if we are at peace here, we can be at war in the Indian Seas?" "That is more than I can tell thee, lad. I guess the queen's writ runs not so far as that; and while her majesty's commands must be obeyed, and the Spanish flag suffered to pass unchallenged, on these seas; on the Spanish main there are none to keep the peace, and the Don and the Englishman go at each other's throats, as a thing of nature." "The storm is rising, methinks. It is not often I have heard the wind howl more loudly. It is well that the adventurers have not yet started. It would be bad for any craft caught in the Channel, today." As he spoke, he looked from the casement. Several people were seen hurrying towards the beach. "Something is the matter, lads; maybe a ship is driving on the rocks, even now." Seizing their hats and cloaks, the party sallied out, and hurried down to the shore. There they saw a large ship, driving in before the wind into the bay. She was making every effort that seamanship could suggest, to beat clear of the head; but the sailors saw, at once, that her case was hopeless. "She will go on the Black Shoal, to a certainty," the old sailor said; "and then, may God have mercy on their souls." "Can we do nothing to help them?" a woman standing near asked. "No, no," the sailor said; "we could not launch a boat, in the teeth of this tremendous sea. All we can do is to look out, and throw a line to any who may be washed ashore, on a spar, when she goes to pieces." Presently a group of men, whose dress belonged to the upper class, moved down through the street to the beach. "Aye! there is Mr. Trevelyan," said the sailor, "and the gentleman beside him is Captain Drake, himself." The group moved on to where the fishermen were standing. "Is there no hope," they asked, "of helping the ship?" The seamen shook their heads. "You will see for yourself, Master Drake, that no boat could live in such a sea as this." "It could not put out from here," the Captain said; "but if they could lower one from the ship, it might live until it got into the breakers." "Aye, aye," said a sailor; "but there is no lowering a boat from a ship which has begun to beat on the Black Shoal." "Another minute and she will strike," the old sailor said. All gazed intently at the ship. The whole population of the village were now on the shore, and were eager to render any assistance, if it were possible. In another minute or two, a general cry announced that the ship had struck. Rising high on a wave, she came down with a force which caused her mainmast at once to go over the side. Another lift on the next sea and then, high and fast, she was jammed on the rocks of the Black Shoal. The distance from shore was but small, not more than three hundred yards, and the shouts of the sailors on board could be heard in the storm. "Why does not one of them jump over, with a rope?" Captain Drake said, impatiently. "Are the men all cowards, or can none of them swim? It would be easy to swim from that ship to the shore, while it is next to impossible for anyone to make his way out, through these breakers. "Is there no one who can reach her from here?" he said, looking round. "No one among us, your honor," the old sailor said. "Few here can keep themselves up in the water, in a calm sea; but if man or boy could swim through that surf, it is the lad who is just coming down from behind us. The Otter, as we call him, for he seems to be able to live, in water, as well as on land." The lad of whom they were speaking was a bright-faced boy, of some fifteen years of age. He was squarely built, and his dress differed a little from that of the fisher lads standing on the beach. "Who is he?" asked Captain Drake. "He is the son of the schoolmaster here, a learned man, and they do say one who was once wealthy. The lad himself would fain go to sea, but his father keeps him here. It is a pity, for he is a bold boy, and would make a fine sailor." The Otter, as he had been called, had now come down to the beach; and, with his hands shading his eyes from the spray, sheets of which the wind carried along with blinding force, he gazed at the ship and the sea, with a steady intentness. "I think I can get out to her," he said, to the fishermen. "It is madness, boy," Captain Drake said. "There are few men, indeed, so far as I know, in these climes--I talk not of the heathens of the Western Islands--who could swim through a breaking sea, like yonder." "I think I can do it," the boy said, quietly. "I have been out in as heavy seas before, and if one does but choose one's time, and humor them a bit, the waves are not much to be feared, after all. "Get me the light line," he said, to the sailors, "and I will be off, at once." So saying, he carelessly threw off his clothes. The fishermen brought a light line. One end they fastened round his shoulders and, with a cheerful goodbye, he ran down to the water's edge. The sea was breaking with tremendous violence, and the chance of the lad's getting out, through the breakers, appeared slight, indeed. He watched, however, quietly for three or four minutes, when a wave larger than usual broke on the beach. Following it out, he stood knee deep, till the next great wave advanced; then, with a plunge, he dived in beneath it. It seemed an age before he was again seen, and Captain Drake expressed his fear that his head must have been dashed against a rock, beneath the water. But the men said: "He dives like a duck, sir, and has often frighted us by the time he keeps under water. You will see, he will come up beyond the second line of waves." It seemed an age, to the watchers, before a black spot appeared suddenly, beyond the foaming line of breakers. There was a general shout of "There he is!" But they had scarce time to note the position of the swimmer, when he again disappeared. Again and again he came up, each time rapidly decreasing the distance between himself and the shipwrecked vessel; and keeping his head above the waves for a few seconds, only, at each appearance. The people in the vessel were watching the progress of the lad, with attention and interest even greater than was manifested by those on shore; and as he approached the ship, which already showed signs of breaking up, a line was thrown to him. He caught it, but instead of holding on and being lifted to the ship, he fastened the light rope which he had brought out to it, and made signs to them to haul. "Fasten a thicker rope to it," he shouted, "and they will haul it in, from the shore." It would have been no easy matter to get on board the ship; so, having done his work, the lad turned to make his way back to the shore. A thick rope was fastened, at once, by those of the crew who still remained on the deck of the vessel, to the lighter one; and those on shore began to pull it rapidly in; but, ere the knotted joint reached the shore, a cry from all gathered on the beach showed that the brave attempt of the Otter had been useless. A tremendous sea had struck the ship, and in a moment it broke up; and a number of floating fragments, alone, showed where a fine vessel had, a few minutes before, floated on the sea. The lad paused in his course towards the shore and, looking round, endeavored to face the driving wind and spray; in hopes that he might see, among the fragments of the wreck, some one to whom his assistance might be of use. For a time, he could see no signs of a human being among the floating masses of wreck; and indeed, he was obliged to use great caution in keeping away from these, as a blow from any of the larger spars might have been fatal. Presently, close to him, he heard a short muffled bark; and, looking round, saw a large dog with a child in its mouth. The animal, which was of the mastiff breed, appeared already exhausted. The Otter looked hastily round and, seeing a piece of wreck of suitable size, he seized it, and with some difficulty succeeded in bringing it close to the dog. Fortunately the spar was a portion of one of the yards, and still had a quantity of rope connected to it. He now took hold of the child's clothes, the dog readily yielding up the treasure he had carried, seeing that the newcomer was likely to afford better assistance than himself. In a few moments the child was fastened to the spar, and the Otter began steadily to push it towards the shore; the dog swimming alongside, evidently much relieved at getting rid of his burden. When he neared the line of breakers the lad waved his hand, as a sign to them to prepare to rush forward, and lend a hand, when the spar approached. He then paddled forward quietly and, keeping just outside the line of the breakers, waved to those on shore to throw, if possible, a rope. Several attempts were made to hurl a stone, fastened to the end of a light line, within his reach. After many failures, he at last caught the line. This he fastened to the spar, and signaled to those on shore to pull it in; then, side by side with the dog, he followed. Looking round behind him, he watched a great breaker rolling in and, as before, dived as it passed over his head, and rode forward on the swell towards the shore. Then there was a desperate struggle. At one moment his feet touched the ground, at another he was hauled back and tossed into the whirling sea; sometimes almost losing his consciousness, but ever keeping his head cool, and striving steadily to make progress. Several times he was dashed against the beach with great force, and it was his knowledge that the only safe way of approaching shore, through a heavy surf, is to keep sideways to the waves, and allow them to roll one over and over, that he escaped death--for, had he advanced straight towards the shore, the force of the waves would have rolled him heels-over-head, and would almost certainly have broken his neck. At last, just as consciousness was leaving him, and he thought that he could struggle no more, a hand grasped his arm. The fishermen, joining hand in hand, had gone down into the surf; and after many ineffectual efforts, had at last seized him, as a retiring wave was carrying him out again, for the fifth time. With the consciousness of rescue all feeling left him, and it was some minutes before he recovered his senses. His first question was for the safety of the child on the spar, and he was glad to hear that it had come to shore without hurt. The dog, too, had been rolled up the beach, and seized before taken off again, but had broken one of its legs. The Otter was soon on his feet again and, saying, "I must make my way home, they will be alarmed about me," was about to turn away, when a group of gentlemen standing near advanced. "You are a fine lad," one of them said to him. "A fine lad, and an honor to the south of Devonshire. My name is Francis Drake, and if there be aught that I can do for you, now or hereafter, I shall be glad, indeed, to do my utmost for so gallant a youth as yourself." "Oh, sir!" the boy exclaimed, his cheek flushing with excitement. "If you are Master Francis Drake, will you let me join your ship, for the voyage to the Indies?" "Ah! my boy," the gentleman said, "you have asked the only thing, perhaps, which I should feel obliged to refuse you. Already we have more than our number, and to avoid the importunity of the many who wish to go, or of my powerful friends who desired to place sons or relations in my charge, I have been obliged to swear that I would take no other sailor, in addition to those already shipped. "You are, however, young," he said, as he marked the change in the boy's face; "and I promise you that if I come back, and again sail on an expedition like that on which I now start, that you shall be one of my crew. What is your name, lad? I hear them call you Otter, and truly the beast is no better swimmer than you are." "My name, sir, is Ned Hearne. My father is the schoolmaster here." "Will he consent, think you, to your taking to a seafaring life?" "Methinks he will, sir. He knows that my heart is set upon it, for he hath often said if I loved my lessons with one-tenth of the love I bear for the sea, I should make a good scholar, and be a credit to him." "I will not forget you, lad. Trust me, and when you hear of my return, fail not to send a reminder, and to claim a place in my next adventure." Ned Hearne, delighted at the assurance, ran off at full speed to the cottage where his father resided, at the end of the village. The dominie, who was an old man, wore the huge tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles of the time. "Wet again," he said, as his son burst into the room in which he was sitting, studying a Greek tome. "Truly thou earnest the name of which thou art so proud, Otter, hardly. What tempted thee to go into the water, on a day like this?" Ned briefly explained what had taken place. The story was no unusual one, for this was the third time that he had swum out to vessels on the rocks between Westport and Plymouth. Then he related to his father how Captain Francis Drake had spoken to him, and praised him, and how he had promised that, on his next trip to the West Indies, he would take him with him. "I would not have you count too much upon that," the dominie said, dryly. "It is like, indeed, that he may never come back from this hare-brain adventure; and if he brings home his skin safe, he will, methinks, have had enough of burning in the sun, and fighting the Spaniards." "But hath he not already made two or three voyages thither, Father?" the boy asked. "That is true enough," said his father; "but from what I gather, these were mere trips to spy out the land. This affair on which he starts now will be, I wot, a very different matter." "How is it, Father," the boy said on the following morning, resuming the conversation from the point which they were at when he went up to change his wet clothes, the day before, "that when England is at peace with Spain, our sailors and the Spanish do fight bloodily, in the West Indies?" "That, my son, is a point upon which the Roman law telleth us nothing. I have, in my shelves, some very learned treatises on war; but in none do I find mention of a state of things in which two powers, at peace at home, do fight desperately at the extreme end of the earth." "But, Father, do you think it not lawful to kill the Spaniard, and to take the treasures which he robbeth from the poor heathen of the West?" "I know not about lawful, my son, but I see no warrant whatsoever for it; and as for heathen, indeed, it appears to me that the attacks upon him do touch, very closely, upon piracy upon the high seas. However, as the country in general appeareth to approve of it, and as it is said that the queen's most gracious majesty doth gladly hear of the beating of the Spaniards, in those seas, it becometh not me to question the rights of the case." "At any rate, Father, you would not object when the time comes for me to sail with Mr. Francis Drake?" "No, my boy; thou hast never shown any aptitude whatever for learning. Thou canst read and write, but beyond that thy knowledge runneth not. Your mind seems to be set on the water, and when you are not in it you are on it. Therefore it appears, to me, to be flying in the face of Providence to try to keep you on shore. Had your poor mother lived, it would have been a different thing. Her mind was set upon your becoming a clerk; but there, one might as well try to make a silk purse from the ear of a sow. But I tell you again, count not too much upon this promise. It may be years before Mr. Francis Drake may be in a position to keep it." Had Ned Hearne watched for Captain Drake's second voyage, he would, indeed, as his father had said, have waited long. Three days after the conversation, however, a horseman from Plymouth rode into the little village, and inquired for the house of Master Hearne. Being directed thither, he rode up in haste to the gate. "Here is a letter!" he cried, "for the son of the schoolmaster, who goes by the name of the Otter." "I am he," Ned cried. "What is it, and who can have written to me?" "It is a letter from His Honor, the Worshipful Mr. Francis Drake." Seizing the letter, Ned broke the seal, read a few lines, threw his cap into the air with a shout of joy, and rushed in to his father. "Father," he said, "Captain Drake has written to acquaint me that one of the boys in his ship has been taken ill, and cannot go; and that it has pleased him to appoint me to go in his place; and that I am to be at Plymouth in three days, at the utmost, bringing with me what gear I may require for the expedition." The schoolmaster was a little taken aback at this sudden prospect of departure, but he had always been wholly indulgent to his son, and it was not in his nature to refuse to allow him to avail himself of an opportunity which appeared to be an excellent one. The danger of these expeditions was, no doubt, very great; but the spoils were in proportion, and there was not a boy or man of the seafaring population of Devon who would not gladly have gone with the adventurous captains. Chapter 2: Friends and Foes. Three days after the receipt of the letter, Ned Hearne stood with his bundle on the quay at Plymouth. Near him lay a large rowboat from the ships, waiting to take off the last comers. A little way behind, Captain Francis Drake and his brother, Captain John Drake, talked with the notable people of Plymouth, who had come down to bid them farewell; the more since this was a holiday, being Whitsun Eve, the 24th May, and all in the town who could spare time had made their way down to the Hove to watch the departure of the expedition; for none could say how famous this might become, or how great deeds would be accomplished by the two little craft lying there. Each looker on thought to himself that it might be that, to the end of his life, he should tell his children and his children's children, with pride, "I saw Mr. Drake start for his great voyage." Small, indeed, did the fleet appear, in comparison to the work which it had to do. It was composed of but two vessels. The first, the Pacha, of seventy tons, carrying forty-seven men and boys, was commanded by Captain Francis Drake himself. By her side was the Swanne, of twenty-five tons, carrying twenty-six men and boys, and commanded by Captain John Drake. This was truly but a small affair to undertake so great a voyage. In those days the Spaniards were masters of the whole of South America, and of the Isles of the West Indies. They had many very large towns full of troops, and great fleets armed to carry the treasure which was collected there to Spain. It did seem almost like an act of madness that two vessels, which by the side of those of the Spaniards were mere cockleshells, manned in all by less than eighty men, should attempt to enter a region where they would be regarded, and rightly, as enemies, and where the hand of every man would be against them. Captain Drake and his men thought little of these things. The success which had attended their predecessors had inspired the English sailors with a belief in their own invincibility, when opposed to the Spaniards. They looked, to a certain extent, upon their mission as a crusade. In those days England had a horror of Popery, and Spain was the mainstay and supporter of this religion. The escape which England had had of having Popery forced upon it, during the reign of Mary, by her spouse, Philip of Spain, had been a narrow one; and even now, it was by no means certain that Spain would not, sooner or later, endeavor to carry out the pretensions of the late queen's husband. Then, too, terrible tales had come of the sufferings of the Indians at the hands of the Spaniards; and it was certain that the English sailors who had fallen into the hands of Spain had been put to death, with horrible cruelty. Thus, then, the English sailors regarded the Spaniards as the enemy of their country, as the enemy of their religion, and as the enemy of humanity. Besides which, it cannot be denied that they viewed them as rich men, well worth plundering; and although, when it came to fighting, it is probable that hatred overbore the thought of gain, it is certain that the desire for gold was, in itself, the main incentive to those who sailed upon these expeditions. Amid the cheers of the townsfolk the boats pushed off, Mr. Francis Drake and his brother waving their plumed hats to the burghers of Plymouth, and the sailors giving a hurrah, as they bent to the oars. Ned Hearne, who had received a kind word of greeting from Mr. Drake, had taken his place in the bow of one of the boats, lost in admiration at the scene; and at the thought that he was one of this band of heroes, who were going out to fight the Spaniards, and to return laden with countless treasure wrested from them. At the thought his eyes sparkled, his blood seemed to dance through his veins. The western main, in those days, was a name almost of enchantment. Such strange tales had been brought home, by the voyagers who had navigated those seas, of the wonderful trees, the bright birds, the beauties of nature, the gold and silver, and the abundance of all precious things, that it was the dream of every youngster on the seaboard some day to penetrate to these charmed regions. A week since, and the realization of the dream had appeared beyond his wildest hopes. Now, almost with the suddenness of a transformation scene, this had changed; and there was he on his way out to the Swanne, a part of the expedition itself. It was to the Swanne that he had been allotted, for it was on board that ship that the boy whose place he was to take had been seized with illness. Although but twenty-five tons in burden, the Swanne made a far greater show than would be made by a craft of that size in the present day. The ships of the time lay but lightly on the water, while their hulls were carried up to a prodigious height; and it is not too much to say that the portion of the Swanne, above water, was fully as large as the hull which we see of a merchantman of four times her tonnage. Still, even so, it was but a tiny craft to cross the Atlantic, and former voyages had been generally made in larger ships. Mr. Francis Drake, however, knew what he was about. He considered that large ships required large crews to be left behind to defend them, that they drew more water, and were less handy; and he resolved, in this expedition, he would do no small part of his work with pinnaces and rowboats; and of these he had three fine craft, now lying in pieces in his hold, ready to fit together on arriving in the Indies. As they neared the ships the two boats separated, and Ned soon found himself alongside of the Swanne. A ladder hung at her side, and up this Ned followed his captain; for in those days the strict etiquette that the highest goes last had not been instituted. "Master Holyoake," said Mr. John Drake, to a big and powerful-looking man standing near, "this is the new lad, whose skill in swimming, and whose courage, I told you of yesternight. He will, I doubt not, be found as willing as he is brave; and I trust that you will put him in the way of learning his business as a sailor. It is his first voyage. He comes on board a green hand, but I doubt not that, ere the voyage be finished, he will have become a smart young sailor." "I will put him through," John Holyoake, sailing master of the ship, replied; for in those days the sailing master was the navigator of the ship, and the captain was as often as not a soldier, who knew nothing whatever about seamanship. The one sailed the ship, the other fought it; and the admirals were, in those days, more frequently known as generals, and held that position on shore. As Ned looked round the deck, he thought that he had never seen a finer set of sailors. All were picked men, hardy and experienced, and for the most part young. Some had made previous voyages to the West Indies, but the greater portion were new to that country. They looked the men on whom a captain could rely, to the last. Tall and stalwart, bronzed with the sun, and with a reckless and fearless expression about them, which boded ill to any foes upon whom they might fall. Although Ned had never been to sea on a long voyage, he had sailed too often in the fishing boats of his native village to have any qualm of seasickness, or to feel in any degree like a new hand. He was, therefore, at once assigned to a place and duty. An hour later the admiral, as Mr. Francis Drake was called, fired a gun, the two vessels hoisted their broad sails and turned their heads from shore, and the crews of both ships gave a parting cheer, as they turned their faces to the south. As Ned was not in the slightest degree either homesick or seasick, he at once fell to work, laughing and joking with the other boys, of whom there were three on board. He found that their duties consisted of bearing messages, of hauling any rope to which they were told to fix themselves, and in receiving, with as good a face as might be, the various orders, to say nothing of the various kicks, which might be bestowed upon them by all on board. At the same time their cheerful countenances showed that these things which, when told, sounded a little terrible, were in truth in no way serious. Ned was first shown where he was to sling his hammock, and how; where he was to get his food; and under whose orders he was specially to consider himself; the master, for the present, taking him under his own charge. For the next ten days, as the vessel sailed calmly along, with a favoring wind, Ned had learned all the names of the ropes and sails, and their uses; could climb aloft, and do his share of the work of the ship; and if not yet a skilled sailor, was at least on the high road to become one. The master was pleased at his willingness and eagerness to oblige, and he soon became a great favorite of his. Between the four boys on the ship a good feeling existed. All had been chosen as a special favor, upon the recommendation of one or other of those in authority. Each of them had made up his mind that, one of these days, he, too, would command an expedition to the West Indies. Each thought of the glory which he would attain; and although, in the hearts of many of the elder men in the expedition, the substantial benefits to be reaped stood higher than any ideas of glory or honor; to the lads, at least, pecuniary gain exercised no inducement whatever. They burned to see the strange country, and to gain some of the credit and glory which would, if the voyage was successful, attach to each member of the crew. All were full of fun, and took what came to them, in the way of work, so good temperedly and cheerfully, that the men soon ceased to give them work for work's sake. They were, too, a strong and well-built group of boys. Ned was by a full year the youngest, and by nigh a head the shortest of them; but his broad shoulders and sturdy build, and the strength acquired by long practice in swimming and rowing, made him their equal. There were, however, no quarrels among them, and their strength they agreed to use in alliance, if need be, should any of the crew make a dead set at one or other of them; for even in an expedition like this there must be some brutal, as well as many brave men. There were assuredly two or three, at least, of those on board the Swanne who might well be called brutal. They were for the most part old hands, who had lived on board ship half their lives, had taken part in the slave traffic of Captain Hawkins, and in the buccaneering exploits of the earlier commanders. To them the voyage was one in which the lust of gold was the sole stimulant; and, accustomed to deeds of bloodshed, what feelings they ever had had become utterly blunted, and they needed but the power to become despotic and brutal masters. The chief among these was Giles Taunton, the armorer He was a swarthy ruffian, who hid, beneath the guise of a jovial bonhomie, a cruel and unfeeling nature. He was ever ready to cuff and beat the boys, on the smallest provocation. They soon gathered together, in a sort of defensive league, against their common oppressors. All four were high-spirited lads. The other three, indeed, were sons of men of substance in Devon, whose fathers had lent funds to Captain Drake for the carrying out of his great enterprise. They therefore looked but ill on the kicks and curses which, occasionally, fell to their lot. One day they gathered together round the bowsprit, and talked over what they should do. Gerald Summers, the eldest of the party, proposed that they should go in a body to Captain Drake, and complain of the tyranny to which they were subject. After some talk, however, all agreed that such a course as this would lower them in the estimation of the men, and that it would be better to put up with the ill treatment than, to get the name of tell tales. Ned then said to the others: "It seems to me that, if we do but hold together, we need not be afraid of this big bully. If we all declare to each other and swear that, the first time he strikes one of us, we will all set upon him; my faith on it, we shall be able to master him, big as he is. We are all of good size, and in two years will think ourselves men; therefore it would be shame, indeed, if the four of us could not master one, however big and sturdy he may be." After much consultation, it was agreed that this course should be adopted; and the next day, as Reuben Gale was passing by Giles, he turned round and struck him on the head with a broom. The boy gave a long whistle, and in a moment, to the astonishment of the armorer, the other three lads rushed up, and at once assailed him with fury. Astonished at such an attack, he struck out at them with many strange oaths. Gerald he knocked down, but Ned leaped on his back from behind, and the other two, closing with him, rolled him on to the deck; then, despite of his efforts, they pummeled him until his face was swollen and bruised, and his eyes nearly closed. Some of the men of his own sort, standing by, would fain have interfered; but the better disposed of the crew, who had seen, with disgust, the conduct of the armorer and his mates to the boys, held them back, and said that none should come between. Just as the boys drew off, and allowed the furious armorer to rise to his feet, Captain John Drake, attracted by the unusual noise, came from his cabin. "What is this?" he asked. "These young wild cats have leapt upon me," said Giles Taunton furiously, "and have beaten me nigh to death. But I will have my turn. They will see, and bitterly shall they have cause to regret what they have done." "We have been driven almost weary of our lives, sir, with the foul and rough conduct of this man, and of some of his mates," Gerald said. "We did not like to come to tell you of it, and to gain the name of carry tales; but we had resolved among ourselves at last that, whoever struck one of us, the whole should set upon him. Today we have carried it out, and we have shown Giles Taunton that we are more than a match for one man, at any rate." "Four good-sized dogs, if they are well managed," said Captain John Drake, "will pull down a lion; and the best thing that the lion can do is to leave them alone. "I am sorry to hear, Master Taunton, that you have chosen to mistreat these lads; who are, indeed, the sons of worthy men, and are not the common kind of ship boys. I am sure that my brother would not brook such conduct, and I warn you that, if any complaint again on this head reaches me, I shall lay it before him." With angry mutterings, the armorer went below. "We have earned a bitter foe," Ned said to his friends, "and we had best keep our eyes well open. There is very little of the lion about Master Taunton. He is strong, indeed; but if it be true that the lion has a noble heart, and fights his foes openly, methinks he resembles rather the tiger, who is prone to leap suddenly upon his enemies." "Yes, indeed, he looked dark enough," Gerald said, "as he went below; and if looks could have killed us, we should not be standing here alive, at present." "It is not force that we need fear now, but that he will do us some foul turn; at all events, we are now forewarned, and if he plays us a scurvy trick it will be our own faults." For several days the voyage went on quietly, and without adventure. They passed at a distance the Portuguese Isle of Madeira, lying like a cloud on the sea. The weather now had become warm and very fair, a steady wind blew, and the two barks kept along at a good pace. All sorts of creatures, strange to the boys, were to be seen in the sea. Sometimes there was a spout of a distant whale. Thousands of flying fish darted from the water, driven thence by the pursuit of their enemies beneath; while huge flocks of gulls and other birds hovered over the sea, chasing the flying fish, or pouncing down upon the shoals of small fry; whose splashings whitened the surface of the water, as if a sandbank had laid below it. Gradually, as the time went on, the heat increased. Many of the crew found themselves unable to sleep below, for in those days there was but little thought of ventilation. The boys were among these, for the heat and the confinement were, to them, especially irksome. One day the wind had fallen almost to a calm, and the small boat had been lowered, to enable the carpenter to do some repair to the ship's side, where a seam leaked somewhat, when the waves were high. When night came on, and all was quiet, Ned proposed to the others that they should slip down the rope over the stern into the boat which was towing behind; where they could sleep undisturbed by the tramp of the sentry, or the call to pull at ropes and trim sails. The idea was considered a capital one, and the boys slid down into the boat; where, taking up their quarters as comfortably as they could, they, after a short chat, curled themselves up and were soon sound asleep, intending to be on board again, with the earliest gleam of morn. When they awoke, however, it was with a start and a cry. The sun was already high, but there were no signs whatever of the ship; they floated, alone, in the mid-ocean. With blank amazement they looked at each other. "This is a stroke of misfortune, indeed," Gerald said. "We have lost the ship, and I fear our lives, as well. "What do you say, Otter?" For the lad's nickname had come on board ship with him, and he was generally known by it. "It seems to me," said Ned, "that our friend the armorer has done us this bad turn. I am sure that the rope was well tied, for I was the first who slipped down it, and I looked at the knot well, before I went over the side and trusted my weight to it. He must have seen us, and as soon as he thought we were fairly asleep must have loosened the knot and cast us adrift. What on earth is to be done, now?" "I should think," Gerald said, "that it will not be long before the ship comes back for us. The boat is sure to be missed, in the morning, for the carpenter will be wanting it to go over the side. We, too, will be missed, for the captain will be wanting his flagon of wine, soon after the day has dawned." "But think you," Tom Tressilis said, "that the captain will turn back on his voyage, for us?" "Of that I think there is no doubt," Gerald said; "the only question is as to the finding us, but I should say that of that there is little fear; the wind is light, the ship was not making fast through the water, and will not be more than fifty miles, at most, away, when she turns on her heel and comes to look for us. I expect that Master Taunton knew, well enough, that we should be picked up again; but he guessed that the admiral would not be pleased at losing a day, by our freak, and that the matter is not likely to improve the favor in which we may stand with him and his brother." "It is going to be a terrible hot day," Ned said, "and with the sun above our heads and no shade, and not so much as a drop of water, the sooner we are picked up the more pleasant it will be, even if we all get a touch of the rope's end for our exploit." All day the boys watched anxiously. Once they saw the two vessels sailing backward on their track, but the current had drifted the boat, and the ships passed fully eight miles away to windward of them, and thus without seeing them. This caused the boys, courageous as they were, almost to despair. "If," argued Gerald, "they pass us in the daylight, our chance is small, indeed, that they will find us at night. They will, doubtless, sail back till dusk; and then judge that they have missed us, or that we have in some way sunk; then, putting their heads to the west, they will continue their voyage. "If we had oars, or a sail, we might make a shift to pull the boat into the track they are following, which would give us a chance of being picked up when they again turn west; but as we have neither one nor the other, we are helpless, indeed." "I do not think," Ned said, "that Captain John or his brother are the men to leave us, without a great effort; and methinks that, when they have sailed over the ground to the point where, at the utmost, we must have parted from them, they will lay by through the night, and search back again, tomorrow." And so it proved. On the morrow, about midday, the boys beheld one of the ships coming up, nearly in a line behind them; while the other, some six miles away to leeward, was keeping abreast of her. "They are quartering the ground, like hounds," Gerald said; "and, thanks to their care and thoughtfulness, we are saved, this time." By the time that, three hours later, the ship, which was the Pacha, came alongside, the boys were suffering terribly from the heat and thirst; for thirty-six hours no drop of water had passed their lips, and the sun had blazed down upon them with terrible force. Therefore when the vessel hauled her course, and laid by for a boat to be lowered to pick them up, their plight was so bad a one that Captain Francis, although sorely vexed at having lost near two days of his voyage, yet felt that they had been amply punished for their escapade. Chapter 3: On the Spanish Main. The four boys, upon gaining the Pacha's deck, were taken below; and after drink and food had been given them, were called to the captain's cabin. He spoke to them gravely, and inquired how it was that they had all got adrift, together. They told him the circumstances, and said that they thought there was no chance of any mishap occurring; the knot was well fastened, the night was calm, and though they regretted much the pains and trouble which they had given, and the delay to which they had put the fleet, yet it did not appear to them, they said frankly, that they had been so very much to blame, as they could hardly have believed that the boat would have broken afloat; and indeed, Ned said plainly, they believed that it was not the result of chance, but that an enemy had done them an evil turn. "Why think you so?" Captain Drake said sharply. "How can boys like you have an enemy?" Gerald then detailed the account of their trouble with Master Taunton. "He is a rough man," Captain Drake said, "and a violent man, maybe, but he is useful and brave. However, I will have reason with him. Of course it is a mere suspicion, but I will speak to my brother." When the boat had first come in sight, the Pacha had made the signal to the Swanne that the boys were found, and that she was to keep her course, drawing gradually alongside. Before dark the vessels were within hailing distance, and Captain Drake, lowering a boat, went himself on board the Swanne with the four lads. Captain John was at the top of the ladder, and was about to rate them soundly. Captain Francis said, "Let us talk together, John, first;" and he repaired with him to his cabin, while the crew swarmed round the boys, to gather an account of how they got adrift. Then Captain John appeared at the door of his cabin, and called for Master Taunton, who went in and remained, for some time, in converse with the two captains. Then he came out, looking surly and black, and Captain Francis soon after issued out with his brother, walked round the ship, said a few cheery words to all the crew; and, with a parting laugh and word of advice to the boys, to be more careful where they slept in future, descended the side and went off to his ship again. Opinions were much mingled, on board the Swanne, as to whether the slipping of the knot had been the effect of accident or of an evil turn; however, the boys said little about it, and endeavored, so far as might be, to let it pass as an accident. They felt that the matter between themselves and Master Taunton had already gone too far for their safety and comfort. They doubted not that he had been reprimanded by the admiral, as well as by Captain John, and that they had earned his hatred; which, although it might slumber for a while, was likely to show itself again, when a chance might occur. Not wishing to inflame farther his fury against them, they abstained from giving such a complexion to their tale as might seem to cast a suspicion upon him. Nevertheless there was a strong feeling, amongst many of the crew, that Master Taunton must have had a hand in the casting adrift of the boys; or that if he did not himself do it, it had been done by one of the party who always worked with him. Whatever the feelings of Giles Taunton might be, he kept them to himself. He now never interfered with the boys, by word or deed, working sullenly and quietly at his craft as armorer The boys felt their lives much lightened thereby, and now thoroughly enjoyed the voyage. Although as boys it was not a part of their duty to go aloft, which was done by the regular sailors who were hired for the purpose, yet they spent no small part of their time, when not engaged--and their duties truly were but nominal--in going aloft, sliding down the ropes, and learning to be thoroughly at home among the sails. Every day, too, there would be practices with arms. It was of the utmost importance that each man should be able to use sword and axe with the greatest skill; and on board each ship those who were best skilled would exercise and give lessons to those who were less practiced with their arms; and, using wooden clubs in place of boarding axes, they would much belabor each other, to the amusement of the lookers on. The boys were most assiduous at this kind of work. It was their highest ambition to become good swordsmen, and to have a chance of distinguishing themselves against the Spaniards; and so they practiced diligently, with point and edge. The knowledge of singlestick and quarterstaff still lingered, in the country parts of England. They had all already some skill with these, and picked up fast the use of the heavier, and more manly arms. It was the end of July before they sighted land. Great was the delight of all; for, cooped up in what were after all but narrow quarters, they longed for a sight of the green and beautiful forests, of which they had heard so much. They were still far from the destination which the admiral had marked as his base of operations. They cruised along for days, with the land often in sight, but keeping for the most part a long distance out; for they feared that the knowledge of their coming might be carried, by the natives, to the Spaniards in the towns; and that such preparations might be made as would render their journey fruitless. Near, however, to some of the smaller islands, which were known to be uninhabited by Spaniards, the vessels went closely, and one day dropped anchor in a bay. They observed some natives on the shore, but the white men had so bad a name, caused by the cruelty of the Spaniards, that these withdrew hastily from sight. The captain, however, had a boat lowered; which, pulling towards shore, and waving a white flag in token of amity, met with no resistance. There were on board some who could speak Spanish, and one of these shouted aloud to the Indians to have no fear, for that they were friends, and haters of the Spaniards; whereupon the natives came out from the woods, and greeted them. They were a fine race of men, but gentle and timid in their demeanor They were copper in color, and wore headdresses of bright feathers, but the men had but little other clothing; of which, indeed, in such a climate, there is but slight necessity. In exchange for some trifles from the ship they brought many baskets of fruits, such as none of those who had fresh come from England had ever before seen. Great was the joy on board ship, especially among the four boys, at the profusion of strange fruits; and they were seen, seated together, eating pineapples, bananas, and many other things of which they knew not so much as the name, but which they found delicious, indeed, after so long a voyage upon salted food. Then, sailing on, they dropped anchor in the bay which Captain Drake had himself christened, during his last voyage, Port Pheasant; for they had killed many of this kind of bird there. Here the admiral purposed waiting for a while, to refresh the crews and to put the pinnaces together. Accordingly the anchors were put out, and all was made snug. A boat's crew was sent on shore to see that all was safe, for there was no saying where the Spaniards might be lurking. They returned with a great plate of lead, which they had found fastened to a tree, close to the water's edge. Upon it were these words: "Captain Drake, if it is your fortune to come into this part, make haste away; for the Spaniards which were with you here, last year, have betrayed the place; and taken away all that you left here. I departed hence on this present 7th July, 1572. Your very loving friend, John Garrett." "I would I had been here a few days earlier," Captain Drake said, when he read this notice, "for John Garrett would assuredly have joined us, and his aid would have been no slight assistance in the matter in which we are about to engage. However, it will not do to despise his caution; therefore, lest we be attacked while on shore by the Spaniards, we will even make a fort; and we shall be able to unload our stores, and put our pinnaces together, without fear of interruption." The crew were now landed; and set to work, with hatchet and bill, to clear a plot of ground. Three quarters of an acre was, after three days' work, cleared; and the trees were cast outwards, and piled together in such form as to make a sort of wall, 30 feet high, round it. This hard work done, most of the crew were allowed a little liberty; the carpenters, and experienced artificers, being engaged in putting the three pinnaces together. The boys, in pairs, for all could never obtain leave together, rambled in the woods, full of admiration for the beauties of nature. Huge butterflies flitted about upon the brilliant flowers. Long trailing creepers, rich with blossom, hung on the trees. Here and there, as they passed along, snakes slipped away among the undergrowth; and these, in truth, the boys were as ready to leave alone as the reptiles were to avoid them, for they were told that it was certain death to be bitten by these creatures. Most of all the boys admired the little birds, which indeed it was hard for them to believe not to be butterflies, so small were they, so rapid their movements, and so brilliant their color. On the 7th day from landing the pinnaces were finished; and, the vessels being anchored near the shore, the crews went on board for the last time, preparatory to making their start the next day. There was one tall and bright-faced sailor with whom the boys had struck up a great friendship. He had sailed before with Captain Drake; and as the evening was cool, and there was naught to do, they begged him to tell them of his former visits in the Caribbean Seas. "My first," he said, "was the worst, and might well have been my last. Captain John Hawkins was our captain, a bold man and a good sailor; but not gentle as well as brave, as is our good Captain Francis. Our fleet was a strong one. The admiral's ship, the Jesus, of Lubeck, was 700 tons. Then there were the smaller craft; the Minion, Captain Hampton, in which I myself sailed; the William and John of Captain Boulton; the Judith with Captain Francis Drake; and two little ships, besides. We sailed later in the year. It was the 2nd October, five years back; that is, 1567. We started badly, for a storm struck us off Finisterre, the ships separated, and some boats were lost. "We came together at Cape de Verde, and there we tried to get slaves; for it was part of the object of our voyage to buy slaves on the coast of Africa, and sell them to the Spaniards, here. It was a traffic for which I myself had but little mind; for though it be true that these black fellows are a pernicious race, given to murder, and to fightings of all kinds among themselves, yet are they human beings; and it is, methinks, cruel to send them beyond the seas into slavery, so far from their homes and people. But it was not for me, a simple mariner, to argue the question with our admirals and captains; and I have heard many worshipful merchants are engaged in the traffic. "However that be, methinks that our good Captain Francis did, likewise, turn himself against this kind of traffic in human flesh; for although he has been three times, since, in these regions, he has never again taken a hand in it. "With much to do at Cape de Verde, we succeeded in getting a hundred and fifty men; but not without much resistance from the natives, who shot their arrows at us, and wounded many; and most of those who were wounded did die of lock-jaw, for the arrows had been smeared in some poisonous stuff. Then we went farther down the coast, and took in two hundred more. "Coasting still farther down, to Saint Jorge de Mina, we landed; and Captain Hawkins found that the negro king there was at war with an enemy, a little farther inland. He besought our assistance, and promised us plenty of slaves, if we would go there and storm the place with him. Captain Hawkins agreed, cheerfully enough; and set off, with a portion of his crews, to assist the king. "The enemy fought well, and it was only after a very hard fight on our part, and a loss of many men, that we took the town. Methinks the two hundred and fifty slaves which we took there were dearly paid for; and there was much grumbling, among the ships, at the reckless way in which our admiral had risked our lives, for meager gain. It is true that these slaves would sell at a high price, yet none of us looked upon money, gained in that way, quite as we do upon treasure taken in fair fight. In the one case we traffic with the Spaniards, who are our natural enemies; and it is repugnant, to a Christian man, to hand over even these poor negroes to such willful masters as these; in the other we are fighting for our queen and country. The Spaniards are the natural enemies of all good Protestants, and every ship we see, and every treasure bag we capture, does something to pare the nails of that fierce and haughty power. "Having filled up our hold with the slaves which we had captured at Saint Jorge de Mina, we turned our back upon the African coast, and sailed to the West Indies. At Rio de Hacha, the first port at which we touched, the people did not wish to trade with us; but the admiral was not the man to allow people to indulge in fancies of this kind. We soon forced them to buy, or to sell, that which we chose; and not what they had a fancy for. "Sailing along, we were caught in a storm; and in searching for the port of Saint Juan d'Ulloa, where we hoped to refit, we captured three ships. In the port we found twelve other small craft, but these we released; and sent some of them to Mexico, to ask that victuals and stores might be sent. "The next day thirteen great ships appeared off the harbor In them was the Viceroy of Mexico. We had then only the Jesus, the Minion of 100 tons, and the Judith of 50 tons, and this big fleet was large enough to have eaten us; but Captain Hawkins put a good face on it, and sailed out to meet them, waiting at the mouth of the harbor Here he told them haughtily that he should not allow their fleet to enter, save on his terms. I doubt not that Hawkins would have been glad enough to have made off, if he could have done so; for what with the sale of the slaves, and the vessels we had captured, we had now 1,800,000 pounds, in silver and gold, on board of the ships. The Spanish admiral accepted the terms which Captain Hawkins laid down, and most solemnly swore to observe them. "So with colors flying, both fleets sailed into the harbor together. It is true, however, that the man who places faith in a Spaniard is a fool, and so it proved to us. No sooner had they reached the port than they began to plot, secretly among themselves, how to fall upon us. Even then, though they had thirteen big ships, the smallest of which was larger than the Jesus, they feared to attack us openly. "Numbers of men were set to work by them on the shore, secretly, to get up batteries by which they might fire into us; while a great ship, having 500 men on board, was moored close alongside the Minion. "I remember well talking the matter over with Jack Boscowan, who was boatswain on board; and we agreed that this time we had run into an ugly trap, and that we did not see our way out of it. Englishmen can, as all the world knows, lick the Spaniards when they are but as one to five; but when there are twenty of the Dons to one of us, it is clear that the task is a hard one. "What made it worse was that we were in harbor At sea, our quickness in handling our ships would have made us a match for the Spanish fleet; but at anchor, and with the guns of the port commanding us, we did not truly see how we were to get out of it. "The fight began by the Spaniards letting their big ship drift alongside the Minion; when, suddenly, 500 men leapt out on our decks. We were beaten below in no time, for we were scarce prepared for so sudden an onslaught. There, however, we defended ourselves stoutly, firing into the hull of the ship alongside, and defending our ports and entrances from the Spaniards. "For a while our case seemed desperate. The Jesus was hard at work, too; and when she had sunk the ship of the Spanish admiral, she came up, and gave a broadside into the ship alongside of us. Her crew ran swiftly back to her; and we, with much rejoicing, poured on deck again, and began to pay them hotly for their sudden attack upon us. "It was a great fight, and one that would have done your heart good, to see the three English ships, two of them so small as to be little more than boats, surrounded by a whole fleet of Spaniards, while from on shore the guns of the forts played upon us. Had it not been for those forts, I verily believe that we should have destroyed the Spanish fleet. Already another large vessel had followed the example of their admiral's ship, and had gone to the bottom. Over 540 of their sailors we had, as they have themselves admitted, slain outright. "We were faring well, and had begun to hope that we might get to find our way out of the toils, when a cry came from the lookout, who said that the Jesus was hoisting signals of distress, and that he feared she was sinking. "Close as she was lying to a battery, and surrounded by enemies, our bold captain did not hesitate a minute; but sailed the Minion, through a crowd of enemies, close to the Jesus. You should have heard the cheer that the two crews gave each other. It rose above all the noise of the battle, and would assuredly have done your heart good. The Jesus was sinking fast, and it was as much as they could do to tumble into the boats, and to row hastily to our side. We should have saved them all, but the Spaniards, who dared not lay us aboard, and who were in no slight degree troubled by the bravery with which we had fought, set two of their great ships on fire, and launched them down upon us, preferring to lose two of their own ships for the sake of capturing or destroying our little bark. The sight of the ships coming down, in flames, shook the hearts of our men more than all the fury of the Spaniards had been able to do; and without waiting for orders, they turned the ship's head for the mouth of the port. "The admiral, who had just come on board, cursed and shouted when he saw what was being done; but the panic of the fire ships got the better of the men, and we made off, firing broadsides at the Spaniards' fleet as we passed through them; and aided by the little Judith, which stuck to us through the whole of the fight. "When we cooled down and came to think of it, we were in no slight degree ashamed of our desertion of our comrades in the Jesus. Fortunately the number so left behind was not large; but we knew that, according to their custom, the Spaniards would put all to death, and so indeed it afterwards turned out, many of them being dispatched with horrible tortures. "This terrible treatment of the prisoners caused, when it was known, great indignation; and although Queen Elizabeth did not declare war with Spain, from that time she gave every countenance she could to the adventurers who waged war, on their own account, against her. "The Minion suffered severely, packed close as she was with all her own crew, and a great part of that of the Jesus, vast numbers of whom were wounded. However, at length a hundred were, at their own request, landed and left to shift for themselves, preferring to run the risk of Indians, or even of Spaniards, to continue any longer amid the horrors on board the ship. I myself, boys, was not one of that number, and came back to England in her. "Truly it was the worst voyage that I ever made, for though fortune was for a time good to us, and we collected much money; yet in the end we lost all, and hardly escaped with our lives. It has seemed to me that this bad fortune was sent as a punishment upon us, for carrying off the negroes into slavery. Many others thought the same, and methinks that that was also the opinion of our present good admiral." "Did you come out with him, in his further voyages here?" Ned asked. "I was with him in the Dragon, two years ago, when with the Swanne she came here. Last year I sailed with him in the Swanne, alone." "You did not have any very stirring adventures?" "No, we were mainly bent on exploring; but for all that we carried off many prizes, and might, had we been pilgrims, have bought farms in Devonshire, and settled down on our share of the prize money; but there, that is not the way with sailors. Quick come, quick go, and not one in a hundred that I have ever heard of, however much he may have taken as his share of prizes, has ever kept it, or prospered greatly therefrom." It was now evening, and many of the men had betaken themselves to the water, for a swim. The heat had been great all day, and as it was their last, they had been pressed at work to get the stores, which had been landed, again on board ship; and to finish all up, ready for the division of the party, next day. "I do not care for bathing here," Ned said, in reply to a sailor, who asked him why he too did not join in the sport. "I confess that I have a dread of those horrible sharks, of which we have heard so much, and whose black fins we see from time to time." "I should have thought," said the harsh, sneering voice of Giles Taunton, "that an Otter would have been a match for a shark. The swimmers of the South Isles, and indeed the natives here, attack the sharks without fear. I should have thought that anyone who prides himself, as you do, upon swimming, would have been equally willing to encounter them." "I do not know that I do pride myself on my swimming, Giles Taunton," Ned said composedly; "at any rate, no one has ever heard me speak of such abilities as I may have in that way. As to the natives, they have seen each other fight with sharks, and know how the matter is gone about. If I were to be present a few times, when such strife takes place, it may be that I should not shirk from joining in the sport; but knowing nothing whatever of the method pursued, or of the manner of attack, I should be worse than a fool, were I to propose to venture my life in such a sport." Many sailors who were standing round approved of what Ned said. "Aye, aye, lad," one said, "no one would think of making his first jump across the spot where he might be dashed to pieces. Let a man learn to jump on level ground; and then, when he knows his powers, he may go across a deep chasm." By this time a good many of the men were out of the water, when suddenly there arose the cry of, "Shark!" from the lookout on the poop. There was a great rush for the ship, and the excitement on board was nearly as great as that in the water. Ned quietly dropped off his jacket and his shoes and, seizing a short boarding pike, waited to see what would come of it. It chanced that his friends, the other boys, were farther out than the men; having, with the ardor of youth, engaged themselves in races, regardless of the admonition that had frequently been given them to keep near the ship; for the terror of these water beasts was very great. The men all gained the ship in safety, but the shark, which had come up from a direction in which it would cut them off, was clearly likely to arrive before the boys could gain the side. At first it seemed, indeed, that their fate was sealed; but the shark, who in many respects resembles a cat with a mouse, and seems to prefer to trifle with its victim to the last, allowed them to get close to the ship; although, by rapid swimming, it could easily have seized them before. The nearest to it, as it approached the ship, was Tom Tressilis, who was not so good a swimmer as the others; but he had swum lustily, and with good heart, though his white face showed how great the effect of the danger was upon him. He had not spoken a word, since the shark first made its appearance. As he struck despairingly to gain the ship, from which the sailors were already casting him ropes, his eye caught that of Ned, who cried to him cheerily: "Keep up your spirits, Tom. I will be with you." As the huge fish swept along, at a distance of some four yards from the side of the ship, and was already turning on its back, opening its huge mouth to seize its victim, Ned dived head foremost from the ship onto him. So great was the force and impetus with which he struck the creature, that it was fairly driven sideways from its course, missing by the nearest shave the leg of Tom Tressilis. Ned himself was half stunned by the force with which his head had struck the fish, for a shark is not so soft a creature to jump against as he had imagined; however, he retained consciousness enough to grasp at the fin of the shark, to which he held on for half a minute. By this time the shark was recovering from the effects of the sudden blow, and Ned was beginning to be able to reflect. In a moment he plunged the half pike deep into the creature's stomach. Again and again he repeated the stroke; until the shark, rolling over in his agony, and striking furiously with his tail, shook Ned from his hold. He instantly dived beneath the water, and came up at a short distance. The shark was still striking the water furiously, the sailors on board were throwing down upon him shot, pieces of iron, and all sorts of missiles, and some of the best archers were hastily bringing their bows to the side. The shark caught sight of his opponent, and instantly rushed at him. Ned again dived, just before the creature reached him; and, rising under him, inflicted some more stabs with the pike; then he again swam off, for he was in no slight fear that he might be struck by his friends on board ship, of whose missiles, indeed, he was more in dread than of the shark himself. When he rose, at a short distance from the shark, he was again prepared for a rush on the part of his enemy; but the great fish had now had enough of it. He was still striking the water, but his movements were becoming slower, for he was weakened by the loss of blood from the stabs he had received from below, and from the arrows, many of which were now buried to the goose quill in him. In a minute or two he gradually turned on one side, and floated, with his white belly in the air. A shout broke from the crew of the Swanne, and also of the Pacha, who had been attracted to the side by the cries. When he saw that the battle was over, and that the enemy had been vanquished without loss of life, or hurt to any, Ned speedily seized one of the ropes, and climbed up the side of the ship; where he was, you may be sure, received with great cheering, and shouts of joy and approval. "You are a fine lad," Captain John Drake said, "and your name of Otter has indeed been well bestowed. You have saved the life of your comrade; and I know that my old friend, Mr. Frank Tressilis, his father, will feel indebted indeed to you, when he comes to learn how gallantly you risked your life to preserve that of his son." Ned said that he saw no credit in the action, and that he was mightily glad to have had an opportunity of learning to do that which the negroes thought nothing of; for that it shamed him to think that these heathens would venture their lives boldly against sharks, while he, an English boy, although a good swimmer, and not, he hoped, wanting in courage, was yet afraid to encounter these fierce brutes. This incident acted, as might be expected, as a fresh bond between the boys; and as it also secured for Ned the cordial goodwill of the sailors, they were, in future, free from any persecution at the hands of Master Taunton, or of his fellows. Chapter 4: An Unsuccessful Attack. It should have been said, in its proper place, that upon the day after the arrival of the Pacha and Swanne in Pheasant Bay, a barque named the Isle of Wight, commanded by James Rause, with thirty men on board, many of whom had sailed with Captain Drake upon his previous voyages, came into the port; and there was great greeting between the crews of the various ships. Captain Rause brought with him a Spanish caravel, captured the day before; and a shallop also, which he had taken at Cape Blanco. This was a welcome reinforcement, for the crews of the two ships were but small for the purpose which they had in hand, especially as it would be necessary to leave a party to take charge of the vessels. Captain Drake made some proposals to Captain Rause, which the latter accepted, and it was arranged that he and his crew would be, for a time, under the command of Captain Drake. When the division of the crews was made, it was decided that James Rause should remain in command of the four ships at Pheasant Bay; and that Captain Drake, with fifty-three of his own men and twenty of Rause's, should start in the three pinnaces and the shallop for Nombre de Dios. The first point at which they stopped was the Isle of Pines, on the 22nd July. Here they put in to water the boats and, as the crews had been cramped from their stay therein, Captain Drake decided to give them a day on shore. Ned and Reuben Gale were of the party, the other two being, to their great discontent, left behind in the ship. After the barriques had been filled with water, the fires lit for cooking, and the labors of the day over, Ned and Reuben started for a ramble in the island, which was of a goodly extent. When they had proceeded some distance in the wood, picking fruit as they went, and looking at the butterflies and bright birds, they were suddenly seized and thrown upon the ground by some men, who sprang out from the underwood through which they had passed. They were too surprised at this sudden attack to utter even a cry; and, being safely gagged and bound, they were lifted by their captors, and carried away into the interior of the island. After an hour's passage they were put down in the heart of a thick grove of trees and, looking round, saw they were surrounded by a large number of natives. One of these, a person evidently in authority, spoke to them in a language which they did not understand. They shook their heads, and after several times attempting to make them comprehend, Ned caught the words Espanolos. To this he vehemently shook his head in denial, which caused quite an excitement among his hearers. One of the latter then said "English," to which Ned and his companion nodded. The news evidently filled the natives with great joy. The bands were taken off the boys, and the Indians endeavored, by gestures, to express the sorrow that they felt for having carried them off. It was clear that they had taken them for Spaniards, and that they had been watched as they wandered inland, and captured for the purpose of learning the objects and force of the expedition. Now, however, that their captors understood that the ships were English, with great signs of pleasure they started with them for the seashore. It had already darkened when they arrived there, and the crews of the boats jumped hastily to their feet, at the sight of so many persons approaching. Ned, however, called to them just as they were about to betake themselves to their arms, and shouted that the natives were perfectly friendly, and well disposed. Captain Drake himself now advanced, and entered into conversation with the leader of the natives, in Spanish. It seemed that they had met before, and that many, indeed, of the natives were acquainted with his person. These were a party of Simeroons, as they were then called; i.e., of natives who had been made slaves by the Spaniards, and who had now fled. They afterwards came to be called Cameroons, and are mostly so spoken of in the books of English buccaneers. These men were greatly pleased at the arrival of Captain Drake and his boats, for their own had been destroyed, and they feared taking to the sea in such as they could build. After much talk, Captain Drake arranged to put them on shore, so that they would go on to the Isthmus of Darien, where there were more of them in the forests; and they promised to prepare these to assist Captain Drake, when he should come there. The natives, some thirty in number, were soon packed in the boats, and were ready to cross to the mainland; and the party then going forward, entered the port of Nombre de Dios at three in the morning. As they sailed in, being yet a good way from the city, they came upon a barque of some 60 tons. It was all unprepared for attack, and the boats got alongside, and the crews climbed on to the deck before their presence was discovered, or dreamt of. No resistance whatever was offered by the Spaniards against the English. All were, indeed, asleep below. A search was made, and it was found that the ship was laden with Canary wine, a circumstance which gave great pleasure to the English, who looked forward to a long bout of good drinking. While they were searching the ship, they had paid but little attention to the Spanish crew. Presently, however, they heard the sound of oars at some little distance from the ship. "What is that?" said Captain Drake. Ned ran to the stern of the vessel. "I think, sir," he said, "that one or two of the Spaniards have got off, with their boat. I saw it towing to the stern, when we boarded." Captain Drake leant over the side, and at once gave orders to one of the boats whose crew had not boarded the vessel, and was lying alongside, to pursue; and to strain every nerve to catch the boat, before she came near the town. The sailors leapt to the oars, and pulled with a will, for they knew as well as their captain how serious a matter it would be, were the town alarmed; and indeed, that all their toil and pains would be thrown away, as it was only by surprise that so small a handful of men could possibly expect to take a large and important town like Nombre de Dios. Fortunately the boat overtook the fugitives before they were within hailing distance of the town, and rapidly towed them back to the ship. All then took their places in the pinnaces, and pushed off without further delay. It was not yet light, and steered by one who knew the town well, they rowed up alongside a battery, which defended it, without the alarm being given. As they climbed up over the wall the sentry fired his piece, and the artillerymen, who, there having been some rumors of the arrival of Drake's fleet in those waters, were sleeping by the side of their guns, sprang to their feet and fled, as the English leapt down into the battery. There were six large guns in the place, and many small, and bombards. "Now, my lads," Captain Drake said, "you must lose no time. In five minutes, yonder artillerymen will have alarmed the whole town, and we must be there before the Spaniards have managed to get their sleepy eyes open. "Advance in three parties, and meet in the marketplace. It is good that we should make as much show as possible. There can be no more concealment and, therefore, we must endeavor to make the Spaniards believe that we are a far stronger force than, in truth, we are." It was not until the three parties met in the marketplace that any real resistance on the part of the Spaniards began, although windows had been opened, and shots fired here and there. The alarm bells were now ringing, shouts and screams were heard through the town, and the whole population was becoming fairly aroused. As they entered the marketplace, however, a heavy fire was opened with arquebuses and guns. The English had taken with them no firearms, but each man carried his bow and arrows, and with these they shot fast and hard at the Spaniards, and silenced their fire. At this moment, however, it happened, sadly for the success of the enterprise, that a ball struck Captain Drake, and inflicted a serious wound. Ned was standing near him, and observed him stagger. "Are you hit, sir?" he asked anxiously. "Tush, my boy," he replied, "it is a scratch; say nothing of it. "Now, forward to the Treasury. The town is in your hands, my lads. It only remains to you to sack as much treasure as you can carry; but remember, do not lose your discipline, and keep together. If we straggle, we are lost. "Now, light at once the torches which you have brought with you, and shout aloud to the inhabitants, you that can speak Spanish, that if any more resistance is offered, we will burn the whole town to the ground." This threat mightily alarmed the inhabitants, and the firing ceased altogether; for as these were not regular soldiers, and knew that the object of the English attack was to plunder the public treasuries, rather than private property, the townsmen readily deemed it to their interest to hold aloof, rather than to bring upon their city and themselves so grievous a calamity as that threatened by the English. In the advance, two or three Spaniards had fallen into the hands of the men and, these being threatened with instant death if they hesitated, at once led the way to the governor's house, where the silver, brought down on mules from Panama, was stored. A party were placed at the door of this building, and Captain Drake, with the rest, entered. The governor had fled, with his attendants. The house was richly furnished; full of silk hangings, of vessels of gold and silver, and of all kinds of beautiful things. These, however, attracted little attention from the English, although Ned and his young comrades marveled much. Never had they seen, in England, anything approaching to the wealth and beauty of this furnishing. It seemed to them, indeed, as if they had entered one of the houses of the magicians and enchanters, of whom they had read in books during their childhood. Captain Drake, however, passed through these gorgeous rooms with scarce a glance and, led by the Spaniards, descended some steps into a vast cellar. A cry of astonishment and admiration burst from the whole party, as they entered this treasury. Here, piled up twelve feet high, lay a mighty mass of bars of silver, carefully packed. This heap was no less than 70 feet long and 10 feet wide, and the bars each weighed from 35 to 40 pounds. "My lads," Captain Drake said, "here is money enough to make us all rich for our lives; but we must leave it for the present, and make for the Treasury House, which is as full of gold and of precious stones as this is of silver." The men followed Captain Drake and his brother, feeling quite astonished, and almost stupefied at the sight of this pile of silver; but they felt, moreover, the impossibility of their carrying off so vast a weight, unless the town were completely in their hands. This, indeed, was very far from being the case, for the whole town was now rising. The troops, who had at the first panic fled, were now being brought forward; and as the day lightened, the Spaniards, sorely ashamed that so small a body of men should have made themselves masters of so great and rich a city, were plucking up heart and preparing to attack them. Ill was it, then, for the success of the adventure, that Captain Francis had suffered so heavy a wound in the marketplace. Up to this time he had kept bravely on, and none except Ned, all being full of the prospect of vast plunder, had noticed his pale face, or seen the blood which streamed down from him, and marked every footstep as he went; but nature could now do no more and, with his body well nigh drained of all its blood, he suddenly fell down fainting. Great was the cry that rose from the men, as they saw the admiral thus fall. Hastily gathering round him, they lifted his body from the ground, and shuddered at seeing how great a pool of blood was gathered where he had been standing. It seemed almost as if, with the fall of their captain, the courage which had animated these men, and would animate them again in fighting against ever so great odds, had for the moment deserted them. In spite of the orders of Captain John, that four or five should carry his brother to the boats; and that the rest should seize, without delay, the treasures of gold and diamonds in the Treasury, and carry off as great a weight as they might bear, none paid attention. They gathered round the body of Captain Francis and, lifting him on their shoulders, they hurried to the boats, careless of the promised treasures, and thinking only to escape, and bear with them their beloved commander from the forces of the Spaniards; who, as they saw the party fall back, with great shouting fell upon them, shooting hotly. The swoon of the admiral had lasted but a few moments. As cordial was poured down his throat he opened his eyes and, seeing what the men were minded to do, protested with all his force against their retreat. His words, however, had no weight with them and, in spite of his resistance, they carried him down to the battery; and there, placing him in a pinnace, the whole took to their boats, and rowed on board ship. Wonderful to relate, although many were wounded, but one man, and he Giles Taunton the armorer, was killed in this attack upon the great city, in which they only missed making themselves masters of one of the greatest treasures upon earth by the accident of their commander fainting, at a critical moment, and to the men being seized by an unaccountable panic. Some of the crew had, indeed, carried off certain plunder, which they had snatched in passing through the governor's house, and in such short searches as they had been able to make in private dwellings; but the men, in general, had been so struck with amazement and sorrow at the sight of their general's wound, that although this wealth was virtually at their mercy, they put off with him without casting a thought upon what they were leaving behind. The boats now rowed without pausing to the isle, which they called the Isle of Victuals; and there they stayed two days, nursing their wounds, and supporting themselves with poultry, of which there was a great abundance found in the island, and with vegetables and fruits from the gardens. There was great joy among them when it was found that Captain Drake's wound, although severe enough, was yet not likely to imperil his life; and that it was loss of blood, alone, which had caused him to faint. At this news the men all took heart, and rejoiced so exceedingly that a stranger would have supposed that they had attained some great victory, rather than have come out unsuccessful from an adventure which promised to make each man wealthy. Upon the second day after their arrival at the Isle of Victuals, they saw a boat rowing out from the direction of Nombre de Dios. As they knew that there was no fleet in that harbor which would venture to attack them, the English had no fear of the approaching boat; although, indeed, they wondered much what message could have been sent them. On board the boat was an hidalgo, or Spanish noble, who was rowed by four negroes. He said that he had come from the mainland to make inquiries as to the gallant men who had performed so great a feat, and that he cherished no malice, whatever, against them. He wished to know whether the Captain Drake who commanded them was the same who had been there before, and especially did he inquire whether the arrows used by the English were poisoned; for, he said, great fear and alarm reigned in the town, many believing that all who had been struck by the English shafts would certainly die. Upon this head he was soon reassured; and the English were, indeed, mightily indignant at its being supposed that they would use such cowardly weapons as poisoned arrows. Then the hidalgo inquired why the English had so suddenly retreated from the town, when it was in their hands, and why they had abstained from carrying off the three hundred and sixty tons of silver which lay at the governor's house, and the still greater value of gold in the treasure house--the gold, indeed, being far more valuable than the silver, insomuch as it was more portable. The answers to all these questions were freely given, for in those days there was a curious mixture of peace and war, of desperate violence and of great courtesy, between combatants; and whereas, now, an enemy arriving with a view merely to obtain information would be roughly treated, in those days he was courteously entertained, and his questions as freely answered as if he had been a friend and ally. When he heard of the wound of Captain Drake he expressed great sorrow; and, after many compliments were exchanged, he returned to Nombre de Dios; while, the next day, Captain Drake and the English rowed away to the Isle of Pines, where Captain Rause was remaining in charge of the ships. He was mightily glad to see them return, as were their comrades who had remained; for their long absence had caused great fear and anxiety, as it was thought that Captain Drake must have fallen into some ambuscade, and that ill had come to the party. Although there was some regret at the thought that the chance of gaining such vast booty had been missed, yet the joy at the safe return overpowered this feeling; and, for a day or two, the crews feasted merrily and held festival. Captain Rause then determined to continue the adventure no further, but to separate with his ship and men from Captain Drake. He was of opinion, firmly, that now the Spaniards had discovered their presence in the island, such measures of defense would be taken, at every port, as to place these beyond the hazard of attack by so small a body as those carried by the three ships. He therefore, receiving full satisfaction for the use of his men and for guarding the ships, sailed away on the 7th August, leaving the Swanne and the Pacha to proceed upon the adventure, alone. Captain Drake sent his brother and Ellis Hickson to examine the river Chagres; and on their return Captain Drake, with his two ships and three pinnaces, sailed for Carthagena, where he arrived on the 13th day of August. While on the voyage thither he captured two Spanish ships, each of 240 tons, with rich cargoes, neither of them striking so much as a blow in resistance. At evening he anchored between the Island of Cara and Saint Bernardo, and the three pinnaces entered the harbor of Carthagena. Lying at the entrance they found a frigate, which in those days meant a very small craft, not much larger than a rowing boat. She had but one old man on board, who said that the rest of the company had gone ashore, to fight a duel about a quarrel which they had had overnight. He said, too, what was much more important to the English--that, an hour before nightfall, a pinnace had passed him, and that the man who was steering had shouted out that the English were at hand, and that he had better up anchor and go into the port. He said, moreover, that when the pinnace reached Carthagena guns were fired, and he could see that all the shipping hauled in under shelter of the castle. This was bad news indeed, and there was much hard language among the sailors, when they heard it. It was clear that the castle of Carthagena, if prepared, was not to be carried by some thirty or forty men, however gallant and determined they might be. There was, too, but little hope that the old man had spoken falsely, for they had themselves heard guns, shortly before their arrival there. With much bitterness, it was determined to abandon the plan of attack; and thus Carthagena, as well as Nombre de Dios, escaped from the hands of the English. They did not, however, go out empty handed; for they succeeded in capturing, by boarding, four pinnaces, each laden with cargo; and as they turned their heads to go out to sea, a great ship of Seville came sailing in. Her they laid alongside and captured easily, she having just arrived from Spain, having no thoughts of meeting a foe, just as she reached her port of destination. This lightened the hearts of the crew, and with their prizes in tow, they sailed out in good spirits. The ship contained large stores of goods from Spain, with sherries, and merchandise of every kind. They went back to the Isle of Pines, their usual rendezvous, and on adding up the goods that they had taken from various prizes, found that, even now, they had made no bad thing of their voyage. They were now much reduced in fighting strength by illness, and Captain Drake determined in his mind that the crews were no longer strong enough for the manning of two ships, and that it would be better to take to one, alone. He knew, however, that even his authority would not suffice to persuade the sailors to abandon one of the vessels, for sailors have a great love for their ships. He therefore determined to do it by a sudden stroke, and that known only to himself and another. Therefore he called to him Thomas Moore, the carpenter of the Swanne; and, taking him aside, told him to make auger holes in the bottom of that ship. Moore, who was a good sailor, made a great resistance to the orders; but upon the admiral assuring him that it was necessary, for the success of the enterprise, that one of the ships should be destroyed, he very reluctantly undertook the task. Previous to this Captain Drake had ordered all the booty, and a considerable portion of the stores of both ships, to be hauled on shore; so that they might lose nothing of value to them. The next morning, Ned and his friends were sitting on the bulwark of the vessel, watching the fish playing about in the depths of the clear blue water. "We seem to be lower in the water than usual," Ned said. "Does not it seem to you that we are not so high above the sea as we are wont to be?" The others agreed that the vessel had that appearance; but as it seemed clearly impossible that it should be so, especially when she was lighter than usual, they thought that they must be mistaken, and the subject was put aside. Half an hour later Captain Drake himself, rowing alongside, called to his brother, who came to the side. "I am going to fish," he said; "are you disposed to come, also?" Captain John expressed his willingness to do so. "I will wait for you," his brother said. Captain John was turning to go into his cabin to get his cap and cloak, when Captain Francis cried out: "Is not your ship very low in the water this morning?" "The same as usual, I suppose," Captain John said, laughing; but looking over the side himself, he said, "Methinks she does lie deep in the water;" and, calling the carpenter, he bade him sound the well. The latter, after doing so, cried out loudly that there were four feet of water in the ship. A great astonishment seized upon both officers and crew, at this unexpected news. All hands were at once set to work, the pumps were rigged and, with buckets and all sorts of gear, they strove manfully and hard to get rid of the water. It soon, however, became plain that it entered faster than they could pump it forth, and that the vessel must have sprung a bad leak. When it was clear that the Swanne could not be saved, the boats of the Pacha were brought alongside, and all the goods that remained in her were removed, together with the arms and ammunition. Then the crew, taking to the boats, lay by, until in a few minutes the Swanne sank, among the tears of many of her crew, who had made three voyages in her, and loved her well. It was not, for a long time afterwards, known that the loss of this ship was the effect of the orders of the admiral; who, indeed, acted with his usual wisdom in keeping the matter secret; for assuredly, although the men would have obeyed his orders, he would have lost much favor and popularity among them, had the truth been at that time known. The next day the news was spread, among the men, that it was determined to fill the Pacha with all the stores that were on shore; and, leaving a party there with her, to embark the crews in the pinnaces, for service in the river Chagres and along the coast; until, at any rate, they could capture another ship to replace the Swanne. Next day they rowed on into the Gulf of Darien. There the ship was laid up in a good place, and they remained quiet for fifteen days, amusing and refreshing themselves. By this means they hoped to throw all the Spaniards off their guard, and to cause a report to be spread that they had left the island. The Simeroons living near had been warned, by those who had been landed from the Isle of Pines, of their coming; and received them with good cheer, and promised all aid that could be required. Then the pinnaces were sent out, to catch any passing ships which might be cruising along the coast. It happened, one day, that two of them had set off in pursuit of a great ship, which they saw passing in the distance. The wind was light, and they had little doubt that they should overhaul her. Ned, who was one of those who remained behind, was much angered at missing so good an enterprise; but some four hours afterwards another ship was seen to pass along. The remaining pinnace was at once manned, Captain John Drake taking the command; and, with fourteen men, she set out to take the Spanish galleon. Gallant as are the exploits which have been performed in modern times by British tars, in their attacks upon slavers, yet in none of these cases does the disparity of force at all approach that which often existed between the English boats and the Spanish galleons; indeed, the only possible reason that can be given, for the success of the English, is the fear that their enemy entertained for them. Both the Spanish captains and crews had come to look upon them as utterly invincible, and they seemed, when attacked by the English buccaneers, altogether paralyzed. As the boat rowed up towards the great ship, her size became gradually more apparent, and her deck could be seen crowded with men; even Ned, who was not greatly given to reflection, could not but feel a passing doubt as to the possibility of one small boat, with fourteen men, attacking a floating castle like this. Presently the boom of a cannon from the forecastle of the vessel was heard, and a ball whizzed over their heads; then shot after shot was fired, and soon a rattle of small arms broke out, and the water all round was cut up by bullets and balls. The rough seamen cared little for this demonstration. With a cheer they bent their backs to the oars and, although some were wounded, they rowed up to the side of the ship without hesitation or doubt. Then from above a shower of missiles were hurled upon them--darts, stones, hot water, and even boiling tar. It would have gone hard with the English, had not the Spanish carelessly left a porthole open near the water level; through this the English clambered, eager to get at their foe, and many of them raging with the pain caused by the boiling materials. As they rushed on to the deck, the Spaniards were ranged, in two ranks, on either side of the hatchway; and fell upon them at once; but so great was the fury of the English that, facing either way, with a roar like beasts springing on their prey, they fell with axe and sword upon the Spaniards. It was the wild rage with which the English buccaneers fought that was the secret of their success. The Spaniards are a people given to ceremony, and even in matters of battle are somewhat formal and pedantic. The combat, then, between them and the English, was one which presented no familiar conditions to their minds. These rough sailors, hardened by exposure, skilled in the use of arms, were no doubt formidable enough, individually; but this alone would not have intimidated the Spaniards, or have gone any great distance towards equalizing the tremendous odds between them. It was the fury with which they fought that was the secret of their success. It was as when a cat, furious with passion, flies at a dog many times larger and heavier than itself. The latter may be as brave, in many matters, as the cat; and ready to face a creature much larger even than itself, under ordinary circumstances. It is the fury of the cat which appalls, and turns it into a very coward. Thus, when the band of English fell upon the Spaniards in the galleon--who were some six times as numerous as themselves--naked to the waist, with hair streaming back, with all their faces wild with pain, brandishing their heavy axes, and with a shout rushed upon their foes drawn up in regular order; the latter, after a moment or two of resistance, began rapidly to fall back. Their officers, in vain, shouted to them to stand firm. In vain they taunted them with falling back before a handful of men. In vain even turned their swords against their own soldiers. It was useless. Those in front, unable indeed to retreat, were cut down by the heavy axes. Those behind recoiled, and after but a few minutes' fighting, some began to leap down the hatchways; and although the fight continued for a short time, isolated groups here and there making resistance, the battle was virtually won in five minutes after the English appeared on deck. The captain and his two principal officers were killed, fighting bravely; and had their efforts been in any way backed by those of their men, they would have made short work of the assailants. Captain Drake's voice was heard, high above the din, as soon as the resistance ceased. He ordered the prisoners to be all brought upon deck, and disarmed, and at once forced into their own boats, and obliged to row away from the vessel; for he knew that, were his men once to begin to plunder, and to fall upon the liquors, the Spaniards, even if unarmed, would be able to rise and overpower them. No sooner was the last Spaniard out of the ship, than the men scattered to look for plunder. Ned was standing on the poop, watching the boats rowing away, and thinking to himself that, so crowded were they, if a breeze were to spring up there would not be much chance of their reaching Nombre de Dios. Suddenly he heard below him a scream, followed by a splash; looking over, he saw the head of a woman appear above the water, and without hesitation dived at once from the side. For a moment the girl, for she was little more, struggled with him as if she would have sunk; but Ned, grasping her firmly, in a few strokes swam with her alongside the ship to the boat; and two or three sailors, running down, assisted him to pull her into it. Then, dripping wet, she was taken to the deck, where the captain, in kind tones, assured her that she would receive the most courteous treatment, and that she need be under no fear, whatever. She was the daughter of a wealthy Spaniard, at Nombre de Dios, and was now coming out from Spain to join him. Frightened by the noise of the fighting, and by the terrible reputation of the English buccaneers, she had, when the sailors rushed into the cabin with loud shouts, been so alarmed that she had jumped from the stern windows into the sea. Captain Drake assured her courteously that, rough as his men might be, they would, none of them, lay a finger upon a woman. He then hoisted a flag and fired a gun, as a signal to the Spanish boats, which were yet within a quarter of a mile, to return. For a moment they rowed on, but a ball, sent skimming across their bows, was a hint which they could not disregard; for, full as they were of men, they could not have hoped to avoid the English pinnace, should it have put off after them. When the boats came alongside, some of those on board were ordered to ascend the side of the ship; and, plenty of accommodation having been made, the young Spanish lady and her maid, who had remained in the cabin, descended into the largest boat; handed down by Captain Drake, with a courtesy equal to that which a Spanish hidalgo himself would have shown. Before she went, the young lady turned to Ned, who was standing near, and expressed to him her deep thanks for the manner in which he had leapt over for her. Ned himself could understand only a few words, for although many of the sailors spoke Spanish, and sometimes used it among themselves, he had not yet made any great progress with it, although he had tried to pick up as many words and phrases as he could. The captain, however, translated the words to him; and he said to her, in reply, that there was nothing for her to feel herself under any obligation to him for, for that any dog would have jumped out and done the business, just as well. The young lady, however, undid a bracelet of gold on her arm, and insisted upon herself fastening it round Ned's wrist, an action which caused blushes of confusion to crimson his face. In a few minutes the Spanish boats were again off. The captain added, to that in which the young lady was placed, some food, some bottles of liqueur, and other matters which might render her voyage easy and pleasant. He promised that the Spaniards who had been transferred again to the ship should be landed, at the earliest opportunity. The vessel was now searched, regularly, and was found to contain much treasure in goods; but as she was on her way from Europe, she had, of course, none of the gold and silver which was the main object of their search. However, they consoled themselves with the thought that the ship which had been chased by their comrades, earlier in the day, was homewards bound; and they hoped, therefore, that a rich cargo would there be secured. They were not mistaken, for when the ship sailed up to the rendezvous they found another alongside, and the cheers of their comrades told them that the prize had been a handsome one. They found that they had secured nearly half a million in gold and silver; and, transferring the cargo of the one ship into the other, they set the first on fire, and sailed back to the spot where their camp was formed, on the isthmus. Several other ships fell into their hands in this way, but after this they hindered no more vessels on their way from Europe. They had ample stores and, indeed, far more than enough to supply them with every luxury; for on board the Pacha the richest wines, the most delicate conserves, the richest garments of all kinds were already in such abundance as to become common to them all. Down to the common sailor, all feasted on the best, and drank wines that an emperor might have approved. Captain Drake, in this way, gave his men when on shore much license; insisting, however, that they should abstain from drunkenness. For, as he said, not only would they be at the mercy of any small body of the enemy which might find them, but drunkenness breeds quarrels and disputes, and as between comrades would be fatal, indeed. Thus, although enough of good liquor was given to each man to make him merry, none were allowed to drink beyond this point. The reason why the ships coming from Europe were allowed to pass, unmolested, was that Drake wished not that, each day, some fresh tale of capture should be brought to Panama by the crews set free in the boats; for it was certain that the tale so told would, at last, stir up such fear and indignation at the ravages committed by so small a body, that the governors of the Spanish towns would combine their forces, and would march against them with a veritable army. While only the ships starting from Darien were overhauled, and lightened of their contents, the tale was not brought back to Darien; for the crews were allowed to sail on with their ships to Europe, as Drake had already more vessels than he knew what to do with; and as for prisoners, they were, to him, quite useless. Captain John did, indeed, at one time propose to him that he should take out of each ship all the principal men, so as to hold them as hostages, in case of any misfortune happening to the English; but the admiral said to him, that so great was the enmity and fear of them, that did they fall into the hands of the Spaniards, these would not exchange them and let them go, even if as many kings were set free in return. In all, five vessels were seized and plundered while lying at Darien. All was not, however, going well; for while they lay there, a terrible sickness broke out among them. Whether this was from the change of life, or from any noxious thing which they ate, or merely from the heat, none could say; but, very shortly, the illness made great ravages among them. First died Charles Clift, one of the quartermasters. Then one day, when the pinnace in which Ned always sailed returned, they were met with the sad news that Captain John Drake was also dead. He had fallen, however, not by the fever, but by the ball of the Spaniards. He had gone out with one of the pinnaces, and had engaged a great Spanish ship; but the latter had shot more straight and faster than usual, and the captain himself and Richard Allen, one of his men, had been slain in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the ship. His sad end was not the result of any rashness on his part; for he, indeed, had told the men that the vessel carried many guns, and that it was too rash an enterprise. The sailors, however, had by this time become so accustomed to victory as to despise the Dons altogether, and insisted upon going forward. It was with bitter lamentation and regret that they returned, bringing the body of the admiral's brother. They were now at the end of the year, and in this week no less than six of the company died, among whom was Joseph Drake, another of the admiral's brothers. These losses saddened the crew greatly, and even the treasures which they had amassed now seemed to them small, and of little account. Even those who did not take the fever were much cast down, and Captain Drake determined, without any further loss, to attempt the expedition on which he had set his mind. On February 3rd, being Shrove Tuesday, he started with eighteen English and thirteen Simeroons for Panama. He had now, since he sailed, lost no less than twenty-eight of the party which set out from Plymouth. In a few days they reached Venta Cruz, but one of the men, who had taken too much strong liquor, made a noise; and the alarm being given, much of the treasure was carried out of the place, before they could effect a landing. They followed, however, one of the treasure parties out of the town, and pursued them for some distance. On their way they came across another large convoy, with gold. This they easily took and, having sent the Spaniards away, unloaded the mules and buried the gold, desiring to press on further. As they went, one of the chief Simeroons took the admiral apart from the road they were traversing, and led him to the foot of a lofty tree. Upon this steps had been cut, and the Indian told the admiral to ascend, and see what he could observe from the top. Upon reaching the summit, the admiral gave a shout of joy and astonishment. From that point he could see the Pacific Ocean, and by turning his head the Atlantic, which they had just left. This was a joyful moment for the great sailor, and when he descended, one by one most of the men climbed to the top of the tree, to see the two oceans. Drake was the first Englishman who had seen this sight. To the Spaniards it was, of course, familiar; indeed, Vasco Nunez had stood upon the spot and had seen the Pacific, and taken possession of it, in the name of Spain, in the year 1513. They now retraced their steps; for, with the force at their disposal, Captain Drake thought it would be madness to cross the isthmus, with any view of attacking the Spaniards on the other side. He had now accomplished his purpose, and had learned the nature and geography of the place; and proposed, on some future occasion, to return with a force sufficient to carry out the great enterprises on which he had set his mind. On their return, they were sorely disappointed at finding that the Spaniards, having captured one of the party, had extorted from him the hiding place of the gold, and had lifted and carried it off. They now prepared to re-embark in their pinnace. Reaching the seashore, however, they were surprised, and in some way dismayed, at seeing seven Spanish vessels nearing the coast. The Spaniards had at last determined to make an effort, and had arrived at a time more unfortunate for the English than could have been supposed. The pinnace, after landing the party, had sailed away, in order to prevent the Spaniards seizing upon those on board; and when Captain Drake reached the shore she was not in sight, having indeed hauled her wind, and made off, on the approach of the Spanish fleet. The situation seemed bad, indeed, for it was certain that the Spaniards would land their troops and search the shore; and it was of the highest importance that the pinnace should be discovered first. There was a counsel held, and the men were well-nigh despairing. Captain Drake, however, bade them keep up their courage, and pointed out to them the four lads, all of whom had escaped the effect of fever and disease, their constitution, no doubt, being strengthened by the fact that none of them indulged in too much liquor; indeed, seldom touching any. "Look," said Captain Drake, "at these four lads. Their courage is unshaken, and they look cheerful and hopeful on all occasions. Take example from them, and keep up your hopes. I propose to make a raft upon which I myself will embark, and by making out from this bay into the open sea, may succeed in catching sight of the pinnace, and bringing it hither to your rescue." The proposal seemed a desperate one, for it was far more likely that the Spaniards' ships would come along, and descry the raft, than that the latter should meet with the pinnace. However, there seemed no other resource. The materials for the raft were scanty and weak; and when Captain Francis, with three companions, got fairly out of the bay, the raft sank so deeply in the water that they were completely standing in the sea. For some hours they beat about; and then, to their great joy, they descried the pinnace in the distance, making for land. The wind had now risen, and it was blowing hard, and their position on the raft was dangerous enough. They found that it would be impossible for them to keep at sea, and still more impossible to place themselves in the track of the pinnaces, which were making for a bay behind a projecting headland. Painfully paddling the raft to the shore, Captain Francis landed; and they made their way, with much toil and fatigue, over the hill which divided them from that bay; and, towards morning, got down to the pinnace, where they were received with much joy. Then they at once launched the boat, and made for the spot where they had left their comrades. These received them as if risen from the dead, for they had all made up their minds that their admiral, and his companions, had been lost upon the frail raft on which they had embarked. They now put to sea, and had the good fortune to escape the ken of the Spaniards, who had sailed further up the coast. So, thanking God for their escape, they sailed back to the bay where the Pacha and her prizes lay, and then all hands began to make great preparation for return home. Chapter 5: Cast Ashore. It was time, indeed, for the little band of adventurers to be turning their faces towards England. Their original strength, of eighty men, was reduced to fifty; and of these, many were sick and weak. They had gained a vast store of wealth, although they had missed the plunder of Nombre de Dios and of Carthagena. Their doings had caused such consternation and alarm that it was certain that the Spaniards would, ere long, make a great and united effort to crush them; and fifty men, however valiant, could not battle with a fleet. The men were longing for home, looking forward to the delight of spending the great share of prize money which would fall to each. The sudden death which had stricken many of their comrades had, too, cast a chill on the expedition, and made all long more eagerly to be away from those beautiful, but deadly, shores. When, therefore, on the day after the return of Captain Francis, the word was given to prepare for the homeward voyage, the most lively joy prevailed. The stores were embarked; the Simeroons, who had done them good service, dismissed with rich presents; and all embarked, with much joy and thankfulness that their labors and dangers were overpast. They were, however, extremely shorthanded, and were scattered among the three or four prizes which were the best among the ships which they had taken. Ned and Gerald, being now able to give good assistance, in case of need, to the sailors, were put on board one of the prizes with four seamen. Captain Drake had determined to keep, for a time, the prizes with him; for as it might well be that they should meet, upon their way, a great Spanish fleet, he thought that by keeping together, with the flag of Saint George flying on all the ships, the Spaniards would believe that the Pacha had been joined by ships from England, and so would assuredly let her and her consorts pass at large. At the last land at which they touched Captain Drake intended to dismiss all but one of the prizes, and to sail across the Atlantic with her and the Pacha. This, however, was not to be. One day, shortly after their departure, Ned said to Gerald: "I do not like the look of the sky. It reminds me of the sky that we had before that terrible hurricane, when we were moored off the Isle of Pines; and with our scanty crew we should be in a mightily unfavorable position, should the wind come on to blow." In that wise the sailors shared Ned's apprehensions, and in the speediest possible time all sail was lowered, and the ship prepared to meet the gale. It was not long before the whole sky was covered with black clouds. Captain Drake signaled to the vessels that each was to do its best; and, if separated, was to rendezvous at the spot before agreed upon. Then, all having been done that could be thought of, they waited the bursting of the storm. It came at last, with the suddenness and almost the force of an explosion. A faint rumbling noise was first heard, a white line of foam was seen in the distance; and then, with a roar and a crash, the hurricane was upon them. The vessel reeled over so far under the blow that, for a time, all on board thought that she would capsize. The two sailors at the helm, however, held on sturdily; and at last her head drifted off on the wind, and she flew along before its force. The sea rose as if by magic. Where, for weeks, scarcely a ripple had ruffled the surface of the water; now great waves, with crested tops, tore along. The air was full of blinding foam, swept from the tops of the waves; and it was difficult for those on board even to breathe, when facing the force of the wind. "This is tremendous," Ned shouted in Gerald's ears, "and as there seem to be islands all over these seas, if we go on at the rate we are doing now, methinks that it will not be long before we land on one or another. We are, as I reckon, near Hispaniola, but there is no saying which way we may drift; for these storms are almost always changeable, and while we are running south at present, an hour hence we may be going in the opposite direction." For twenty-four hours the storm continued, with unabated fury. At times it seemed impossible that the vessel could live, so tremendous were the seas which struck and buffeted her. However, being light in the water, and buoyant, she floated over it. During the next night the wind sensibly abated, and although still blowing with tremendous force, there was evidence, to the accustomed eyes of the sailors, that the storm was well-nigh blowing itself out. The sea, too, sensibly went down, although still tremendous; and all began to hope that they would weather the gale, when one of the sailors, who had crawled forward to the bow, shouted: "Breakers ahead!" It was now, fortunately, morning; although the darkness had been so intense, since the storm began, that the difference between night and day was faint, indeed. Still it was better, if danger were to be met with, that there should be as much light as possible. All hands looked out over the bows and saw, before them, a steep coast rising both to the right and left. "It is all over with the ship," Gerald said to Ned, "and I do not think that there is a chance, even for you. The surf on those rocks is terrible." "We must do our best," said Ned, "and trust in God. You keep close to me, Gerald, and when you want aid I will assist you as far as I can. You swim fairly, but scarce well enough, unaided, to get through that surf yonder." The men, seeing that what appeared to be certain destruction stared them in the face, now shook hands all round; and then, commending their souls to God, sat down and waited for the shock. When it came, it was tremendous. The masts snapped at the board, like rotten sticks. The vessel shivered from stem to stern and, drawing back for an instant, was again cast down with terrible force; and, as if struck by lightning, parted amidships, and then seemed to fall all to pieces, like a house of cards. Ned and Gerald were standing, hand in hand, when the vessel struck; and as she went to pieces, and they were precipitated into the water, Ned still kept close to his friend, swimming side by side with him. They soon neared the edge of the line where the waves broke upon the rocks. Then Ned shouted to Gerald to coast along, outside the broken water; for that there was no landing there, with life. For upwards of an hour they swam on, outside the line of surf. The sea, although tremendously high, did not break till it touched a certain point, and the lads rose and fell over the great billows. They had stripped off the greater portion of their clothing, before the ship struck; and in the warm water had no sensation of chill, and had nothing to fight against, but fatigue. When they were in the hollow of the waves their position was easy enough, and they could make each other hear, by shouting loudly. When, however, they were on the crest of one of the mountainous waves, it was a hard struggle for life. The wind blew with such fury, taking the top of the water off in sheets, and scattering it in fine spray, that the boys were nearly drowned; although they kept their back to the wind, and held their breath as if diving, except when necessary to make a gasp for air. Gerald became weak and tired, at the end of the hour; but Ned kept up his courage, and aided him by swimming by his side, and letting Gerald put his hand upon his shoulder, every time that they were in the hollows of the waves, so that he got a complete rest at these periods. At last, Ned thought he saw a passage between two of the big rocks, through which it might be possible, he thought, that they might swim, and so avoid the certain death which seemed to await them at every other spot. The passage was about 40 feet wide, and it was no easy matter to calculate upon striking this, in so wild a sea. Side by side with Gerald, Ned made for the spot, and at last swam to the edge of the surf. Then a great wave came rolling in, and the boys, dizzy and confused, half smothered and choking, were hurled with tremendous force, through the great rocks, into comparatively calm water beyond. Ned now seized Gerald's hair, for his friend was nearly gone; and, turning aside from the direct line of the entrance, found himself speedily in calm water, behind the line of rocks. A few minutes' further struggle and the two boys lay on the beach, well-nigh insensible after their great exertions. After a while they recovered their strength and, with staggering feet, made their way further inland. "I owe you my life, Ned," Gerald said. "I never could have struggled ashore; nor, indeed, kept myself up for half that time, had it not been for your aid." "I am glad to have been able to help you," Ned said simply. "We may thank heaven that the storm had abated a little, in its force, before the vessel struck; for had it been blowing as it was yesterday, we could not have swum five minutes. It was just the lowering of the wind that enabled us to swim without being drowned by the spray. It was bad enough, as it was, on the top of the waves; but, yesterday, it would have been impossible." One of the first thoughts of the boys, upon fairly recovering themselves, was to kneel down and thank God for having preserved their lives; and then, having rested for upwards of an hour, to recover themselves, they made their way inland. "Our dangers are by no means over, Gerald," Ned said. "If this island is, as I believe, a thickly cultivated one, and in the hands of the Spaniards, it will go hard with us, if they find us, after all the damage to their commerce which we have been inflicting, for the last year." Upon getting to some rising ground, they saw, to their surprise, a large town lying on a bay in front of them. Instinctively they paused at the sight, and both sat down, so as to be out of view of any casual lookers on. "What are we to do, Ned?" Gerald said. "If we stay here, we shall be starved. If we go into the town, we shall have our throats cut. Which think you is the best?" "I do not like either alternative," Ned said. "See, inland there are many high mountains, and even close to the town there appear to be thickets and woods. There are houses, here and there, and no doubt plantations. It seems to me that if we get round to that side we may conceal ourselves; and it is hard, in a country like this, if we cannot, at any rate, find fruit enough to keep us for some time. And we had better wait till dark. Our white shoulders will be seen at too far a distance, by this light." Creeping into a thicket, the lads lay down and were soon sound asleep; and it was night before they awoke, and looked out. All signs of the storm had passed. The moon was shining calmly, the stars were brilliant, and seemed to hang like lamps in the sky, an effect which is only seen in tropical climes. There were lights in the town, and these served as a sort of guide to them. Skirting along at the top of the basin in which the town lay, they passed through cultivated estates, picking some ears of maize; thus satisfying their hunger, which was, when they started, ravenous; for, during the storm, they had been unable to open the hatchways, and had been supported only by a little biscuit, which happened to be in the caboose on deck. Towards morning they chose a spot in a thick plantation of trees, about a mile and a half from the town; and here they agreed to wait, for a while, until they could come to some decision as to their course. Three days passed without any change. Each night they stole out and picked maize, pineapple, and melons in the plantations for their subsistence; and as morning returned, went back to their hiding place. Close to it a road ran along to a noble house, which stood in some grounds at about a quarter of a mile from their grove. Every morning they saw the owner of this house, apparently a man of distinction, riding towards the town; and they concluded that he was one of the great merchants of the place. One day he came accompanied by a young lady, carried in a litter by four slaves. The boys, who were weary of their solitude, pressed to the edge of the thicket to obtain a clear view of this little procession, which broke the monotony of their day. "Gerald," Ned exclaimed, grasping him by the arm, "do you know, I believe that the lady is the girl I picked out of the water, the day we took that ship three months ago." "Do you think so?" Gerald said. "It is too far, surely, to see." "I do not know for certain," Ned answered, "but methinks that I cannot be mistaken." "Perhaps she would help us, or intercede for us," Gerald suggested. "Perhaps so," Ned said. "At any rate, we will try. Tonight we will make a move into the gardens of the house she came from, and will hide there till we see her alone in the garden. Then I will sally forth, and see how she takes it." Accordingly, that night, after obtaining their supply of fruit, the boys entered the enclosure When morning broke there was speedily a stir, negroes and negresses went out to the fields, servants moved hither and thither in the veranda outside the house, gardeners came out and set to work at their vocations. It was evident that the owner or his family was fond of gardening, for everything was kept with beautiful order and regularity. Mixed with the cactus, and other gaudy-flowering plants of Mexico and South America, were many European plants, brought out and acclimatized. Here fountains threw up dancing waters in the air, cool shady paths and bowers afforded protection from the heat of the day; and so carefully was it clipped, and kept, that a fallen leaf would have destroyed its perfection. The point which the boys had chosen was remote from the house, for it was of importance that there should be no witnesses of the meeting. Here, in a spacious arbor, were chairs, couches, and other signs that some of the family were in the habit of taking their seats there; and although the boys knew that it might be days before they succeeded in carrying out their object, yet they determined to wait, and watch patiently, however long it might be. Their success, however, surpassed their expectations; for it was but an hour or two after they had taken up their post, and soon after the sun had risen, that they saw, walking along the path, the young lady whom they so desired to meet. She was not alone, for a black girl walked a little behind her, chatting constantly to her, and carrying some books, a shawl, and various other articles. When they reached the arbor the attendant placed the things there, and then, as she took her seat, the young lady said to the girl: "Go in and fetch me my coffee here. Say I shall not come in until breakfast time, and that if any orders are required, they must come here for them." "Will you want me to read to you?" "No," the young lady said. "It is not hot. I shall take a turn round the garden, first, and then read to myself." The black girl went off at a trot towards the house, and the young lady strolled round and round that portion of the garden, until her black attendant returned, with a tray containing coffee, lemonade, and fruits. This she placed on the table, and then in answer to the "You need not wait," of the lady, again retired. Now was the time for the boys, who had watched these operations with keen interest, and anxiety. It was uncertain whether she would keep the black attendant by her side, and all depended upon that. As soon as she was alone, Ned advanced from their hiding place. The boys had agreed that it was better, at first, that he should approach alone; lest the sudden appearance of the two, especially as Gerald was nearly as tall as a man, might have caused alarm; and she might have flown away, before she had identified Ned as the lad who had jumped into the water to save her. Ned approached the arbor with hesitating steps, and felt that his appearance was, indeed, sorely against him. He had no covering to his head, had nothing on, indeed, but a pair of trousers. He was shoeless and stockingless, and presented the appearance of a beggar boy, rather than the smart young sailor whom she had seen on board the ship. The lady started up, with a short exclamation, on seeing a white, ragged boy standing before her. "Who are you?" she exclaimed, "and by what right do you enter these gardens? A white boy, and in rags, how comes this?" "Our ship has been wrecked," Ned said, using his best Spanish. "Do you not remember me? I am the boy who picked you up when you fell overboard, on the day when the English captured the ship you came out in, some four months ago." "Are you, indeed?" the young lady said, in surprise. "Yes, and now that I look close at you, I recognize your face. Poor boy, how have you got into a strait like this?" Ned understood but little of what she said, as he only knew a few words in Spanish. It was with difficulty that he could understand it, even when spoken slowly; while, spoken as a native would do, he scarce gathered a word. He saw, however, from her attitude, that her meaning was kind, and that she was disposed to do what she could for him. He therefore, in his broken Spanish, told her how a ship, on which he and five of his comrades were embarked, had been driven ashore in the hurricane; and all lost, with the exception of another boy, and himself. "It is lucky, indeed," the girl said to herself, when he had finished, "that I found that my father had left Nombre de Dios, and had come down to his house here; for, assuredly, the people would have made short work of these poor lads, had I not been here to aid them. But, after all, what can I do? My father would, I know, do anything for my sake; and I have told him how this lad jumped overboard, to save my life; but there is one here greater than he, that terrible Inquisition. These boys are heretics, and it will be impossible to conceal, for any time, from the priests that they are here. Still, at any rate, for a time we might hide them; and in gratitude only, I would do all in my power for them." Ned watched her face, as these thoughts passed through her mind. He saw at once that she was willing to do all in her power, but saw also that there were difficulties in the way. "Poor boy," she said, looking at him kindly; "you must be hungry, indeed," and, taking an ivory mallet, she struck a gong which hung in the arbor, and made signs to Ned to retire for the present. The little black girl came running out. "I have changed my mind," her mistress said. "Let my breakfast be sent out here to me, instead of indoors. And I am hungry. Tell the cook to be sure and let it be a good one, and as soon as possible." Much surprised by these orders, the black girl again left her. "My father has gone to town," she said to the boys, when they joined her. "When he comes back, I will ask him what can be done. It will not be easy to hide you, for these negroes chatter like so many parrots; and the news will spread all over the town that some English boys are here, and in that case they will take you away, and my father would be powerless as I to help you." The black cook was, indeed, astonished at the demolition of the breakfast effected by her young mistress; but she put it down to the fact that she must have given a large portion of it to her dogs, of which one or more were generally her companions, in the garden. Fortunately, on the present occasion, the great bloodhound Zeres had gone down into the town with his master. Of this, however, the cook knew nothing; and muttered to herself somewhat angrily, as she saw the empty dishes which were brought back to her, "that it was a sin to give, to that creature, a meal which was sufficient for five noblemen." When Senor Sagasta returned to his beautiful villa, in the afternoon, his daughter at once confided to him what had happened. He entered warmly into her scheme for the aid and protection of the lads, and expressed himself willing to do anything that she could suggest. "But," he said, "you know as well as I do that, if the news gets about that two boys of Captain Drake's band are here, nothing will save them from the rage of the population; and indeed, if the people and the military authorities were disposed to let them alone, the Inquisition would be too strong for them, and would claim its own; and against the Inquisition even governors are powerless. Therefore if they are to stop, and stop they must, at least for a time, it must be done in perfect secrecy. "There is no possibility of disguising two English boys to look like negroes. The only plan I can suggest is that they should have that gardeners' hut. I can remove the man who lives there at present, and will send him up the country to look after my place there. Then you must take old David into our confidence. He and his wife Floey are perfectly faithful, and can be trusted to the death. It is lucky that she is cook, for she will be able to prepare food for them. The hut must be kept, of course, locked up at all times; but as it is close to the fence, and the window indeed looks into the garden, you can go there of a day and speak to them, and take them books, and lighten their captivity. "When it gets dark I will go with you down the garden, and will see these brave lads. In the meantime, old David shall get some shirts, and shoes, and other necessaries for them. We have a plentiful store of things in the magazine, and he can rig them up there, perfectly. I will at once get the gardener out of the house, and will give David instructions to carry the things there, as soon as it is empty." That evening after it was dark the boys, who had been anxiously listening for every movement, saw in the dim light the white figure of the girl advancing, with her father beside her. When she came to the arbor, she raised her voice. "Are you here?" she cried. "You can come out without fear." And, as they advanced, "My father will do all in his power to protect the savior of his daughter." The merchant shook the hands of the boys, with the stately ceremony of the Spaniard, and assured them that he was their servant, indeed, for their treatment of his daughter; and that his house, and all that it contained, was at their disposal. Ned and Gerald understood little enough of what he was saying, but his manner and gestures were sufficient, and they thanked him heartily for his kindness. He now led the way, along many winding paths, till they reached a low fence forming the border of the garden, and distant a long way from the house. A light was already burning in it, and a black servant was at work within. There was a break in the fence, by which they passed through without difficulty; and on entering the hut, they found everything prepared for them. On a table stood a dainty supper. The rooms were swept, and fresh furniture had been placed in them. In these countries furniture is of the slightest kind. A hammock, to swing in by day or sleep in by night; a couple of cane chairs; and a mat, of beautifully woven straw, for the floor. This is nearly all the furniture which is required, in the tropics. First the negro beckoned the boys into an inner room, and there, to their intense delight, they saw a large tub full of water, and two piles of clothes lying beside it. Don Sagasta and his daughter, after a few more words, left them; assuring them that they would be safe from observation there, but that they must not stir out, during the day; and must keep the door securely fastened, and must give no answer to anyone who might come and knock, or call, unless to themselves, to the black who was now with them, or his wife, who would accompany him, perhaps, the next evening. Donna Anna herself promised that she would come and see them the next morning, and that she hoped to find that they were comfortable. When left alone, the boys luxuriated in the bath; and then, having put on fresh suits, they felt clean and comfortable once again. The clothes were those used by the upper class of slaves, employed as overseers. Don Sagasta had determined to get them some clothes of a superior class; but he felt that it was better that, so long as they were in hiding, they should be dressed in a costume which would, should anyone perchance get a distant look at them, excite no curiosity or surprise. The boys ate a hearty supper; and then, throwing themselves into the swinging hammocks, were soon fast asleep. They were up with dawn, next morning, tidied up their room, and made all ready for the visit of Donna Anna. She soon appeared, having got rid of her little black maid, as upon the morning before. She brought them a store of books, and among them a Spanish dictionary and grammar. She told them that she thought it would be of assistance, to pass away their time; and be of the greatest use, for them to learn to speak as much Spanish as possible; and that she was willing, when she could spare time, unobserved, to teach them the language. Very gratefully the boys accepted her offer; and, day by day for the next month, the young lady came every morning, and for an hour taught them the meaning and pronunciation of the words, which during the day they learnt by heart. They found that the island upon which they had been cast ashore was Porto Rico, an island of considerable size, not far from Hispaniola. Chapter 6: In the Woods. In the evening Senor Sagasta visited the lads, and had long conversations with them. He promised them that, upon the very first opportunity which should occur, he would aid them to escape; but pointed out that, at present, there was no possibility of their getting away. "Captain Drake," he said, "has left the seas and, until he comes back again, or some other of your English filibusters, I see no chance of your escape. As soon as I hear of an English ship in these waters I will have a small boat, well fitted up with sails and all necessaries, conveyed to a creek on the coast. To this you shall be taken down, and make your way to the point where we hear that the vessel is accustomed to rendezvous." This appeared to the boys to be the only possible plan, and they warmly expressed their gratitude to their host for his thoughtful kindness. Another month passed; and then, one evening, Don Sagasta came to the hut with a certain anxiety in his face. "Is there anything the matter?" Ned, who now began to speak Spanish with some fluency, asked. "I am much disturbed. Since you have been here, I am sure that no one has got a sight of you; and I can rely so implicitly upon David, and Flora, that I am sure the secret has not leaked out there. But from what I hear, it seems that you must have been seen, during the time that you were wrecked, and before you came here. I hear in the town today that a rumor is current, among the people, that two white men were seen, near the sea, upon the day after the great storm. Someone else, too, seems to have said that he caught sight of two white men, not far from this house, just before daybreak, two days afterwards. This report has, it seems, been going from mouth to mouth; and has at last reached the ears of the governor. The portions of a wreck, which were driven ashore, seem to confirm the story; and unfortunately, the board with the name of the ship was washed ashore, and it is known to be that of one of those captured by Captain Drake. Putting the two things together, it is supposed that misfortune overtook a portion of his fleet, and that two of his men managed to save their lives, and are now lurking somewhere about the neighborhood I hear that the governor has ordered a strict search to be set on foot, and that a large reward is to be offered for the discovery of any signs of the fugitives." The next day, the boys heard that the persons to whom the story had been traced had been taken before the governor, and strictly examined, and that he was fully convinced of the truth of the story. Three days afterwards, Don Sagasta brought them a copy of a notice which had been placed in the marketplace, offering a reward of 1000 dollars for any news which would lead to the capture of the English pirates, and announcing the severest punishment upon any who should dare to conceal, or to assist them. Gerald at once said that, rather than be a cause of anxiety to their kind host and his daughter, they would give themselves up. This offer was, however, indignantly refused by Don Sagasta. "No, no," he said; "this must not be. I might take you into the house, but I fear that with so many servants, some of whom are as bigoted as any of us whites, you would be sure to be discovered; and they would either reveal in confession, or disclose to the authorities, the fact of your concealment. The only plan which promises to offer safety, that I can suggest, is that you shall take to the mountains. There are many runaways there, and although sometimes they are hunted down and slain; yet they have caverns, and other places of concealment, where you might remain for years. I will speak to David about it, at once." David, on being questioned, said that there was an old native woman, living at a hut a little way off, who had the reputation of having the evil eye, and who was certainly acquainted with the doings of the runaways. If any slave wished to send a message, to one of his friends who had taken to the hills, the old woman would, for a present, always convey, or get it conveyed, to the man for whom it was intended. He thought that it would be absolutely necessary that some such means should be taken of introducing the boys to the runaways; otherwise, hunted as these were, they would either fly when they saw two whites approaching, or would surround and destroy them. Don Sagasta at once accepted the suggestion, and David was dispatched to the old woman, with offers of a handsome present, if she would give a guide to the boys, to the mountains. David was instructed, especially, to tell her that they were English, and the natural enemies of the Spaniards; that they had done them much harm at sea; and that, if caught by the Spaniards, they would be killed. He returned an hour later, with news that the old Indian woman had, at once upon hearing these facts, promised to get them passed up to the hiding places of the natives. "You think," Don Sagasta said, "that there is no fear of her mentioning the fact that she has seen my friends, to any of the searchers?" "Oh, no," David said. "She is as close as wax. Over and over again, when she has been suspected of assisting in the evasion of a slave, she has been beaten and put to torture; but nothing was ever extracted from her lips, and it is certain that she would die, rather than reveal a secret." Donna Anna was much moved, when she said adieu to the lads. She regarded Ned as the preserver of her life; and both had, during the two months of daily intercourse, much endeared themselves to her. Don Sagasta brought to them a handsome pair of pistols, each, and a sword; and then, giving them a basket of provisions and a purse containing money, which he thought might be useful even among runaway slaves, he and his daughter bade adieu to them, with many expressions of kindness and gratitude, on both sides. "Do not hesitate," Don Sagasta said, "to let me know if I can, at any time, do or send anything for you. Should it be possible, I will send a message to you, by the old woman, if any expedition on a grand scale is being got up against the runaways; and this may make your position more comfortable among them." Under the guidance of David, they then started for the Indian woman's hut; while Flora set to work to carry away and obliterate all signs, from the hut, of its late residents. After a few minutes' walking, the boys arrived at the Indian hut. It was constructed simply, of boughs of trees thickly worked together. On hearing their footsteps an old woman--the boys thought they had never seen anyone so old--with long white hair, and a face wrinkled till it hardly seemed like the face of a human being, came to the door, with a torch made of resinous wood held aloft. She peered under her hand at the boys, and said a few words to David, which he translated to the boys to be: "And these are English, the people of whom the Spaniards are as afraid as my people are of them? Two Spaniards can drive fifty Indians before them, but I hear that a dozen of these Englishmen can take a ship with a hundred Spaniards on board. It is wonderful. They look something like our oppressors, but they are fairer, and their eyes are blue; and they look honest, and have not that air of pride, and arrogance, which the Spaniard never lays aside. "I have a boy here." And as she spoke an Indian boy, of some thirteen years of age, slipped out from behind her. "He will show them to the refuge places of the last of my race. There they will be well received, for I have sent by him a message to their chiefs; and it may be that these lads, knowing the ways of white warfare, will be able to assist my countrymen, and to enable them to resist these dogs of Spaniards. "The blessing of an old woman be upon you. I have seen many changes. I have seen my people possessors of this island, save a small settlement which they had, even then, the folly to allow the Spaniards to possess. I have seen them swept away by the oppressor, my husband tortured and killed, my brothers burned alive, all that I loved slain by the Spaniards. Now, it does my old eyes good to see two of the race who will, in the future, drive those dogs from these fair lands, as they have driven my people." So saying, she returned into the hut. The boy prepared at once to start, and the lads, wringing the hand of the black who had been so kind to them, at once followed their guide into the darkness. For some hours they walked without intermission, sometimes going at a sling trot, and then easing down again. Dark as was the night, their guide trod the paths without hesitation or pause. The boys could scarce see the ground upon which they trod, but the eyes of the native were keener than theirs, and to him the way seemed as clear as in broad daylight. After traversing for some miles a flat, level country, they began to mount; and for about two hours ascended a mountain, thickly covered with forest. Then the guide stopped, and motioned to them that he could now go no further, and must rest for the present. The boys were surprised at this sudden stop, for their guide had gone along so quickly and easily that he taxed, to the utmost, their powers of progression; while he, himself, never breathed any harder than when walking upon the level ground. They had, however, no means of interrogating him, for he spoke no language which they understood. Without a word, the lad threw himself down at full length, an example which they followed without hesitation. "I wonder," Ned said, "why he stopped." "Because he is tired, I expect," Gerald replied; "or that he does not know the exact spot upon which he is likely to meet the band; and that he has taken us, so far, along the one path which was certain to lead in the right direction, but for the precise spot he must wait, till morning." It was not many minutes before the three lads were fast asleep, but with the first gleam of daylight the Indian boy awoke. Touching his companions, he sprang to his feet, and without hesitation turned off to the right, and climbed an even steeper path than any which they had followed in the darkness. The trees grew thinner as they advanced, and they were soon climbing over bare rock. They saw now that they were near the extreme summit of one of the hills. The boy, as they passed through the trees, had gathered some dry sticks, and a handful or two of green leaves. Upon reaching the top he placed these down upon the ground, and looked towards the east. The sun would not be up for another half hour, yet. The boy at once began, with steady earnestness, to rub two pieces of stick together, according to their way of kindling a fire. It was a quarter of an hour before the sparks began to drop from the wood. These, with some very dry leaves and tiny chips of wood, the Indian boy rapidly blew into life; and then, with a very small fire of dry wood, he sat patiently watching the east. At the moment that the sun showed above the sea, he placed the little fire in the heart of the pile of wood which he had collected, threw the green leaves upon it, and blew vigorously until the whole caught fire, and a wreath of smoke ascended above them. For five minutes only he allowed the fire to burn, and then at once extinguished it carefully, knocking the fire from each individual brand. When the last curl of white smoke had ceased to ascend, he stood up and eagerly looked round the country. It was a glorious view. On the one hand, the wood-clad hills sloped to the foot of the plain, covered with plantations, dotted here and there with the villages of the slaves, and the white houses of the overseers. At a distance could be faintly seen the towers of a city; while beyond, the sea stretched like a blue wall, far as the eye could see. Inland the country was broken and mountainous; the hills being, in all cases, thickly covered with trees. From two points, in the heart of these hills, white smoke curled up, as soon as the smoke of their fire died away. These, too, in a short time also ceased to rise; and the boys knew that they were signal fires, in response to that which their guide had made. The boy hesitated, for a minute or two, as to the direction which he should take. As, however, one of the fires appeared a good deal nearer than the other, this probably decided him in its favor; and he started, in a straight line, towards the spot where the smoke had curled up. Another two hours' walking, and they entered an open glade; where ten or twelve natives, and two or three negroes were gathered. They were greatly surprised at seeing two white men, but the presence of the native guide apparently vouched for these visitors; and although one or two of the men sprang up and, at a rapid pace, proceeded in the direction from which the newcomers had arrived, the rest simply rose to their feet and, grasping the spears, bows and arrows, and clubs which they carried, waited silently to hear what the Indian boy had to tell them. He poured forth an animated strain of words, for a few minutes, and the faces of the Indians lit up with pleasure. The one among them who appeared to be the chief of the party advanced at once to the boys, and made every sign of welcome. One of the negroes also approached, and in broken Spanish asked them if they could speak in that language. The boys were able, now, to reply in the affirmative; and quickly supplemented the account of them, which had been given by their guide, by their own description of the manner of their coming there. The negro, after explaining to the rest what the boys had said, then assured them, in the name of the chief, that every welcome was theirs; and that they hailed among them, as a happy incident, the arrival of two of the famous race who were the deadly enemies of the Spaniards. The boys, on their part, assured them that they would endeavor to repay the hospitality with which they were received by their assistance, should the Spaniards make any attacks upon the tribe during the time they were there; that the English, everywhere, were the friends of those who were oppressed by the Spaniards; and that their countrymen were moved, with horror and indignation, at the accounts which had reached them of the diabolical treatment to which the Indians were exposed. The party now pressed still further into the forest and, turning up a ravine, followed its windings for some distance; and then, passing through an exceedingly narrow gorge, reached a charming little valley; in which were some rough huts, showing that the residence of at least a portion of the runaways had been reached. Here, for some time, life passed uneventfully with the boys. Their first care was to study sufficient of the language of the natives to enable them to hold converse with them, for it was clear to them that they might have to stop there for some considerable time. Their food consisted of roots, of wild fruit, and of yams; which the natives cultivated in small, scattered plots of ground. Many birds, too, were brought in, the natives bringing them down with small darts. They were able to throw their light spears with extreme precision, and often pierced the larger kinds of birds, as they sat upon the boughs of trees, with these weapons, before they could open their wings for flight. With bows and arrows, too, they were able to shoot with great accuracy; and the boys felt sure that, if properly led, they would be able to make a stout resistance to the Spaniards. They heard, several times during the first three weeks of their sojourn there, of raids made by small parties of the Spaniards; but in none of these cases were the searchers successful in finding traces of the fugitive slaves, nor did they come into the part of the wood in which was the village which served as headquarters of the negroes. At the end of three weeks, the boys accompanied a party of their friends to other points at which the fugitives were gathered. Altogether they found that, in that part of the island, there were some hundreds of natives, with about forty or fifty runaway negroes. Through the latter, the boys explained to the natives that they ought to build strong places to which, in case of necessity, they could retreat, and where they could offer a desperate resistance to the enemy. The extreme roughness of the ground, the deep ravines and precipices, were all favorable for defense; and although they could not hope to make a permanent resistance to a large armed force, yet they might easily resist small parties, and then make good their retreat before large reinforcements could arrive. The negroes expressed their approval of the plans, but the Indians shook their heads over the proposition. "These men have no courage," the blacks said to the boys. "Their heart is broken. They fly at the sound of a Spaniard's voice. What good do you expect from them? But if the Spaniards come, we fight. Our people are brave, and we do not fear death. If the Spaniards come we fight with you, and die rather than be taken back as slaves." One morning, on rising, the boys heard some exclamations among their allies. "What is it?" they asked. The negroes pointed to films of smoke, rising from the summits of two hills, at a short distance from each other. "What is that a sign of?" they asked. "It is a sign that the Spaniards are coming. No doubt in pursuit of a runaway; perhaps with those terrible dogs. The Spaniards could do nothing among these mountains without them. They follow their game through the thickest woods." "But," said Ned, "why on earth do not the negroes take to the trees? Surely there could be no difficulty in getting from tree to tree by the branches, for a certain distance, so as to throw the hounds off the scent." "Many do escape in that way," the negro said; "but the pursuit is often so hot, and the dogs so close upon the trail, that there is little time for maneuvers of this sort; beside which, many of the fugitives are half mad with fear. I know, myself, that the baying of those horrible dogs seems to freeze the blood; and in my case, I only escaped by luckily striking a rivulet. Then my hopes rose again; and after following it, for a time, I had the happy thought of climbing into a tree which overhung it, and then dropping down at some little distance off, and so completely throwing the dogs off the trail." "Why do they not shoot the dogs?" Ned asked. "I do not mean the men whom they are scenting, but their friends." "We might shoot them," the negro said, "if they were allowed to run free; but here in the woods they are usually kept on the chain, so that their masters are close to them. "Listen," he said, "do you not hear the distant baying?" Listening attentively, however, the boys could hear nothing. Their ears were not trained so well as that of the negro, and it was some minutes before they heard a distant, faint sound of the deep bark of a dog. A few minutes later a negro, panting for breath, bathed in perspiration, and completely exhausted, staggered into the glade where they were standing. The other negroes gave a slight cry of alarm, at the proximity of so dangerous a comrade. "Save me," the man cried. "I am pursued." "How many men are after you?" Ned asked. The negro started in astonishment, at seeing a white face and being questioned in Spanish. Seeing, however, that his comrades were on good terms with his questioner, he answered at once: "There are some twenty of them, with two dogs." "Let us give them a sharp lesson," Ned said to the negroes standing round. "We have made preparations, and it is time that we began to show our teeth. If they find that they cannot come with impunity into our woods, they will not be so anxious to pursue single men; and will leave us alone, except they bring all the force of the island against us." The negroes looked doubtful as to the wisdom of taking the initiative, so great was their fear of the Spaniards. However, the cheerfulness with which the two English boys proposed resistance animated them; and, with sharp whistles, they called the whole of their comrades to the place. Ned briefly explained their intentions. "There is no time to be lost. We must take our places on the upper ground of that narrow valley, and tell the man to run straight through. We have plenty of stones piled there, and may give the Spaniards a warmer reception than they expect. We could not have a better opportunity; for, with such small numbers as they have, they certainly would not be able to attack us, with any hope of success, up so steep a hillside." The valley which Ned indicated was not one of those which led in the direction of their stronghold; but it was a very steep gorge, which they had remarked as being particularly well fitted for checking a pursuing party; and for that end had prepared piles of stones on the upper heights. The negroes, taking with them the sharpened poles which they used as spears, and their bows and arrows, started, under Ned and Gerald, to the indicated spot. Gerald had arranged to go with a party to one side of the gorge, Ned to the other; but they decided that it was better that they should keep together, the more to encourage the natives; and while a few negroes were sent to one side of the gorge, the main body, under the two English lads, kept together on the other. The fugitive had already gone ahead, with one of the negroes to show him the way. Scarcely had they taken their places, at the top of the gorge; when the baying of the hounds, which had been increasing every minute in volume, became so loud that the Spaniards were clearly close at hand. In another three or four minutes there issued from the wood a party of some twenty men, leading two dogs by chains. The creatures struggled to get forward, and their eyes seemed almost starting out of their heads with their eagerness to reach the object of their pursuit. Their speed was, however, moderated by the fact that the band, who were all on horseback, had to pick their way through the great boulders. The wood itself was difficult for horsemen, but here and there were spaces, and they had been able to ride at a fair pace. On entering the mouth of the gorge, however, they were obliged to fall into an order of two abreast, and sometimes even to go in Indian file. Huge boulders strewed the bottom of the chasm; where indeed a stream, in winter, poured through. The sides were by no means perpendicular, but were exceedingly precipitous. When the Spaniards had fairly got into the gorge Ned gave the signal, and a shower of great stones came leaping down the sides of the rocks upon the astonished foes. Several were struck from their horses; many of the horses, themselves, were knocked down; and a scene of confusion at once took place. The Spaniards, however, were accustomed to fighting; and the person in command, giving a few orders, led ten of his men up the rocks upon the side where the assailants were in strongest force; while the rest of the party, seizing the horses' heads, drove the frightened animals back through the ravine to the mouth. The instant that the Spaniards commenced their ascent, long habits of fear told upon some of the slaves, and these took to their heels at once. Many others stood more firmly, but were evidently wavering. Ned and Gerald, however, kept them at work hurling stones down, and more than one of the Spaniards was carried off his feet by these missiles. Still they bravely ascended. Then Ned, taking a deliberate aim with his pistol, brought down one of the leaders; and this greatly surprised and checked the advance. The pistol shot was followed by that of Gerald, and the Spaniards wavered at this unexpected addition to the forces of the natives. Then Ned in English shouted: "Now, my brave Britons, show these Spaniards you can fight as well, on land, as at sea." The words were probably not understood by any of the Spaniards, but they knew that the language was not Spanish or Indian; and the thought that a number of English were there completely paralyzed them. They hesitated, and then began slowly to fall back. This was all that was needed to encourage the negroes. With a shout, these now advanced to the attack, shooting their arrows and hurling stones, and the retreat of the enemy was rapidly converted into a flight. Their blood once thoroughly up, the negroes were ready for anything. Throwing aside their bows and arrows, they charged upon the Spaniards; and in spite of the superior arms and gallant defense of the latter, many of them were beaten down, and killed, by the heavy clubs and pointed starves of the negroes. More, indeed, would have perished; and indeed, all might have fallen had not, at this moment, a formidable reinforcement of strength reached them. The men from below, having got the horses fairly out of the gorge, left but two of their number with them, and advanced to the assistance of their friends, bringing with them the two bloodhounds. "Never fear the hounds," Ned shouted. "We can beat them to death, as easily as if they were pigs. Keep a bold front and attack them, and I warrant you they are no more formidable than their masters." Had these reinforcements arrived earlier, they might have changed the fight; but the Spaniards who survived were anxious only to be off, and the negroes' blood was so thoroughly up that, under the leadership of the boys, they were prepared to face even these terrible dogs. These threw themselves into the fray, with all the ferocity of their savage nature. Springing at the throats of two of the negroes, they brought them to the ground. One of the dogs was instantly disposed of by Gerald; who, placing his pistol to its ear, blew out its brains. Ned fell upon the other with his sword and, the negroes joining him, speedily beat it down and slew it. The diversion, however, had enabled the Spaniards to get upon their horses; and they now galloped off, at full speed, among the trees. Chapter 7: An Attack in Force. The negroes were delighted at the success of the conflict; as were the Indians, who soon joined them. But ten of the Spaniards had escaped, the rest having fallen; either in the gorge, killed by the rocks, or in the subsequent fight. Ned and Gerald, who were now looked upon as the leaders of the party, told the negroes to collect the arms of the fallen men, and to give a hasty burial to their bodies. The boys knew, too well, the savage nature of the war which raged, between the black and the white, to ask whether any of the Spaniards were only wounded. They knew that an instant death had awaited all who fell into the hands of their late slaves. "Now," Ned said, "my friends, you must not suppose that your fighting is over. The Spaniards will take the news back to the town, and it is likely enough that we shall have a large force upon us, in the course of a few days. I do not suspect that they will come before that time. Indeed, it may be far longer, for they know that it will require a very large force to search these woods; and that, now our blood is up, it will be no trifle to overcome us in our stronghold. If we are to succeed at last, labor, discipline, and courage will all be required." The negroes now besought the boys formally to take the command, and promised to obey their orders, implicitly. "Well," Ned said, "if you promise this, we will lead you. My friend is older than I; and he shall be captain, and I will be first lieutenant." "No, no," Gerald said. "This must not be, Ned. I am the oldest, it is true, by a few months; but you are far more active and quick than I, and you have been the leader, ever since we left the ship. I certainly will not take the command from you." "Well, we will be joint generals," Ned said, laughing; "and I do not think that our orders will clash." He then explained, to the negroes and natives, the course which he thought that they ought to pursue. First, every point at which the enemy could be harassed should be provided with missiles. In the second place, all signs of footsteps and paths leading to their accustomed dwelling places should be obliterated. Thirdly, they should fight as little as possible; it being their object to fight when pursued and interfered with by small parties of Spaniards, but to avoid conflict with large bodies. "Our object," he said, "is to live free and unmolested here; and if the Spanish find that, when they come in large numbers, they cannot overtake us; and that, when they come in small ones, they are defeated with loss; they will take to leaving us alone." All agreed to this policy; and it was arranged that the women, children, and most feeble of the natives should retire to almost inaccessible hiding places, far in the mountains; and that the more active spirits, with the negroes, and divided into five or six bands, acting to some extent independently of each other, but yet in accordance with a general plan, should remain to oppose the passage of the enemy. This, their first success over the Spaniards, caused a wild exultation among the negroes and natives; and Ned and Gerald were viewed as heroes. The lads took advantage of their popularity to impress upon the negroes the necessity of organizing themselves, and undergoing certain drill and discipline; without it, as they told them, although occasionally they might succeed in driving back the Spaniards, yet in the long run they must be defeated. It was only by fighting with regularity, like trained soldiers, that they would make themselves respected by the Spaniards; and the latter, instead of viewing them as wild beasts to be hunted, would regard them with respect. The negroes, fresh from a success gained by irregular means, were at first loath to undertake the trouble and pains which the boys desired; but the latter pointed out that it was not always that the enemy were to be caught napping, and that after such a check as had been put upon them, the Spaniards would be sure to come in greater numbers, and to be far more cautious how they trusted themselves into places where they might be caught in a trap. The weapons thrown away or left upon the ground, by the Spaniards, were divided among the negroes; and these and the natives were now formed into companies, natives and negroes being mixed in each company, so that the latter might animate the former by their example. Four companies, of forty men, each were formed; and for the next fortnight incessant drill went on, by which time the forest fugitives began to have a fair notion of the rudimentary elements of drill. When the boys were not engaged upon this, in company with one of the native chiefs they examined the mountains, and at last fixed upon a place which should serve as the last stronghold, should they be driven to bay by the enemy. It was three weeks before there were any signs of the Spaniards. At the end of that time a great smoke, rising from the signal hill, proclaimed that a large body of the enemy were approaching the forest. This was expected; for, two days before, three negro runaways had taken shelter with them. The negroes had been armed with long pikes of tough wood, sharpened in the fire, and capable of inflicting fully as deadly a wound as those carried by the Spaniards. Each carried a club, the leaders being armed with the swords taken from the Spaniards; while there were also eight arquebuses, which had been gained from the same source. All the natives bore bows and arrows, with which they were able to shoot with great accuracy. The negroes were not skilled with these weapons; but were more useful, from their greater strength, for hurling down rocks and missiles upon the Spaniards, when below. A consultation had been previously held, as to the course to be taken in case of the approach of the enemy. It was determined as far as possible to avoid fighting, to allow the Spaniards to tramp from place to place, and then to harass them by falling upon them in the night, disturbing their sleep, cutting down sentries; and harassing them until they were forced, by pure exhaustion, to leave the forest. These tactics were admirably adapted to the nature of the contest. The only thing which threatened to render them nugatory was the presence of the fierce dogs of the Spaniards. Preparations had already been made for checking the bloodhounds in pursuit of fugitive slaves. In a narrow place, in one of the valleys at the entrance of the forest, a somewhat heavy gallery had been erected. This was made of wood heaped with great stones, and was so arranged that any animal running through it would push aside a stick, which acted as a trigger. This would release a lever, and the heavy logs above would fall, crushing to death anything beneath it. A lookout was always placed to intercept any fugitive slaves who might enter the forest, and to guide them through this trap; which was, of course, not set until after they had passed. This had been done in the case of the two negroes who had arrived the previous day, and the boys felt that any pursuit of them by bloodhounds would at once be cut short, and the Spaniards left to their own devices. This anticipation proved correct. The scouts reported that they could hear, in the distance, the baying of dogs; and that, undoubtedly, the enemy were proceeding on the track of the slaves. The four companies were each told off, to positions considerably apart from each other; while Ned and Gerald, with the cacique, or chief, of the Indians, one negro, and four or five fleet-footed young men, remained to watch the success of the trap. This was all that they had hoped. The Spaniards were seen coming up the glade, a troop two hundred strong. The leaders were on horseback, some fifteen in number; and after them marched the pikemen, in steady array, having men moving at a distance on each flank, to prevent surprise. "This," said Ned, "is a regular military enterprise. The last was a mere pursuing party, gathered at random. It will not be so easy to deal with cautious men, like these." Three hounds ran ahead of the leaders, with their noses on the ground, giving now and then the deep bay peculiar to their kind. They reached the trap, and rushed into the gallery, which was some twelve feet in length, and of sufficient height to enable a man on foot to march through. The leaders, on seeing the trap, drew in their horses, in doubt what this structure could mean, and shouted to the hounds to stop. But the latter, having the scent strong in their nostrils, ran on without pausing. As the last hound disappeared in the gallery, a crash was heard, and the whole erection collapsed, crushing the hounds beneath it. A cry of consternation and surprise burst from the Spaniards. The artifice was a new one, and showed that the fugitives were assisted by men with intellect far in advance of their own. The pursuit was summarily checked, for the guides of the Spaniards were now gone. The enemy paused, and a consultation took place among the leaders. It was apparently determined to pursue their way alone, taking every precaution, in hopes that the natives would attack them as they had done the previous expedition; when they hoped to inflict a decisive blow upon them. That they would, themselves, be able to find the run-away negroes in the forest they had but small hope; but they thought it possible that these would again take the initiative. First, under the guidance of one who had evidently been in the last expedition, they took their way to the valley where the fight had taken place. Here all was still. There were no signs of their foes. They found, in the gorge, a great cairn of stones; with a wooden cross placed over it, and the words in Spanish cut upon it: "Here lie the bodies of ten Spaniards, who sought to attack harmless men in these woods. Let their fate be a lesson to those who may follow their example." This inscription caused great surprise among the Spaniards, who gathered round the mound and conversed earnestly upon it; looking round at the deep and silent woods, which might, for ought they knew, contain foes who had proved themselves formidable. It was evident that the soldiers, brave as they were, yet felt misgivings as to the task upon which they had entered. They knew that two Englishmen, a portion of the body which, under Drake, had rendered themselves so feared, were leaders of these men; and so great was the respect in which the English were at that time held, that this, alone, vastly added to the difficulties and dangers which the Spaniards saw awaiting them. However, after a few minutes' consultation the party moved forward. It was now formed in two bodies, about equally strong; one going a quarter of a mile ahead, the other following it. "What have these men divided their forces for?" the negro asked Ned. "It seems to me," he answered, "that they hope we shall fall upon the first body, thinking that there are no more behind; and that the others, coming up in the midst of the fight, will take us by surprise. However, we will let them march. "Send word, to the company which lies somewhat in the line which they have taken, of their approach; and let them at once retire. Tell them to make circuits in the hills, but to leave behind them sufficient traces for the Spaniards to follow. This will encourage them to keep on, and by nightfall they will be thoroughly tired out. "Whenever they get in valleys, or other places where advantage may be taken of them, two of the companies shall accompany them, at a good distance on their flanks; and pour in volleys of arrows, or roll stones down upon them. I will take command of one of these companies, Gerald of the other. "Do you," he said to the negro, "follow with the last. Keep out of their reach; but occasionally, after they have passed, fire arrows among the rear guard. "Do you, cacique, make your way to the leading column. See that they choose the most difficult gorges; and give, as far as possible, the appearance of hurry to their flight, so as to encourage the Spaniards to follow." These tactics were faithfully carried out. All day the Spaniards followed, as they believed, close upon the footsteps of the flying foe; but from time to time, from strong advantage spots, arrows were rained upon them, great rocks thundered down, and wild yells rang through the forest. Before, however, they could ascend the slopes and get hand to hand with their enemy, these had retreated, and all was silent as the grave in the woods. Perplexed, harassed, and somewhat awe-struck by these new and inexplicable tactics; and having lost many men, by the arrows and stones of the enemy, the two troops gathered at nightfall in an open glade. Here a bivouac was formed, branches of the trees cut down, and the provisions which each had brought with him produced. A rivulet ran through the glade, and the weary troops were soon lying on the grass, a strong line of sentries having been placed round. Already the appearance of the troop was greatly changed from that of the body which had entered the wood. Then all were eager for the fray; confident in the extreme of their power to crush, with ease, these unarmed negroes and natives, who had hitherto, except on the last occasion, fled like hunted deer at their approach. Now, however, this feeling was checked. They had learned that the enemy were well commanded, and prepared; and that so far, while they themselves had lost several men, not a native had been so much as seen by them. At nightfall the air became alive with mysterious noises; cries as of animals, occasionally Indian whoops, shouts from one voice to another were heard all around. The Spaniards stood to their arms, and gazed anxiously into the darkness. Soon the shouts of the sentries told that flights of arrows were being discharged at them, by invisible foes. Volley after volley were fired, from the musketoons and arquebuses, into the wood. These were answered by bursts of taunting laughter, and mocking yells, while the rain of arrows continued. The Spanish troops, whose position and figures could be seen by the blaze of the lighted fires, while a dense darkness reigned within the forest, began to suffer severely from the arrows of these unseen foes. Bodies, fifty strong, advanced into the dark forest to search out their enemies; but they searched in vain. The Indians, better accustomed to the darkness, and knowing the forest well, easily retreated as they advanced; and the Spaniards dared not venture far from their fires, for they feared being lost in the forest. The officer commanding, an old and experienced soldier, soon ceased these useless sorties. Calling his men into the center of the glade; he ordered them to stand in readiness to repel an assault, extinguished every fire, and allowed half the troop at once to lie down, to endeavor to snatch some sleep. This, however, was impossible; for although the Indians did not venture upon an attack, the chorus of shouts and yells was so terrible and continuous, and the flights of arrows at times fell so fast, that not one of the troop ventured to close an eye. From time to time volleys were fired into the darkness; and once or twice a loud cry told that some, at least, of the balls had taken effect; but the opponents, sheltered each behind the trunk of a tree, suffered comparatively slightly, while many of the Spaniards were struck by their missiles. Morning dawned upon a worn-out and dispirited band, but with daylight their hopes revived. Vigorous sorties were made into the wood; and though these discovered, in a few places, marks of blood where some of their enemies had fallen, and signs of a party being carried away, the woods were now as deserted as they had appeared to be on the previous evening, when they first halted. There was a consultation among the leaders, and it was determined to abandon the pursuit of these invisible foes, as it was agreed that nothing, short of a great effort by the whole available force of the island, would be sufficient to cope with a foe whose tactics were so bewildering and formidable. Upon their march out from the wood, the troop was pursued with the same persistence with which it had been dogged on the preceding day; and when at length it emerged, and the captain counted the numbers of his men, it was found that there were no less than thirty wounded, and that twenty had been left behind, dead. The dwellers of the wood were overjoyed with their success, and felt that a new existence had opened before them. Hitherto they had been fugitives only, and no thought of resistance to the Spaniards had ever entered their minds. They felt now that, so long as they remained in the woods, and maintained their drill and discipline, and persisted in the tactics which they had adopted, they could defy the Spaniards; unless, indeed, the latter came in overwhelming strength. Some time elapsed before any fresh effort was made by the Spaniards. The affair caused intense excitement in the city, and it is difficult to say whether alarm, or rage, most predominated. It was felt that a great effort must be made, to crush the men of the forest; for unless this were done, a vast number of the negro slaves would escape and join them, and the movement would become more formidable, every day. Upon the part of those in the forest, great consultations took place. Some of the negroes were for sending messages to the slaves to rise and join them, but Ned and Gerald strongly opposed this course. There were, as they pointed out, no means whatever in the forest for supporting a larger body of men than those gathered there. The tree-clad hills which constituted their stronghold were some thirty miles in diameter; and the supply of fruits, of roots, and of birds were sufficient for their wants; but it would be very different, were their numbers largely increased. Then they would be forced to make raids upon the cultivated ground beyond; and here, however strong, they would be no match for the Spaniards, whose superior arms and discipline would be certain to give them victory. The Indians strongly supported the reasoning of the boys, and the negroes, when they fully understood the difficulties which would arise, finally acquiesced in their arguments. Schemes were broached for making sallies from the forest, at night, and falling upon the plantations of the Spaniards. This offered greater chances of success, but the boys foresaw that all sorts of atrocities would be sure to take place, and that no quarter would be given to Spaniards of either age or sex. They therefore combated vigorously this proposal, also. They pointed out that, so long as they remained quiet in the forest, and were not joined by large numbers of fugitive negroes, the Spaniards might be content to let them remain unmolested; but upon the contrary, were they to adopt offensive tactics, not only would every Spaniard in the island take up arms against them, but if necessary they would send for help to the neighboring islands, and would assemble a force sufficient thoroughly to search the woods, and to annihilate them. The only case in which the boys considered that an attack upon the Spaniards would be lawful, would be in the event of fresh expeditions being organized. In that case, they were of opinion that it would be useful to destroy one or two large mansions and plantations, as near as possible to the town; sending at the same time a message to the Spaniards that, if they persisted in disturbing them in the forest, a similar fate would befall every Spanish plantation situated beyond the town. It was not long before these tactics were called into play. One of the negroes had, as was their custom, gone down to the town, to purchase such articles as were indispensable. Upon these occasions, as usual, he went down to the hut of the old woman who acted as their intermediary; and remained concealed there, during the day, while she went into the town, to buy cotton for dresses, and other things. This she could only do in small quantities at a time, using various shops for the purpose; returning each time, with her parcel, to the hut. The suspicion of the Spaniards had, however, been aroused; and orders had been given to watch her closely. The consequence was that, after purchasing a few articles, she was followed; and a band of soldiers surrounded the hut, after she had entered. The fugitive was there found concealed, and he and the old woman were at once fastened in the hut. This was then set alight, and they were burned to death, upon the spot. When the news reached the mountains, Ned at once determined upon a reprisal. The negroes and natives were alike ready to follow him, and the next night the whole party, a hundred and fifty strong, marched down from the forest. The object of their attack was a handsome palace, belonging to the military governor of the island, situated at a short distance from the town. Passing through the cultivated country, noiselessly and without detection, they reached the mansion and surrounded it. There were, here, a guard of some thirty soldiers, and sentries were placed at the entrance. At the signal, given by the blowing of a conch shell, the attack commenced on all sides. The sentries were at once shot down, and the negroes and their allies speedily penetrated into the building. The Spanish guard fought with great bravery, but they were overpowered by the infuriated negroes. Yells, shrieks, and shouts of all kinds resounded through the palace. Before starting on their adventure, Ned and Gerald had exacted a solemn oath, from each of the men who were to take part in it, that on no account would he lift his hand against a defenseless person; and also that he spare everybody who surrendered. The negroes were greatly loath to take this promise, and had Ned urged them to do so purely for the sake of humanity, the oath would unquestionably have been refused; for in those days of savage warfare, there was little or no mercy shown on either side. It was only on the ground of expediency, and the extreme necessity of not irritating the Spaniards beyond a certain point, that he succeeded in obtaining their promise. In the principal room of the palace they found the governor, himself. His sword was in his hand, and he was prepared to defend his life to the last. The boys, however, rushed forward; and cried to him to throw his sword down, as the only plan by which his life could be saved. The brave officer refused, answering by a vigorous thrust. In a moment the two lads had sprung upon him, one from each side, and wrested his sword from his hand. The negroes, with yells of triumph, were rushing upon him with drawn swords; but the boys sternly motioned them back, keeping well in front of their prisoner. "You have sworn," they said, "and the first man who breaks his oath we will shoot through the head." Then, turning to the governor they said: "Sir, you see what these men, whom you have so long hunted as wild beasts, can do. Take warning from this, and let all in the town know the determination to which we have arrived. If we are let alone, we will let others alone. We promise that no serious depredations, of any kind, shall be performed by any of our party in the forest; but if we are molested, or if any of our band who may fall into your hands are ill treated, we swear that, for each drop of blood slain, we will ravage a plantation and destroy a house. "On this occasion, as you see, the negroes have abstained from shedding blood; but our influence over them may not avail, in future. Now that you see that we too can attack, you may think fit to leave us alone. In case of serious interference with us, we will lay waste the land, up to the houses of the city; and destroy every plantation, and hacienda." Then they hurried the governor to a back entrance, gave him his sword again and, having seen him in safety, fairly beyond the reach of any of their party who might be wandering about, dismissed him. Returning to the palace, they had to exert themselves to the utmost to prevail on the negroes to spare all who were there. Indeed, one man, who refused to obey Ned's orders and to lower his club, he shot down at once. This vigorous act excited, for a moment, yells of indignation among the rest; but the firm bearing of the two young Englishmen, and the knowledge that they were acting as they themselves had given them leave to act, should any of the party break their oaths, subdued them into silence. The palace was now stripped of all portable and useful articles. Ned would not permit anything to be carried away of a merely ornamental or valuable character; but only such as kitchen utensils, crockery, stoves, arms, hangings, and articles of a description that would be useful to them, in their wild life in the forest. The quantity of arms taken was considerable as, in addition to those belonging to the guard, there were a considerable number piled in the armory, in readiness for any occasion when they might be required. When all that could be useful to them was removed, lights were applied to the hangings and wooden lattice work; and, before they retired, they saw the flames take sufficient possession of the building to ensure its destruction. Many of the negroes had at first laden themselves with wine, but this Ned peremptorily refused to allow them to carry away. He knew that it was of the most supreme necessity that good fellowship, and amity, should run between the members of the bands; and that, were wine to be introduced, quarrels might arise which would, in the end, prove fatal to all. He allowed, however, sufficient to be taken away to furnish a reasonable share for each man, at the feast which it was only natural they would wish to hold, in commemoration of their victory. Chapter 8: The Forest Fastness. It was with a feeling of triumph, indeed, that the negroes, after gaining their own fastness, looked back at the sky, lighted by the distant conflagration. They had now, for the first time, inflicted such a lesson upon their oppressors as would make a deep mark. They felt themselves to be really free; and knew that they, in their turn, had struck terror into the hearts of the Spaniards. Retiring to the depths of the forest, great fires were made. Sheep, fowls, and other articles of provision, which had been brought back, were killed and prepared. Huge bonfires were lit, and the party, secure that, for twenty-four hours at least, the Spaniards could attempt no retributive measures, sat down to enjoy the banquet. They had driven with them a few small bullocks, and also some scores of sheep. These, however, were not destined for the spit. They were to be placed in the heart of their country; so that, unless disturbed by the Spaniards, they might prove a source of future sustenance to them. There was wild feasting that night, with dances, and songs of triumph in the negro and native dialects; and Ned and Gerald were lauded and praised, as the authors of the change which had taken place in the condition of the fugitives. Even the stern severity of Ned's act was thoroughly approved; and it was agreed, again, that anyone refusing to obey the orders of the white chiefs should forfeit his life. The blow which the negroes had struck caused intense consternation throughout Hispaniola. The younger, and more warlike spirits were in favor of organizing an instant crusade, for sending to the other islands for more troops, for surrounding the forest country, and for putting the last of the negroes to the sword. More peaceful counsels, however, prevailed; for it was felt that the whole open country was, as Ned had told the governor, at their mercy; that the damage which could be inflicted would be enormous; and the satisfaction of putting the fugitives to death, even if they were finally conquered, would be but a poor recompense for the blow which might be given to the prosperity and wealth of the island. All sorts of schemes were mooted, by which the runaways could be beguiled into laying down their arms, but no practicable plan could be hit upon. In the meantime, in the mountains, the bands improved in drill and discipline. They had now gained some confidence in themselves, and gave themselves up heartily to the work. Portions of land, too, were turned up; and yams and other fruits, on a larger scale than had hitherto been attempted, were planted. A good supply of goats was obtained, huts were erected, and the lads determined that, at least as long as the Spaniards allowed it, their lives should be made as comfortable as possible. Fugitive slaves from time to time joined the party; but Ned strongly discouraged any increase, at present, from this cause. He was sure that, were the Spaniards to find that their runaways were sheltered there, and that a general desertion of their slaves might take place; they would be obliged, in self defense, to root out this formidable organization in their midst. Therefore, emissaries were sent out among the negroes, stating that none would be received, in the mountains, save those who had previously asked permission; this being only accorded in cases where such extreme brutality and cruelty had been exercised, by the masters, as would wholly justify the flight of the slave. For some months, a sort of truce was maintained between the Spaniards and this little army in the woods. The blacks observed the promises, which Ned had made, with great fidelity. The planters found that no depredations took place, and that the desertions among their slaves were no more numerous than before; and had it depended solely upon them, no further measures would have been taken. The case, however, was different among the military party in the island. To them, the failure of the expedition into the forest, and the burning of the governor's house, were matters which seriously affected their pride. Defeat by English buccaneers they were accustomed to; and regarding the English, at sea, as a species of demon against whom human bravery availed little. They were slightly touched by it; but that they should be defied by a set of runaway slaves; and of natives, whom they had formerly regarded with contempt; was a blow to their pride. Quietly, and without ostentation, troops were drafted into the island from the neighboring posts, until a formidable force had been gathered there. The foresters had now plenty of means of communication with the negroes, who regarded them as saviors, to whom they could look for rescue and shelter, in case of their masters' cruelty; and were always ready to send messengers up into the forest, with news of every occurrence which took place under their observation. The grown-up slaves, of course, could not leave the plantation; but there were numbers of fleet-footed lads who, after nightfall, could be dispatched from the huts into the mountains, and return before daylight; while, even should they remain until the next night, they would attract no attention by their absence. Thus, then, Ned and Gerald learned that a formidable body of Spaniards were being collected, quietly, in the town; and every effort was made to meet the coming storm. The various gorges were blocked with high barricades; difficult parts of the mountain were, with great labor, scarped so as to render the advance of an armed force difficult in the extreme; great piles of stones were collected, to roll down into the ravines; and provisions of yams, sweet potatoes, and other food were stored up. The last stronghold had, after a great debate, been fixed upon at a point in the heart of one of the hills. This was singularly well adapted for defense The hill itself was extremely precipitous on all sides. On one side, it fell sheer down. A goat track ran along the face of this precipice, to a point where the hill fell back, forming a sort of semicircular arena on the very face of the precipice. This plateau was some two acres in extent. Here quantities of forage were heaped up in readiness, for the food of such animals as might be driven in there. The track itself was, with great labor, widened; platforms of wood being placed at the narrow points; and steps were cut in the hill behind the plateau to enable them, should their stronghold be stormed, to escape at the last moment up to the hilltop above. In most places the cliff behind the plateau rose so steeply as to almost overhang the foot; and in these were many gaps and crevices, in which a considerable number of people could take shelter, so as to avoid stones and other missiles hurled down from above. At one point in particular the precipice overhung, and under this a strong erection of the trunks of trees was made. This was for the animals to be placed in. The heavy roof was amply sufficient to keep out any bullet shots; while, from its position, no masses of rock could be dropped upon it. It was not thought probable that the Spaniards would harass them much from above, for the ascent to the summit was everywhere extremely difficult; and the hillside was perfectly bare, and sloped so sharply upward, from the edge of the precipitous cliff, that it would be a difficult and dangerous task to descend, so as to fire down into the arena; and, although every precaution had been taken, it was felt that there was little fear of any attack from above. At last all was in readiness, as far as the efforts of those in the forest could avail. A message was then sent in to the governor, to the effect that the men of the forest desired to know for what purpose so many soldiers were being assembled in the island; and that, on a given day, unless some of these were embarked and sent off, they would consider that a war was being prepared against them, and that the agreement that the outlying settlements should be left intact was therefore invalid. As the boys had anticipated, the Spaniards answered this missive by an instant movement forward; and some four hundred men were reported as moving out towards the hills. This the boys were prepared for, and simultaneously with the movement the whole band--divided into parties of six, each of which had its fixed destination and instructions, all being alike solemnly pledged to take no life in cold blood, and to abstain from all unnecessary cruelties--started quickly from the forest. That night the Spanish force halted near the edge of the forest; but at midnight a general consternation seized the camp when, from fifty different points, flames were seen suddenly to rise on the plain. Furious at this misfortune, the general in command put his cavalry in motion, and scoured the country; only to find, however, that the whole of the haciendas of the Spanish proprietors were in flames, and that fire had been applied to all the standing crops. Everywhere he heard the same tale; that those who had resisted had been killed, but that no harm had been inflicted upon defenseless persons. This was so new a feature, in troubles with the negroes, that the Spaniards could not but be surprised, and filled with admiration at conduct so different to that to which they were accustomed. The sight of the tremendous destruction of property, however, roused them to fury; and this was still further heightened when, towards morning, a great burst of flame in the city proclaimed that the negroes had fallen upon the town, while the greater portion of its defenders were withdrawn. This was, indeed, a masterly stroke on the part of the boys. They knew that, even deducting those who had set forth, there would still be an amply sufficient force in the city to defeat and crush their band; but they thought that, by a quick stroke, they might succeed in inflicting a heavy blow upon them. Each of the bands therefore had instructions, after doing its allotted share of incendiarism, to make for the town, and to meet at a certain point outside it. Then, quietly and noiselessly, they had entered. One party fell upon the armory, and another attacked with fury the governor's house. The guards there were, as had happened with his residence in the country, cut down. Fire was applied in a dozen places and, before the astonished troops and inhabitants could rally, from the different parts of the town, the negroes were again in the country; having fulfilled their object, and carried off with them a large additional stock of arms. Before the cavalry from the front could arrive, they were again far in the country; and, making a long detour, gained their fastness, having struck a terrible blow, with the cost to themselves of only some eight or ten lives. It was a singular sight, as they looked out in the morning from their hilltops. Great masses of smoke extended over the whole country; for although most of the dwellings were, by this time, leveled to the ground--for, built of the lightest construction, they offered but little resistance to the flames--from the fields of maize and cane, clouds of smoke were still rising, as the conflagration spread; and at one stroke the whole agricultural wealth of the island was destroyed. The boys regretted that this should necessarily be the case; but they felt that it was now war, to the knife, between the Spaniards and them, and that such a defeat would be beneficial. This, indeed, was the case; for the commander drew back his troops to the town, in order to make fresh arrangements, before venturing upon an attack on foes who showed themselves possessed of such desperate determination. Another six weeks elapsed, indeed, before a forward movement was again commenced; and in that time considerable acquisitions of force were obtained. Strong as the bands felt themselves, they could not but be alarmed at the thought of the tremendous storm gathering to burst over their heads. The women had long since been sent away, to small native villages existing on the other side of the island, and living at peace with their neighbors Thither Ned also dispatched several of the party whom he believed to be either wanting in courage, or whose constancy he somewhat doubted. A traitor now would be the destruction of the party; and it was certain that any negro deserting to the enemy, and offering to act as their guide to the various strongholds of the defenders, would receive immense rewards. Thus it was imperative that every man, of whose fidelity and constancy the least doubt was entertained, should be carefully sent out of the way of temptation. All the band were, indeed, pledged by a most solemn oath; and death, by torture, was the penalty awarded for any act of treachery. The greater portion of the force were now provided with European arms. The negroes had musketoons or arquebuses, the natives still retained the bow, while all had pikes and spears. They were undefended by protective amour, and in this respect the Spaniards had a great advantage in the fight; but, as the boys pointed out, this advantage was more than counterbalanced by the extra facility of movement, on the part of the natives, who could scale rocks and climb hills absolutely inaccessible to their heavily armed and weighty opponents. The scouts, who had been stationed on the lookout at the edge of the forest, brought word that the Spaniards, nigh 1500 strong, had divided in six bodies; and were marching so as to enter the forest from six different, and nearly equidistant, points. Each band was accompanied by bloodhounds, and a large number of other fierce dogs of the wolfhound breed, which the Spaniards had imported for the purpose of attacking negroes in their hiding places. Of these animals the negroes had the greatest dread; and even the bravest, who were ready to match themselves against armed Spaniards, yet trembled at the thought of the encounter with these ferocious animals. It was clear that no repetition of the tactics formerly pursued would be possible; for if any attempt at night attacks were made, the dogs would rush out and attack them; and not only prove formidable enemies themselves, but guide the Spaniards to the places where they were stationed. Ned and Gerald would fain have persuaded the natives that dogs, after all, however formidable they might appear, were easily mastered by well-armed men; and that any dog rushing to attack them would be pierced with spears and arrows, to say nothing of being shot by the arquebuses, before he could seize any of them. The negroes, however, had known so many cases in which fugitives had been horribly torn, and indeed, frequently killed, by these ferocious animals, that the dread of them was too great for them to listen to the boys' explanations. The latter, seeing that it would be useless to attempt to overcome their fears, on this ground, abstained from the attempt. It had been agreed that, in the event of the Spaniards advancing from different quarters, one column only should be selected for a main attack; and that, while the others should be harassed by small parties, who should cast down rocks upon them while passing through the gorges, and so inflict as much damage as possible, no attempt would be made to strike any serious blow upon them. The column selected for attack was, naturally, that whose path led through the points which had been most strongly prepared and fortified. This band mustered about three hundred; and was clearly too strong to be attacked, in open fight, by the forest bands. Gerald and Ned had already talked the matter over in every light, and decided that a purely defensive fight must be maintained; each place where preparations had been made being held to the last, and a rapid retreat beaten to the next barricade. The Spaniards advanced in heavy column. At a distance of a hundred yards, on each side, marched a body of fifty in compact mass, thereby sheltering the main body from any sudden attack. The first point at which the lads had determined to make a stand was the mouth of a gorge. Here steep rocks rose perpendicularly from the ground, running almost like a wall along that portion of the forest. In the midst of this was a cleft, through which a little stream ran. It was here that the boys had made preparations. The point could not be turned, without a long and difficult march along the face of the cliff; and on the summit of this sixty men, divided into two parties, one on each side of the fissure, were stationed. The Spaniards advanced until they nearly reached the mouth of the ravine. It must be remembered that, although the forest was very thick, and the vegetation luxuriant; yet there were paths here and there, made by the constant passing, to and fro, of the occupants of the wood. Their main direction acted as a guide to the Spaniards; and the hounds, by their sniffing and eagerness, acted as a guide to the advancing force. They paused when they saw, opening before them, this entrance to the rocky gorge. While they halted, the increased eagerness of the dogs told them that they were now approaching the point where their foes were concealed; and the prospect of an attack, on so strong a position, was formidable even to such a body. A small party, of thirty men, was told off to advance and reconnoiter the position. These were allowed to enter the gorge, and to follow it for a distance of a hundred yards, to a point where the sides were approached to their nearest point. Then, from a parapet of rock piled across the ravine came a volley of musketry; and, simultaneously, from the heights of either side great stones came crashing down. Such of the party as did not fall at the first discharge fired a volley at their invisible assailants, and then hurried back to the main body. It was now clear that fighting, and that of a serious character, was to be undertaken. The Spanish commander rapidly reconnoitered the position; and saw that here, at least, no flanking movement was possible. He therefore ordered his men to advance, for a direct attack. Being more afraid of the stones from above than of the defenders in the ravine, the Spaniards prepared to advance in skirmishing order; in that way they would be able to creep up to the barricade of rocks with the least loss, to themselves, from the fire of its defenders; while the stones from above would prove far less dangerous than would be the case upon a solid column. With great determination, the Spanish troops advanced to the attack. As they neared the mouth of the gorge, flights of arrows from above were poured down upon them; and these were answered by their own musketeers and bowmen, although the figures occasionally exposed above offered but a poor mark, in comparison to that afforded by the column below. The men on the ridge were entirely natives, the boys having selected the negroes, on whose courage at close quarters they could more thoroughly rely, for the defense of the ravine. The firearms in those days could scarcely be termed arms of precision. The bell-mouth arquebuses could carry a large and heavy charge, but there was nothing like accuracy in their fire; and although a steady fire was kept up from the barricade, and many Spaniards fell; yet a larger number succeeded in making their way through the zone of fire, by taking advantage of the rocks and bushes; and these gathered, near the foot of the barricade. The stones which came crashing from above did serious damage among them, but the real effect of these was more moral than physical. The sound of the great masses of stone, plunging down the hillside, setting in motion numbers of small rocks as they came, tearing down the bushes and small trees, was exceedingly terrifying at first; but as block after block dashed down, doing comparatively little harm, the Spaniards became accustomed to them; and, keeping under the shelter of masses of rock, to the last moment, prepared all their energies for the attack. The Spanish commander found that the greater portion of his troop were within striking distance, and he gave the command, to those gathered near the barricade, to spring forward to the attack. The gorge, at this point, was some fifteen yards wide. The barricade across it was thirty feet in height. It was formed of blocks of stone, of various sizes; intermingled with which were sharp stakes, with their points projecting; lines of bushes and arms of trees, piled outwards; and the whole was covered loosely with sharp prickly creepers, cut from the trees and heaped there. A more difficult place to climb, even without its being defended from above, would be difficult to find. The covering of thorny creepers hid the rocks below; and at each step the soldiers put their feet into deep holes between the masses of rock, and fell forward, lacerating themselves horribly with the thorns, or coming face downwards on one of the sharp-pointed stakes. But if, without any resistance from above, the feat of climbing this carefully prepared barricade was difficult; it was terrible when, from the ridge above, a storm of bullets swept down. It was only for a moment that the negroes exposed themselves, in the act of firing. Behind, the barricade was as level and smooth as it was difficult upon the outer side. Great steps, some three feet wide, had been prepared of wood; so that the defenders could easily mount and, standing in lines, relieve each other as they fired. The stones of the top series had been carefully chosen of a form so as to leave, between each, crevices through which the defenders could fire, while scarcely exposing themselves to the enemy. The Spaniards behind endeavored to cover the advance of their comrades, by keeping up a heavy fire at the summit of the barricade; and several of the negroes were shot through the head, in the act of firing. Their loss, however, was small in comparison to that of the assailants; who strove, in vain, to climb up the thorny ascent, their position being the more terrible inasmuch as the fire from the parties on the rocks above never ceased, and stones kept up a sort of bombardment on those in the ravine. Even the fierce dogs could with difficulty climb the thorn-covered barriers, and those who reached the top were instantly shot, or stabbed. At last, after suffering very considerable loss, the Spanish commander drew off his soldiers; and a wild yell of triumph rose from the negroes. The combat however had, as the boys were aware, scarcely begun; and they now waited, to see what the next effort of the Spaniards would be. It was an hour before the latter again advanced to the attack. This time the troops were carrying large bundles of dried grass and rushes; and although again suffering heavily in the attack, they piled these at the foot of the barricade, and in another minute a flash of fire ran up the side. The smoke and flame, for a time, separated the defenders from their foes; and the fire ceased on both sides, although those above never relaxed their efforts to harass the assailants. As the Spaniards had calculated, the flame of the great heap of straw communicated with the creepers, and burnt them up in its fiery tongue; and when the flames abated, the rocks lay open and uncovered. The Spaniards now, with renewed hopes, advanced again to the attack; and this time were able, although with heavy loss, to make their way up the barricade. When they arrived within three or four feet of the top, Ned gave the word; and a line of thirty powerful negroes, each armed with a long pike, suddenly arose and, with a yell, threw themselves over the edge and dashed down upon the Spaniards. The latter, struggling to ascend, with unsteady footing on the loose and uneven rocks, were unable for an instant to defend themselves against this assault. The negroes, barefooted, had no difficulty on the surface which proved so fatal to the Spaniards; and, like the crest of a wave, they swept their opponents headlong down the face of the barricade. The heavily armed Spaniards fell over each other, those in front hurling those behind backwards in wild confusion; and the first line of negroes being succeeded by another, armed with axes, who completed the work which the first line had begun; the slaughter, for a minute, was terrible. For some thirty paces, the negroes pursued their advantage; and then at a loud shout from Ned turned, and with a celerity equal to that of their advance, the whole were back over the barricade, before the Spaniards in rear could awaken from their surprise; and scarcely a shot was fired, as the dark figures bounded back into shelter. This time, the Spanish officer drew back his men sullenly. He felt that they had done all that could be expected of them. Upwards of sixty men had fallen. It would be vain to ask them to make the assault again. He knew, too, that by waiting, the other columns would be gradually approaching; and that, on the morrow, some method of getting in the enemy's rear would probably be discovered. In the meantime, he sent off fifty men on either flank, to discover how far its rocky wall extended; while trumpeters, under strong guards, were sent up to the hilltops in the rear, and sounded the call lustily. Musketoons, heavily charged so as to make as loud a report as possible, were also fired to attract the attention of the other columns. The boys were perfectly aware that they could not hope, finally, to defend this position. They had, however, given the Spaniards a very heavy lesson; and the success of the defense had immensely raised the spirit and courage of their men. The signal was therefore given for a retreat; and in half an hour both the Indians, on the summit of the hill, and the negroes, behind the barricade, had fallen back; leaving only some half dozen to keep up the appearance of defense, and to bring back tidings of the doings of the enemy; while the rest hurried off, to aid the detached parties to inflict heavy blows upon the other columns. It was found that these were steadily approaching, but had lost a good many men. The reinforcements enabled the natives to make a more determined resistance, and in one or two places the columns were effectually checked. The reports, when night fell, were that the Spaniards had altogether lost over two hundred men; but that all their columns had advanced a considerable distance towards the center of the forest; and had halted, each as they stood; and bivouacked, keeping up huge fires and careful watches. It formed no part, however, of the boys' plan to attack them thus; and when morning dawned the whole of the defenders, each taking different paths, as far as possible; some even making great circuits, so as to deceive the enemy, were directed to make for the central fortress. The intermediate positions, several of which were as strong as the barricade which they had so well defended, were abandoned; for the advance from other quarters rendered it impossible to hold these. Chapter 9: Baffled. By midday, all the defenders of the forest were assembled in the semi-circular plateau on the face of the hill; and, scouts having been placed near the entrance, they awaited the coming of the enemy. So far as possible, every means had been taken to prevent the access to their place of retreat being discovered. A stream had been turned, so as to run down a small ravine, leading to its approach. Trees which had been blown down by the wind had been previously brought, from a considerable distance; and these were piled in careless confusion across the gorge, so as to look as if they had fallen there, and give an idea that no one could have passed that way. For the next two days, all was quiet. A scout upon the hilltop, and others who were told off to watch the Spaniards, reported that the woods below were being thoroughly searched; that the enemy were acting in the most methodical way, the columns being now in close connection with each other, the intermediate forest being searched foot by foot; and that all were converging towards the central mountains of the position. The dogs had proved valuable assistants, and these were tracking the paths used by them, and steadily leading them towards the stronghold. That they would finally escape detection none of the defenders had much hope. The Spaniards would be sure that they must be somewhere within their line; and after the loss suffered, and the immense preparations made, it was certain that they would not retire until they had solved the mystery, and, if possible, annihilated the forest bands. On the fourth day after entering the wood, the Spaniards came to the point where the barricade of trees had been erected. So skilfully had this been constructed that they would have retired, believing that there was no path beyond this little gorge; however, the restlessness and anger of the dogs convinced them that there must be something behind. Slowly a passage was cut, with axes, through the virgin forest on either side; for the lesson they had received had checked their impetuosity. They came down at the side of the barricade, and thus having passed it, pressed forward in steady array until they came to the foot of the great cliff. Here the dogs were not long before they pointed out to the assailants the narrow path, scarce visible, running along its face; and a shout of satisfaction from the Spaniards testified that they now felt certain that they had caught their enemies in a trap. Parties were sent off to positions whence they could obtain a good view of the place, and these soon reported that the ledge continued to a great opening in the face of the precipice; that in some places logs had been fixed to widen the path; and that there was plenty of room, on the plateau formed by the retirement of the hill face, for a large body to have taken refuge. They also reported that the cliffs rose behind this amphitheater almost, if not quite perpendicularly for a great height; and that, still higher, the bare rock fell away at so steep an angle that it would be difficult, in the extreme, to take up such a position from above as would enable them to keep up a musquetry fire, or to hurl rocks upon the defenders of the amphitheater. When the reports were considered by the Spanish leader, he saw at once that this was not an enterprise to be undertaken rashly. Men were sent down to the plain below to reconnoiter; while others were dispatched round the mountain, to see whether the path extended across the whole face of the precipice, and also to discover, if possible, whether the recess was commanded from above. Both reports were unfavorable From the valley the great natural strength of the position was manifest, for half a dozen men could defend such a path as this against a thousand, by placing themselves behind an angle and shooting down all who turned the corner; while the men from above reported that the peak shelved so rapidly towards the top of the sheer precipice, that it would be impossible to get near enough to the edge to see down into the amphitheater They reported, however, that stones and rocks set going would dash down below, and that points could be gained from which these missiles could be dispatched on their errand. A council of war was held; and it was determined, in the first place, to endeavor to force the position by direct attack. Some men of approved courage were chosen to lead the forlorn hope; a number of marksmen, with arrows and firearms, were placed in the valley to keep up a fire upon any who might show themselves on the path, while above, several hundreds of men were sent up, with crowbars, to loosen and hurl down rocks. The defenders, on their part, were not idle. Two spots had been chosen in the pathway for the defense At each of these the face of the cliff extended sharply out in an angle, and it was on the side of this angle next to the amphitheater that the preparations were made. Here barricades of stones were heaped up on the path, which at this point was some three yards wide. Six of the steadiest and most courageous negroes were placed here, with muskets and pikes. Two of them were to lie with their guns pointed at the protecting angle so that, the instant anyone showed himself round the corner, they could open fire upon him. The others were lying in readiness to assist, or to relieve those on guard. Either Gerald or Ned remained with them, always. A few stones were thrown up on the outside edge of the path, to protect the defenders from the shots of those in the valley below; not indeed that the danger from this source was very great, for the face of the precipice was some eight hundred feet high, and the path ran along some four hundred from the bottom. With the clumsy arms in use, in those days, the fear of any one being struck from below was by no means great. A similar barricade was erected behind, and the negroes were, in case of extreme necessity, to fall back from their first position. At the second point an equal number of men were placed. Lastly, where the path ended at the amphitheater, strong barricades had been erected in a sort of semicircle; so that anyone, after having forced the first defenses, would, as he showed himself at the entrance to the amphitheater, be exposed to the fire of the whole of its defenders. The position was so strong that Ned and Gerald had no fear, whatever, of its being forced. As the time approached when Ned expected an attack, the defenders of the farthest barricade were strengthened by a considerable number, lying down upon the path; for it was certain that, for the first two or three assaults, the Spaniards would push matters to the utmost; and that they would not be repulsed, without severe fighting. So indeed it proved. Advancing with great caution along the narrow path, which was sometimes seven or eight feet wide, sometimes narrowing to a few inches, the leaders of the party of attack made their way along, until they turned the projecting point. Then the guns of the two men on guard spoke out, and the two leaders fell, shot through the body, over the precipice. Now that they knew the position of their enemy, the Spaniards prepared for a rush. Gathering themselves as closely as they could together, they pressed round the corner. Shot after shot rang out from the defenders, as they turned it; but although many fell, the others pressed forward so numerously, and bravely, that they could be said fairly to have established themselves round the corner. The barricade now, however, faced them; and behind this were gathered the bravest of the negroes, led by the boys. The barricade, too, had been covered with thorny branches, as had that which they had defended before; and the Spaniards, of whom only some ten or twelve could find fighting room round the corner, were shot down before they could make any impression, whatever. Bravely as they fought, it was impossible for men to maintain so unequal and difficult a fight as this; and after trying for an hour to storm the barricade, the Spaniards fell back, having lost over fifty of the best of their men. In the meantime, with a thundering sound, the rocks were rolling down from the summit of the mountain. The greater portion of them did not fall in the amphitheater at all; but, from the impetus of their descent down the sloping rocks above, shot far out beyond its edge. Others, however, crashed down on to the little plateau; but all who were there were lying so close to the face of the rock, that the missiles from above went far beyond them. From below in the valley a constant fire was kept up, but this was as innocuous as the bombardment from above; and when the Spaniards fell back, only three of the defenders had been in any way injured, and these were hit by the pistol balls, fired by the assailants of the barricade. When the Spaniards retired, all, except the men told off for the posts at the barricades, fell back to the amphitheater The negroes and natives were, both alike, delighted with the success of the defense; and were now perfectly confident of their ability to hold out, as long as their provisions lasted. There was no fear of want of water, for from the face of the hill a little stream trickled out. Piles of yams, bananas, sweet potatoes, and other tropical fruit had been collected, and a score of sheep; and with care, the boys calculated that for five weeks they could hold out. The Spaniards were furious at the non-success of their enterprise, but after reconnoitering the position in every way, the commanders came to the conclusion that it was absolutely impregnable, and that the only plan was to starve out the besieged. It did not appear that there could be any other way of retreat, and a small force could watch the path; as it would be as difficult for the besieged to force their way back by it, as for the besiegers to find an entry. The greater portion of the force was, therefore, marched home; a guard of two hundred men being set, to watch the point where the path along the precipice started. The incidents of the five weeks which elapsed after the siege began were not important. It was soon found that the Spaniards had abandoned the notion of attack; but the vigilance of the defenders was never relaxed, for it was possible, that at any moment the enemy, believing that they had been lulled into carelessness, might renew their attack. Twice, indeed, at nightfall the Spaniards advanced and crept round the point of defense; but were each time received so quickly, by the fire of the defenders of the barricade, that they were finally convinced that there was no hope, whatever, of catching them napping. At the end of five weeks it was determined that the time had arrived when they should leave their fortress. The Spaniards had placed a guard of fifty men near the foot of the precipice, to prevent any attempt of the besieged to descend its face by means of ropes; but above no precautions had been taken, as it appeared impossible, to anyone looking at the face of the cliff from a distance, that a human being could scale it. Thanks, however, to the pains which had been taken previously, the way was open. In most places, rough steps had been cut; in others, where this was impossible, short stakes had been driven into crevices of the rock to form steps; and although the ascent was difficult, it was quite possible, to lightly clad and active men. The time chosen for the attempt was just after dusk had fallen, when it was still light enough to see close at hand, but dark enough to prevent those in the valley observing what was passing. A young moon was already up, giving sufficient light to aid the enterprise. Some of the most active of the natives first ascended. These were provided with ropes which, at every bend and turn of the ascent, they lowered so as to give assistance to those mounting behind. The strictest silence was enforced, and the arms were all wrapped up, so as to avoid noise should they strike the rock. One by one the men mounted, in a steady stream. All were barefooted, for Ned and Gerald had imitated the example of the natives; and upon such a task as this, the bare foot has an infinitely safer hold than one shod with leather. Although the cliff looked quite precipitous, from a distance; in reality it sloped gently backwards, and the task was far less difficult than it appeared to be. The most dangerous part, indeed, was that which followed the arrival at the top. The mountain sloped so steeply back that it was like climbing the roof of a very steep house, and hand and foot were, alike, called into requisition to enable them to get forward; indeed, to many it would have been impossible, had not the leaders lowered their ropes down from above, affording an immense assistance to those following. At last, the whole body reached the top and, descending upon the other side, plunged into the forest. They directed their course to a valley, ten miles distant, where considerable supplies of provisions had been stored up; and where some of their crops had been planted, a few weeks before the arrival of the Spaniards. Here for two days they feasted, secure that a considerable time might elapse, before the Spaniards discovered that they had vanished from the fortress. Then they prepared to put into execution the plan upon which they had resolved. They knew that in the town, there would be no watch of any sort kept; for all believed them cooped up, without a chance of escape. The four troops then, commanded as before, issued from the forest as the sun went down, and marched towards the town. It was soon after midnight when they entered the streets and, proceeding noiselessly through them, advanced to the spot assigned to each. One was to attack the governor's house, and to make him a prisoner; two others were to fall upon the barracks, and to do as much harm as possible; while the fourth was to proceed to the government magazines of stores and munitions, to fire these at a great many places. This programme was carried out successfully. The guards at the governor's house were overpowered in an instant and, as it had been surrounded, all the inmates were captured. Those of the men who defended themselves were cut down, but Gerald and Ned had insisted that no unnecessary slaughter should take place. The party attacking the barracks had no such instructions. It was legitimate for them to inflict as much loss as possible upon the soldiers; and when, with terrible shouts, the negroes broke in upon them, the Spaniards, taken by surprise, offered but a feeble resistance. Large numbers of them were cut down, before they could rally or open fire upon their enemies. As soon as the resistance became serious, the negroes and Indians vanished, as quickly as they had come. In the meantime, the whole of the town was lit up by sheets of fire, rising from the government magazines. The alarm bells of the churches tolled out, the shouts of the frightened inhabitants mingled with the yells of the natives, and the report of firearms, from all parts of the town; and the townspeople thought that a general sack and slaughter was at hand. The negroes, however, entered no private house, but in an hour from their first appearance they had retired beyond the town; and were making their way, in a solid and well-ordered mass, for the forest, bearing in their center the governor and two of his sons. The success of the enterprise had been complete. They were now, Ned thought, in a position, if not to dictate terms to the enemy, at least to secure for themselves an immunity from attacks. Day was breaking when they entered the hills and, an hour later, one of the sons of the governor was sent to the party still besieging their former stronghold, to inform them that the besieged had all escaped, had made a raid upon the city, and had carried off the governor; whose instructions to them was that they were to at once fall back, to avoid being attacked by the negroes. The officer commanding the besiegers was glad enough to call his men together, and to retire unharmed from the forest; which now began to inspire an almost superstitious fear in the Spaniards, so unexpected and mysterious had been the defeats inflicted upon them there. The governor's son accompanied the troops back to the city, and was the bearer of a missive from Ned to the officer commanding the troops, and to the inhabitants. Ned offered, upon the part of the forest men, that if the Spaniards would consent to leave them unmolested in their forest; they upon their part would, in the first place, release the governor, and in the second, promise that no acts of violence, or raids of any kind, should be made beyond its boundaries. The question of fugitive slaves, who might seek refuge among them, was to be discussed at a meeting between the heads of each party, should the proposal be accepted. The governor sent a line, on his part, to say that he was well treated, that he authorized them to enter into any negotiations which they might think fit; adding that, in case they should decide to refuse the offer made them, no thought of his safety should be allowed, for an instant, to sway their notions. It was two days before the messenger returned. Several stormy meetings had taken place in the town. The officers were, for the most part, anxious to renew the fighting. They were intensely mortified at the idea of the forces of Spain being compelled to treat, upon something like even terms, with a handful of escaped slaves; and would have again marched the troops into the forest, and renewed the war. The townspeople, however, were strongly opposed to this. They had suffered immensely, already, by the destruction of the outlying plantations and haciendas; and the events of the attack upon the town showed that there was no little danger of the whole place being burnt to the ground. They were, therefore, eager in the extreme to make terms with this active and ubiquitous enemy. The troops, too, were by no means eager to attempt another entry into the forest. They had fared so ill, heretofore, that they shrank from another encounter. There was neither glory nor booty to be obtained, and warfare such as this was altogether unsuited to their habits. Their discipline was useless, and they were so bewildered, by the tactics of their active foes, that there was a very strong feeling among them in favor of making terms. The council sat the whole day, and finally the pacific party prevailed. The deputation, consisting of the officer commanding the troops, of the ecclesiastic of highest rank in the town, and of one of the principal merchants, proceeded to the forest. When they were seen by the lookout to be approaching, Ned and Gerald, with the leading native and negro, proceeded to meet them. The details were soon arranged, upon the basis which had been suggested. The forest men were to enjoy their freedom, unmolested. They were to be allowed to cultivate land on the edge of the forest, and it was forbidden to any Spaniard to enter their limits, without previously applying for a pass. They, on their part, promised to abstain from all aggression, in any shape. The question of runaways was then discussed. This was by far the most difficult part of the negotiations. The Spaniards urged that they could not tolerate that an asylum should be offered, to all who chose to desert from the plantations. The boys saw the justice of this, and finally it was arranged that the case of every slave who made for the forest should be investigated; that the owners should, themselves, come to lay a formal complaint of their case; that the slave should reply; and each might produce witnesses. The negro was to be given up, unless he could prove that he had been treated with gross cruelty, in which case he was to be allowed protection in the forest. These preliminaries settled, a short document embodying them was drawn up, in duplicate, and these treaties were signed, by the three Spaniards who formed the deputation and by the governor on the one side, and by the four representatives of the forest men on the other. Thus ended the first successful resistance, to Spanish power, among the islands of the western seas. The governor and his son then left for the city, and the forest men retired to what was now their country. Ned and Gerald impressed upon their allies the importance of observing, strictly, the conditions of peace; and at the same time of continuing their exercises in arms, and maintaining their discipline. They pointed out to them that a treaty of this kind, extorted as it were from one, and that the strongest of the contracting powers, was certain not to have long duration. The Spaniards would smart at the humiliation which had, in their opinion, befallen them; and although the fugitive clause might for some time act favorably, it was sure, sooner or later, to be a bone of contention. They impressed upon them also that although they might, as had been shown, achieve successes for a time, yet that in the long run the power of the Spaniards must prevail, and that nothing short of extermination awaited them; therefore he urged the strictest adherence to the treaty, and at the same time a preparedness for the recommencement of hostilities. Some months passed without incident, and the relations between the little community in the mountains and the Spaniards became more pacific. The latter found that the natives, if left alone, did them no damage. Bad masters learned that a course of ill treatment of their slaves was certain to be followed by their flight, and upon the bad treatment being proved, these found shelter among the mountains. Upon the other hand, the owners who treated their slaves with kindness and forbearance found that, if these took to the mountains in a fit of restlessness, a shelter there was refused them. Upon the edge of the forest, patches of plantation ground made their appearance; and the treaty was, upon the whole, well observed on both sides. It was about a year after they had taken to the hills that news reached the boys that an English ship had come into those waters. It was brought them across at an island?? by some Simeroons who had been where the English ship anchored. They said that it was commanded by Master John Oxenford. The boys knew him, as he had been on board Captain Francis Drake's ship during the last expedition, and they determined to make an effort to join him. He had, however, left the island before the natives started with the news; and they made an arrangement with them, to convey them across to that place, when it should be learned that the vessel was returning, or was again there. It was not long before they were filled with grief at the news that reached them, although they felt not a little thankful that they had not been able to join Captain Oxenford, when he first reached the islands. This adventurous seaman had, after the return to England of Captain Francis Drake's expedition, waited for some time on shore; and then, fretting under forced inactivity--for Captain Drake had, for the time, abandoned any project which he had entertained of a return to the Spanish seas, and had engaged in a war in Ireland--determined to equip an expedition of his own, with the assistance of several of those who had sailed in the last voyage with him, and of some Devonshire gentlemen who thought that a large booty might be made out of the venture. He equipped a sloop of 140 tons burden, and sailed for Darien. When he arrived at this isthmus, he laid up his ship and marched inland, guided by Indians. After traveling twelve leagues among the mountains, he came to a small river running down into the Pacific. Here he and his comrades built a boat, launched it in the stream, and dropped down into the bay of Panama. Then he rowed to the Isle of Pearls, and there captured a small barque, from Quito, with sixty pounds of gold. This raised the spirits of the adventurers, and six days later they took another barque, with a hundred and sixty pounds of silver. They then set off in quest of pearls. They searched for a few days, but did not find them in proportion to their expectations. They therefore determined to return, and re-entered the mouth of the river they had descended. Here they loosed the prizes they had taken, and let them go. The delay at Pearl Island was a mistake, and a misfortune. Captain Oxenford should have known that the Spanish authorities of the mainland would, when they heard that a single boat's load of Englishmen was ravaging their commerce, make a great effort to capture him; and his attack should have been swift and determined, and his retreat made without a halt. The fortnight which had been allowed to slip away caused his ruin. The news of their presence speedily arrived at Panama. Captain Ortuga was dispatched with four barques in search of them and, falling in with the liberated prizes, learned the course that the English had taken. The river had three branches, and the Spaniard would have been much puzzled to know which to ascend; but the carelessness of the adventurers gave him a clue; for, as he lay with his boats, wondering which river he should ascend, he saw floating on the water large quantities of feathers. These were sufficient indications of a camp on the banks, and he at once followed that branch of the stream. In four days he came upon the boat, which was hauled upon the sand, with only six men with her. They were lying asleep on the bank, and the coming of the Spaniards took them completely by surprise, and one of them was killed before he could make his escape into the woods. The rest got off. The Spaniards left twenty men to guard the boat, and with eighty others went up the country. Half a league away they found some huts, and in these the treasures of gold and silver which the English had captured were discovered. Satisfied with having recovered these, Captain Ortuga was about to return to the river with his men; when Oxenford, with the English and two hundred Simeroons, attacked them. The Spaniards fought bravely, and the Simeroons would not stand against their fire. The English struggled desperately. Eleven of these were killed, and the Simeroons took to their heels. Oxenford and a few of his companions escaped, and made their way back towards the spot where they had left their ship. News of what was going on had, however, been sent across from Panama to Nombre de Dios, and four barques from that port had put out, and had found and taken Oxenford's ship. A band of a hundred and fifty men scoured the mountains, and into the hands of these Captain Oxenford and his companions fell. All of them were executed on the spot; except Oxenford, the master, the pilot, and five boys. These were taken to Panama, where the three men were executed, the lives of the five boys being spared. This news was a sore blow to the lads, who had hoped much to be able to reach the ship, and to return to England in her. The delay, however, was not long, for a few weeks afterwards came the news that another English ship was in those waters. A party of Simeroons offered to take Ned and Gerald thither in their boat, and they determined to avail themselves of the offer. Great was the lamentation, among the community in the forest, when the news that their leaders were about to leave became known. The simple Indians assembled around them, and wept, and used every entreaty and prayer, to change their resolution. However, the boys pointed out to them that they had already been absent near three years from home; and that, as the settlers were now able to defend themselves, and had earned the respect of the Spaniards, they would, if they continued their present course of avoiding giving any cause of complaint to the whites, no doubt be allowed to live in peace. They had, too, now learned the tactics that should be pursued, in case of difficulty; and by adhering to these, the boys assured them that they might rely upon tiring out the Spaniards. Some of the negroes were in favor of retaining the English leaders by force, but this was objected to by the majority. Many of the Indians possessed gold, which had been the property of their ancestors before the arrival of the Spaniards; and some of these treasures were now dug up, and the boys were presented with a great store of pretty ornaments, and other workmanship of the natives. Much rough gold was also placed on board their canoe, and a great portion of the dwellers of the hills marched down at night with them to the point of embarkation, a lonely creek far from the settlement of the Spaniards, to bid them farewell. The boys, themselves, were affected by the sorrow of their friends, and by the confidence which these had placed in them; and they promised that, should they return to those parts, they would assuredly pay a visit to them, again, in the hills. Before leaving, they had seen that two of the worthiest and wisest of the natives were chosen as leaders, and to these all the rest had sworn an oath, promising to obey their orders in all respects. They had constantly acted with the boys; and had, indeed, been their chief advisers in the matters internal to the tribe; and the lads had little doubt that, for some time at least, things would go well in the mountains. As to the ultimate power of the refugees to maintain their independence, this must, they felt, depend upon events beyond them. If the Spaniards were left at peace, and undisturbed by English adventurers or other troubles, there was little doubt, sooner or later, they would destroy the whole of the natives of this island, as they had destroyed them in almost every place where they had come in contact with them. However, the boys had the satisfaction of knowing that they had been the means of, at least, prolonging the existence of this band, and of putting off the evil day, perhaps for years to come. The Simeroons paddled out from the creek and, hoisting the sail, the boat merrily danced over the water; and the boys felt their spirits rise, at the hope of seeing their countrymen, and hearing their native tongue again, after eighteen months passed, absolutely separate from all civilized communion. After two days sailing and paddling, they reached the bay where the natives had reported the English ship to be lying; and here, to their great delight, they found the Maria, Captain Cliff, lying at anchor. Ned and Gerald, when they explained who they were, were received with great joy and amazement. The story of their loss had been told, in England; and the captain, who came from the neighborhood where Gerald's father dwelt, reported that the family had long mourned him as dead. He himself was bent, not upon a buccaneering voyage--although, no doubt, if a rich ship had fallen into his hands he would have made no scruple in taking it--but his object was to trade with the natives, and to gather a store of such goods as the islands furnished, in exchange for those of English make. He had, too, fetched slaves from the western coast of Africa, and had disposed of them to much advantage; and the ship was now about to proceed on her way home, each man's share, of the profits of the expedition, amounting to a sum which quite answered his expectations. It was two months later before the boys, to their great delight, again saw the hills behind Plymouth. None who had seen them embark in the Swanne would have recognized, in the stalwart young fellows who now stepped ashore on the hove, the lads who then set sail. Nearly three years had passed. The sun of the tropics had burnt their faces almost to a mahogany color Their habit of command, among the natives, had given them an air and bearing beyond their years; and though Ned was but eighteen, and Gerald a little older, they carried themselves like men of mature years. It had been, indeed, no slight burden that they had endured. The fighting which had formed the first epoch of their stay in the island, serious as it had been, had been less wearing to them than the constant care and anxiety of the subsequent quiet time. The arrival of each fugitive slave was a source of fresh danger, and it had often needed all their authority to prevent the younger, and wilder, spirits of their little community from indulging in raids upon the crops of the Spaniards. Once in Plymouth, the lads said goodbye to each other, promising to meet again in a few days. Each then proceeded to his home. Ned, indeed, found that he had a home no longer; for on reaching the village he found that his father had died, a few months after his departure; and a new pedagogue had taken his place, and occupied the little cottage. The shock was a great one, although hardly unexpected, for his father's health had not been strong; and the thought that he would not be alive, when he returned, had often saddened Ned's mind during his absence. He found, however, no lack of welcome in the village. There were many of his school friends still there, and these looked with astonishment and admiration on the bronzed, military-looking man, and could scarce believe that he was their playmate, the Otter. Here Ned tarried a few days, and then, according to his promise to Gerald, started for the part of the country where he lived, and received a most cordial welcome from the father and family of his friend. Chapter 10: Southward Ho! Upon making inquiries, Ned Hearne found that Captain Drake had, upon the return of his expedition, set aside the shares of the prize money of Gerald Summers, himself, and the men who were lost in the wreck of the prize, in hopes that they would some day return to claim them. Upon the evidence given by Gerald and himself of the death of the others, their shares were paid, by the bankers at Plymouth who had charge of them, to their families; while Ned and Gerald received their portions. Owing to the great mortality which had taken place among the crews, each of the lads received a sum of nearly a thousand pounds, the total capture amounting to a value of over a million of money. As boys, they each received the half of a man's share. The officers, of course, had received larger shares; and the merchants who had lent money to get up the expedition gained large profits. Ned thought, at first, of embarking his money in the purchase of a share in a trading vessel, and of taking to that service; but, hearing that Captain Drake intended to fit out another expedition, he decided to wait for that event, and to make one more voyage to the Spanish main, before determining on his future course. Having, therefore, his time on his hands, he accepted the invitation of the parents of his three boy friends, Tom Tressilis, Gerald Summers, and Reuben Gail. He was most warmly welcomed, for both Tom and Gerald declared that they owed their lives to him. He spent several weeks at each of their homes, and then returned to Plymouth, where he put himself into the hands of a retired master mariner, to learn navigation and other matters connected with his profession, and occupied his spare time in studying the usual branches of a gentleman's education. It was some months before Captain Francis returned from Ireland, but when he did so, he at once began his preparations for his next voyage. The expedition was to be on a larger scale than that in which he had formerly embarked, for he had formed the resolve to sail round Cape Horn, to coast along north to the Spanish settlements upon the great ocean he had seen from the tree top in the Isthmus of Darien; and then, if all went well, to sail still further north, double the northern coasts of America, and to find some short way by which English ships might reach the Pacific. These projects were, however, known to but few, as it was considered of the utmost importance to prevent them from being noised abroad, lest they might come to the ears of the Spaniards, and so put them upon their guard. In spite of the great losses of men upon the former expedition, the number of volunteers who came forward, directly Captain Drake's intention to sail again to the Indies was known, was greatly in excess of the requirements. All, however, who had sailed upon the last voyage, and were willing again to venture, were enrolled, and Captain Drake expressed a lively pleasure at meeting Ned Hearne and Gerald Summers, whom he had given up as lost. The expenses of the expedition were defrayed partly from the funds of Captain Drake and his officers, partly by moneys subscribed by merchants and others who took shares in the speculation. These were termed adventurers. Ned embarked five hundred pounds of his prize money in the venture, as did each of his three friends. He was now nineteen, and a broad, strongly-built young fellow. His friends were all somewhat older, and all four were entered by Captain Francis as men, and ranked as "gentlemen adventurers," and would therefore receive their full share of prize money. On the 12th of November, 1577, the fleet sailed out of Plymouth Sound amid the salutes of the guns of the fort there. It consisted of five ships: the Pelican, of 100 tons, the flagship, commanded by Captain General Francis Drake; the Elizabeth, 80 tons, Captain John Winter; the Marigold, a barque of 30 tons, Captain John Thomas; the Swan, a flyboat of 50 tons, Captain John Chester; and the Christopher, a pinnace of 15 tons, Captain Thomas Moore. The voyage began unfortunately, for, meeting a headwind, they were forced to put into Falmouth, where a tempest ill-treated them sorely. Some of the ships had to cut away their masts, and the whole were obliged to put back into Plymouth, to refit, entering the harbor in a very different state to that in which they had left it, a fortnight before. Every exertion was made and, after a few days' delay, the fleet again set sail. They carried an abundance of stores, of all kinds, together with large quantities of fancy articles, as presents for the savage people whom they might meet in their voyaging. The second start was more prosperous than the first and, after touching at various points on the west coast of Africa, they shaped their way to the mouth of the La Plata, sailing through the Cape de Verde Islands, where their appearance caused no slight consternation among the Portuguese. However, as they had more important objects in view, they did not stop to molest any of the principal towns, only landing at quiet bays to procure a fresh supply of water, and to obtain fruit and vegetables, which in those days, when ships only carried salt provisions, were absolutely necessary to preserve the crews in health. All were charmed with the beauty and fertility of these islands, which were veritable gardens of tropical fruits, and they left these seas with regret. The fleet reached the La Plata in safety, but made no long stay there; for the extreme shallowness of the water, and the frequency and abundance of the shoals in the river, made the admiral fear for the safety of his ships; and accordingly, after a few days' rest, the anchors were weighed and the fleet proceeded down the coast. For some time they sailed without adventure, save that once or twice, in the storms they encountered, one or other of the ships were separated from the rest. After several weeks' sailing, they put into the Bay of Saint Julian, on the coast of Patagonia. Here the crews landed to obtain water. Soon the natives came down to meet them. These were tall, active men, but yet far from being the giants which the Spaniards had represented them, few of them being taller than a tall Englishman. They were dressed in the scantiest clothing--the men wearing a short apron made of skin, with another skin as a mantle over one shoulder; the women wearing a kind of petticoat, made of soft skin. The men carried bows and arrows and spears, and were painted strangely--one half the head and body being painted white, the other black. Their demeanor was perfectly friendly, and Captain Drake, fearing no harm, walked some distance inland, and many of those not engaged in getting water into the boats also strolled away from the shore. Among those who rambled farthest were Ned and Tom Tressilis, together with another gentleman adventurer, named Arbuckle. When they left Captain Francis, the armorer, who had brought a bow on shore with him, was showing the natives how much farther our English bow could carry than the native weapon. Wondering what the country was like beyond the hills, the little party ascended the slope. Just as they reached the top, they heard a shout. Looking back, they saw that all was confusion. The string of the armorer's bow had snapped, and the natives, knowing nothing of guns, believed that the party were now unarmed. As the armorer was restringing his bow, one of the natives shot an arrow at him, and he fell, mortally wounded. One standing near now raised his arquebus; but before he could fire, he too was pierced by two arrows, and fell dead. The admiral himself caught up the arquebus, and shot the man who had first fired. The little party on the hill had been struck with amazement and consternation at the sudden outburst, and were recalled to a sense of their danger by the whiz of an arrow, which struck Master Arbuckle in the heart; and at the same moment a dozen of the savages made their appearance, from among the trees below them. Seeing the deadliness of their aim, and that he and Tom would be shot down at once, before they could get to close quarters, Ned turned to fly. "Quick, Tom, for your life!" Fortunately, they stood on the very top of the ascent, so that a single bound backwards took them out of sight and range of their enemies. There was a wood a few hundred yards inland, apparently of great extent, and towards this the lads ran at the top of their speed. The savages had to climb the hill and, when they reached its crest, the fugitives were out of bow-shot range. A yell broke from them as they saw the lads, but these had made the best use of their time, and reached the wood some two hundred yards ahead of their pursuers. Ned dashed into the undergrowth and tore his way through it, Tom close at his heels. Sometimes they came to open spaces, and here each time Ned changed the direction of their flight, choosing spots where they could take to the underwood without showing any sign, such as broken boughs, of their entrance. After an hour's running the yells and shouts, which had at first seemed close behind, gradually lessened, and were now but faintly heard. Then, utterly exhausted, the lads threw themselves on the ground. In a few minutes, however, Ned rose again. "Come, Tom," he said, "we must keep on. These fellows will trace us with the sagacity of dogs; but, clever as they may be, it takes time to follow a track. We must keep on now. When it gets dark, which will be in another hour or so, they will be able to follow us no longer, and then we can take it easily." "Do as you think best, Ned. You are accustomed to this kind of thing." Without another word they started off at a run again, keeping as nearly as they could a straight course; for Ned's experience in forest life enabled him to do this, when one unused to woodcraft would have lost all idea of direction. The fact, however, that the mosses grew on the side of the trees looking east, was guide enough for him; for he knew that the warm breezes from the sea would attract them, while the colder inland winds would have an opposite effect. Just as it was getting dark they emerged from the wood, and could see, stretching far before them, an undulating and almost treeless country. "Fortunately there has been no rain for some time, and the ground is as hard as iron," Ned said. "On the damp soil under the trees they will track our steps, but we shall leave no marks here; and in the morning, when they trace us to this spot, they will be at fault." So saying, he struck off across the country. For some hours they walked, the moon being high and enabling them to make their way without difficulty. At last they came upon a clump of bushes, and here Ned proposed a halt. Tom was perfectly ready, for they had now walked and run for many hours, and both were thoroughly fatigued; for after so long a voyage, in a small ship, they were out of condition for a long journey on foot. "The first thing to do is to light a fire," Ned said; "for it is bitterly cold." "But how do you mean to light it?" "I have flint and steel in my pouch," Ned said, "and a flask of powder, for priming my pistols, in my sash here. It is a pity, indeed, we did not put our pistols into our belts when we came ashore. But even if I had not had the flint and steel, I could have made a fire by rubbing two dead sticks together. You forget, I have lived among savages for a year." "You don't think that it is dangerous to light a fire?" "Not in the least. It was dark when we left the wood, and they must have halted on our track, far back among the trees, to follow it up by daylight. Besides, we have walked five hours since then, and must be twenty miles away, and we have crossed five or six hills. Find a few dead sticks and I will pull a handful or two of dried grass. We will soon have a fire." Ned made a little pile of dried grass, scooped out a slight depression at the top, and placed a dead leaf in it. On this he poured a few grains of powder, added a few blades of dried grass, and then set to work with his flint and steel. After a blow or two, a spark fell into the powder. It blazed up, igniting the blades of grass and the leaf, and in a minute the little pile was in a blaze. Dried twigs, and then larger sticks were added, and soon a bright fire burned up. "Throw on some of the green bush," Ned said. "We do not want a blaze, for although we have thrown out the fellows in pursuit of us, there may be others about." "And now, Ned," Tom said, after sitting for some time gazing into the red fire, "what on earth are we to do next?" "That is a question more easily asked than answered," Ned said, cheerfully. "We have saved our skins for the present, now we have got to think out what is the best course to pursue." "I don't see any way to get back to the ship," Tom said, after a long pause. "Do you?" "No," Ned replied. "I don't, Tom. These savages know that they have cut us off, and will be on the watch, you may be sure. They shoot so straight, with those little bows and arrows of theirs, that we should be killed without the least chance of ever getting to close quarters. Besides, the admiral will doubtless believe that we have been slain, and will sail away. We may be sure that he beat off the fellows who were attacking him, but they will all take to the woods, and he would never be able to get any distance among the trees. Besides, he would give up all hope of finding us there. As to our getting back through the wood, swarming with savages, it seems to me hopeless." "Then whatever is to become of us?" Tom asked, hopelessly. "Well, the lookout is not bright," Ned said thoughtfully, "but there is a chance for us. We may keep ourselves by killing wild animals, and by pushing inland we may come upon some people less treacherous and bloody than those savages by the seashore. If so, we might hunt and live with them." Tom groaned. "I am not sure that I would not rather be killed at once, than go on living like a savage." "The life is not such a bad one," Ned said. "I tried it once, and although the negroes and Indians of Porto Rico were certainly a very different people to these savages, still the life led on these great plains and hills, abounding with game, is more lively than being cooped up in a wood, as I was then. Besides, I don't mean that we should be here always. I propose that we try and cross the continent. It is not so very wide here, and we are nearly in a line with Lima. The admiral means to go on there, and expects a rich booty. He may be months before he gets round the Horn, and if we could manage to be there when he arrives, we should be rescued. If not, and I own that I have not much hope of it, we could at least go down to Lima some time or other. I can talk Spanish now very fairly, and we shall have such a lot of adventures to tell that, even if they do not take us for Spanish sailors, as we can try to feign, they will not be likely to put us to death. They would do so if we were taken in arms as buccaneers; but, coming in peaceably, we might be kindly treated. At any rate, if we get on well with the Indians we shall have the choice of making, some day or other, for the Spanish settlements on the west coast; but that is all in the distance. The first thing will be to get our living, somehow; the second to get further inland; the third to make friends with the first band of natives we meet. And now, the best thing to do is to go off to sleep. I shall not be many minutes, I can tell you." Strange as was the situation, and many the perils that threatened them, both were in a few minutes fast asleep. The sun was rising above the hills when, with a start, they awoke and at once sprang to their feet, and instinctively looked round in search of approaching danger. All was, however, quiet. Some herds of deer grazed in the distance, but no other living creature was visible. Then they turned their eyes upon each other, and burst into a simultaneous shout of laughter. Their clothes were torn literally into rags, by the bushes through which they had forced their way; while their faces were scratched, and stained with blood, from the same cause. "The first thing to be done," Ned said, when the laugh was over, "is to look for a couple of long springy saplings, and to make bows and arrows. Of course they will not carry far, but we might knock down any small game we come across." Both lads were good shots with a bow, for in those days, although firearms were coming in, all Englishmen were still trained in the use of the bow. "But what about strings?" Tom asked. "I will cut four thin strips from my belt," Ned said. "Each pair, tied together, will make a string for a five-foot bow, and will be fully strong enough for any weapon we shall be able to make." After an hour's walk, they came to a small grove of trees growing in a hollow. These were of several species and, trying the branches, they found one kind which was at once strong and flexible. With their hangers, or short swords, they cut down a small sapling of some four inches in diameter, split it up, pared each half down, and manufactured two bows; which were rough, indeed, but sufficiently strong to send an arrow a considerable distance. They then made each a dozen shafts, pointed and notched them. Without feathers, or metal points, these could not fly straight to any distance; but they had no thought of long-range shooting. "Now," Ned said, "we will go back to that bare space of rock we passed, a hundred yards back. There were dozens of little lizards running about there, it will be hard if we cannot knock some over." "Are they good to eat?" Tom asked. "I have no doubt they are," Ned said. "As a rule, everything is more or less good to eat. Some things may be nicer than others, but hardly anything is poisonous. I have eaten snakes, over and over again, and very good they are. I have been keeping a lookout for them, ever since we started this morning." When they reached the rock, the lizards all darted off to their cracks and crevices; but Ned and Tom lay down, with their bows bent and arrows in place, and waited quietly. Ere long the lizards popped up their heads again, and began to move about, and the lads now let fly their arrows. Sometimes they hit, sometimes missed, and each shot was followed by the disappearance of the lizards; but with patience they found, by the end of an hour, that they had shot a dozen, which was sufficient for an ample meal for them. "How will you cook them, Ned?" "Skin them as if they were eels, and then roast them on a stick." "I am more thirsty than hungry," Tom said. "Yes, and from the look of the country, water must be scarce. However, as long as we can shoot lizards and birds, we can drink their blood." The fire was soon lighted, and the lizards cooked. They tasted like little birds, their flesh being tender and sweet. "Now we had better be proceeding," Ned said, when they had finished their meal. "We have an unknown country to explore and, if we ever get across, we shall have materials for yarns for the rest of our lives." "Well, Ned, I must say you are a capital fellow to get into a scrape with. You got Gerald and me out of one, and if anyone could get through this, I am sure you could do so. Gerald told me that he always relied upon you, and found you always right. You may be sure that I will do the same. So I appoint you captain general of this expedition, and promise to obey all orders, unquestioningly." "Well, my first order is," Ned said, laughing, "that we each make a good pike. The wood we made our bows from will do capitally, and we can harden the points in the fire. We may meet some wild beasts, and a good, strong six-foot pike would be better than our swords." Two hours' work completed the new weapons, and with their bows slung at their backs, and using their pikes as walking staves, they again set out on their journey across the continent. Chapter 11: The Marvel of Fire. "What are those--natives?" exclaimed Tom suddenly. Ned looked steadily at them for some time. "No, I think they are great birds. The ostrich abounds in these plains; no doubt they are ostriches." "I suppose it is of no use our chasing them?" "Not a bit. They can run faster than a horse can gallop." During the day's walk, they saw vast numbers of deer of various kinds; but as they were sure that these would not allow them to approach, they did not alter their course, which was, as nearly as they could calculate by the sun, due west. The sun was warm during the day, but all the higher hilltops were covered with snow. "If the worst comes to the worst," Ned said, "we must go up and get some snow. We can make a big ball of it, and bring it down with us in one of our sashes. But I should think there must be some stream, somewhere about. The snow must melt; besides, these great herds of deer must drink somewhere." Late in the afternoon they came on the crest of a ridge. "There," Ned said, pointing to a valley in which were a number of trees. "We shall find water there, or I am mistaken." An hour's tramp brought them to the valley. Through this a stream ran between steep banks. They followed it for half a mile, and then came to a spot where the banks sloped away. Here the ground was trampled with many feet, and the edge of the stream was trodden into mud. "Hurrah, Tom! Here is meat, and drink, too. It is hard if we do not kill something or other here. Look at that clump of bushes, where the bank rises. If we hide there, the deer will almost touch us as they pass to water; and we are sure to be able to shoot them, even with these bows and arrows. "But first of all, for a drink. Then we will cross the stream, and make a camping ground under the trees opposite." The stream was but waist deep, but very cold, for it was composed of snow water. "Shall we light a fire, Ned? It might frighten the deer." "No, I think it will attract them," Ned said. "They are most inquisitive creatures, and are always attracted by anything strange." A fire was soon lighted and, after it got quite dark, they piled up dry wood upon it, recrossed the river, and took their places in the bushes. An hour passed, and then they heard a deep sound. In a minute or two the leading ranks of a great herd of deer appeared on the rise, and stood looking wonderingly at the fire. For some little time they halted; and then, pushed forward by those behind, and urged by their own curiosity, they advanced step by step, with their eyes fixed on the strange sight. So crowded were they that as they advanced they seemed a compact mass, those outside coming along close to the bushes in which the boys lay. Silently these raised their bows, bent them to the full strain, and each launched an arrow. The deer were not five feet from them, and two stags fell, pierced through and through. They leaped to their feet again, but the boys had dashed out with their swords in hand, and in an instant had cut them down. There was a wild rush on the part of the herd, a sound of feet almost like thunder, and then the boys stood alone, by the side of the two deer they had killed. They were small, the two together not weighing more than a good-sized sheep. The boys lifted them on their shoulders, rejoicing, and waded across the stream. One they hung up to the branch of a tree. The other they skinned and cut up, and were soon busy roasting pieces of its flesh over the fire. They had just finished an abundant meal when they heard a roar at a short distance, which brought them to their feet in a moment. Ned seized his pike, and faced the direction from which the sound had come. "Throw on fresh sticks, Tom. All animals fear fire." A bright blaze soon lit up the wood. "Now, Tom, do you climb the tree. I will give you the pieces of meat up, and then do you lift the other stag to a higher branch. I don't suppose the brute can climb, but he may be able to do so. At any rate, we will sleep in the tree, and keep watch and ward." As soon as Tom had followed these instructions, Ned handed him up the bows and arrows and spears, and then clambered up beside him. As the fire again burned low, an animal was seen to approach, cautiously. "A lion!" whispered Tom. "I don't think that he is as big as a lion," Ned said, "but he certainly looks like one. A female, I suppose, as it has got no mane." Of course the lads did not know, nor indeed did anyone else, at that time, that the lion is not a native of America. The animal before them was what is now called the South American lion, or puma. The creature walked round and round the fire, snuffing; and then, with an angry roar, raised itself on its hind legs and scratched at the trunk of the tree. Several times it repeated this performance; and then, with another roar, walked away into the darkness. "Thank goodness it can't climb!" Ned said. "I expect, with our spears and swords, we could have beaten it back if it had tried; still, it is just as well not to have had to do it. Besides, now we can both go to sleep. Let us get well up the tree, so that if anything that can climb should come, it will fall to at the deer to begin with. That will be certain to wake us." They soon made themselves as comfortable as they could in crutches of the tree, tied themselves with their sashes to a bough to prevent a fall, and were soon asleep. The next day they rested in the wood, made fresh bowstrings from the twisted gut of the deer, cut the skins up into long strips, thereby obtaining a hundred feet of strong cord, which Ned thought might be useful for snares. Here, too, they shot several birds, which they roasted, and from whose feathers, tied on with a thread-like fiber, they further improved their arrows. They collected a good many pieces of fiber for further use; for, as Tom said, when they got on to rock again they would be sure to find some splinters of stone, which they could fasten to the arrows for points; and would be then able to do good execution, even at a distance. They cut a number of strips of flesh off the deer, and hung them in the smoke of the fire; by which means they calculated that they could keep for some days, and could be eaten without being cooked; which might be an advantage, as they feared that the odor of cooking might attract the attention of wandering Indians. The following morning they again started, keeping their backs, as before, to the sun. "Look at these creatures," Tom said suddenly, as a herd of animals dashed by at a short distance. "They do not look like deer." "No, they look more like sheep or goats, but they have much longer legs. I wonder what they can be!" During the day's journey they came across no water, and by the end of the tramp were much exhausted. "We will not make a fire tonight," Ned said. "We must be careful of our powder. I don't want to be driven to use sticks for getting fire. It is a long and tedious business. We will be up at daybreak tomorrow, and will push on till we find water. We will content ourselves, for tonight, with a bit of this smoked venison." They found it dry work, eating this without water; and soon desisted, gathered some grass to make a bed, and were asleep a short time after it became dark. They were now in an open district, not having seen a tree since they started in the morning, and they had therefore less fear of being disturbed by wild beasts. They had, indeed, talked of keeping watch by turns; but without a fire, they felt that this would be dull work; and would moreover be of little avail, as in the darkness the stealthy tread of a lion would not be heard, and they would therefore be attacked as suddenly as if no watch had been kept. If he should announce his coming by a roar, both would be sure to awake, quickly enough. So, lying down close together, with their spears at hand, they were soon asleep, with the happy carelessness of danger peculiar to youth. With the first streak of daybreak, they were up and on their way. Until midday they came upon no water, their only excitement being the killing of an armadillo. Then they saw a few bushes in a hollow and, making towards it, found a small pool of water. After a hearty drink, leaves and sticks were collected, a fire made, and slices of the smoked deer's meat were soon broiling over it. "This is jolly," Tom said. "I should not mind how long I tramped, if we could always find water." "And have venison to eat with it," Ned added, laughing. "We have got a stock to last a week, that is a comfort, and this armadillo will do for supper and breakfast. But I don't think we need fear starvation, for these plains swarm with animals; and it is hard if we can't manage to kill one occasionally, somehow or other." "How far do you think it is across to the other coast?" "I have not an idea," Ned said. "I don't suppose any Englishman knows, although the Spaniards can of course tell pretty closely. We know that, after rounding Cape Horn, they sail up the coast northwest, or in that direction, so that we have got the base of a triangle to cross; but beyond that, I have no idea whatever. "Hallo!" Simultaneously, the two lads caught up their spears and leaped to their feet. Well might they be alarmed, for close by were a party of some twenty Indians who had, quietly and unperceived, come down upon them. They were standing immovable, and their attitude did not betoken hostility. Their eyes were fixed upon them, but their expression betrayed wonder, rather than enmity. "Lay down your spear again, Tom," Ned said. "Let us receive them as friends." Dropping their spears, the lads advanced a pace or two, holding out their hands in token of amity. Then slowly, step by step, the Indians advanced. "They look almost frightened," Ned said. "What can they be staring so fixedly at?" "It is the fire!" Ned exclaimed. "It is the fire! I do believe they have never seen a fire before." It was so, as Sir Francis Drake afterwards discovered when landing on the coast. The Patagonian Indians, at that time, were wholly unacquainted with fire. When the Indians came down, they looked from the fire to the boys, and perceived for the first time that they were creatures of another color from themselves. Then, simultaneously, they threw themselves on their faces. "They believe that we are gods, or superior beings of some kind," Ned said. "They have clearly never heard of the Spaniards. What good fortune for us! Now, let us reassure them." So saying, he stooped over the prostrate Indians, patted them on the head and shoulders; and, after some trouble, he succeeded in getting them to rise. Then he motioned them to sit down round the fire, put on some more meat and, when this was cooked, offered a piece to each, Tom and himself setting the example of eating it. The astonishment of the natives was great. Many of them, with a cry, dropped the meat on finding it hot; and an excited talk went on between them. Presently, however, the man who appeared to be the chief set the example of carefully tasting a piece. He gave an exclamation of satisfaction, and soon all were engaged upon the food. When they had finished, Ned threw some more sticks on the fire, and as these burst into flames and then consumed away, the amazement of the natives was intense. Ned then made signs to them to pull up some bushes, and cast on the fire. They all set to work with energy, and soon a huge pile was raised on the fire. At first great volumes of white smoke only poured up, then the leaves crackled, and presently a tongue of flame shot up, rising higher and higher, till a great bonfire blazed away, far above their heads. This completed the wonder and awe of the natives, who again prostrated themselves, with every symptom of worship, before the boys. These again raised them, and by signs intimated their intention of accompanying them. With lively demonstrations of gladness and welcome, the Indians turned to go, pointing to the west as the place where their abode lay. "We may as well leave our bows and arrows," Ned said. "Their bows are so immensely superior to ours that it will make us sink in their estimation, if they see that our workmanship is so inferior to their own." The Indians, who were all very tall, splendidly made men, stepped out so rapidly that the lads had the greatest difficulty in keeping up with them, and were sometimes obliged to break into a half trot; seeing which the chief said a word to his followers, and they then proceeded at a more reasonable rate. It was late in the evening before they reached the village, which lay in a wooded hollow at the foot of some lofty hills. The natives gave a loud cry, which at once brought out the entire population, who ran up and gazed, astonished at the newcomers. The chief said a few words, when, with every mark of awe and surprise, all prostrated themselves as the men had before done. The village was composed of huts, made of sticks closely intertwined, and covered with the skins of animals. The chief led them to a large one, evidently his own, and invited them to enter. They found that it was also lined with skins, and others were laid upon the floor. A pile of skin served as a mat and bed. The chief made signs that he placed this at their disposal, and soon left them to themselves. In a short time he again drew aside the skin which hung across the entrance, and a squaw advanced, evidently in deep terror, bearing some raw meat. Ned received it graciously, and then said to Tom: "Now we will light a fire, and astonish them again." So saying, the boys went outside, picked up a dry stick or two, and motioned to the Indians who were gathered round that they needed more. The whole population at once scattered through the grove, and soon a huge pile of dead wood was collected. The boys now made a little heap of dried leaves, placed a few grains of powder in a hollow at the top and, the flint and steel being put into requisition, the flame soon leaped up, amid a cry of astonishment and awe from the women and children. Wood was now laid on, and soon a great fire was blazing. The men gathered round and sat down, and the women and children gradually approached, and took their places behind them. The evening was cold and, as the natives felt the grateful heat, fresh exclamations of pleasure broke from them; and gradually a complete babel of tongues broke out. Then the noise was hushed, and a silence of expectation and attention reigned, as the lads cut off slices of the meat and, spitting them on pieces of green wood, held them over the fire. Tom made signs to the chief and those sitting round to fetch meat, and follow their example. Some of the Indian women brought meat, and the men, with sharp stone knives, cut off pieces and stuck them on green sticks, as they had seen the boys do. Then very cautiously they approached the fire, shrinking back and exhibiting signs of alarm at the fierce heat it threw out, as they approached near to it. The boys, however, reassured them, and they presently set to work. When the meat was roasted, it was cut up and distributed in little bits to the crowd behind, all of whom were eager to taste this wonderful preparation. It was evident, by the exclamations of satisfaction, that the new viand was an immense success; and fresh supplies of meat were soon over the fire. An incident now occurred which threatened to mar the harmony of the proceedings. A stick breaking, some of the red-hot embers scattered round. One rolled close to Ned's leg, and the lad, with a quick snatch, caught it up and threw it back upon the fire. Seeing this, a native near grasped a glowing fragment which had fallen near him, but dropped it with a shriek of astonishment and pain. All leaped to their feet, as the man danced in his agony. Some ran away in terror, others instinctively made for their weapons, all gesticulated and yelled. Ned at once went to the man and patted him assuringly. Then he got him to open his hand, which was really severely burned. Then he got a piece of soft fat and rubbed it gently upon the sore, and then made signs that he wanted something to bandage it with. A woman brought some large fresh leaves, which were evidently good for hurts; and another a soft thong of deer hide. The hand was soon bandaged up and, although the man must still have been in severe pain, he again took his seat, this time at a certain distance from the fire. This incident greatly increased the awe with which the boys were viewed, as not only had they the power of producing this new and astonishing element, but they could, unhurt, take up pieces of wood turned red by it, which inflicted terrible agony on others. Before leaving the fire and retiring to their tent, the boys made signs to the chief that it was necessary that someone should be appointed to throw on fresh wood, from time to time, to keep the fire alight. This was hardly needed, as the whole population were far too excited to think of retiring to bed. After the lads had left they gathered round the fire, and each took delight in throwing on pieces of wood, and in watching them consume; and several times, when they woke during the night, the boys saw, by the bright light streaming in through the slits in the deerskin, that the bonfire was never allowed to wane. In the morning fresh meat was brought to the boys, together with raw yams and other vegetables. There were now other marvels to be shown. Ned had learned, when with the negroes, how to cook in calabashes; and he now got a gourd from the natives, cut it in half, scooped its contents out, and then filled it with water. From the stream he then got a number of stones, and put them into the fire until they became intensely hot. Then with two sticks he raked them out, and dropped them into the water. The natives yelled with astonishment as they saw the water fizz and bubble, as the stones were thrown in. More were added until the water boiled. Then the yams, cut into pieces, were dropped in, more hot stones added to keep the water boiling, and when cooked, the yams were taken out. When sufficiently cooled, the boys distributed the pieces among the chiefs, and again the signs of satisfaction showed that cooked vegetables were appreciated. Other yams were then cut up, and laid among the hot embers to bake. After this the boys took a few half-burned sticks, carried them to another spot, added fresh fuel, and made another fire; and then signed to the natives to do the same. In a short time a dozen fires were blazing, and the whole population were engaged in grilling venison, and in boiling and baking yams. The boys were both good trenchermen, but they were astounded at the quantity of food which the Patagonians disposed of. By night time the entire stock of meat in the village was exhausted, and the chief motioned to the boys that, in the morning, he should go out with a party to lay in a great stock of venison. To this they made signs that they would accompany the expedition. While the feasting had been going on, the lads had wandered away with two of the Indian bows and arrows. The bows were much shorter than those to which they were accustomed, and required far less strength to pull. The wood of which the bows were formed was tough and good, and as the boys had both the handiness of sailors and, like all lads of that period, had some knowledge of bow making, they returned to the camp, and obtained two more of the strongest bows in the possession of the natives. They then set to work with their knives and, each taking two bows, cut them up, fitted, and spliced them together. The originals were but four feet long, the new ones six. The halves of one bow formed the two ends, the middle being made of the other bow, doubled. The pieces were spliced together with deer sinews; and when, after some hours' work, they were completed, the boys found that they were as strong and tough as the best of their home-made bows, and required all their strength to draw them to the ear. The arrows were now too short, but upon making signs to the natives that they wanted wood for arrows, a stock of dried wood, carefully prepared, was at once given them, and of these they made some arrows of the regulation cloth-yard length. The feathers, fastened on with the sinews of some small animals, were stripped from the Indian arrows and fastened on, as were the sharp-pointed stones which formed their heads; and on making a trial, the lads found that they could shoot as far and as straight as with their own familiar weapons. "We can reckon on killing a stag, if he will stand still, at a hundred and fifty yards," Ned said, "or running, at a hundred. Don't you think so?" "Well, six times out of seven we ought to, at any rate," Tom replied; "or our Devonshire archership has deserted us." When they heard, therefore, that there was to be a hunt upon the following day, they felt that they had another surprise for the natives, whose short bows and arrows were of little use at a greater distance than fifty yards, although up to that distance deadly weapons in their hands. Chapter 12: Across a Continent. The work upon which the boys were engaged passed unnoticed by the Indians, who were too much absorbed by the enjoyment of the new discovery to pay any attention to other matters. The bows and arrows had been given to them, as anything else in camp for which they had a fancy would have been given; but beyond that, none had observed what was being done. There were, then, many exclamations of astonishment among them, when Ned and Tom issued from their hut in the morning to join the hunting party, carrying their new weapons. The bows were, of course, unstrung; and Ned handed his to the chief, who viewed it with great curiosity. It was passed from hand to hand, and then returned to the chief. One or two of the Indians said something, and the chief tried its strength. He shook his head. Ned signed to him to string it, but the chief tried in vain, as did several of the strongest of the Indians. Indeed, no man, however powerful, could string an old English bow, unless trained to its use. When the Indians had given up the attempt as hopeless, the two lads strung their bows without the slightest difficulty, to the intense surprise of the natives. These again took the bows, but failed to bend them even to the length of their own little arrows. The lads then took out their newly-made shafts, and took aim at a young tree, of a foot diameter, standing at about two hundred yards distance; and both sent their arrows quivering into the trunk. The Indians gave a perfect yell of astonishment. "It is not much of a mark," Tom said; "Hugh Willoughby, of our village, could hit a white glove at that distance every time; and the fingers of a glove five times out of six. It is the length of the shots, not the accuracy, which astounds these fellows. However, it is good enough to keep up our superiority." The party now started on their hunt. There was but little difficulty in finding game, for numerous herds could be seen grazing. The task was to get within shot. The boys watched anxiously, to see the course which the Indians would adopt. First ascertaining which way the wind was blowing, the chief, with ten others, accompanied by the boys, set off to make a circuit, so as to approach one of the herds upwind. When they had reached the point desired, all went down upon their bellies and crawled like snakes, until they reached a clump of low bushes, a quarter of a mile from the herd. Then they lay quiet, waiting for their comrades, whose turn it now was to act. These, also making a circuit, but in the opposite direction, placed themselves half a mile to windward of the deer, in a long line. Then they advanced toward the herd, making no effort to conceal themselves. Scarcely had they risen to their feet than the herd winded them. For a minute or two they stood motionless, watching the distant figures; and then, turning, bounded away. The chief uttered an exclamation of disgust, for it was evident at once that, from the direction that they were taking, the herd would not pass, as he hoped, close by the bushes. The lads, however, were well satisfied; for the line would take them within a hundred and fifty yards. As, in a closely-packed body, they came along, Ned and Tom rose suddenly to their feet, drew their bows to their ears, and launched their arrows. Each had, according to the custom of English archers, stuck two arrows into the ground by the spot where they would stand up; and these they also discharged, before the herd was out of shot. With fair shooting it was impossible to miss so large a mark, and five of the little deer rolled over, pierced through by the arrows; while another, hit in a less vital spot, carried off the weapon. The Indians raised a cry of joy and surprise, at shooting which to them appeared marvellous, indeed; and when the others came up showed them, with marks of astonishment, the distance at which the animals had fallen from the bush from which the arrows had been aimed. Two more beats were made. These were more successful, the herds passing close to the places of concealment, and upon each occasion ten stags fell. This was considered sufficient. The animals were not all of one kind. One herd was composed of deer far larger than, and as heavy as good-sized sheep; while the others were considerably smaller, and the party had as much as their united efforts--except those of Ned and Tom, whose offer to assist was peremptorily declined--could drag back to the village, where the feasting was at once renewed. The lads, when the natives had skinned the deer, took some of the smaller and finer skins, intending to dry them; but the natives, seeing their intention, brought them a number of the same kind, which were already well cured and beautifully supple. Fashioning needles from small pieces of bone, with sinews for thread, and using their own tattered clothes as patterns, the two lads set to work; and by the following evening had manufactured doublets and trunks of deerskin, which were a vast improvement upon their late ragged apparel; and had, at a short distance, the appearance of being made of a bright brownish-yellow cloth. By this time the Indians had become quite accustomed to them. The men, and sometimes even the women, came to the hut and sat down and tried to talk with them. The boys did their best to learn, asking the name of every article, and repeating it until they had thoroughly learned it, the Indians applauding like children when they attained the right pronunciation. The next morning they saw a young Indian starting alone, with his bow and arrow. Anxious to see how he was going to proceed, by himself, the boys asked if they might accompany him. He assented, and together they started off. After an hour's walking, they arrived at an eminence from which an extensive view could be obtained. Here their companion motioned to them to lie down and watch his proceedings. They did so, and saw him make a wide circuit, and work up towards the herd of deer. "They will be off long before he can get within bow shot," Tom said. "Look, they are getting fidgety already. They scent danger, and he is four hundred yards away. They will be off in a minute. "Look, what on earth is he doing?" The Indian was lying on his back, his body being almost concealed by the grass, which was a foot high. In the air he waved his legs to and fro, twisting and twining them. The boys could not help laughing at the curious appearance of the two black objects waving slowly about. The herd of deer stood staring stupidly at the spectacle. Then, as if moved by a common impulse of curiosity, they began slowly to approach, in order to investigate more closely this singular phenomenon. Frequently they stopped, but only to continue their advance, which was made with a sort of circling movement, as if to see the object from all sides. Nearer and nearer they approached, until the leaders were not more than fifty yards away; when the native leaped to his feet, and discharged his arrows with such rapidity, and accuracy, that two of the animals fell before they could dart away out of range. The lads soon joined the native, and expressed their approval of his skill. Then, while he threw one carcass over his shoulder, they divided the weight of the other between them, and so accompanied him into camp. The next day Ned and Tom, walking to an eminence near the camp, saw in the distance some ostriches feeding. Returning to the huts, they found the young hunter whom they had accompanied on the preceding day, and beckoned to him to accompany them. When they reached the spot from which the ostriches were visible, they motioned to him to come out and shoot them. He at once nodded. As they were about to follow him back to camp, for their bows and arrows, he shook his head and signed to them to stay where they were; and going off by himself, returned with his bow and arrow and, to the surprise of the boys, the skin of an ostrich. To show the lads what he intended to do, he put on the skin, sticking one arm up the long neck, his black legs alone showing. He now imitated the motions of the bird, now stalking along, now picking up bits of grass, and this with such an admirable imitation of nature that Ned and Tom shouted with laughter. The three then set off together, taking a line which hid them from the view of the ostriches. The Indian at last led them to a small eminence, and signed to them to ascend this, and there to lie down and watch the result. On arriving at their post, they found themselves about a quarter of a mile from the group of great birds. It seemed a long time before they could see any signs of the native, who had to make a long detour so as to approach the birds upwind. About a hundred and fifty yards from the spot where they were feeding was a clump of bushes, and presently the lads suddenly beheld an ostrich, feeding quietly beside this clump. "There was no bird near those bushes two minutes ago," Tom said. "It must be the Indian." Very quietly, and by degrees, the ostrich approached the group. When within four yards of them the ostrich, as if by magic, vanished; and an Indian stood in his place. In another moment his bow twanged, and the ostrich next to him fell over, pierced through with an arrow; while the rest of the flock scattered over the plain, at an immense speed. Ned and Tom now rose to their feet and ran down the slope to the Indian, who was standing by the dead bird. He pulled out the tail feathers and handed them to them; cut off the head and legs; opened and cleaned the body; and then, putting it on his shoulder, started again for the camp. For another week they remained in the Indian village, and in that time picked up a good many native words. They then determined that they must be starting on their westward journey. They therefore called upon the chief and explained to him by signs, eked out with a few words, that they must leave him and go towards the setting sun. The grief of the chief was great, as was that of the tribe, when he communicated the tidings to them. There was great talking among the groups round the fire that night, and Ned saw that some question was being debated, at great length. The next morning the chief and several of the leading men came into their hut, and the chief made a speech, accompanied with great gesticulation. The lads gathered that he was imploring them not to leave them, and pointing out that there would be hostile Indians on the road, who would attack them. Then the chief led them to the fires, and signed that if they went out the tribe would be cold again, and would be unable to cook their food. Already, indeed, on one occasion after a great feast, the tribe had slept so soundly that all the fires were out before morning, and Ned had been obliged to have recourse to his flint and steel. After this, two fires had been kept constantly burning, night and day. Others were lighted for cooking, but these were tended constantly, and Ned saw that there was little chance of their ever going out together, so long as the tribe remained in the village. Now, however, he proceeded to show them how to carry fire with them. Taking one blazing stick, and starting out as for a journey, he showed that the fire gradually went out. Then he returned to the fire and took two large pieces, and started, keeping them so crossed that the parts on fire were always in contact. In this way, as he showed them, fire could be kept in for a very long time; and that, if two brands were taken from each fire, there would be little difficulty in keeping fire perpetually. Finally he showed them how, in case of losing fire in spite of all these precautions, it could be recovered by means of friction. He took two pieces of dried wood; one being very hard grained, and the other much softer. Of the former he cut a stick of about a foot long and an inch round, and pointed at both ends. In the other he made a small hole. Then he unstrung one end of a bowstring, twisted it once round the stick, and strung it again. Then he put one point of the stick in the hole in the other piece of wood, which he laid upon the ground. Round the hole he crumbled into dust some dry fungus. On the upper end of the short stick he placed a flat stone, which he bade one of the natives press with moderate force. Now, working the bow rapidly backwards and forwards, the stick was spun round and round like a drill. The Indians, who were unable to make out what Ned was doing, watched these proceedings with great attention. When a little smoke began to curl up from the heated wood they understood at once, and shouted with wonder. In a few minutes sparks began to fly from the stick, and as these fell on the dried fungus they rapidly spread. Tom knelt down and blew gently upon them, adding a few dried leaves, and in another minute a bright flame sprang up. The natives were delighted. They had now means of making fire, and could in future enjoy warmth and cooked food, and their gratitude to the lads was unbounded. Hitherto they had feared that, when these strange white beings departed, they would lose their fires, and return to their former cheerless existence, when the long winter evenings had to be spent in cold and darkness. That evening the chief intimated to his visitors that he, and a portion of the men of the tribe, would accompany them for some distance; the women remaining behind, with the rest of the fighting men as their guard. This decision pleased the young men much, for they could not hope to go far without meeting other tribes; and although, as had been found in the present instance, the gift of fire would be sure to propitiate the Indians; it was probable that they might be attacked on the march, and killed without having an opportunity of explanation. Their friends, however, would have the power of at once explaining, to all comers, the valuable benefits which they could bestow. During the time that they had been staying in the village, they had further improved their bows by taking them to pieces, fitting the parts more accurately together, and gluing them with glue, prepared by boiling down sinews of animals in a gourd. Then, rebinding them with fine sinews, they found that they were, in all respects, equal to their English weapons. They had now no fear as to their power of maintaining themselves with food on the way, and felt that, even when their new friends should leave them, they would have a fair chance of defending themselves against attack, as their bows would carry more than thrice as far as those of the natives. The following morning the start was made. The chief and twenty picked warriors accompanied them, together with six young Indians, two of whom carried lighted brands. The others dragged light sleighs, upon which were piled skins and long poles, for making tents at night, for the temperature was exceedingly cold after sundown. The whole village turned out to see the party off, and shouts of farewell, and good wishes, rang in the air. For the first three days no adventures were met with. The party had no difficulty in killing game sufficient for their needs, and at night they halted at streams or pools. Ned observed, however, that at the last halting place the chief, who had hitherto taken no precaution at night, gave some orders to his followers; four of whom, when the rest laid down to rest, glided off in different directions into the darkness. Ned pointed to them inquiringly, and the chief intimated that they were now entering the hunting grounds of another tribe. The following day the band kept closely together. A vigilant lookout on the plains was kept up, and no straggling was allowed. They had sufficient meat left over, from their spoils of the day before, to last for the day; and no hunting was necessary. The next evening, just as they had retired to rest, one of the scouts came in and reported that he heard sounds around, which betokened the presence of man. The calls of animals were heard on the plain; and a herd of deer, which had evidently been disturbed, had darted past at full speed. The chief now ordered great quantities of dried wood to be thrown into the fire, and a vast blaze soon shot up high, illuminating a circle of a hundred yards in diameter. Advancing to the edge of this circle, the chief held out his arms, to show that he was unarmed; and then shouted, at the top of his voice, to the effect that he invited all within hearing to come forward, in peace. The strange appearance that they saw was a boon, given to the Indian people by two great white beings, who were in his camp; and that, by its aid, there would be no more cold. Three times he shouted out these words, and then retired to the fire and sat down. Presently from the circle of darkness a number of figures appeared, approaching timidly and with an awe-struck air, until within a short distance of the fire. Then the chief again rose, and bade them welcome. There were some fifty or sixty of them, but Ned and his friend had no fear of any treachery, for they were evidently under the spell of a sense of amazement greater than that which had been excited among those they first met; and this because they first saw this wonder by night. When the newcomers had taken their seats, the chief explained to them the qualities of their new discovery. That it made them warm and comfortable their own feelings told them; and on the morrow, when they had meat, he would show them how great were its effects. Then he told them of the dancing water, and how it softened and made delicious the vegetables placed in it. At his command one of his followers took two brands, carried them to a distance, and soon lighted another fire. During the narrative, the faces of the Indians lighted up with joy; and they cast glances of reverence and gratitude towards the young white men. These, finding that amity was now established, retired to sleep to the little skin tents which had been raised for them; while the Indians remained sitting round the fire, engrossed with its wonders. The young men slept late next morning, knowing that no move could be made that day. When they came out of the tents, they found that the natives had lost no time. Before daybreak hunting parties had gone out, and a store of game was piled near the fire; or rather fires, for a dozen were now burning, and the strangers were being initiated in the art of cooking by their hosts. Two days were spent here; and then, after much talk, the tribe at which they had now arrived arranged to escort and pass the boys on to their neighbors, while the first party returned to their village. Ned and Tom were consulted before this matter was settled, and approved of it. It was better that they should be passed on, from tribe to tribe, than that they should be escorted all the way by a guard who would be as strange as themselves to the country, and who would naturally be longing to return to their homes and families. For some weeks the life led by the travelers resembled that which has been described. Sometimes they waited for a few days at villages, where great festivities were held in their honor The news of their coming, in many cases, preceded them; and they and their convoy were often met at the stream, or other mark which formed the acknowledged boundary between the hunting grounds, by large bodies eager to receive and welcome them. They had, by this time, made considerable progress in the language, knew all the names of common objects, and could make themselves understood in simple matters. The language of savage people is always simple. Their range of ideas is narrow; their vocabulary very limited, and consequently easily mastered. Ned knew that, at any time, they might come across people in a state of active warfare with each other; and that his life might depend upon the ability to make himself understood. Consequently he lost no opportunity of picking up the language. On the march Tom and he, instead of walking and talking together, each went with a group of natives; and kept up a conversation, eked out with signs, with them; and consequently they made very considerable progress with the language. Chapter 13: Through the Cordilleras. After three months of steady travel, the country, which had become more and more hilly as they advanced toward the west, assumed a different character. The hills became mountains, and it was clear that they were arriving at a great range running north and south. They had for some time left the broad plains behind them, and game was very scarce. The Indians had of late been more and more disinclined to go far to the west, and the tribe with whom they were now traveling told them that they could go no farther. They signified that beyond the mountains dwelt tribes with whom they were unacquainted, but who were fierce and warlike. One of the party, who had once crossed, said that the people there had fires like those which the white men had taught them to make. "You see, Tom," Ned said, "they must have been in contact with the Spaniards, or at least with tribes who have learned something from the Spaniards. In that case our supernatural power will be at an end, and our color will be against us, as they will regard us as Spaniards, and so as enemies. At any rate, we must push on and take our chance." From the Indian they learned that the track lay up a valley before them, that after a day's walking they would have to begin the ascent. Another day's journey would take them to a neck between two peaks, and the passage of this would occupy at least a day. The native described the cold as great here, even in summer, and that in winter it was terrible. Once across the neck, the descent on the other side began. "There can be no snow in the pass now, Tom; it is late in December, and the hottest time of the year; and although we must be a very great height above the sea, for we have been rising ever since we left the coast, we are not so very far south, and I cannot believe the snow can now lie in the pass. Let us take a good stock of dried meat, a skin for water--we can fill it at the head of the valley--and make our way forward. I do not think the sea can lie very far on the other side of this range of mountains, but at any rate, we must wait no longer. Captain Drake may have passed already, but we may still be in time." The next morning they bade adieu to their companions, with whom they had been traveling for a fortnight. These, glad again to turn their faces homeward, set off at once; and the lads, shouldering their packs, started up the valley. The scenery was grand in the extreme, and Ned and Tom greatly enjoyed it. Sometimes the sides approached in perpendicular precipices, leaving barely room for the little stream to find its way between their feet; at others it was half a mile wide. When the rocks were not precipitous the sides were clothed with a luxuriant foliage, among which the birds maintained a concert of call and song. So sheltered were they that, high as it was above the sea, the heat was very oppressive; and when they reached the head of the valley, late in the afternoon, they were glad indeed of a bathe in a pool of the stream. Choosing a spot of ground near the stream, the lads soon made a fire, put their pieces of venison down to roast, and prepared for a quiet evening. "It seems strange to be alone again, Tom, after so many months with those Indians; who were ever on the watch for every movement and word, as if they were inspired. It is six months, now, since we left the western coast; and one almost seems to forget that one is English. We have picked up something of half a dozen Indian dialects; we can use their weapons almost as well as they can themselves; and as to our skins, they are as brown as that of the darkest of them. The difficulty will be to persuade the people on the other side that we are whites." "How far do you think the sea lies on the other side of this range of giant mountains?" Tom asked. "I have no idea," Ned replied, "and I do not suppose that anyone else has. The Spaniards keep all matters connected with this coast a mystery; but I believe that the sea cannot be many days' march beyond the mountains." For an hour or two they chatted quietly, their thoughts naturally turning again to England, and the scenes of their boyhood. "Will it be necessary to watch, think you?" Tom asked. "I think it would be safer, Tom. One never knows. I believe that we are now beyond the range of the natives of the Pampas. They evidently have a fear of approaching the hills; but that only shows that the natives from the other side come down over here. I believe that they were, when the Spaniards landed, peaceable people; quiet and gentle. So at least they are described. But those who take to the mountains must be either escaped slaves, or fugitives from the cruelty of the Spaniards; and even the gentlest man, when driven to desperation, becomes savage and cruel. To these men our white skins would be like a red rag to a bull. They can never have heard of any white people, save the Spaniards; and we need expect little mercy if we fall into their hands. I think we had better watch, turn about. I will take the first watch, for I am not at all sleepy, and my thoughts seem busy tonight, with home." Tom was soon fast asleep, and Ned sat quietly watching the embers of the fire, occasionally throwing on fresh sticks, until he deemed that nearly half the night was gone. Then he aroused his companion and lay down himself, and was soon fast asleep. The gray light was just beginning to break when he was aroused by a sudden yell, accompanied by a cry from Tom. He leaped to his feet, just in time to see a crowd of natives rush upon himself and his comrade, discharging as they did so numbers of small arrows, several of which pierced him as he rose to his feet. Before they could grasp their bows, or any other weapons, the natives were upon them. Blows were showered down with heavy clubs and, although the lads made a desperate resistance, they were beaten to the ground in a short time. The natives at once twisted strong thongs round their limbs; and then, dragging them from the fire, sat down themselves and proceeded to roast the remains of the boys' deer meat. "This is a bad business indeed, Tom," Ned said. "These men doubtless take us for Spaniards. They certainly must belong to the other side of the mountains, for their appearance and language are altogether different to those of the people we have been staying with. These men are much smaller, slighter, and fairer. Runaways though no doubt they are, they seem to have more care about their persons, and to be more civilized in their appearance and weapons, than the savages of the plains." "What do you think they will do with us, Ned?" "I have no doubt in the world, Tom, that their intention is either to put us to death with some horrible torture, or to roast us. The Spaniards have taught them these things, if they did not know them before; and in point of atrocities, nothing can possibly exceed those which the Spaniards have inflicted upon them and their fathers." Whatever were the intentions of the Indians, it was soon evident that there would be some delay in carrying them out. After they had finished their meal, they rose from the fire. Some amused themselves by making arrows from the straight reeds that grew by the stream. Others wandered listlessly about. Some threw themselves upon the ground and slept; while others, coming up to the boys, poured torrents of invective upon them, among which they could distinguish in Spanish the words "dog" and "Spaniard," varying their abuse by violent kicks. As, however, these were given by the naked feet, they did not seriously inconvenience the boys. "What can they be waiting for?" Tom said. "Why don't they do something if they are going to do it." "I expect," Ned answered, "that they are waiting for some chief, or for the arrival of some other band, and that we are to be kept for a grand exhibition." So it proved. Three days passed, and upon the fourth another band, smaller in numbers, joined them. Upon the evening of that day the lads saw that their fate was about to be brought to a crisis. The fire was made up with huge bundles of wood; the natives took their seats around it, with gravity and order; and the boys were led forward by four natives, armed with spears. Then began what was a regular trial. The boys, although they could not understand a word of the language, could yet follow the speeches of the excited orators. One after another arose and told the tale of the treatment that he had experienced. One showed the weals which covered his back. Another held up his arm, from which the hand had been lopped. A third pointed to the places where his ears once had been. Another showed the scar of a hot iron on his arms and legs. Some went through a pantomime, which told its tale of an attack upon some solitary hut, the slaughter of the old and infirm, and the dragging away of the men and women into slavery. Others spoke of long periods of labor, in a bent position, in a mine, under the cruel whip of the taskmaster. All had their tale of barbarity and cruelty to recite and, as each speaker contributed his quota, the anger and excitement of the rest rose. "Poor devils!" Ned said; "no wonder that they are savage against us. See what they have suffered at the hands of the white men. If we had gone through as much, you may be sure that we should spare none. Our only chance is to make them understand that we are not Spanish; and that, I fear, is beyond all hope." This speedily proved to be the case. Two or three of the natives who spoke a few words of Spanish came to them, calling them Spanish dogs. Ned shook his head and said, "Not Spanish." For all reply the natives pointed to the uncovered portions of their body, pulled back the skins which covered their arms and, pointing to the white flesh, laughed incredulously. "White men are Spaniards, and Spaniards are white men," Tom groaned, "and that we shall have to die, for the cruelty which the Spaniards have perpetrated, is clear enough. "Well, Ned, we have had more good fortune than we could have expected. We might have been killed on the day when we landed, and we have spent six jolly months in wandering together, as hunters, on the plain. If we must die, let us behave like Englishmen and Christians. It may be that our lives have not been as good as they should have been; but so far as we know, we have both done our duty; and it may be that, as we die for the faults of others, it may come to be considered as a balance against our own faults." "We must hope so, Tom. I think we have both done, I won't say our best, but as well as could be expected in so rough a life. We have followed the exhortations of the good chaplain, and have never joined in the riotous ways of the sailors in general. We must trust that the good God will forgive us our sins, and strengthen us to go through this last trial." While they had been speaking the natives had made an end of their deliberation. Tom was now conducted, by two natives with spears, to a tree; and was securely fastened. Ned, under the guard of the other two, was left by the fire. The tree was situated at a distance of some twenty yards from it, and the natives mostly took their place near the fire. Some scattered among the bushes, and presently reappeared bearing bundles of dry wood. These were laid in order round the tree, at such a distance that the flames would not touch the prisoner, but the heat would gradually roast him to death. As Ned observed the preparations for the execution of his friend, the sweat stood in great drops on his forehead; and he would have given anything to be able to rush to his assistance, and to die with him. Had his hands been free he would, without hesitation, have snatched up a bow and sent an arrow into Tom's heart, to release him from the lingering death which awaited him; and he would then have stabbed himself with a spear. But while his hands were sufficiently free to move a little, the fastenings were too tight to admit of his carrying out any plan of that sort. Suddenly an idea struck him, and he began nervously to tug at his fastenings. The natives, when they seized them, had bound them without examining their clothes. It was improbable that men in savage attire could have about them any articles worth appropriating. The knives, indeed, which hung from their belts had been cut off; but these were the only articles which had been touched. Just as a man approached the fire and, seizing a brand, stooped forward to light the pyre, Ned succeeded in freeing his hands sufficiently to seize the object which he sought. This was his powder flask, which was wrapped in the folds of the cloth round his waist. With little difficulty he succeeded in freeing it and, moving a step closer to the fire, he cast it into the midst of it, at the very moment the man with the lighted brand was approaching Tom. Then he stepped back as far as he could from the fire. The natives on guard over him, not understanding the movement, and thinking he meditated flight, closed around him. An instant later there was a tremendous explosion. The red hot embers were flaming in all directions, and both Ned and the savages who stood by him were, with many others, struck to the ground. As soon as he was able, Ned struggled up again. Not a native was in sight. A terrific yell had broken from them at the explosion, which sounded to them like one of the cannons of their Spanish oppressors; and, smarting with the wounds simultaneously made by the hot brands, each, without a moment's thought, had taken to his heels. Tom gave a shout of exultation, as Ned rose. The latter at once stooped and, with difficulty, picked up one of the still blazing brands, and hurried towards the tree. "If these fellows will remain away for a couple of minutes, Tom, you shall be free," he said, "and I don't think they will get over their scare as quickly as that." So saying, he applied the end of the burning brand to the dry withes with which Tom was bound to the tree. These at once took fire and flared up, and the bands fell to the ground. "Now, Tom, do me the same service." This was quickly rendered, and the lads stood free. "Now, let us get our weapons." A short search revealed to them their bows, laid carefully aside, while the ground was scattered with the arms which the natives, in their panic, had dropped. "Pick them all up, Tom, and toss them on the fire. We will take the sting out of the snake, in case it tries to attack us again." In a minute or two a score of bows, spears, and others weapons were thrown on the fire; and the boys then, leaving the place which had so nearly proved fatal to them, took their way up the mountain side. It was a long pull, the more so that they had the food, water, and large skins for protection from the night air to carry. Steadily as they kept on, with only an occasional halt for breath, it was late before they emerged from the forest and stood upon a plateau between two lofty hills. This was bare and treeless, and the keen wind made them shiver, as they met it. "We will creep among the trees, Tom; and be off at daybreak, tomorrow. However long the journey, we must get across the pass before we sleep, for the cold there would be terrible." A little way down the crest it was so warm that they needed no fire, while a hundred feet higher, exposed to the wind from the snow-covered peaks, the cold was intense. They kept careful watch, but the night passed quietly. The next morning they were on foot, as soon as the voices of the birds proclaimed the approach of day. As they emerged from the shelter of the trees they threw their deer skins round them, to act as cloaks, and stepped out at their best pace. The dawn of day was yet faint in the east; the stars burning bright as lamps overhead, in the clear thin air; and the cold was so great that it almost stopped their breathing. Half an hour later the scene had changed altogether. The sun had risen, and the air felt warm. The many peaks on either side glistened in the flood of bright light. The walking was easy, indeed, after the climb of the previous day; and their burdens were much lightened by their consumption of food and water. The pass was of irregular width, sometimes but a hundred yards, sometimes fully a mile across. Long habit and practice with the Indians had immensely improved their walking powers and, with long elastic strides, they put mile after mile behind them. Long before the sun was at its highest a little stream ran beside them, and they saw, by the course of its waters, that they had passed the highest part of the pass through the Cordilleras. Three hours later they suddenly emerged, from a part where the hills approached nearer on either side than they had done during the day's walk, and a mighty landscape opened before and below them. The boys gave, simultaneously, a loud shout of joy; and then dropped on their knees, in thanks to God, for far away in the distance was a dark level blue line, and they knew the ocean was before them. "How far off should you say it was, Ned?" Tom asked, when they had recovered a little from their first outburst of joy. "A long way off," Ned said. "I suppose we must be fifteen thousand feet above it, and even in this transparent air it looks an immense distance away. I should say it must be a hundred miles." "That's nothing!" Tom said. "We could do it in two days, in three easily." "Yes, supposing we had no interruption and a straight road," Ned said. "But we must not count our chickens yet. This vast forest which we see contains tribes of natives, bitterly hostile to the white man, maddened by the cruelties of the Spaniards, who enslave them and treat them worse than dogs. Even when we reach the sea, we may be a hundred or two hundred miles from a large Spanish town; and however great the distance, we must accomplish it, as it is only at large towns that Captain Drake is likely to touch." "Well, let us be moving," Tom said. "I am strong for some hours' walking yet, and every day will take us nearer to the sea." "We need not carry our deer skins any farther," Ned said, throwing his down. "We shall be sweltering under the heat tomorrow, below there." Even before they halted for the night, the vegetation had assumed a tropical character, for they had already descended some five thousand feet. "I wish we could contrive to make a fire tonight," Ned said. "Why?" Tom asked. "I am bathed in perspiration, now." "We shall not want it for heat, but the chances are that there are wild beasts of all sorts in this forest." Ned's premises turned out correct, for scarcely had night fallen when they heard deep roarings, and lost no time in ascending a tree, and making themselves fast there, before they went to sleep. In the morning they proceeded upon their journey. After walking a couple of hours, Ned laid his arm upon Tom's shoulder. "Hush!" he whispered. "Look there." Through the trees, at a short distance off, could be seen a stag. He was standing, gazing intently at a tree, and did not appear to have heard their approach. "What can he be up to?" Tom whispered. "He must have heard us." "He seems paralyzed," Ned said. "Don't you see how he is trembling? There must be some wild beast in the tree." Both gazed attentively at the tree, but could see nothing to account for the attitude of the deer. "Wild beast or no," Ned said, "he will do for our dinner." So saying, he unslung his bow, and fitted an arrow. There was a sharp twang, and the deer rolled over, struck to the heart. There was no movement in the tree, but Ned placed another arrow in place. Tom had done the same. They stood silent for a few minutes, but all was still. "Keep your eyes on the tree and advance slowly," Ned said. "Have your sword ready in case of need. I cannot help thinking there is something there, though what it is I can't make out." Slowly, and with the greatest caution, they approached the tree. All was perfectly still. "No beast big enough to hurt us can be up there," Ned said at last. "None of the branches are thick enough to hide him. "Now for the stag." Ned bent over the carcass of the deer, which lay a few feet only from the tree. Then suddenly there was a rapid movement among the creepers which embraced the trunk, something swept between Ned and Tom, knocking the latter to the ground, while a cry of alarm and astonishment rose from Ned. Confused and surprised, Tom sprang to his feet, instinctively drawing his sword as he did so. For a moment he stood, paralyzed with horror. A gigantic snake had wound its coils round Ned's body. Its head towered above his, while its eyes flashed menacingly, and its tongue vibrated with a hissing sound as it gazed at Tom. Its tail was wound round the trunk of the tree. Ned was powerless, for his arms were pinioned to his side by the coils of the reptile. It was but a moment that Tom stood appalled. He knew that, at any instant, by the tightening of its folds the great boa could crush every bone of Ned's body; while the very closeness of its embrace rendered it impossible for him to strike at it, for fear of injuring its captor. There was not an instant to be lost. Already the coils were tightening, and a hoarse cry broke from Ned. With a rapid spring Tom leaped beyond his friend, and with a blow, delivered with all his strength, severed the portion of the tail coiled round the tree from the rest of the body. Unknowingly, he had taken the only course to save Ned's life. Had he, as his first impulse had been, struck at the head as it raised itself above that of Ned, the convulsion of the rest of the body would probably have crushed the life out of him; but by cutting off the tail, he separated the body from the tree which formed the fulcrum upon which it acted. As swiftly as they had enclosed him the coils fell from Ned, a writhing mass upon the ground; and a second blow from Tom's sword severed the head from the body. Even now, the folds writhed and twisted like an injured worm; but Tom struck, and struck, until the fragments lay, with only a slight quivering motion in them, on the ground. Then Tom, throwing down his cutlass, raised Ned; who, upon being released from the embrace of the boa, had fallen senseless. Alarmed as Tom was at his comrade's insensibility, he yet felt that it was the shock, and the revulsion of feeling which caused it, and not any serious injury which he had received. No bones had been heard to crack and, although the compression had been severe, Tom did not think that any serious injury had been inflicted. He dashed some water from the skins over Ned's face, rubbed his hands, spoke to him in a loud voice, and ere long had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes. "Thank God!" Tom exclaimed fervently. "There, don't move, Ned. Take it quietly. It's all right now. There, drink a little water." He poured a few drops down Ned's throat, and the latter, whose eyes had before had a dazed and wondering expression, suddenly sat up and strove to draw his sword. "Gently, Ned, gently. The snake is dead, chopped up into pieces. It was a near shave, Ned." Chapter 14: On the Pacific Coast. "A close shave, indeed," Ned said, raising himself with difficulty from the ground. "Another moment, and I think my ribs would have given in. It seemed as if all the blood in my body had rushed to my head." "Do you feel badly hurt?" Tom asked, anxiously. "No," Ned said, feeling himself all over. "Horribly bruised, but nothing broken. To think of our not seeing that monstrous boa! "I don't think," he continued, "that I can walk any farther today. I feel shaken all over." "Then we will camp where we are," Tom said cheerfully. "We have got a stag, and he will last us for some days, if necessary. There is plenty of fruit to be picked in the forest, and on this mountain side we are sure to be able to find water, within a short distance." Lighting a fire, the deer was soon cut up, and the lads prepared to spend a quiet day; which was all the more welcome inasmuch as, for the last three weeks, they had traveled without intermission. The next day Ned declared himself well enough to proceed on his journey; but his friend persuaded him to stop for another day. Late in the evening Ned exclaimed, "What is that, Tom, behind that tree?" Tom seized his bow, and leaped to his feet. "I see nothing," he said. "It was either a native, or a gigantic monkey. I saw him, quite plainly, glide along behind the tree." Tom advanced cautiously, but on reaching the tree he found nothing. "You are sure you were not mistaken?" he asked. "Quite certain," Ned said. "We have seen enough of Indians, by this time, to know them. We must be on the lookout, tonight. The natives on this side are not like those beyond the mountains. They have been so horribly ill treated, by the Spaniards, that they must hate any white face; and would kill us without hesitation, if they got a chance. We shall have difficulty with the Spaniards, when we fall into their hands; but they will at least be more reasonable than these savages." All night they kept up their fire, and sat up by turns, on watch. Several times they thought that they heard slight movements, among the fallen leaves and twigs; but these might have been caused by any prowling beast. Once or twice they fancied that they detected forms, moving cautiously just beyond the range of the firelight; but they could not be certain that it was so. Just as morning was breaking, Ned sprang to his feet. "Wake up, Tom!" he exclaimed; "we are attacked;" and as he spoke, an arrow quivered in the tree just over his head. They had already discussed whether it would be better to remain, if attacked, in the light of the fire, or to retreat into the shadow; and concluding that the eyes of the natives would be more accustomed to see in darkness than their own, they had determined to stay by the fire, throwing themselves down on their faces; and to keep the natives at bay beyond the circle of the light of the flames, till daylight. They had, in readiness, heaped a great pile of brushwood; and this they now threw upon the fire, making a huge pyramid of flame, which lit the wood around for a circle of sixty yards. As the light leaped up, Ned discharged an arrow at a native, whom he saw within the circle of light; and a shrill cry proclaimed that it had reached its mark. There was silence for a while in the dark forest and, each moment that passed, the daylight became stronger and stronger. "In ten minutes we shall be able to move on," Ned said; "and in the daylight, I think that the longer range of our bows will enable us to keep them off. The question is, how many of them are there?" A very short time sufficed to show that the number of the savages was large; for shrill cries were heard, answering each other, in the circle around them; and numbers of black figures could be seen, hanging about the trees in the distance. "I don't like the look of things, Ned," Tom said. "It is all very well. We may shoot a good many before they reach us, and in the open no doubt we might keep them off. But by taking advantage of the trees, they will be able to get within range of their weapons; and at short distances, they are just as effective as are our bows." As soon as it was broad daylight, the lads started through the forest, keeping up a running fight with the natives. "It is clear," Tom said, "we cannot stand this much longer. We must take to a tree." They were on the point of climbing, when Ned exclaimed: "Listen! I can hear the sound of bells." Listening intently, they could make out the sound of little bells, such as are carried by horses or mules. "It must be a train to one of the mines. If we can reach that, we shall be safe." Laying aside all further thought of fighting, the boys now ran, at headlong pace, in the direction of the sounds. The natives, who were far fleeter of foot, gained fast upon them; and the arrows were flying round them, and several had inflicted slight wounds, when they heard ahead of them the cry of: "Soldiers on guard. The natives are at hand. Fire in the bushes." The boys threw themselves upon their faces as, from the thickets ahead, a volley of musketry was heard. "Load again," was the order, in Spanish. "These black rascals must be strong, indeed, to advance to attack us with so much noise." Crawling forward cautiously, Ned exclaimed, in Spanish: "Do not fire, senors. We are two Spaniards who have been carried away from the settlements, and have for long been prisoners among the natives." A cry of surprise was heard, and then the Spaniard in command called them to advance, fearlessly. This they did. Fortunately they had, long before, settled upon the story that they would tell, when they arrived among the Spaniards. To have owned themselves Englishmen, and as belonging to the dreaded buccaneers, would have been to ensure their imprisonment, if not execution. The imperfection of Ned's Spanish, and the fact that Tom was quite ignorant of the language, rendered it difficult for them to pass as Spaniards. But they thought that, by giving out that they had been carried away in childhood--Tom at an earlier age than Ned--their ignorance of the language would be accounted for. It had been a struggle, with both of them, to decide upon telling an untruth. This is a point upon which differences of opinion must always arise. Some will assert that under no circumstances can a falsehood be justified. Others will say that to deceive an enemy in war, or to save life, deceit is justifiable, especially when that deceit injures no one. It was only after very great hesitation that the boys had overcome their natural instincts and teaching, and agreed to conceal their nationality under false colors Ned, indeed, held out for a long time; but Tom had cited many examples, from ancient and modern history, showing that people of all nations had, to deceive an enemy, adopted such a course; and that to throw away their lives, rather than tell a falsehood which could hurt no one, would be an act of folly. Both, however, determined that, should it become necessary to keep up their character as Spaniards by pretending to be true Catholics, they would disclose the truth. The first sight of the young men struck the captain of the Spanish escort with astonishment. Bronzed to the darkest brown by the sun of the plains and by the hardships they had undergone, dressed in the skins of animals, and carrying weapons altogether uncouth and savage to the Spanish eye, he found it difficult to believe that these figures were those of his countrymen. His first question, however, concerned the savages who had, as he supposed, attacked his escort. A few words from Ned, however, explained the circumstances; and that the yells he had heard had been uttered by the Indians pursuing them, and had no reference, whatever, to the convoy. This consisted of some two hundred mules, laden with provisions and implements on its way to the mines. Guarded by a hundred soldiers were a large number of natives; who, fastened together as slaves, were on their way up to work for their cruel taskmasters. When the curiosity of the captain concerning the natives was allayed, he asked Ned where he and his comrade had sprung from. Ned assured him that the story was a very long one; and that, at a convenient opportunity, he would enter into all details. In the first place he asked that civilized clothes might be given to them; for, as he said, they looked and felt, at present, rather as wild men of the woods than as subjects of the King of Spain. "You speak a very strange Spanish," the captain said. "I only wonder," Ned replied, "that I speak in Spanish at all. I was but a child, when I was carried away; and since that time I have scarcely spoken a word of my native tongue. When I reached the village to which my captors conveyed me, I found my companion here; who was, as I could see, a Spaniard, but who must have been carried off as an infant, as he even then could speak no Spanish, whatever. He has learned now from me a few words; but beyond that, is wholly ignorant." "This is a strange story, indeed," the captain said. "Where was it that your parents lived?" "I know not the place," Ned said. "But it was far to the rising sun, across on the other ocean." As it seemed perfectly possible that the boys might have been carried away, as children, from the settlements near Vera Cruz, the captain accepted the story without the slightest doubt, and at once gave a warm welcome to the lads; who had, as he supposed, escaped after so many weary years of captivity. "I am going up now," he said, "to the mines, and there must remain on duty for a fortnight, when I shall return in charge of treasure. It will be dangerous, indeed, for you to attempt to find your way to the coast without escort. Therefore you had better come on with me, and return under my protection to the coast." "We should be glad of a stay with you in the mountains," Ned said. "We feel so ignorant of everything European that we should be glad to learn, from you, a little of the ways of our countrymen before we venture down among them. What is the nearest town on the coast?" "Arica," the captain said, "is the port from which we have come. It is distant a hundred and thirty miles from here, and we have had ten days' hard journeying through the forest." For the next fortnight, the lads remained at the mines. These were worked by the Spaniards entirely by slave labor Nominal wages were, indeed, given to the unfortunates who labored there. But they were as much slaves as if they had been sold. The Spaniards, indeed, treated the whole of the natives in the provinces occupied by them as creatures to be used mercilessly for labor, and as having no more feeling than the lower animals. The number of these unfortunates who perished in the mines, from hard work and cruel treatment, is beyond all calculation. But it may be said that, of the enormous treasures drawn by Spain from her South American possessions, during the early days of her occupation, every doubloon was watered with blood. The boys, who had for nearly six months lived among the Indians, and had seen their many fine qualities, were horrified at the sights which they witnessed; and, several times, had the greatest difficulty to restrain their feelings of indignation and horror. They agreed, however, that it would be worse than useless to give vent to such opinions. It would only draw upon them the suspicion of the Spaniards, and would set the authorities at the mine and the captain of the escort against them, and might prejudice the first report that would be sent down to Arica, concerning them. During the first few days of their stay, the boys acted their parts with much internal amusement. They pretended to be absolutely ignorant of civilized feeding, seized the meat raw and tore it with their fingers, sat upon the ground in preference to chairs, and in every way behaved as persons altogether ignorant of civilization. Gradually, however, they permitted themselves to be taught, and delighted their entertainers by their docility and willingness. The Spaniards were, indeed, somewhat surprised by the whiteness of their skin, where sheltered from the sun; and by the lightness of their hair and eyes. The boys could hear many comments upon them, and wondering remarks why they should be so much fairer than their countrymen in general. As, however, it was clearly useless to ask them, none of the Spaniards thought of doing so. The end of the fortnight arrived and, under the charge of the escort, the lads set out, together with twenty mules laden with silver, for the coast. They had no longer any fear of the attacks of the natives, or any trouble connected with their food supply; an ample stock of provisions being carried upon spare mules. They themselves were mounted, and greatly enjoyed the journey through the magnificent forests. They were, indeed, a little uneasy as to the examination which they were sure to have to undergo at Arica, and which was likely to be very much more severe and searching than that to which the good-natured captain had subjected them. They longed to ask him whether any news had been heard of the arrival of an English squadron upon the western coast. But it was impossible to do this, without giving rise to suspicion; and they had the consolation, at least, of having heard no single word concerning their countrymen uttered in the conversations at the mine. Had Captain Francis Drake and his companions arrived upon the coast, it was almost certain that their presence there would be the all-absorbing topic among the Spanish colonists. Upon their arrival at Arica, the boys were conducted at once to the governor--a stern and haughty-looking Spaniard, who received the account given by the captain with an air of incredulity. "This is a strange tale, indeed," he said, "and passes all probability. Why should these children have been kidnapped on the eastern coast, and brought across the continent? It is more likely that they belong to this side. However, they could not be malefactors who have escaped into the forest, for their age forbids any idea of that kind. They must have been stolen. But I do not recall any such event as the carrying off of the sons of Spaniards, here, for many years back. "However, this can be inquired into when they learn to speak our language well. In the meantime, they had better be assigned quarters in the barracks. Let them be instructed in military exercises, and in our language." "And," said an ecclesiastic who was sitting at the table, "in our holy religion; for methinks, stolen away as they were in their youth, they can be no better than pagans." Tom had difficulty in repressing a desire to glance at Ned, as these words were spoken. But the eyes of the governor were fixed so intently upon them, that he feared to exhibit any emotion, whatever. He resolved mentally, however, that his progress in Spanish should be exceedingly small; and that many months should elapse, before he could possibly receive even rudimentary instruction in religious matters. The life in the barracks at Arica resembled, pretty closely, that which they had led so long on board ship. The soldiers received them with good feeling and camaraderie, and they were soon completely at home with them. They practiced drill, the use of the pike and rapier; taking very great care, in all these exercises, to betray exceeding clumsiness. With the bow, alone, they were able to show how expert they were. Indeed, the Spaniards were, in no slight degree, astonished by the extraordinary power and accuracy of their shooting. This Ned accounted for, to them, by the long practice that he had had among the Indians; declaring that, among the tribes beyond the mountains, he was by no means an exceptionally good shot--which, indeed, was true enough at short distances, for at these the Indians could shoot with marvellous dexterity. "By San Josef!" exclaimed one of the Spanish officers, after watching the boys shooting at a target, two hundred yards distant, with their powerful bows; "it reminds me of the way that those accursed English archers draw their bows, and send their arrows singing through the air. In faith, too, these men, with their blue eyes and their light hair, remind one of these heretic dogs." "Who are these English?" Ned asked, carelessly. "I have heard of no such tribe. Do they live near the seacoast, or among the mountains?" "They are no tribe, but a white people, like ourselves," the captain said. "Of course, you will not have heard of them. And, fortunately, you are not likely ever to see them on this coast; but if you had remained where you were born, on the other side, you would have heard little else talked of than the doings of these pirates and scoundrels; who scour the seas, defy the authority of his sacred majesty, carry off our treasures under our noses, burn our towns, and keep the whole coast in an uproar." "But," said Ned, in assumed astonishment, "how is it that so great a monarch as the King of Spain, and Emperor of the Indies, does not annihilate these ferocious sea robbers? Surely so mighty a king could have no difficulty in overcoming them." "They live in an island," the officer said, "and are half fish, half men." "What monsters!" Ned exclaimed. "Half fish and half men! How then do they walk?" "Not really; but in their habits. They are born sailors, and are so ferocious and bloodthirsty that, at sea, they overcome even the soldiers of Spain; who are known," he said, drawing himself up, "to be the bravest in the world. On land, however, we should teach them a very different lesson; but on the sea it must be owned that, somehow, we are less valiant than on shore." Every day a priest came down to the barracks, and for an hour endeavored to instill the elements of his religion into the minds of the now civilized wild men. Ned, although progressing rapidly in other branches of his Spanish education, appeared abnormally dull to the explanations of the good father; while Tom's small stock of Spanish was quite insufficient to enable him to comprehend more than a word, here and there. So matters might have remained, for months, had not an event occurred which disclosed the true nationality of the lads. One day the ordinarily placid blue sky was over-clouded. The wind rose rapidly and, in a few hours, a tremendous storm was blowing on the coast. Most of the vessels in the harbor succeeded in running into shelter. But, later in the day, a cry arose that a ship had just rounded the point of the bay, and that she would not be able to make the port. The whole population speedily gathered upon the mole, and the vessel, a small one employed in the coasting trade, was seen struggling with the waves, which were rapidly bearing her towards a reef, lying a quarter of a mile from the shore. The sea was, at this time, running with tremendous force. The wind was howling in a fierce gale, and when the vessel struck upon the rocks, and her masts at once went by the board, all hope of safety for the crew appeared at an end. "Cannot a boat be launched," said Ned to the soldiers standing round, "to effect the rescue of these poor fellows in that wreck?" "Impossible!" they all said. "No boat could live in that sea." After chatting for a time, Tom and Ned drew a little apart from the rest of the crowd, and watched the ill-fated vessel. "It is a rough sea, certainly," Ned said; "but it is all nonsense to say that a boat could not live. Come along, Tom. Let us push that shallop down. There is a sheltered spot behind that rock where we may launch her, and methinks that our arms can row her out to yonder ship." Throwing off their doublets, the young men put their shoulders to the boat, and soon forced it into the water. Then, taking their seats and putting out the oars, they rowed round the corner of the sheltering rock, and breasted the sea which was rolling in. A cry of astonishment broke from the crowd on the mole as the boat made its appearance, and the astonishment was heightened when it was declared, by the soldiers, that the two men on board were the wild men of the wood, as they were familiarly called among themselves. It was a long struggle before the boys reached the wreck, and it needed all their strength and seamanship to avoid being swamped by the tremendous seas. At last, however, they neared it and, catching a line thrown to them by the sailors, brought the boat up under the lee of the ship; and as the captain, the four men who composed his crew, and a passenger, leaped one by one from the ship into the sea, they dragged them on board the boat, and then turned her head to shore. Chapter 15: The Prison of the Inquisition. Among the spectators on the mole were the governor and other principal officers of Arica. "It seems almost like a miracle from heaven," the priest, who was standing next the governor, exclaimed. The governor was scowling angrily at the boat. "If there be a miracle," he said, "good father, it is that our eyes have been blinded so long. Think you, for a moment, that two lads who have been brought up among the Indians, from their childhood, could manage a boat in such a sea as this? Why, if their story were true they could, neither of them, ever have handled an oar; and these are sailors, skillful and daring beyond the common, and have ventured a feat that none of our people here on shore were willing to undertake. How they got here I know not, but assuredly they are English sailors. This will account for their blue eyes and light hair, which have so puzzled us; and for that ignorance of Spanish, which they so craftily accounted for." Although the assembled mass of people on the beach had not arrived at the conclusions to which the governor had jumped, they were filled with astonishment and admiration at the daring deed which had been accomplished; and when the boat was safely brought round behind the shelter of the rock, and its occupants landed on the shore, loud cheers broke from the crowd; and the lads received a perfect ovation, their comrades of the barracks being especially enthusiastic. Presently the crowd were severed by two soldiers, who made their way through it and, approaching Ned and Tom, said: "We have the orders of the governor to bring you to him." The lads supposed that the governor desired to thank them, for saving the lives of the shipwrecked men; for in the excitement of the rescue, the thought that they had exposed themselves by their knowledge of seamanship had never crossed their minds. The crowd followed tumultuously, expecting to hear a flattering tribute paid to the young men who had behaved so well. But the aspect of the governor as, surrounded by his officers, he stood in one of the batteries on the mole, excited a vague feeling of astonishment and surprise. "You are two English seamen," he said, when the lads approached. "It is useless lying any longer. Your knowledge of seamanship, and your appearance, alike convict you." For an instant the boys were too surprised to reply, and then Tom said, boldly: "We are, sir. We have done no wrong to any man, and we are not ashamed, now, to say we are Englishmen. Under the same circumstances, I doubt not that any Spaniard would have similarly tried to escape recognition. But as chance has betrayed us, any further concealment were unnecessary." "Take them to the guard house," the governor said, "and keep a close watch over them. Later, I will interrogate them myself, in the palace." The feelings of the crowd, on hearing this unexpected colloquy, were very mixed. In many, the admiration which the boys' conduct had excited swallowed up all other feeling. But among the less enthusiastic minds, a vague distrust and terror was at once excited by the news that English sailors were among them. No Englishman had ever been seen on that coast, and they had inflicted such terrible losses, on the West Indian Islands and on the neighboring coast, that it is no matter for surprise that their first appearance on the western shores of South America was deemed an omen of terrible import. The news rapidly spread from mouth to mouth, and a large crowd followed in the rear of the little party, and assembled around the governor's house. The sailors who had been rescued had many friends in the port, and these took up the cause of the boys, and shouted that men who had done so gallant a deed should be pardoned, whatever their offense Perhaps, on the whole, this party were in the majority. But the sinister whisper that circulated among the crowd, that they were spies who had been landed from English ships on the coast, gradually cooled even the most enthusiastic of their partisans; and what at one time appeared likely to become a formidable popular movement, gradually calmed down, and the crowd dispersed. When brought before the governor, the boys affected no more concealment; but the only point upon which they refused to give information was respecting the ships on which they had sailed, and the time at which they had been left upon the eastern coast of America. Without absolutely affirming the fact, they led to the belief that they had passed some years since they left their vessels. The governor presently gazed sharply upon them, and demanded: "Are you the two whites who headed the negro revolt in Porto Rico, and did so much damage to our possessions in that island?" Ned would have hesitated as to the answer, but Tom at once said, firmly: "We are not those two white men, sir, but we know them well; and they were two gallant and loyal Englishmen who, as we know, did much to restrain the atrocities of the Indians. We saw them, when they regained their ships." It was lucky, indeed, that the governor did not put the question separately, instead of saying, "Were you two the leaders?" for in that case Ned would have been forced to acknowledge that he was one of them. The outspokenness of Tom's answer allayed the governor's suspicions. A great portion of his questioning was directed to discovering whether they really had crossed the continent; for he, as well as the populace outside, had at first conceived the idea that they might have been landed on the coast as spies. The fact, however, that they were captured far up among the Cordilleras; their dress and their appearance; and their knowledge of the native tongues--which he tested by bringing in some natives, who entered into conversation with them--convinced him that all this portion of their story was true. As he had no fear of their escaping he said that, at present, he should not treat them as prisoners; and that their gallant conduct, in rowing out to save the lives of Spaniards in danger, entitled them to every good treatment; but that he must report their case to the authorities at Lima, who would of course decide upon it. The priest, however, urged upon the governor that he should continue his instructions to them in the Catholic religion; and the governor then pointed out to Ned, who alone was able to converse fluently in Spanish, that they had now been so long separated from their countrymen that they might, with advantage to themselves, become naturalized as Spaniards; in which case he would push their fortunes to the utmost and, with his report in their favor, they might rise to positions of credit and honor; whereas, if they insisted upon maintaining their nationality as Englishmen, it was but too probable that the authorities at Lima would consider it necessary to send them, as prisoners, to Spain. He said, however, that he would not press them for an answer, at once. Greatly rejoiced at finding that they were not, at present, to be thrown into prison; but were to be allowed to continue their independent life, in the barracks; the lads took their departure from the governor's house, and were most cordially received by their comrades. For a short time everything went smoothly. The suspicion that they were spies had now passed away, and the remembrance of their courageous action made them popular among all classes in the town. A cloud, however, began to gather slowly round them. Now that they had declared their nationality, they felt that they could no longer even pretend that it was likely that they might be induced to forsake their religion; and they accordingly refused, positively, to submit any longer to the teaching of the priests. Arguments were spent upon them in vain and, after resorting to these, threats were not obscurely uttered. They were told, and with truth that, only two or three months before, six persons had been burned alive, at Lima, for defying the authority of the church; and that, if they persisted in their heretical opinions, a similar fate might fall upon them. English boys are accustomed to think with feelings of unmitigated horror, and indignation, of the days of the Inquisition; and in times like these, when a general toleration of religious opinion prevails, it appears to us almost incredible that men should have put others to death, in the name of religion. But it is only by placing ourselves in the position of the persecutors, of the middle ages, that we can see that what appears to us cruelty and barbarity, of the worst kind, was really the result of a zeal; in its way as earnest, if not as praiseworthy, as that which now impels missionaries to go, with their lives in their hands, to regions where little but a martyr's grave can be expected. Nowadays we believe--at least all right-minded men believe--that there is good in all creeds; and that it would be rash, indeed, to condemn men who act up to the best of their lights, even though those lights may not be our own. In the middle ages there was no idea of tolerance such as this. Men believed, fiercely and earnestly, that any deviation from the creed to which they, themselves, belonged meant an eternity of unhappiness. Such being the case, the more earnestly religious a man was, the more he desired to save those around him from this fate. The inquisitors, and those who supported them, cannot be charged with wanton cruelty. They killed partly to save those who defied the power of the church, and partly to prevent the spread of their doctrines. Their belief was that it was better that one man should die, even by the death of fire, than that hundreds should stray from the pale of the church, and so incur the loss of eternal happiness. In the Indies, where the priests in many cases showed a devotion, and heroic qualities, equal to anything which has ever been displayed by missionaries, in any part of the world, persecution was yet hotter than it ever was in civilized Europe. These men believed firmly that it was their bounden duty, at any cost, to force the natives to become Christians; and however we may think that they were mistaken and wrong, however we may abhor the acts of cruelty which they committed, it would be a mistake, indeed, to suppose that these were perpetrated from mere lightness of heart, and wanton bloodthirstiness. The laws of those days were, in all countries, brutally severe. In England, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the loss of an ear was the punishment inflicted upon a man who begged. The second time he offended, his other ear was cut off. A third repetition of the offense, and he was sold into slavery; and if he ran away from his master, he was liable to be put to death by the first person who met him. The theft of any article above the value of three shillings was punishable by death, and a similar code of punishment prevailed for all kinds of offenses Human life was then held in such slight regard that we must remember that, terrible as the doings of the Inquisition were, they were not so utterly foreign, to the age in which they were perpetrated, as would appear to us, living in these days of moderate punishment and general humanity. By the boys, however, brought up in England, which at that time was bitterly and even fiercely anti-Catholic--a state of things which naturally followed the doings in the reign of Queen Mary, and the threatening aspect maintained by Spain towards this country--popery was held in utter abhorrence, and the Inquisition was the bugbear with which mothers frightened their children, when disobedient. The thought, therefore, of falling into the hands of this dreaded tribunal was very terrible to the boys. They debated, between themselves, whether it would not be better for them to leave Arica secretly, to make for the mountains, and to take up their lot, for life, among the natives of the plains, who had so hospitably received them. They had, indeed, almost arrived at the conclusion that this would be their best plan of procedure. They lingered, however, in the hope, daily becoming fainter, of the arrival of Drake's fleet; but it seemed that, by this time, it must have failed in its object of doubling the Horn. Nearly six months had elapsed, since they had been left on the eastern coast; and, according to their calculation of distance, two months should have amply sufficed to enable them to make the circuit of Southern America. They could not tell that the fleet had been delayed by extraordinary accidents. When off the Cape they had met with storms, which continued from the 7th of September to the 28th of October, without intermission; and which the old chronicler of the expedition describes as being "more violent, and of longer continuance, than anything since Noah's flood." They had to waste much time, owing to the fact that Captain Winter with one of the ships had, missing his consorts in the storm, sailed back to England, that two other ships were lost, and that Captain Drake with his flagship, which alone remained, had spent much time in searching for his consorts, in every inlet and island. Among those saved, in the boat from the Spanish ship, was a young gentleman of rank and fortune, and owner of large estates near Lima, who had come down upon some business. He took a great affection for the young Englishmen, and came each day to visit them, there being no let or hindrance on the part of the governor. This gentleman assured them that he possessed great influence at Lima; and that, although he doubted not that the military authorities would treat them with all courtesy, after the manner in which they had risked their lives to save subjects of his majesty; yet that, should it be otherwise, he would move heaven and earth in their favor. "There is but one thing I dread," he said, and a cloud came over his handsome face. "You need hardly say what it is," Ned said, gravely. "You mean, of course, the Inquisition." The Spaniard signified his assent by a silent movement of the head. "We dare not speak, above our breath, of that dreaded tribunal," he said. "The very walls appear to have ears; and it is better to face a tiger, in his den, than to say ought against the Inquisition. There are many Spaniards who, like myself, loathe and abhor it; but we are powerless. Their agents are everywhere, and one knows not in whom he dare confide. Even in our families there are spies, and this tyranny, which is carried on in the name of religion, is past all supporting. "But, even should the 'holy office' lay its hands upon you, keep up heart. Be assured that I will risk all that I am worth, and my life, to boot, to save you from it." "Would you advise us to fly?" Ned said. "We can without doubt escape from here, for we are but lightly guarded; and the governor, I am sure, is friendly towards us." "Whither would you fly?" asked the young Spaniard. "We would cross the mountains to the plains, and join the Indians there." "It would be a wretched life," the Spaniard said, "and would cut you off from all kindred, and friends. I can give you no advice. To me, I confess, death would be preferable, even in its worst forms. But to you, fond of exercise, and able to cause yourself to be respected, and feared, by the wild Indians of the Pampas, it might be different. "However, you need not decide, yet. I trust that, even should the worst befall you, I may be able, at the last moment, to give you the opportunity of choosing that life, in preference to death in the dungeons of the Inquisition." It was about ten days from the date of the governor's writing that a ship came in from Lima, and the same evening the governor came in to them, with a grave face. He was attended by two officials, dressed in the deepest black. "Senors," he said, "it is my duty, in the first place, to inform you that the governor of Lima, acting upon the report, which I sent him, of the bravery which you manifested in the matter of the wreck here, has agreed to withdraw all question against you, touching your past connection with the English freebooters; and to allow you freedom, without let or hindrance, and to further your passage to such place as opportunity may afford, and where you may be able to meet with a ship from your own country. That is all I have to say to you." Then the men in black stepped forward and said, "We arrest you, in the name of the holy Inquisition, on the charge of heresy." The young men glanced at the governor, believing that he was sufficiently their friend to give them a sign, if resistance would be of any avail. He replied to the unspoken question by an almost imperceptible shake of the head; and it was well that the boys abandoned the idea, for the door opened and a guard of six men, armed to the teeth, although in plain dark clothes, entered. These were the alguazils of the holy office, the birds of night, whose appearance was dreaded even by the most bigoted Spaniards; and at whose approach mothers clasped their children closer to their breast, and men crossed themselves, at the thought that their passage boded death to some unhappy victim. For it must be remembered that the Inquisition, framed at first only for the discovery and punishment of heresy, later became an instrument of private vengeance. Men denounced wives of whom they wished to be rid, wives husbands; no relations of kin were sufficient to ensure safety. The evidence, sometimes true, was more often manufactured by malice and hate; until at last even the most earnest and sincere Catholics trembled when they thought that, at any moment, they might be denounced and flung into the dungeons of the Inquisition. Brave as the lads were, they could not avoid a thrill of horror, at the presence of the familiars of this dreaded body. They were, however, cheered by the thought of the promises of the young Spaniard, in whose honesty and honor they had great faith; and with a few words of adieu to the governor, and thanks to him for what he had done in their behalf, they followed the officers of the Inquisition along the streets of Arica, and suffered themselves to be placed on board the boat, which lay alongside the mole. Although it was late in the evening, their passage was not unobserved. Many of the soldiers recognized, in the two men marching, surrounded by the black guard of the Inquisition, their late comrades; and, confident in their numbers, these did not hesitate to lift their voices, in loud protest, against this seizure of men who had behaved so gallantly. In the darkness, too, they feared not that their faces would be recognized, and their curses and threats rose loud in the air. People looking out from their doors, to hear the cause of the uproar, were variously affected. Some joined in the movement of the soldiers; but more shrank back with dread into their houses, rather than be compromised with so dreaded a body. The threats, however, did not proceed to open violence; and as the young men, themselves, gave no sign of attempting an effort for freedom, their comrades contented themselves with many shouts of good wishes, mingled with curses upon their captors; and the lads were embarked, without the alguazils having to use the swords which they had drawn in readiness for the expected fray. "You are witness, senor officer," Ned said, "that we came without resistance; and that, had we chosen, we could, with the assistance of the soldiers, have easily broken from the hold of your men. We are willing, however, to proceed with you to Lima; where we doubt not that the justice of our judges will result in our acquittal. No one can blame us that we are of the religion of our fathers. Had we been born Catholics, and then relapsed into heresy, it would have been reasonable for you to have considered our case; but as we but hold the religion which we have been taught, and know indeed of no other, we see not how, in any man's eyes, blame can rest upon us." "I take note," the officer said, "of the docility with which you have remained in our hands; and will so far testify in your favor Touching the other matter, it is beyond my jurisdiction." The vessel in which the boys were embarked was a slow one and, two days after leaving Arica, they saw a small sailing craft pass them, at no great distance, sailing far more rapidly than they themselves were going. The boys gave no thought to this occurrence, until they arrived at the harbor of Lima. A large number of ships were here anchored and, after the solitude of the sea, which they had endured during their voyage from England, this collection of fine galleons greatly pleased the boys, who had never seen so large a number of ships collected together, there being nigh forty sail then in harbor. As the officers of the Inquisition scarcely ever pass through the streets in the daytime, owing to the known hostility of the mass of the population, no attempt at a landing was made, until nightfall. The officer in charge was however surprised, upon reaching the landing place, to find a large crowd assembled, who saluted his party with hisses and groans, and loud cries of "shame!" Those behind pressed forward, and those in front were forced into the ranks of the alguazils; and it seemed, at one time, as if the prisoners would be separated from their guards. A man in a rough peasant's dress was forced in contact with Ned, and said hastily, in a low voice to him: "Keep up your heart. When preparations are made, I will act." Ned recognized the voice of the young Spanish gentleman, whom he had left at Arica; and guessed immediately that he had taken passage in the swift-sailing caravel, in order to be able to reach Lima before the vessel containing the prisoners. Ned had, in confidence, in his talks with him, informed him that he still hoped, although his hopes had now fallen almost to zero from the long tarrying of the fleet, that the English admiral would arrive; and that he should be able to go on board, and so rejoin his countrymen. This expectation, indeed, it was which had prevented Ned and Tom making their escape, when they could have done so, and taking to the mountains; for it was certain that some time, at least, would elapse before stringent measures would be taken against them. Another effort would, without doubt, be made to persuade them to abandon their religion; and every day might bring with it the arrival of the English vessels. The young men were conducted to a dark and sombre building, which bore the appearance of a vast monastery. The interior was even more dismal in its appearance than the walls without. A solitary figure met them at the doorway. Their guards entered, and the gates were closed behind. The officer in charge handed to the newcomer a paper; and the latter, receiving it, said, "I accept the charge of the prisoners, and your duties are at an end, concerning them." Motioning them to follow, he led them through some long dark corridors, into a room much better furnished and provided than they had expected. Here, placing a lamp upon the table, and pointing to two manchets of bread and a vessel of water, which stood on the table; and to two truckle beds, in the corner of the room, he left them without a word. Ned had already agreed with his companion that they would not, when once within the building, say a word, to each other, which they would not have heard by their jailors; for they were well aware that these buildings were furnished with listening places, and that every word which prisoners said would be overheard, and used against them. They comforted themselves, therefore, with general observations as to their voyage, and to the room in which they now were; and to the hopes, which they entertained, that their judges would take a favorable view of their conduct. Then, with a sincere prayer to God, to spare them through the dangers and trials which they might have to undergo, they lay down for the night; and, such is the elasticity and strength of youth, they were, in spite of the terrible position in which they were placed, in a few minutes fast asleep. The next day the door of the apartment opened, and two attendants, dressed in black from head to foot, and bearing white wands, entered, and motioned to them to follow them. Through more long corridors and passages they went, until they stopped at some thick curtains, overhanging a door. These were drawn aside, the door behind them was opened, other curtains hanging on the inside were separated, and they entered a large apartment, lighted artificially by lamps from above. At a table at the end of the room were seated three men, also in black. They were writing, and for some time did not look up from their work. The attendants stood motionless by the side of the lads; who, in spite of their courage, could not but shudder at the grim silence of this secret tribunal. At last the chief inquisitor laid down his pen and, lifting his eyes towards them, said: "Your names are Edward Hearne and Thomas Tressilis. You are English sailors who, having crossed from the other side of the continent, made your way to Arica; where you did, as I am told, a brave action, in saving the lives of some Spanish sailors." Tom assented gravely to the address. "You are accused," the inquisitor went on, "of being steeped in the errors of heresy; and of refusing to listen to the ministrations of the holy father, who tried to instruct you in the doctrines of the true church. What have you to say to this?" "It is true, sir," Ned said, "every word. We were born Protestants, and were brought up in that church. Had we been born in Spain we should, no doubt, have been true members of your church. But it is hard that men, once ingrained in a faith, should change it for another. It were like asking a tiger to become a leopard. We are unlearned men, and in no way skilled in the exercises of theology. We accepted what we were taught, and would fain die in the same belief. Doubtless your priests could give us arguments which we should be unable to refute, whatever might be done by learned men of our church; and we would pray you to suffer us to hold to the creed in which we have been reared." "It is impossible," the inquisitor said, "that we should permit you to go on, straightway, in the way of damnation. Your bodies are as nothing to the welfare of your souls; and to save the one it were, indeed, for your good that the other were tormented. We will not, however, press you now to recant your errors. You shall be attended by a minister of the true religion, who will point out to you the error of your courses; and in three days we shall expect an answer from you. If you embrace the faith of the Holy Church you may, if you choose to remain here, rise to posts of honor and wealth; for we have heard good things of your courage and prudence. If, however, you remain stubborn, we shall find means to compel you to do that which we would fain that you should do of your free will; and if you still defy, at once, the kindness and the chastisement of the church, you will receive that doom which awaits all who defy its authority." The attendants now touched the lads on the arm, in token that the audience was over, and led them back to the room in which they had first been confined. When left alone the boys examined this closely, although seeming to be looking without motive at the walls. The windows were placed high up from the ground, far beyond their reach, and were thickly barred. The door was of massive oak; and the room, although in appearance but an ordinary apartment, was truly a dungeon as safe, and as difficult to break out of, as if far below the surface of the earth. Later on, when an attendant came in with the bread and water, which formed the substance of each meal, as he placed it on the table he said, in a low muttered whisper: "Hope always. Friends are working." This intimation greatly raised the spirits of the prisoners, as they felt that their friend the Spaniard had already succeeded in corrupting some, at least, of the familiars of the Inquisition; and that no means would be spared to secure their escape, should the worst occur. For three days they were visited for many hours daily by a priest, who endeavored to explain to Ned the points of difference between the two religions, and to convince him of the errors of that of England. Ned, however, although but a poor theologist, gave answer, to all his arguments, that he could in no way reply to the reasonings of the priest; but that he was, nevertheless, convinced of their error, and sure that a divine of his church would have found replies to difficulties to which he could see no outlet. The priest strove earnestly with him, but at the end of the third day he retired, exasperated, saying angrily that he now left them to other hands. Chapter 16: The Rescue. The next day they were again brought before the tribunal, and the grand inquisitor, without this time entering into any length of speech, informed them briefly that he gave them another three days; and that if, at the end of the third day, their obstinacy did not yield, he would use the means at his disposal--and he pointed to various instruments, hanging on the walls or ranged on the table. Of these, although the lads were ignorant of their uses, they entertained no doubt, whatever, that they were the instruments of torture of which they had heard--thumb screws, iron gags, the boot, the rack, and other devilish inventions. They made no reply to the address, and were taken away, this time, down several winding stairs to a black and noxious dungeon, far below the general level of the earth. No ray of light entered this cell. The walls were damp with moisture. In the corner the boys discovered, by the sense of feeling, a small pile of rotten straw; which had, without doubt, formed the bed of some other unfortunate, who had before tenanted the prison. Here, at least, they had no fear of being overheard; but as the ingenuity of the inquisitors was well known, they agreed to say no word of the hopes they still cherished; but to talk of other matters, purely personal to themselves. Here, as hour after hour passed, they strengthened each other in their resolutions, by an agreement that no torture should wring from them a recantation of their faith, and by many prayers for strength and support from above. Once a day the door opened, and an attendant brought in bread and water, which he placed in silence on the ground. The second day, as he did so, he placed a bundle by the side of the bread, and whispering, "Be prudent. Use these only as the last resource. Friends are preparing to help you," retired as noiselessly as usual. When left in darkness again, the lads seized upon the parcel. It was large and heavy and, to their great delight, they found that it contained two daggers and two brace of heavy pistols. "I wonder," Ned said, in a whisper to Tom, "that our friend does not contrive to get us passed through the prison. But I suppose that he finds that only one or two, perhaps, of the attendants are corruptible; and that our jailor, although he might free us from this cell, could not pass us through the corridors and out of the building." "Let us see," Tom said, "if we can make our way into any cell which may adjoin this. If it is empty we might, perchance, make our escape." All night the boys labored with their daggers, having first tapped the wall all round, to hear if any difference of sound gave an intimation that a hollow space was behind. They could not perceive this; but fancying that, upon the one side, there was some very slight difference, they attempted to remove the stones there. All through the night and next day they continued their labor; and succeeded, with great difficulty, in removing two of the stones of the wall. Behind these, however, was a mass of rubble, formed of cement so hard that the daggers failed to make any impression, whatever, upon it; and after laboring through the whole day, they were forced to abandon the design, and replace the stones as they had before been; filling up the interstices with the mortar which they had dug out, so that no trace of the task upon which they were employed should remain. That night, when the door opened, two figures, as before, presented themselves; and they knew that their summons before the dreaded court was at hand. With their daggers and pistols concealed within their vests, they followed their guides; each, with a grasp of his hand, assuring the other of his steadfastness and faith. They had resolved that, sooner than submit to torture, which would cripple them for life, they would fight to the last, and die resisting. This time they found in the audience hall, in addition to the three judges, four men; clothed also in black, but evidently of an inferior order. These were standing, ranged along by the wall, in readiness to obey the orders of the judges. Their attendants fell back to the door, and the prisoners remained, standing alone, in the center of the room. "Acting in all kindness," the judge said, "we have given you ample time to retract, and to consider your position; and we now call upon you to consent, formally, to abandon your accursed heresies, and to embrace the offer which the holy church kindly makes to you; or to endure the pains which it will be necessary that we should inflict, in order to soften your hardness of heart." "We are perfectly resolved," Ned said, "to maintain the religion of our fathers. As Englishmen, we protest against this outrage. When your countrymen fall into our hands, no man dreams of endeavoring to compel them to abandon their faith. They are treated as honorable prisoners; and if any outrage be attempted upon our bodies, sooner or later, be assured, the news of it will come to the ears of our English captains; and for every drop of blood of ours shed, a Spanish life will answer." "You are insolent," the inquisitor said, coldly. "It is rash to threaten men in whose power you are. These walls reveal no secrets, and though the town were full of your English pirates, yet would your doom be accomplished; without a possibility of rescue, and without your fate ever becoming known, beyond these four walls. "Bethink you," he said, "before you compel me to use the means at my disposal; for men have spoken as bravely and as obstinately as you, but they have changed their minds, when they felt their bones cracking under the torture. We would fain abstain from injuring figures as manly as yours; but, if needs be, we will so reduce them to wrecks that you will envy the veriest cripple who crawls for alms, on the steps of the cathedral here." The boys remained silent, and the inquisitor, with an air of angry impatience, motioned to the men ranged along by the wall to seize their prisoners. The lads saw that the time for action was come. Each produced his pistol from his breast, the one leveling his at the head of the grand inquisitor, while the other faced the foremost of those advancing towards them. "One step nearer," Ned said, "and the two of you are dead men." A silence as of death fell in the chamber. The judges were too astonished even to rise from their seats, and the familiars paused in their advance. "You see," Ned said to the grand inquisitor, "that you are not masters of the situation. One touch upon my trigger, and the death with which you threaten me is yours. Now write, as I order you, a pass by which we may be allowed to quit these accursed walls, without molestation." Without hesitation, the judge wrote on a piece of paper the required order. "Now," Ned said, "you must come with us; for I put no faith, whatever, in your promises; for I know the ways of your kind, that promises made to heretics are not considered sacred. You are, yourself, my best safeguard; for be assured that the slightest interruption to us, upon our way, and I draw my trigger, and send you to that eternity to which you have dispatched so many victims." The judge rose to his feet, and Ned could see that, quiet as he appeared, he was trembling with passion. Tom had, at the first alarm, retreated to the door; so as to prevent the escape of the attendants stationed there, or of any of the others, to give the alarm. He now opened it, and Ned was about to pass out with the inquisitor when, glancing round, he saw that one of the other judges had disappeared, doubtless by some door placed behind the arras, at the end of the room. "Treachery is intended," he muttered to the inquisitor; "but remember that you will be the first victim." Slowly Ned passed along the corridors, the inquisitor between the two Englishmen, the attendants following in a group behind, uncertain what course to pursue, and without orders from their superior, when at last they came to a door. This was locked, and Ned ordered the inquisitor to have it opened. "I have not the keys," he said. "They are in the hands of the attendant whose duty it is to attend to this portion of the building." "Call them," Ned said impatiently. The inquisitor struck on the closed door with his hands, and called aloud, but no answer was returned. "Bid these men behind you force it in," Ned said. The men advanced, but as they did so a small side door in the passage, behind Ned, opened noiselessly, and suddenly a thick blanket was thrown over his head, while an arm struck up the hand which had the pistol. He drew the trigger, however; and the grand inquisitor, with a groan, sank to the ground. At the same instant a number of men rushed through the door, and threw themselves upon the lads, and were joined by the attendants standing behind. A desperate struggle ensued. Tom shot the two first men who sprang upon him, and for some minutes the lads maintained a desperate struggle. Again and again, the crowd of their assailants pulled one or other of them to the ground; but it was not until their strength was utterly exhausted, by their struggles, that both were secured, and bound hand and foot. Then, at the order of one of the other judges; who, now that all danger was over, appeared upon the scene, they were lifted bodily, carried back to their dungeon, and cast upon the ground. Panting and breathless, the lads lay for some time, too exhausted to speak. "I am afraid that I missed that rascally chief inquisitor," Ned said. "Did you notice, Tom?" "I scarcely saw, for at the same moment I was struck from behind; but I fancy that he fell, when your pistol exploded." "In that case," Ned said, "we may have a respite, for a day or two. He will feel inclined to be present at the ceremony of torturing, himself. "On one thing I am determined. We will not be taken by the men in black, and submit to having our limbs wrenched, without an effort. I should think that, if we snatch up some of the iron instruments lying about, we can manage to make such a resistance that they will have to kill us, before we are overcome. If I could kill myself, I certainly would do so. I do not think I am a coward, Tom, but I confess that the sight of those horrible instruments makes my blood run cold." "I feel with you, Ned. Death itself were nothing; but to be torn, limb from limb, is something horrible." The day passed, without any visit being paid to them. No food was brought in, and they were left, as if forgotten, by their jailors. Thus they were unable to tell the hour and, as it was perfectly dark, it was by guesswork that they at last lay down to sleep on the damp stones. Presently they were awoke by the tramp of numerous footsteps. Then there was a tremendous battering at the door. "What on earth are they doing?" Ned exclaimed. "Have they lost the key, and are they going to break open the door, and finish with us, now? Get ready. We will make a fight at once, and try and end it." Presently the door gave way before the heavy blows which were struck upon it; and, to the astonishment of the lads, a band of Indians, naked to the waist and holding torches, burst into the cell. "Here they are!" exclaimed one of them, in Spanish. "Quick, there is not a moment to be lost. Follow us;" and, stooping down, he cut the cords which bound them. Bewildered and confused with the sudden light, and by the unexpected irruption, the boys followed the speaker; and, closely surrounded by the Indians, made their way down the passages and out into the courtyard. There was no resistance, or interference. The familiars had, apparently, fled at the sudden attack upon the jail, and no one appeared to bar their exit. The great gates of the courtyard stood uninjured, but the postern door had been battered in. Another body of natives, armed with spears and bows and arrows, were standing round the entrance; and a good many of the people of the neighborhood, roused by the sudden tumult, were standing at the doors. These looked on, apparently, with mere curiosity, and with no desire to interfere with what was going on. Indeed, the Inquisition was never popular with the great body of the Spaniards; over whom its secret proceedings, and terrible cruelties, hung like a dark cloud, as none could ever say that they might not be the objects of denunciation. It was clear that the Indians were acting upon a fixed plan; for, the moment that those from within the prison sallied out, all formed in a compact body, and at a brisk slinging trot started down the street; the lads being kept well in the center, so as to conceal them from the gaze of the public. Not a word was spoken, till they had issued from the town. For another quarter of a mile their hurried march continued; and then, without a word, the whole of the escort, with the exception of one man, turned up a crossroad and vanished into the darkness. "Heaven be praised that I have saved you, senors!" said the Indian who remained. "Do you not recognize me? I am Don Estevan, whose life you saved at Arica. I feared that I might be too late to find you unharmed; but it required time to get the necessary force together. "You recognized me, of course, on the pier when you landed. The instant I heard of your arrest, I chartered a swift-sailing country craft, and arrived here the day before you. I was the bearer of a letter, signed by many of the soldiers in garrison at Arica, to their comrades here; saying how bravely you had behaved, and that you had become good comrades in the regiment, and urging them to do anything in their power to save you from the Inquisition. This I thought might be useful, as they would be sure to be called out, in case of an attack upon the Inquisition; and I prayed them to be as slow as possible in their movements, in case of any sudden alarm. This will account for the fact that none of them arrived upon the spot before we had finished our business, just now. "But there is not a moment to delay. I have horses two miles away in readiness, and we must make for there. They will be sure to put on bloodhounds in pursuit, and we may have to ride for it." The boys briefly expressed their intense gratitude to their preserver, for his efforts in their behalf, Ned adding, "I fear, Don Estevan, that your generous deed of tonight will involve you in fearful danger." "I have taken every precaution," the young Spaniard said. "I did not charter the vessel in my own name, and came up in disguise. All my friends believe me to be still at Arica, and no one, so far as I know, has recognized me here. I was obliged to go to my estate, which lies a hundred miles up the country. There I armed my peons and vaqueros, and a number of Indians who were living near, to whom I have always shown kindness. None of them knew that it was the dungeon of the Inquisition which they were to attack, but believed that it was merely a prison they were about to force; for the power of superstition is very great in this country, and although a great many of the men may lead wild and godless lives, they tremble at the thought of lifting their hands against that mysterious and awful body, the Inquisition. "News travels slowly, indeed, in this country; and it is not likely that the fact that the prison of the Inquisition has been broken open will ever reach the men on my estate. The priest of the village is a worthy man; and he has, I know, no sympathy with bigotry and cruelty. Consequently, if any of them should, in their confession, tell him that they have been engaged in breaking a prison, he will perchance guess what prison it was, and may imagine that I had a hand in it. But I feel sure that the knowledge so gained would go no further. "I might, had I chosen, have had the horses brought to the point where we separated from my men. But in that case the hounds might have followed upon the main body, and so some clue would have been gained as to the direction from which they came. As it is, they will follow us up, at any rate until we take horses. We will make our track visible, for some distance, so that the pursuit may be carried on. Before it is over, they will have lost all track of the rest of their assailants; and will not, indeed, be able to trace the direction in which they went. They, too, have horses at a short distance, and will speedily regain the estate." "How did you know in which cell we were confined?" "Through the jailor. The man who attended you was once employed by my father. I met him, the day I arrived from Arica, and bribed him to convey the arms to you; with which I thought that, should they bring you to trial and torture before I could collect my force, you might make a resistance; for I judged that you would rather die than suffer mutilation and agony. When you disclosed your arms, today, he slipped at once from the building, as he knew that he would be suspected. Changing his clothes in a house near, he mounted his horse and rode to meet us, conveying the news that the crisis had arrived. How it ended he could not tell; but he hoped that some delay might occur, in resuming proceedings against you." By this time they had reached their horses, which were tied in a clump of trees, at a short distance from the road. "They are fine animals," Don Estevan said, "and we may reckon upon showing our heels to any of those who pursue us; for I can assure you that the chase is likely to be a hot one." "Whither do you intend to go?" "I am thinking of making for Arica. Before we reach that town you can, if you choose, strike to the hills and join the natives beyond, as you proposed when at Arica; or, should you prefer it, you can, in disguises, enter Arica and remain there, for a time, until all possibility of your friends appearing before that place be at an end. "My absence will not have been noticed, for I mentioned to friends there that I was going into the interior, to investigate a mine, of whose existence I had heard from some Indians. When I return, therefore, I shall say that the mine was not sufficiently promising, in appearance, for me to care about asking for a concession from the government. I shall, of course, pretend to be extremely vexed at the time that has been wasted; and I do not see that any suspicion can fall upon me, as having been concerned in the affair at Lima. "We will walk our horses at a slow pace, in order to save them, as far as possible; and to ascertain whether our pursuers have correctly followed our steps. When we once hear them, we can then put on our best speed; and as they will not know that we are but a short distance ahead, they will go at a moderate pace. Besides, the speed of bloodhounds, when tracking, is by no means great." An hour later, they heard a faint sound in the distance. Instinctively they checked their horses, and again, in the darkness of the night, the deep distant bay of a hound was heard. "Just as I thought!" Don Estevan exclaimed. "They have got the bloodhounds, and I should think, by the sound, that they must have just reached the spot where we mounted. The hounds will be puzzled now; but the sagacity of these creatures is so great that I am by no means sure that they will be unable to follow us by the track of the horses. Now let us set spur." For the next four or five hours they proceeded, at a steady gallop, towards the south. The country was flat; the road sandy, but even; and the cool night air was exhilarating, indeed, after the confinement in the dark and noisome dungeon at Lima. So rejoiced were the boys, with their newly-recovered freedom, that it was with difficulty they restrained themselves from bursting into shouts of joy. But they were anxious that no sounds should be heard, by the villagers of the little hamlets lying along the road. The sound of the horses' hoofs on the sandy track would scarcely arouse a sleeping man; and the fact that their tracks would be plainly visible in the sand, when daylight came, caused them no concern; as, so far, they had made no effort to deceive their pursuers. Soon after daylight arrived they found themselves upon a stream, which ran down from the mountains and crossed the road. "Now," Don Estevan said, "it is time to begin to throw them off our track. They will believe that the party consist solely of Indians, and our turning east will seem as if we intended to take refuge in the mountains. Let us then strike up the river for awhile, land at a spot where the horses' hoofs will be clearly visible, and then pursue a course to the southeast, taking us nearer and nearer to the hills. "Three leagues hence is another stream. This we will enter, and they will make sure that we have pursued our former tactics--that we have followed it up, and again struck for the hills. Instead of doing this, we will follow it down for a mile or two; and quit it at some spot where the bank is firm, and will leave no marks of our footsteps. Then we will strike across the country, and regain the road some seven or eight leagues further south." The plan appeared a capital one, and was followed out as arranged. Late in the evening, they were again in the vicinity of the southern road. In their wallets was a plentiful supply of provisions, and they had filled their water bottles at the last stream which they had crossed. Entering a grove of trees, they unsaddled their horses and allowed them to crop the foliage and shrubs; while they threw themselves down upon the soft earth, stiff and wearied with their long journey. "We will travel by night, always," Don Estevan said. "I do not think that any suspicion, whatever, will arise that we have again struck south; but should any inquiry be made, it is as well that no one along the road shall have seen three mounted men." For another two days they journeyed, as proposed, by night; resting by day in quiet places and, so far as they knew, without having been seen by any of the scattered population. It was in the middle of the third night, as they were cantering slowly along, that they heard the tread of a horse, at full gallop, approaching from the south. "You had better withdraw from the road," Don Estevan said, "so that but one horseman will be met. I will stop the rider, and hear why he gallops so fast. It may be that news has preceded us, and it is as well to gather what intelligence we can." The boys withdrew from the road, Don Estevan proceeding ahead. They heard the sound of the galloping hoofs pause, as their rider met the Spaniard. There was a talk for a few minutes, and then the horseman again rode forward at full speed. Don Estevan paused for a little while, to allow him to get beyond earshot, and then rejoined his companions. "I have great news," he said, "and it is for you to decide whether it will alter your plan of proceeding. The man whom I have just met is a messenger, dispatched by the governor of Arica to Lima, to warn the governor there that an English ship, under the noted freebooter Francis Drake, has put into that harbor; and has started again, sailing for the north, after exacting certain contributions, but otherwise refraining from injuring the town." The boys gave a shout of joy, for they had begun to fear that the expedition must have met with some disaster, in doubling Cape Horn, and been compelled to return. "What will you do?" the Spaniard asked. "Return to Lima!" the boys exclaimed, simultaneously. "We shall be there before the admiral can arrive, and can then rejoin our comrades." "That will indeed be your best plan," Don Estevan said; "but you must be disguised thoroughly. However, you are not likely to be so closely investigated as you otherwise would be, at Lima; for you may be sure that, when the messenger arrives there, the town will be in such a ferment of excitement, at the approach of your countrymen, that our little affair will, for the time, be entirely forgotten." "I trust," Ned said, "that we shall be able to do something to render your security more perfect; for, if I mistake not, when the admiral hears of the doings of the officials of the Inquisition, how many people they have burned to death lately at Lima, and what frightful cruelties they have perpetrated in that ghastly prison, he will burn the place to the ground and hang up the judges; in which case we may be sure that no further inquiry will ever be thought of, concerning the attack on the prison. What do you advise us to do, senor? For it is clear that your best course is to return to Arica, direct." "I cannot think of doing that," the generous young Spaniard replied. "A few days' longer absence will pass unnoticed, especially as people will have plenty of other matters to think, and talk, about. I do not see how you can possibly obtain disguises without my assistance; and as our pursuers will long since have been thrown off our track, and will probably have given up the search and have returned to Lima, convinced that we already have crossed the mountains and are beyond their reach. I think that there is little danger in my nearing the city. "Come, let us turn our horses' heads, at once." In a few minutes, they were returning by the route they had hitherto traveled They were already dressed as young Spaniards. The disguises had been brought by their rescuer, and assumed at the first halt. He himself had also washed the paint from his face and hands, and had assumed European garb, in order that any inquiry about three mounted Indians might be baffled. "There is now," he said, "no longer any occasion for us to ride by night. We are journeying north, and any inquiries which may ever be set on foot will certainly point only to men going south; and whereas our Indian disguises might have been suspected, I am now in my proper character, and my passing through can excite no rumor or comment." Don Estevan had, indeed, assumed the garb of a Spanish proprietor of rank, while the boys were dressed as vaqueros; and as they passed through villages, in the daytime, kept their horses half a length behind that of their leader. They avoided, on their ride back, putting up at any of the posadas, or village inns, on their road; sleeping, as before, in the woods. Their marches were long, but were performed at a much slower rate of speed, as they were certain that they would reach Lima long before the admiral's ship, even should he not pause at any place on the way. It was upon the sixth day after their rescue from prison that they again approached Lima. After much consultation, they had agreed to continue in their Spanish dresses, taking only the precaution of somewhat staining their faces and hands, to give them the color natural to men who spend their lives on the plains. Don Estevan, himself, determined to enter the city with them after nightfall; and to take them to the house of a trusty friend, where they should lie, concealed, until the news arrived that the English ship was off the port. He himself would at once mount his horse, and retrace his steps to Arica. The programme was carried out successfully. No one glanced at the hidalgo as, with his vaqueros, he rode through the streets of Lima. There were no lights, in those days, save those which hung before shrines by the roadside; or occasionally a dim oil lamp, suspended before the portico of some mansion of importance. The friend to whom Don Estevan assigned them was a young man, of his own age; a cousin, and one, like himself, liberal in his opinions, free from bigotry, and hating the cruelties perpetrated in the name of religion by the Inquisition. He heard with surprise the narrative which Don Estevan related; for the latter had not visited him during his short stay in the city, and was supposed still to be at Arica. Great was his astonishment, indeed, when he found that the attack upon the prison of the Inquisition, which had caused such intense excitement in the city, had been planned and executed by his cousin; and his expressions of approval of the deed were warm and frequent. He assured the boys that he would do everything in his power to make them comfortable until the arrival of the English ship. A discussion took place as to whether it was better that they should appear as friends of his, who had come in from their country estate; or whether they should continue their disguise as vaqueros. There were objections to either plan. In the first place, the attendants in waiting would detect the shortcomings in Ned's Spanish, and would be astonished at the silence of his companion. Upon the other hand, it would seem strange that they should be kept apart from the servitors of the house. Finally, it was agreed that they should appear as men of rank, but that Tom should feign sickness, and therefore keep his room; Ned for the most part remaining shut up with him, and taking his meals there. This course was followed out, and when the arrangement was complete they took a hearty leave of the noble young Spaniard, who at once remounted his horse and started on his weary ride back again to Arica. Chapter 17: The Golden Hind. The lads were all anxiety to know what course had been determined upon, with reference to the arrival of the English vessel. They were told that a large fleet was assembled in the harbor, but that great dissension existed, among the authorities, as to whether resistance should be offered or not. "Surely," Ned said, "they will never allow one vessel to enter a harbor, thronged with shipping, and with a strong garrison on shore ready to take part in the defense!" Their host flushed a little, and said: "You English must form but a poor opinion of Spanish courage. On shore, however, we have proved, on the battlefields of the Continent, that we can hold our own against all comers. But I own to you that your sea dogs have caused such a panic, among our sailors of the western isles, that they are looked upon as invincible, and our men appear to be paralyzed at the very name of the English buccaneers." "Why we are particularly anxious to know," Ned said, "is that, if resistance is to be offered, it is clear that we must be ready to embark in a canoe, and to join the ship before she arrives off the harbor; as otherwise, if she is beaten off we may have no opportunity, whatever, of regaining her." "I think," the Spaniard said, "that when the time comes, it is probable that no resistance may be offered; and that the valor of those who, so long as the ship is at a distance, are anxious to fight, will evaporate very rapidly. The citizens, too, are for the most part opposed to resistance; for they argue that, if the English conquer, they are likely to lay the town in ruins; whereas, if unopposed, they may content themselves with certain exactions upon the richer citizens, as has been their custom in the west." During the days that elapsed, many arguments took place, between the Spaniard and Ned, as to the lawfulness of the war which the English buccaneers carried on with the colonies of a nation at peace with their own, the Spaniard saying that they approached very nearly to the verge of piracy. Ned had never given the subject much consideration before. He had done as others did, and had regarded the Spaniards as lawful prey, their cruelty towards the natives forming, in the eyes of the English sailors, a justification for any treatment which they might inflict upon them. He was, however, forced to confess that, now the other side was presented to him, the conduct of his countrymen was really indefensible; and he blushed as he thought of the various acts of sacrilege in churches, and other deeds of plunder, in which he had taken part. He assured his friend that, in the future, neither he nor his companion would ever share in such deeds again. It was upon the evening of the 15th of February, two days after their return to Lima, that their host entered with the news that a ship was seen in the distance approaching the port, and that it was the general opinion of the mariners that she was the dreaded English pirate. He had already made arrangements that a small boat should be lying at one end of the mole. He told them that he could not venture to engage rowers, as the fact of the escape of two white men from the town might be noticed, and inquiries made. The boys assured him, however, that they were perfectly able to row themselves; and that the smaller the number in the boat, the less chances there would be of their being received by a random shot from their friends. It was just nightfall when the English ship entered the harbor, where thirty Spanish vessels were lying, all prepared for defense The Golden Hind entered the port and dropped her anchor in the midst; and the quiet resolution and confidence, which this act betrayed, struck such a panic into the minds of the Spanish captains, that not one dared be the first to fire a gun at the intruder. Half an hour after the Golden Hind came to anchor, a boat was seen approaching, and was met by the hail, "Who goes there?" The joyful shout of "Friends, your comrades, Ned Hearne and Tom Tressilis," was received by a cry of incredulity, and astonishment, by those on board the English vessel. Two minutes later, the lads were on deck receiving the hearty embraces and congratulations of all the messmates; Reuben Gale and Gerald Summers being almost beside themselves with joy, at the return to them of the comrades they believed to be so long ago dead. The admiral himself was greatly moved at seeing them; for their gallantry during the preceding voyage, and their eager zeal to do all in their power for the expedition, had greatly raised them in his affections. They were soon seated in the cabin, which was thronged by as many of the officers and gentlemen adventurers as could find room there. A brief narrative was given of their adventures, since leaving the fleet upon the other side of the continent; and loud were the expressions of surprise, and approval, at the manner in which they had gone through the various dangers and difficulties which they had encountered; Tom insisting, generously, that the credit was entirely due to the sagacity and coolness of his friend. When the story of the scene in the dungeons of the Inquisition was told, and Captain Drake was informed that large numbers of persons had been burned alive in Lima, by the Inquisition, he was filled with fury; and at once dispatched two boat loads of men, armed to the teeth, to the shore, with orders to burn down the prison, to release any prisoners found there, and to offer them a safe passage to Europe; and also to hang all officials who might be found within the walls. Ned acted as guide. The streets of Lima were deserted, as the news of the landing of a party from the English ship spread through the town; shops were closed and windows barred, and it was as through a city of the dead that the band passed rapidly along, until they reached the prison of the Inquisition. Here the doors were broken down, and the English sailors entered the ghastly prison. The cells were found to be tenanted only by natives, most of them men who had been captured in the hills, and who had refused to accept the Catholic religion. These were all loosed, and allowed to depart in freedom for the mountains, taking with them a store of such provisions for the way as could be found within the walls. The sight of the torture room roused the fury of the sailors to the utmost pitch and, breaking into the part wherein dwelt the principal inquisitors, these were seized and hung from their windows. The contents of the various rooms were then heaped together, a light applied, and in a few minutes a glow of flame told the people of Lima that the dreaded prison of the Inquisition was no more. The party then returned through the streets to the ship, and took part in the further operations commanded by the admiral. Proceeding from vessel to vessel, they took out all goods which they fancied, and which were either valuable, or might be useful to them in their further voyaging. They hewed down the masts of all the largest ships and, cutting their cables, allowed them to drift on shore. No more astonishing scene was ever witnessed than that of thirty ships, backed by a garrison and considerable population on shore, allowing themselves to be thus despoiled and wrecked by the crew of one; and this a vessel inferior in size, and in the numerical strength of her crew, to many of those within the harbor. The next day a party landed and stripped many of the churches of their valuables, and also levied a contribution upon the principal inhabitants. Ned and Tom, not thinking it worth while at this time to enter into a controversy, with the comrades to whom they had been so recently restored, as to the legality of their acts, simply declined to make part of the party who landed; alleging that they had had enough of the shore of the South American continent for the rest of their lives. The 15th of February, the date upon which the Golden Hind arrived at the port of Lima, was indeed one to be remembered throughout the lives of the rescued seamen. Their future had appeared well-nigh hopeless. On the one side, the dungeon of the Inquisition and probably a death by fire. On the other, a life passed in the midst of savages, away from all possibility of ever rejoining their friends, or returning to their country. Now they were once again among those delighted to see them, and proudly trod the decks of the Golden Hind as gentlemen adventurers, having a good share in the booty, as well as in the honor, which would accrue to all on board. So far, indeed, the plunder had been but small. Upon their way down to the Cape they had gleaned nothing, and since rounding it they had only touched at Valparaiso, where they had taken all that they required in the way of wines, stores, and provisions of all kinds, besides much gold and, it is sad to say, the rich plunder of the churches, including golden crosses, silver chalices, and altar cloths. Nowadays it gives one a positive shock to hear of English sailors rifling churches; but in those rough times, acts of sacrilege of this kind awakened but little reprobation. The following day they hove the anchor and sailed northwards. In the port they had obtained news that, on the evening before they arrived, a ship laden with much treasure from Panama had appeared, but receiving news of the approach of the English, had again set sail. All determined that, if possible, the treasures on board the Cacafuego should pass into the hold of the Golden Hind. Spreading all sail, they pressed northward. On the 20th of February they touched at the port of Paita, but did not find her there. On the 24th they passed the port of Guayaquil, and on the 28th crossed the line. On the 1st of March a sail was descried ahead and, sailing towards her, they found that she was indeed the vessel of which they were in search; and of which they had heard not only at Lima, but from a ship which they took at Paita, laden with wine; and from another, on board of which they found eighty pounds weight in gold, in Guayaquil. The Cacafuego had no thought that the solitary ship which was seen approaching was that of Captain Drake; but taking her for a Spaniard, made no effort to fly. When, upon her coming close and hailing her to surrender, they discovered their mistake, the captain made a bold fight. Hastily loading his carronades, he poured a volley into the Golden Hind, and did not surrender his ship until one of his masts had fallen by the board, and he himself was wounded. Then, finding further resistance useless, he hauled down his flag. The booty taken was even greater than had been expected. Of gold and silver, alone, there was on board her to the value of 750,000 pounds, equal to a vastly larger sum in these days; besides immense quantities of precious stones, silver vessels, and other valuables. For six days they lay alongside the Cacafuego, transferring her cargo to the Golden Hind; and at parting, Captain Drake was considerate enough to give the captain a letter to Captain Winter, or any of the other captains of the fleet, should they come north and meet her, begging that she should be allowed to pass without interruption; or that, should they have need of any of the few articles left on board her, they would pay double the value. He also, in exchange for the valuables transferred, was good enough to bestow upon the master a little linen, and some other commodities. As it was now certain that the whole coast would be thoroughly alarmed, and the Governor General at Panama would be prepared, with a powerful fleet, to resist the Golden Hind should she stir in that direction, Captain Francis determined to sail boldly out to sea, and then to shape his course so as to strike the coast again, far north of the Spanish possessions. His object, in thus undertaking a voyage which would seem likely to yield but little profit, was that he hoped he might find a passage round the north of America, and so not only shorten his own return journey home, but open a most valuable country for trade, for his own countrymen. On the 7th of March, before putting out to sea, he touched at the Island of Cano, off the coast of Nicaragua. Here they had an alarm which startled even the boldest. As they lay at anchor they felt the shock of a terrible earthquake, which almost brought down the masts of the ship; and for a moment all thought that she had been struck by some hostile machine, or had fallen down on a rock. The pumps were manned, and it was happily found that she made no water. Here they made their last prize on the American coast--a ship which had come across from China. She was laden with linen, China silk, and China dishes. Among the spoil is enumerated a falcon made of gold, with a great emerald set in his breast. It was not until the 15th of April that they again touched the land, and landed at Guatulco; whence, after a stay of a few hours, they departed; "not forgetting," the chronicler says, "to take with them a certain pot, of about a bushel in bigness, full of royals of plate, together with a chain of gold, and some other jewels; which we entreated a gentleman Spaniard to leave behind him, as he was flying out of town." They then steered out to sea, and did not see the land again until, after sailing 1400 leagues, they came, on June 3rd, in sight of land in 42 degrees north latitude. Before going further, the adventures of the fleet must be briefly related from the day, being the 21st of June, when the attack was made upon them by the Patagonians, and the boys were driven into the wood. Captain Francis, and those of the crew on shore with him, soon beat off the natives; inflicting some loss upon them. These took to the woods, in which they could not be followed; and Captain Francis, mourning for the loss of his three adventurers, and of the gunner killed by his side; and despairing of ever recovering the bodies of those who were, as he believed, cut off and murdered; embarked on board ship, and sailed down the coast. A few days later he put in to another bay, and there remained some time. Here a strange scene was enacted, which has cast a shadow over the reputation of the great sea captain. Calling his officers together, he accused one of them, Captain Doughty, of treachery. He alleged that the plots against him were commenced before leaving Plymouth; and yet, as he had promoted Captain Doughty to the command of one of the ships, when upon the voyage, it is difficult to understand how he can, at that time, have believed that he was unfaithful. Nor, again, does it appear in what way his treachery could have injured the admiral, for as all the officers and crew were devoted to him, Captain Doughty might have tried, in vain, to lead them aside from his authority. He professed, indeed, the highest regard for the man he accused, and spoke to the captains of the great goodwill and inward affection, even more than brotherly, which he held towards him. And yet, he averred that it was absolutely necessary that Captain Doughty should be put upon his trial. Captain Doughty, it is said, stricken with remorse at his conduct, acknowledged himself to have deserved death; for that he had conspired not only for the overthrow of the expedition, but for the death of the admiral, who was not a stranger, but a dear and true friend to him; and he besought the assembly to take justice into their hands, in order to save him from committing suicide. The forty officers and gentlemen who formed the court, after examining the proofs, judged that "he had deserved death, and that it stood by no means with their safety to let him live, and therefore they remitted the matter thereof, with the rest of the circumstances, to the general." Then Captain Drake offered to the prisoner either that he should be executed there and then, or that he should be left alone when the fleet sailed away, or that he should be sent back to England, there to answer his deeds before the lords of her majesty's council. Captain Doughty asked for twenty-four hours to consider his decision, and then announced his preference for instant execution, saying that death were better than being left alone in this savage land, and that the dishonor of being sent back to England would be greater than he could survive. The next day Mr. Francis Fletcher, the pastor and preacher of the fleet, held a solemn service. The general and the condemned man received the sacrament together, after which they dined "also at the same table together, as cheerful in sobriety as ever in their lives they had done afore time, each cheering the other up, and taking their leave by drinking each to other, as if some journey only had been in hand." After dinner, Captain Doughty came forth, kneeled down at the block, and was at once beheaded by the provost marshal. Such is the story of this curious affair, as told by the chroniclers. But it must be remembered that these were favorable to Captain Drake, and it certainly seems extraordinary that, upon such a voyage as this, Captain Doughty could not have been deprived of his command and reduced to the rank of a simple adventurer; in which he could, one would think, have done no harm whatever to the expedition. At the island where this execution took place the fleet abode two months, resting the crews, wooding, watering, and trimming the ships, and bringing the fleet into a more compact compass; destroying the Mary, a Portuguese prize, and arranging the whole of the crews in three ships, so that they might the more easily keep together. On August the 17th they set sail, and on the 20th reached the entrance to the Straits, Cape Virgins. Here the admiral caused his fleet, in homage to the Queen, to strike their foresails, acknowledging her to have the full interest and honor in the enterprise; and further, in remembrance of his honored patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, he changed the name of the ship in which he himself sailed from the Pelican to the Golden Hind, this animal forming part of the chancellor's armorial bearings. They now entered the narrow Straits of Magellan, which are in many places no wider than a river; and in the night passed a burning mountain, which caused no little surprise to those who had never beheld anything of the kind. Here all were astonished by the sight of huge numbers of penguins, which were then for the first time discovered by Englishmen. These strange birds, with their long bodies, short necks, and absence of wings, greatly astonished them; and were so tame that, in the course of an hour or two, they killed no less than three thousand of them, and found them to be excellent food. One of these islands the admiral christened Saint George. Sailing on for some days, they came to a bay in which they found many natives, who came out in a canoe whose beauty and form were considered, by all, to be far superior to anything that they had hitherto beheld; which was the more singular, inasmuch as these people were of a very low type. However, they appear in those days to have been more advanced in civilization than their descendants now are. On the 6th of September they entered the South Sea, Drake having been the fourth commander who had sailed through the Straits. The first passage was made by Magellan in 1520, the second by Loyasa in 1526, the third by Juan de Ladrilleros from the Pacific side. In this voyage the English commander had far better weather than had been experienced by his predecessors, accomplishing in a fortnight a voyage which had taken them some months. His good fortune, however, here deserted them; for upon the very day after they entered the South Sea, a contrary wind fell upon them, and increased to a powerful hurricane. This augmented rather than decreased in force, and on the night of September the 30th the Marigold, Captain John Thomas, was separated from the rest of the fleet, and was never heard of, after. Until the 7th of October they did not again see land, being driven far to the south. They then discovered an island, and entering a harbor came to anchor. The shelter, however, was a poor one, and the gale blew so furiously that, in the night, the Elizabeth was blown from her anchors, and lost sight of the Golden Hind. It is a question whether this event was not partly caused by the captain, Winter, who certainly behaved as if he had the fixed intention of returning to England. He never made any serious effort to rejoin the Golden Hind; but, after remaining for some little time in those quarters, he sailed for England, reaching home in safety some months afterwards. They christened the bay "The Parting of Friends," and the Golden Hind was driven down again into 55 degrees south latitude. Fresh gales fell upon them and, as has been said, it was not till October the 28th, after fifty-two days of almost unexampled bad weather, that the sky cleared, and they were able to renew their journey. They searched the islands in all directions for their missing friends, and in remembrance of them the admiral gave them the name of the Elizabethedes. Hoping that Captain Winter had sailed north, the Golden Hind's head was turned in that direction, with great hope that they might meet her in latitude 30 degrees; which had been before appointed as a place of rendezvous, should the fleet happen to be separated. Touching at many points, they inquired everywhere of the natives, but could hear no word of any ship having been seen before. At the island of Mocha they had a misadventure. The island was thickly inhabited by many Indians, whom the cruel conduct of the Spaniards had driven from the mainland. With these people the admiral hoped to have traffic, and the day after his landing they brought down fruit and vegetables and two fat sheep, receiving in return many little presents. They seemed to be well content, and the next morning early, all being ready for a general traffic, the admiral repaired to the shore again, with two-thirds of his men, with water barrels to fill up the ship. As they were peaceably engaged in this task the natives, to the number of five hundred, suddenly sprang from an ambush, and with their arrows shot very grievously at the English. The general himself was struck in the face, under his right eye and close by his nose. Nine other persons of the party were all wounded grievously. The rest gained the boats, and all put off. None of the wounded died; which, considering that there was no surgeon on board the ship, was looked upon by the mariners as a special miracle in their favor. There was a great talk of returning to shore, to punish the men who had so treacherously attacked them. But the admiral, seeing that many of the men were hurt, and believing that the attack had been the result of the cruel treatment bestowed upon the natives by the Spaniards, with whom they had naturally confounded our men, determined to leave them alone; and the same night sailed north, seeking some convenient spot where the men could land, and obtain a supply of fresh provisions. Such a place they found at Philip's Bay, in latitude 32 degrees. Here they came to an anchor; and an Indian, described as a comely personage of a goodly stature, his apparel being a white garment reaching scarcely to his knees, came on board in a canoe. His arms and legs were naked; his hair upon his head very long, and without a beard; of very gentle, mild, and humble nature, and tractable to learn the use of everything. He was courteously entertained and, receiving gifts, returned to the shore; where his companions, being much pleased with his reception, at once did all that they could for the fleet, and brought down provisions and other things desired. The natives also offered to guide them to a better harbor where, the people being more numerous, they could obtain a greater store of the things desired. The offer was accepted, and on the 4th of December, piloted by him, they came to a harbor in such a place as was wished for. This was the Spanish harbor of Valparaiso, and here, indeed, they found all that they desired, and that without payment. The Spaniards, having no idea of the English being in the vicinity, received them with all honor; but as soon as the mistake was discovered they fled, and the town fell into their hands. In a ship in the harbor, called the Grand Captain, 1800 jars of wine and a large quantity of gold were found. The churches were plundered of their ornaments and relics, and the storehouses of the city laid under contribution of all things desired. Sailing again on the 19th of December, they touched to the southward of the town of Coquimbo, where fourteen of them landed. The Spaniards here, however, appeared to be bolder than their comrades in other towns; for a hundred of them, all well mounted, with three hundred natives, came up against them. This force being descried, the English retreated, first from the mainland to a rock within the sea, and thence to their boat. One man, however, Richard Minnioy, refused to retire before the Spaniards; and remained, defying the advancing body, until they arrived. He, of course, fell a victim to his obstinacy; and the Spaniards, having beheaded the body, placed it against a post, and used it as a target for the Indians. At nightfall they left it, and the English returned to shore in their boat, and buried it. The next day, finding a convenient place, they remained for a month; refitting the ships and resting the crews, obtaining an abundance of fish and other provisions such as they required; fresh water, however, being absent. Sailing along, they came to Iquique and, landing here, they lighted upon a Spaniard who lay asleep, and had lying by him thirteen bars of silver. Thinking it cruel to awaken him, they removed the money, and allowed him to take his sleep out in security. Continuing their search for water they landed again, and near the shore met a Spaniard, with an Indian boy, driving eight "Peruvian sheep," as the chronicler calls them; these being, of course, the llamas, which were used as beasts of burden. Each sheep bore two leathern bags, in each of which was fifty pounds weight of refined silver. The chronicler says: "We could not endure to see a gentleman Spaniard turned carrier so; and therefore, without entreaty, we offered our services, and became drivers; only his directions were not so perfect that we could keep the way which he intended, for almost as soon as he was parted from us we, with our new kind of carriages, were come unto our boats." Beyond this Cape lay certain Indian towns, and with the natives of these, who came out on frail rafts, they trafficked knives, beads, and glasses, for dried fish. Here they saw more of the llamas, which are described at great length by the historians of the expedition; who considered, and rightly, that they were extraordinary and most useful animals. If however this assertion, that upon one of their backs "did sit at one time three well-grown and tall men, and one boy" be true, they must have been considerably larger in those days than at present. It was but a few days later that they arrived at Arica, at which place also they gleaned considerable booty, and thence proceeded to Lima, which they reached seven days after leaving Arica. After their long voyage out to sea they again bore north, and reached the land at the Bay of San Francisco. Here they complained bitterly of the cold; which is not a little singular, inasmuch as the time of the year was June, a period at which the heat at San Francisco is, at present, excessive. It must be assumed, therefore, that some altogether exceptional season prevailed during this portion of the voyage. Here they were well north of the Spanish possessions, and fell among a people who knew nothing of the white man. A native in a canoe speedily came out to the ship, as soon as she cast anchor; and, standing at a long distance, made delivery of a very prolix oration, with many gestures and signs, moving his hand, turning and twisting his head and body, and ending with a great show of reverence and submission. He returned to shore. Again, and for a third time, he came out and went through the same ceremony; after which he brought a little basket of rushes, filled with an herb which is called there tambac, which he threw into the boat. Then he again returned to shore. The people came out, many of them in boats, but would not approach the vessel; and upon the third day the vessel, having received a leak at sea, was brought to anchor nearer the shore, and preparations were made to land her stores. Chapter 18: San Francisco Bay. After his experience of the treachery of the native, the admiral determined to build a fort to protect the party on shore. The people, seeing these preparations, appeared in large numbers and approached, but their attitude expressed astonishment rather than hostility. They then, laying down their arms, gathered round the little party of white men; but as they brought their women with them, the admiral concluded that no hostility was intended, and allowed them freely to mix with the whites. Their attitude and deportment showed that they looked upon them as gods, paying worship in the most abject manner. In order to show them that his men were but human, the admiral ordered them to eat and drink, that the people might observe that they were but men, as they. Even this failed to convince them and, during the whole time that they remained there, they were treated as being creatures of celestial origin. Two days later, the natives returned in great numbers. A leader at their head again delivered a long and tedious oration, "to which," according to the chronicler, "these people appear to be much addicted." This oration was delivered with strange and violent gestures, the speaker's voice being extended to the uttermost strength of nature, and his words falling so thick, one in the neck of another, that he could hardly fetch his breath again. When he had concluded, the people bowed to the earth, giving a long cry of "Oh," which appears to have answered to our "Amen." Then the men came forward, and the women went through a number of exercises, which appear to have shocked and appalled our seamen. "As if they had been desperate, they used violence against themselves, crying and shrieking piteously, tearing their flesh with their nails from their cheeks in a monstrous manner, the blood streaming down over their bodies. Then, holding their hands above their heads so that they might not save their bodies from harm, they would with fury cast themselves upon the ground; never respecting whether it were clean or soft, but dash themselves in this manner on hard stones, knobby hillocks, stocks of wood, and prickly bushes, or whatever else were in their way; iterating the same course again and again, some nine or ten times each, others holding out for fifteen or sixteen times, till their strength failed them." The admiral, horrified by this cruel exhibition of reverence, ordered his men to fall to prayers; and signified to them that the God whom we did serve did not approve of such measures as they had taken. Three days later the king himself came down, and the ceremonies were repeated. The king then offered to the admiral the monarchy of that land, and perceiving that this would please them, and having in mind the honor and glory of her majesty, Captain Francis accepted the crown, and with many ceremonies was installed king of that country, taking possession of the land in the name of the Queen. It is not a little singular that this, one of the richest and most valuable portions of the United States, should thus have become by right, alike, of discovery and of free gift of the people, a possession of England. For some days the people continued their cruel exercises upon themselves, and so fixed were they in their idolatry that, even when forcibly prevented acting this way, they would, immediately they were released, set to with even redoubled fury to cut and injure themselves. After a time, their worship took a new form. All the people of the country having wounds, shrunken limbs, or diseases of any kind were brought down to be cured; and the people were much grieved that an instantaneous cure could not be effected, but that our men proceeded, by the application of lotions, plasters, and unguents, to benefit those who had anticipated immediate remedy. Altogether, the account given by the voyagers of the people of this part of America is most favorable They appear to have been of a tractable, free, and loving nature, without guile or treachery. They were finely built men, and one of them could carry easily, uphill and down, a weight which two or three Englishmen could scarcely lift. They were swift at running, and could catch a fish in the sea, if it were in water within their depth. When the ship was repaired, the admiral, with many of his officers, made a journey into the interior, and found that it was a goodly country, with a very fruitful soil. There were many thousands of large and fair deer, grazing in herds. This country was christened, by the admiral, Albion; partly from the color of its cliffs, partly in remembrance of his country. On the shore a monument was set up, and on it a plate of brass was affixed, engraven with the Queen's name, the date of the arrival of the ship, and of the free giving up of the province and kingdom into her majesty's hand; and a piece of current English money was fastened beneath a hole made in the brass plate, so that it might remain as a proof that the English had taken possession of this land, to which the Spaniards had never approached. As the stores were being taken on board again, and the natives saw the preparations for embarkation, the joy with which the arrival of these white beings had been received was changed into sorrow, and all the people went about mourning and crying. For many days this continued, and the parting, when the ship set sail on the 23rd of July, was a very sorrowful one, the people climbing to the top of the hills, so as to keep the ship in sight as long as they could, and making great fires and burning thereon sacrifices to the departing gods. The admiral had now made up his mind to abandon the search for a passage round the north of America. The cold had become even greater, while they remained in the bay. The natives themselves were wrapped in black cloths, and huddled together for warmth; and those in the ship suffered exceedingly. Moreover, the shores of the country trended far more to the west than had been expected, and the admiral concluded that, far to the north, the shores of America and Asia must unite. He thought, too, that in that country must be very lofty mountains, covered with snow; for so alone could he account for the exceeding coldness of the wind. Believing, therefore, that no passage could be made in that way, and seeing that the ship had already gone through heavy tempests, and the men, although still of good heart, yet were longing for a return home after their great labors, he steered to the west, making the Moluccas his aim. During the voyage from Lima along the coast of South America, the boys had met with no special adventures. Upon the day after they came on board ship, Ned and Tom were called by the admiral into his cabin, and there recounted to him, at great length, all the adventures that they had gone through. He wondered greatly at their recital, and commended them exceedingly for the prudence and courage which they had shown. The account of the strange places, never before trodden by the foot of white men, which they had seen, he ordered his secretary to write down, at full length, that it might be delivered to her gracious majesty, together with the record of the voyage of the Golden Hind; and he predicted that the Queen would take great pleasure in this record of the first journey across the continent. "As to you," he said, turning to Ned, "you seem to be fated to get into adventures, and to find your way out of them. I have not forgotten the strange passage in the Island of Puerta Rico; and I predict that, if you go on as you have begun, you will come to great things." Warmly, also, did he praise Ned's companion on the journey; but the latter modestly ascribed all the success, which had attended their journey, to the knowledge of native life which Ned had gained among the negroes, and to his courage and prudence. "Nevertheless," said the admiral, "there is praise due also to you, for you have known when to subordinate yourself to one younger in years, although older in experience. This virtue is rare, and very commendable; and I doubt not that, had you not so freely given up your own wishes and inclinations to those of your comrade, you might both have perished miserably." He further expressed his high opinion of Ned's bravery, and discretion, by giving him a command in the ship as third officer; finding, on inquiry, that he had learned how to take the altitude of the sun, and to do other things necessary for the discovery of the position of the ship. These signs of goodwill on the part of the admiral caused, as might have been expected, some jealousy among a considerable portion of the equipage. Many, indeed, were glad at the position which Ned had gained by his enterprise and courage. Others, however, grumbled, and said that it was hard that those who had done their duty on board the ship should be passed over, in favor of mere youngsters, who had been wandering on their own account on land. Ned himself felt that there was some reason for this jealousy, upon the part of those who had borne the burden of all the great labors, which those on board the Golden Hind had undergone; and he spoke to the admiral and expressed his willingness, nay more, his desire, to remain as a private gentleman and adventurer on board the ship. This, however, Captain Francis would not hear of. "Merit has to be rewarded," he said, "wheresoever it is found. These men have done their duty. All indeed on board the ship have wrought nobly, for their own safety and for the honor of her majesty the Queen. But you have gone beyond this; and have, by your journey across the continent, brought fame and credit to the country. It is right that men who discover strange lands into which, some day, the power of Christianity and civilization may enter, should receive honor and credit of their countrymen. Of those who seek to do these things many perish, and those who survive should be held in honor" Most of all delighted, at the success and honor which had befallen Ned, were his three friends. Two of them considered that they owed their lives to him. All regarded him as their leader, as well as their comrade. But Reuben Gale grumbled much that he had had no share in the adventures which had befallen his three friends. "You have all three strange histories to tell. You have seen wonderful things, and have journeyed and fought with wild men and Spaniards; while I, with equal goodwill, have never had the chance of doing more than join in the taking of Spanish caravels, where the resistance was so poor that children might have done the business." Ned laughed, and promised him that the next adventure he got into he would, if possible, have him as his comrade. "We have a long voyage yet," he said. "We have not gone much more than a third of the circumference of the world and, before we reach England, strange things may happen yet. We left Plymouth with a noble fleet of six ships. Now there remains but one, and fifty-eight men. At the same rate we shall be reduced to a cock boat, and four men, before we reach England. So keep up your heart, there is plenty of time before us." So great was the confidence which they felt in Ned that Reuben was cheered with this promise; although he knew, in his heart, that these adventures fell upon Ned not from any effort of his own, but by the effect of accident; or, as we may say, Providence. The young men liked not their stay in San Francisco Bay. Those who were best-looking and youngest were especially chosen out by the women as objects of their adoration, and the lads were horrified at the way in which these poor creatures beat and tore themselves, and groveled upon the ground; and so, being sick at heart at these mummeries, and at receiving a worship fit only for the Creator of the world, they remained on board ship, as much as possible, during the time that they tarried there. Except for a group of islands which they passed the day after sailing west, the Golden Hind saw no more land from the 23rd of July until September 30th, sixty-eight days in all, when they fell in sight of some islands, lying about eight degrees to the northward of the line. As soon as the ship was seen a great number of canoes came out, having in them some four, some six, some fourteen, or even twenty men, paddling rapidly and bringing cocoas, fish, and fruits. The beauty and workmanship of these canoes astonished the voyagers. They were made out of one tree of great length, hollowed with fire and axe; and being so smooth, both without and within, that they shone like polished wood. The bow and stern were alike in shape, rising high and falling inwards almost in a semicircle, and being covered with white and glistening shells, for ornament. These canoes had upon either side outriggers--that is, pieces of cane extending six or seven feet beyond the side, and to which were fixed spars of very light wood, so that the boat could in no wise overturn. These people evinced no fear of the English, and it was clear that, although they might not themselves have seen a ship before, the presence of the Portuguese in these seas was known to the islanders, and the manner of their vessels. The nature of these people was very different from that of the gentle savages on the western coast of America. They did not trade honestly, as these had done; but obtained as much as they could, and then pushed off from the side of the ship, without handing up the goods which they had bargained to give; and behaved so rascally that the admiral, seeing that their intentions were altogether evil, ordered a gun to be fired, not with the intent of hurting any, but of frightening them. The roar of the cannon was followed by the instant disappearance of every native from the fleet of canoes, amid the laughter of those on board ship. For a long time none could be seen, each as he came above water keeping on the further side of his canoe, and then paddling with it astern, so that the ship, as she floated on, left them gradually behind. When they thought that they were in safety they again took their places in the canoes, and finding that none were hurt, again paddled alongside the ship, and made pretense to barter. Some of them indeed came on board with their wares, but while pretending to be engaged in honest trade, they stole the daggers and knives from the men's girdles, and pillaged whatever they could lay their hands upon. The admiral, being wroth at this conduct, had some of these men seized and flogged; and then, driving the rest into their canoes, hoisted sail and went onwards, christening the place the "Island of Thieves," so as to deter all passengers, hereafter, from ever visiting it. Passing through many other islands they made for Tidore, the principal place in the Moluccas. But as they passed the Island of Motir, which was then called Ternate, a deputy, or viceroy, of the king of that island came off to the ship in a great canoe, and entreated the admiral to anchor at that island, and not at Tidore; assuring him, in the name of the king, that he would be wondrous glad to see him, and to do all that the admiral could require. He himself promised to return to the king at once, who would get all in readiness; whereas, if they went on to Tidore, where the Portuguese held sway, they would find in them deceit and treachery. On these persuasions Captain Drake resolved to run into Ternate; where, next morning, he came to anchor. The admiral then sent a party, consisting of Ned and three other adventurers, to the king; bearing the present of a velvet cloak, as a testimony of his desire for friendship and goodwill; with the message that he should require no other thing at his hands but that he might be allowed, by traffic and exchange of merchandise, to obtain provisions; of which, after his long voyage across the seas, he had now but small store. As the boat rowed to shore, it was met by a large canoe coming out with a message, from the king, that he had heard from his viceroy how great was the nobleness of the captain, and of the Queen whom he served; and that he, who was the enemy of the Portuguese, whom he had expelled from his dominions, would gladly agree to aid him, and to enter into treaties by which all ships of his nation might come to Ternate, and trade for such things as they required, all other white men being excluded. On arriving at the shore, the deputation were met by many personages. They were dressed in white cloths of Indian manufacture, and the party marveled much at the difference between their stately manners and ways, and those of the people whom they had lately left. Accompanied by these personages, and with great honor, they were conducted to the interior of the island; where, in a house surprisingly large for a people so far removed from civilization, and which, indeed, they afterwards learned had been built by the Portuguese, they found the king, who received them with much honor He was a tall and stout man, with much dignity in his manner. It was clear that his authority among his people was very great, for even the nobles and councilors whom he had sent to greet them bowed to the dust in his presence. Ned had consulted with his comrades on the way, and had agreed that, as the messengers of the admiral, and therefore in some way as the representatives of the Queen, it was their duty to comport themselves as equal, at least, in dignity to this island monarch. Therefore while all the people knelt in the dust in humility, they walked straight to his majesty, and held out their hands in English fashion. His majesty was in no whit offended at this: and indeed, by his manner, strove to express his respect. A certain amount of conversation was carried on with him, for in the island were an Italian and a Spaniard; who, having been made prisoners by the Portuguese, had escaped to Ternate. These men, acting as interpreters, conveyed to the king the messages sent by the admiral; and in return informed Ned that the king was, in all ways, most anxious to express his pleasure to the admiral; and that, on the morrow, he would himself visit him on board ship. He also, as a pledge, delivered his own signet ring to Ned, to carry on board. Having returned on board ship with these messages, they waited for the morrow, when three large canoes put off from the shore. In these were the greatest personages on the island. They sat in the canoes in accordance with their rank, the old men in the stern. Next to these were divers others, also attired in white, but with differences in the way in which the clothes were worn. These also had their places under the awning of reeds. The rest of the men were soldiers, who stood ranged on each side. On the outside of these, again, sat the rowers. These canoes must have in some way resembled the old Roman triremes, for it is said that "there were three galleries on either side of the canoe, one being builded above the other; and in each of these galleries were an equal number of benches, whereon did sit the rowers, about the number of fourscore in each canoe." In the fore part of each canoe sat two men, one holding a drum and the other a piece of brass; whereon both at once struck, marking the time for each stroke. The rowers, on their part, ended each stroke with a song, giving warning to those on the prow to strike again; and so, rowing evenly, they came across the sea at great speed. Each of these canoes carried a small cannon, of about a yard in length. All the men, except the rowers, had swords, daggers, and shields, lances, bows, and arrows, and some had guns. These canoes came up to the ship and rowed round her in solemn procession, to the great admiration of all on board, who had never beheld a sight like this. But the admiral said that the vessels reminded him of the descriptions which he had read of the great barges of Venice. As they rowed they did homage to the admiral, the greatest personages beginning, first standing up and bowing their bodies to the ground, the others following in order of rank. Then a messenger came on board, signifying that they had come before the king, who had sent them to conduct our ship into a better anchorage, and desiring that a rope might be given them out that they might, as their king commanded, tow the ship to the place assigned. Very shortly the king himself came out, having with him in his canoe six grave and ancient fathers, and did himself at once make a reverent kind of obeisance. He was received in the best manner possible. The great guns thundered, and as these had been filled with a large quantity of small shot, they tore up the water in the distance, and made a fine show for these people. The trumpets also, and other instruments of music, sounded loudly, whereat the king was much delighted, and requested that the music might come into a boat. The musicians, at Captain Francis' orders, so did, and laying alongside the king's canoe, were towed behind the ship by the rowers in the three first canoes. The king and many others came on board, and were bountifully entertained, many presents being given to them. When the anchorage was reached the king asked leave to go on shore, promising that next day he would again come on board, and in the meantime send such victuals as were requested. Accordingly, at night and the next morning large quantities of hens, sugarcanes, rice, figos--which are supposed to have been plantains--cocoas, and sago were sent on board. Also some cloves for traffic; but of these the admiral did not buy many, as he did not wish the ship to be crowded with goods. At the time appointed, all things being set in readiness, the admiral looked for the king's return; but he failed to keep his promise, to the great discontent and doubt on the part of the crew. The king's brother came off, to invite Captain Drake to land and visit him; but this brother, who seemed to be an honest gentleman, himself, whispered a few words in confidence to the admiral, warning him that it would be better that he should not go on shore. With his free consent the admiral retained this nobleman as a pledge, and then although, in consequence of the king's bad faith, he resolved not to land himself, he sent many of his officers, who were conducted with great honor to the large and fair house inhabited by the king, where at least a thousand people were gathered. The king was seated in a great chair of state, and many compliments were exchanged between him and the English. The king was now attired in his full state; having, from the waist to the ground, a robe of cloth of gold; with many rings of plated gold on his head, making a show something like a crown. On his neck he had a chain of perfect gold, the links very large. On his left hand were a diamond, an emerald, a ruby, and a turquoise, and on his right hand many beautiful gems. Thus it will be seen that the king of these islands was a potentate of no mean grandeur. Most of the furniture and decorations of the court were obtained from the Portuguese, during the time that they inhabited the island. Had they not followed the tyrannous ways of their people, they might have remained there in fair comfort; but, desiring to obtain the entire authority, they had killed the late king. This cruelty, however, had brought about a different end to that which they had expected; for the people, headed by the king's eldest son, had risen against them in great force, had killed many, and had driven the rest from the island; placing the king's son upon the throne, who had become the deadly enemy of the Portuguese, and was now preparing an expedition to drive them from Tidore. The religion of these people was that of the Mussulmans, and the rigor with which they fasted--it being, at the time of the English visit, one of their festivals--greatly astonished those who saw them; for, during the whole time, they would eat nothing between morning and night; but the appetite with which they devoured many meals, throughout the night, almost equally astonished the British. While the Golden Hind lay in the harbor of Ternate, they received a visit from a Chinese gentlemen of high station, and who was assuredly the first Chinaman who ever came in contact with one of our race. His reason for being at the Moluccas was singular. He had been a man of great rank in his own country, but was accused of a capital crime; of which, though innocent, he was unable to free himself. He then implored the emperor to allow him to leave the country, placing the proof of his innocence in the hands of Providence; it being a bargain that, if he could bring back to the emperor strange and wonderful tidings of things new to him, such as he had never heard of, he should be restored to his place and honors, and held to be acquitted of that crime. If such news could not be gained by him he was to remain in exile, and to be accounted guilty of that of which he was accused. Coming on board, he very earnestly entreated the admiral to give him the account of his adventures, from the time of leaving his country. This Captain Drake willingly did; and the Chinaman, in great delight, exclaimed that this was fully sufficient for him to bear back to the emperor. He gave a very warm and pressing invitation to Sir Francis to bring the ship to China, where he assured him of a welcome at the hands of the emperor. Had Captain Drake been able to accede to this proposition, it is probable that our dealings with the East, on a large scale, might have begun some centuries earlier than they did; but the Golden Hind was much battered by the voyage she had gone through, being, indeed, not a new ship when she started. The crew, too, were all longing to get home, and the treasure which had been gathered from the Spaniards was ample for all their desires. The admiral, therefore, although truly he longed to see this country, and to open relations between it and the Queen, was yet forced to decline the invitation, and so to depart on his westward voyage. The Golden Hind now made slow progress through the water, her bottom being foul with weeds and other things which had attached themselves to it during its long voyage. The captain therefore determined to enter the first harbor in an uninhabited island that he came to, for at none of the places at which he had hitherto touched had he ventured to take this step. However friendly the inhabitants might have appeared, some causes of quarrel might have arisen; and with the ship hauled up and bent over, it might have fallen into the hands of the natives, and so been destroyed, and all return to England cut off from him. Five days after leaving Ternate he found such a place and, fetching up in a small harbor, the whole party landed, pitched tents, and entrenched themselves. Then they took the casks and water vessels ashore and thoroughly repaired them, trimmed the ship and scraped her bottom, and so put her in a state to perform the rest of the voyage. Greatly here were the crew astonished by the first sight of fireflies, creatures which were new to them all. This island swarmed with crayfish, of a size sufficient to satisfy four hungry men at dinner. These creatures never went into the sea, but kept themselves on land, digging holes in the roots of the trees, and there lodging, numbers together. Strangely enough, too, these crayfish, when they found themselves cut off from their natural retreats, climbed up trees, and there concealed themselves in the branches. On December the 12th they again set sail, being now among the Celebes, where they found the water shoal and coasting very dangerous. The wind, too, was high and contrary, and their difficulties greater than anything they had found. On January the 9th the wind, however, came aft, and they appeared to have found a passage out of these dangers, sailing then at full speed. They were, at the first watch at night, filled with consternation at a crash, followed by silence; and the vessel was found to have run high upon a reef, of which the surface had presented no indication. Not since the Golden Hind had left England had her strait been as sore as this. The force with which she had run upon the reef seemed to have carried her beyond all hope of extrication. All considered that death was at hand, for they hardly hoped that the ship could hold long together. The admiral at once, to still the confusion which reigned, ordered all to prayers; and the whole, kneeling on the deck, prayed for mercy, preparing themselves for imminent death. Presently, having finished praying, the admiral addressed them in a consoling speech; and then, their courage being much raised, all bestirred themselves to regard the position. The pumps were first tried and the ship freed of water, and to their great joy they found that the leakage was no greater than before, and that the rocks had not penetrated through the planks. This appeared to all on board to be an absolute miracle, wrought in their favor; for it seemed impossible to them that, running at so high a rate of speed, the vessel could have failed to break herself against the rocks. It is probable that, in fact, the ship had struck upon a newly-formed coral reef; and that the coral--which, when first made, is not very hard--had crashed to pieces under the shock, and so she lay in safety upon the bed of pounded fragments. Chapter 19: South Sea Idols. When order and tranquility were perfectly restored, the admiral ordered a boat to be lowered and soundings to be taken, intending to put out the anchors ahead, and to get her off by working upon them with the windlass. It was found, however, that under the forefoot of the vessel the water deepened so rapidly that, at a distance of a few fathoms, no soundings could be obtained. This plan, therefore, was abandoned. The prospect seemed dark, indeed. The ship's boats would, at most, only carry half the men on board; and if the ship had to be abandoned, the whole of her treasures must be lost, as well as many lives. "There is an island far away to the south," the admiral said. "If the worst come, we must seek refuge on that. It will be well to send a boat to examine it, and see what capabilities it offers for the purpose. Then if the weather holds fair we can make several trips, and land our men, and a portion at least of our valuables." "Will you let me go, sir, with my three friends?" Ned asked. "The canoe which we took from our last halting place will carry the four of us and, as she paddles swiftly, we may be back before many hours." "The idea is a good one," Captain Drake said. "Make for the island. It is, I should say, fifteen miles off. When you have reached it, see if there be water, fuel, and other necessaries, and whether the landing be good. If you should come upon any natives, parley with them. Take a few articles as presents, and explain to them, if they will come out here with their canoes and aid to bring the things ashore, we will give them presents, which will make them wealthy beyond their grandest dreams. "Be careful, my boys. I know that you will be brave, if necessary; but care and caution are the great things, and remember that our safety depends upon yours." The young men speedily lowered the canoe, under the shelter of the lee side of the ship, took some beads, calicoes, and other articles, and then, seating themselves in the boat, paddled rapidly away. At first they felt a little awkward in using the paddles, in which they had had no practice, whatever. But being powerful men, and accustomed to the use of oars, they soon fell into regular stroke, and the light boat danced rapidly over the waters. The distance was further than Captain Drake had imagined, the clearness of the air making the land appear nearer than it really was; and it was only after three hours of hard work that they neared it. It turned out to be an island of about a mile in length, so far as they could judge. A reef of coral ran round it. The center of the island was somewhat elevated, and was covered with coconut trees; and it was this, alone, which had enabled it to be seen, from so great a distance, from the deck of the Golden Hind. Paddling round the reef, they came to an opening and, entering this, found themselves in perfectly smooth water, and were soon on shore. "Our best way to look for water," Ned said, "will be to follow the beach all round the island. If there is any stream, we must then come upon it. We had better take our arms, and haul up the canoe." Ned, although the youngest of the party, being an officer of the ship, was naturally in command. "It will be hard," Reuben said, "if we do not meet with some adventure. This is the first time that I have been out with you, Ned. The others have had their share, and it will be hard upon me if, when I get home, I have not some tale to tell my friends." "I hope that it will not be so," Ned said, "for more than story telling depends upon our success. I fear the Golden Hind is fixed fast, and that all the fruits of our expedition are lost, even if our lives be saved. Everything depends upon the report we may make when we return; and anything that should occur to delay us, or to prevent our bearing back tidings of this place to the admiral, would be bad fortune, indeed." "I don't mean," Reuben said, "anything that would prevent our returning. But we might do something, and yet return safely." A walk round the island showed no signs of water; nor, although they searched for some hours, walking backwards and forwards across it, could they find any sign of a pool. It was clear that there were no fresh-water springs on the island, and that the vegetation depended entirely upon the rain that fell in the regular season. But they discovered, from the top of the island, another and much larger one; lying, still again, some fifteen miles to the south. After much deliberation, they determined to make for this; as it was of importance that they should have some news, of a place to which the goods could be transported, to carry back to the ship. This island was much higher, and there appeared every probability that water, and all they required, would be found there. Accordingly, taking their place in the canoe, they again paddled out through the entrance to the reef, and steered their course for their new discovery. This was a large island, measuring at least, as they judged from the view of the one side, twenty miles round. The shores were steep, and they rowed for some time before they succeeded in finding a place where a landing could be effected. Then a deep bay suddenly opened out, and into this they rowed. Scarcely had they fairly entered it when, from some bushes near the shore, two large war canoes, crowded with natives, shot out and made towards them. The lads at first grasped their muskets, but Ned said: "Let the arms be. We are here to make peace with the natives, and must take our chance." They stood up in the canoe, holding up their arms in token of amity. The canoes came alongside at racing pace, the natives uttering yells of joy. The canoe had evidently been seen approaching the island, and preparations had been made to seize it, immediately on its arrival. Ned held up in his hands the beads and pieces of cloth. But the natives were too excited for pause or negotiation. In an instant the boys were seized and placed on board the canoes, two in each. They were tenderly handled, and were clearly objects of veneration rather than of hostility. The moment that they were on board, the contents of the canoe were transferred to the large boat; and it was then cast adrift, and the two war boats, at full speed, made out through the passage. Ned endeavored, in vain, to attract the attention of the leaders of the savages to his gestures; and to explain to them that there was a vessel, from which he had come, at a short distance off; and that, if they would accompany him thither, they would obtain large quantities of the beads and cloth which he showed them. The natives, however, were too much excited to pay any attention to his efforts; and with a sigh of despair he sat down by the side of Reuben, who was in the same boat with him; as the canoes, on emerging from the bay, turned their heads to the southwest, and paddled steadily and rapidly away from the island. "Whither can they be going to take us?" Reuben said. "They must belong to some other island," Ned answered, "and be a war party, which has come on plundering purposes here. What a misfortune! What terribly bad luck! They have clearly never seen white men before, and regard us as superior beings; and so far as we are concerned, it is probable that our lives are safe. But what will the admiral think, when night comes on and we do not return? What will become of our comrades?" And at the thought of their messmates, left without help in so perilous a position, Ned fairly broke down and cried. For some hours the natives continued their course without intermission, and gradually an island, which had at first seemed like a low cloud on the horizon, loomed up nearer and nearer; and at last, just as night fell, they landed upon its shores. Here in a bay a village of huts, constructed of the boughs of trees, had been raised; and the arrival of the war canoes was greeted, with wild and prolonged cries, by the women and children. All prostrated themselves in wonder and astonishment when the white men, in their strange attire, were brought on shore; and Ned saw that his suspicions were correct, and that they were regarded by their captors as gods. Further proof was given of this when they were escorted to a large shed, composed of a roof of thatch supported on four upright posts, which stood in the center of the village. Under this were placed some of the hideous effigies which the South Sea Islanders worship, and which are affixed to the prow of their boats; and may be seen in the British Museum, and in other places where collections of Indian curiosities are exhibited. These effigies were carved in the shape of human beings, with enormous goggle eyes, splashes of bright paint, and strange and immense headdresses of brilliant colors. Here the lads were motioned to sit down, and the natives brought them offerings of cocoas, and other fruits. The boys could hardly help laughing at their strange position, surrounded by these hideous idols. "You wanted an adventure, Reuben, and you have got one, indeed," Ned said. "You are translated into a heathen god and, if you ever get home, will have your story to tell, which will astonish the quiet firesides in Devonshire." "Ought we not to refuse to accept this horrid worship?" Gerald said. "I think not," Ned replied. "It can do no harm; and we are, at least, better than these wooden idols. So long at least as we are taken for gods, our lives are safe. But I would not say as much if they once became convinced, by our actions, that we are men like themselves." "But we cannot sit here, all our lives, among these idols," Reuben said. "I agree with you there, Reuben; but patience does wonders, and I am not troubled in the least about ourselves. Sooner or later, a way of escape will present itself; and when it does, be assured that we will use it. Patience is all that we require, now. It is of our poor shipmates that I am thinking." As night fell, great bonfires were lighted. The natives indulged in wild dances round them, and feasting and festivities were kept up all through the night. Four watches were stationed, one at each post of the temple; and the boys saw that, for the present, at least, all thought of escape was out of the question. And therefore, stretching themselves at full length on the sand, they were speedily asleep. For some days, the position remained unchanged. The boys were well fed, and cared for. Offerings of fruit, fish, and other eatables were duly presented. A perfumed wood which, according to the native ideas, personified incense, was burned in large quantities round the temple, and nearly choked the boys with its smoke. Upon the fifth day, it was clear that some expedition was being prepared. Four large war canoes were dragged down and placed in the water; and the great idols, which stood in the bow of each, were removed and carried up to the temple, and placed there in position. Then the boys were motioned to come down to the beach. "I do believe," said Tom, bursting into a shout of laughter, "that they are going to put us in the bows of their canoes, in place of their old gods." The others joined in the laughter, for to act as the figurehead of a canoe was indeed a comical, if an unpleasant situation. When they reached the boats, the boys saw that their suspicions were correct, and that the natives were preparing to lash them to the lofty prows; which rose, some twelve feet above the water, in a sweep inwards. "This will never do," Tom said. "If we are fastened like that, our weight will cut us horribly. Let us show them how to do it." Whereupon, with great gravity he took a large piece of flat wood, and motioned to the savages to lash this in front of the bow of one of the boats, at a height of three feet above the water, so as to afford a little platform upon which he could stand. The natives at once perceived the drift of what he was doing, and were delighted that their new deities should evince such readiness to fall in with their plans. The additions were made at once to the four canoes; but while this was being done, some of the leading chiefs, with every mark of deference, approached the boys with colored paints; and motioned, to them, that they would permit them to deck them in this way. Again the boys indulged in a hearty laugh and, stripping off their upper garments, to the immense admiration of the natives. They themselves applied paint in rings, zigzags, and other forms to their white shirts; painted a large saucer-like circle round the eyes with vermilion, so as to give themselves something the appearance of the great idols; and having thus transmogrified themselves, each gravely took his place upon his perch; where, leaning back against the prow behind them, they were by no means uncomfortable. "If these fellows are going, as I expect, upon a war expedition," Ned shouted to his friends, as the boats, keeping regularly abreast, rowed off from the island; amidst a perfect chaos of sounds, of yells, beatings of rough drums made of skins stretched across hollow trunks of trees, and of the blowing of conch shells; "our position will be an unpleasant one. But we must trust to circumstances to do the best. At any rate, we must wish that our friends conquer; for the next party, if we fall into their hands, might take it into their heads that we are devils instead of gods, and it might fare worse with us." It was manifest, as soon as they started, that the object of the expedition was not the island upon which they had been captured, but one lying away to the south. It was a row of several hours before they approached it. As they did so, they saw columns of smoke rise from several points of the shore, and knew that their coming there was observed by the islanders. Presently six canoes, equally large with their own and crowded with men, were observed pulling out, and yells of defiance came across the water. "It is clear," Tom said, "that this island is stronger than our own; and that it is only on the strength of our miraculous presence that the islanders expect to conquer their foes; for they would never, with four canoes, venture to attack a place of superior force, unless they deemed that their victory was certain." With wild yells, which were answered boldly from their own canoes, the enemy approached, and the combat began with a general discharge of arrows. Then the canoes rowed into each other, and a general and desperate hand-to-hand combat commenced. The enthusiasm with which the inmates of the boys' canoes were animated at first gave them the superiority, and they not only beat back the attacks of their foes but, leaping into their enemy's boats, succeeded in clearing two of them of their occupants. Numbers, however, told; and the enemy were, with very heavy clubs and spears, pointed with sharp shells, gradually forcing the adventurers back; when Ned saw that a little supernatural interference was desirable, to bring matters straight again. Giving the word to his friends, he stood up on his perch and, swinging himself round, alighted in the boat; giving as he did so a loud British cheer, which was answered by that of his comrades. Then, with his arms erect, he began to move along the benches of the canoe, towards the conflict which was raging on either side. The sudden interference of the four deities, at the head of the boat, was received with a yell of terror by the natives who were attacking them; which was increased when the boys, each seizing a club from the hands of a native, jumped into the enemy's canoes, and began to lay about them with all their strength. This was, however, required but for a moment. The sight of so terrible and unexampled an apparition appalled the islanders; who, springing overboard with yells of despair, swam rapidly towards land, leaving their boats in the hands of the victors. These indulged in wild yells of triumph, knelt before their good geniuses, and then, taking their places, paddled towards the shore. Before they had reached it, however, the defeated savages had landed and, running up to their village, had borne the news of the terrible apparitions which had taken part against them. The conquerors, on reaching the village, found it deserted; plundered it of a few valuables; carried down all their enemy's gods in triumph into the canoes; and then, having fired the huts, started again, with the ten canoes, towards their own island. Their triumphant arrival at the village was received with frantic excitement and enthusiasm. The sight of six canoes towed in, by the four belonging to the place, was greeted with something of the same feeling which, in Nelson's time, Portsmouth more than once experienced upon an English vessel arriving with two captured French frigates, of size superior to herself. And when the warriors informed their relatives of the interposition of the white gods in their favor, the latter rose to an even higher estimation in public opinion than before. They were escorted to their shrine with wild dancing and gesticulation, and great heaps of fruit, fish, and other luxuries were offered to them, in token of the gratitude of the people. But this was not all. A few hours later a solemn council was held on the seashore, and after a time a great hurrying to and fro was visible in the village. Then, to the sound of their wild music, with dancing, brandishing of spears, and the emission of many wild yells, the whole population moved up towards the shrine. "What can they be going to do now?" Tom said. "Some fresh piece of homage, I should guess. I do wish they would leave us alone. It is annoying enough to be treated as a god, without being disturbed by these constant worshippings." When the crowd arrived before the shed they separated, and in the midst were discovered four girls. On their heads were wreaths of flowers, and their necks and arms were loaded with necklaces, and shells, and other ornaments. "Don't laugh, you fellows," said Ned. "I do believe that they have brought us four wives, in token of their gratitude." The lads had the greatest difficulty in restraining themselves from marring the effect of the solemnity by ill-timed laughter. But they put a great restraint upon themselves, and listened gravely while the chief made them a long harangue, and pointed to the four damsels; who, elated at the honor of being selected, but somewhat shy at being the center of the public gaze, evidently understood that the village had chosen them to be the wives of the gods. Although the boys could not understand the words of the speaker, there was no question as to his meaning, and they consulted together as to the best steps to be taken, under the circumstances. "We must temporize," said Tom. "It would never do for them to consider themselves slighted." After a short consultation, they again took their places in a solemn row, in front of the shed. Reuben, who was the tallest and most imposing of the set, and who was evidently considered by the villagers to be the leading deity, then addressed a long harangue to the chief and villagers. He beckoned to the four girls, who timidly advanced, and one knelt at the feet of each of the whites. Then Reuben motioned that a hut must be built, close to the shrine; and, pointing to the sun, he traced its way across the sky, and made a mark upon the ground. This he repeated fourteen times, signifying that the girls must be shut up in the hut and guarded safely for that time, after which the nuptials would take place. "You are quite sure, Ned," he said, pausing and turning round to his friend, "that we shall be able to make our attempt to escape before the end of the fourteen days? Because it would be fearful, indeed, if we were to fail, and to find ourselves compelled to marry these four heathen women." "We will certainly try before the fourteen days are up, Reuben; but with what success, of course we cannot say. But if we lay our plans well, we ought to manage to get off." The villagers readily understood the harangue of Reuben, and without delay the whole scattered into the wood and, returning with bundles of palm leaves and some strong posts, at once began to erect the hut. Fires were lighted as the evening came on, and before they ceased their labor the hut was finished. During this time the girls had remained sitting patiently in front of the shrine. The lads now offered them their hand, and escorted them with grave ceremony to the hut. The palm leaves which did service as a door were placed before it, and the boys proceeded to dance, one after the other in solemn order, fourteen times round the hut. They then signified to the natives that provisions, fruit, and water must be daily brought for the use of their future wives; and having made another harangue, thanking the natives for their exertions, and signifying future protection and benefits, they retired under the shelter of the shed, and the village subsided to its ordinary state of tranquility. "There are two difficulties in the way of making our escape," Ned said. "In the first place, it is useless to think of leaving this island, until we have a sufficient stock, of provisions and water to put in a canoe, to last us until we can get back to Ternate. Did we put into any island on the way, our position might be ten times as bad as it now is. Here at least we are well treated and honored and, did we choose, could no doubt live here in a sort of heathen comfort, for the rest of our lives; just as many white sailors on the western isles have turned natives, and given up all thought of ever returning to their own country. "The Golden Hind was four days on her journey from Ternate to the place where she refitted; another two to the spot where she went on the reef. The wind was very light, and her speed was not above five knots an hour. We should be able to paddle back in the course of ten days, and must take provisions sufficient for that time. "The first point, of course, will be to find whether the old ship is still on the reef. If she is not there she may have succeeded in getting off, or she may have gone to pieces. I trust however that the admiral, who is full of resource, has managed to get her off in safety. He will, no doubt, have spent a day or two in looking for us; but finding no signs of us, in the island to which we were sent, or in the other lying in sight to the southward, he will have shaped his way for the Cape. "The first difficulty, then, is to procure sufficient provisions. The next is to make our escape unseen. The four natives who, night and day, watch at the corners of this shed, mean it as a great honor, no doubt; but, like many other honors, it is an unpleasant one. Our only plan will be to seize and gag them suddenly, each pouncing upon one. "Then there is the fear that the natives, who are, I must say, the most restless sleepers I ever saw, may in their wanderings up to look at us find that we have gone, before we are fairly beyond reach of pursuit; for one of their great canoes will travel at least two feet to our one. "Hitherto we have only taken such provisions, from the piles they have offered us, as were sufficient for our day's wants, and left the rest for them to take away again next morning. In future we had best, each day, abstract a considerable quantity; and place it conspicuously in the center of this shed. The people will perhaps wonder, but will probably conclude that we are laying it by, to make a great feast upon our wedding day. "As to water, we must do with the calabashes which they bring the day before, and with the milk which the cocoas contain, and which is to the full as quenching as water. With a good number of cocoas, we ought to be able to shift for some days without other food; and there is, indeed, an abundance of juice in many of the other fruits which they offer us." This programme was carried out. Every morning the lads danced in solemn procession round the hut, lessening their rounds by one each day. Daily the heap of fruit, dried fish, and vegetables under the shed increased; and the natives, who believed that their new deities were intent upon the thoughts of marriage, had no suspicion whatever of any desire, on their part, to escape. Having settled how to prevent their escape being detected before morning, they accustomed themselves to go to sleep with the cloths, woven of the fiber of the palm with which the natives had supplied them, pulled over their heads. Seven days after the fight with the other islanders, the lads judged that the pile of provisions was sufficiently large for their purpose, and determined upon making the attempt that night. A canoe of about the size that they desired, which had been used during the day for fishing, lay on the shore close to the water's edge. They waited until the village was fairly hushed in sleep. An hour later they believed that the four guards--or worshipers, for it struck them that their attendants partook partly of both characters--were beginning to feel drowsy; and each of the boys, having furnished himself with a rope of twisted coconut fiber, stole quietly up to one of these men. To place their hands over their mouths, to seize and throw them upon their faces, was but the work of a moment; and was accomplished without the least noise, the natives being paralyzed by the sudden and unexpected assault. A piece of wood was shoved into the mouth of each, as a gag; and secured by a string, passing round the back of the head, and holding it in its place. Their arms and legs were tied, and they were set up against the posts, in the same position they had before occupied. Four of the great effigies were then taken from their places, and laid down upon the ground and covered over with the mats, so that to any casual observer they presented exactly the same appearance as the boys, sleeping there. Then, loading themselves with provisions, the boys stole backwards and forwards, quietly, to the boat. Once they had to pause, as a sleepless native came out from his hut, walked up to the shrine, and bowed himself repeatedly before the supposed deities. Fortunately he perceived nothing suspicious, and did not notice the constrained attitude of the four guardians. When he retired the boys continued their work, and soon had the whole of the store of cocoas and other provisions in the canoe, together with some calabashes of water. Then with some difficulty they launched the boat and, taking their places, paddled quietly away from the island. Once fairly beyond the bay, they laid themselves to their work, and the light boat sped rapidly across the waters. In order that they might be sure of striking the point where they had left the ship, they made first for the island where they had been captured, and when day broke were close beside it. They then shaped their course northwards, and after two hours' paddling were in sight of the low island, which they had first visited. By noon they reached the spot where, as they judged, the Golden Hind had gone on the reef; but no sign whatever of her was to be discovered. By the position in which the island they had left lay they were sure that, although they might be two or three miles out in their direction, they must be within sight of the vessel, were she still remaining as they had left her. There had been no great storm since she had grounded; and it was unlikely, therefore, that she could have gone entirely to pieces. This afforded them great ground for hope that she had beaten off the reef, and proceeded on her voyage. Hitherto they had been buoyed up with the expectation of again meeting their friends; but they now felt a truly unselfish pleasure, at the thought that their comrades and admiral had escaped the peril which threatened the downfall of their hopes, and the termination of an enterprise fairly and successfully carried out, so far. There was nothing now for them but to make for Ternate. They found no difficulty whatever in doing without water, their thirst being amply quenched by the milk of the cocoas, and the juice of the guavas and other fruits. They paddled for two days longer, working steadily all day and far into the night, and passed one or two islands. In the course of the next day's passage they went within a short distance of another, and were horrified at seeing, from the narrow bay, a large war canoe put out, and make rapidly towards them. They had already talked over what would be their best course in such a contingency, and proceeded at once to put their plans into execution. They had, at starting, taken with them a supply of the paints used in their decoration; and with these they proceeded to touch up the coloring on their faces and white shirts, and on the strange ornaments which had been affixed to their heads. Two of them now took their place, one at the stern and the other at the bow of the canoe. The other two stood up, and paddled very quietly and slowly along; and as the canoe approached rapidly, the four broke into a song--one of the old Devonshire catches, which they had often sung together on board ship. The war canoe, as it approached, gradually ceased paddling. The aspect of this small boat, paddling quietly along and taking no heed of their presence, filled its occupants with surprise. But when the way on their canoe drifted them close to it, and they were enabled to see the strange character of the freight, a panic of astonishment and alarm seized them. That a boat, navigated by four gods, should be seen proceeding calmly along the ocean, alone, was a sight for which Indian legend gave them no precedent whatever; and after gazing for a while, in superstitious dread at the strange spectacle, they turned their boats' head and paddled rapidly back to shore. For an hour or two the boys continued their course, in the same leisurely manner; but when once convinced that they were out of sight of their late visitors, they again sat down, and the four stretched themselves to their work. On the evening of that day there was a heavy mist upon the water. The stars were with difficulty seen through it, and the lads were all convinced that a change of weather was at hand. Before nightfall had set in, an island had been seen at a short distance to the north, and they decided at once to make for this; as, if caught in mid ocean by a storm, they had little hope of weathering it in a craft like that in which they were placed; although the natives, habituated to them, were able to keep the sea in very rough weather in these little craft; which, to an English eye, appeared no safer than cockleshells. The boys rowed with all their strength in the direction in which the island lay, but before they reached it sharp puffs of wind struck the water, and the steerage of the canoe became extremely difficult. Presently, however, they heard the sound of a dull roar, and knew that this was caused by the slow heaving swell, of which they were already sensible, breaking upon a beach. Ten minutes later they were close to the shore. Had it been daylight, they would have coasted round the island to search for a convenient spot for landing; but the wind was already rising, so fast that they deemed it better to risk breaking up their canoe, than to run the hazard of being longer upon the sea. Waiting, therefore, for a wave, they sped forward, with all their strength. There was a crash, and then they all leaped out together and, seizing the canoe, ran her up on the beach, before the next wave arrived. "I fear she has knocked a great hole in her bottom," Reuben said. "Never mind," Ned replied. "We shall be able to make a shift to mend it. The great point, now, is to drag it up so high among the bushes, that it will not be noticed in the morning by any natives who may happen to be about. Until this storm is over, at any rate, we have got to shelter here." The canoe, laden as she still was with provisions, was too heavy to drag up; but the boys, emptying her out, lifted her on their shoulders and carried her inland; until, at a distance of some sixty or seventy yards, they entered a grove of coconut trees. Here they laid her down, and made two journeys back to the beach to fetch up their provisions, and then took refuge in the grove; thankful that they had escaped on shore in time, for scarcely had they landed when the hurricane, which had been brewing, burst with terrific force. Seas of immense height came rolling in upon the shore. The trees of the grove waved to and fro before it, and shook the heavy nuts down, with such force that the boys were glad to leave it and to lie down on the open beach, rather than to run the risk of having their skulls fractured by these missiles from above. The sound of the wind deadened their voices, and even by shouting they could not make themselves heard. Now and then, above the din of the storm, was heard the crash of some falling tree; and even as they lay, they were sometimes almost lifted from the ground by the force of the wind. For twenty-four hours the hurricane continued, and then cleared as suddenly as it had commenced. The lads crept back to the grove, refreshed themselves with the contents of two or three cocoas apiece, and then, lying down under the canoe, which they had taken the precaution of turning bottom upwards, enjoyed a peaceful sleep till morning. Chapter 20: A Portuguese Settlement. The day broke bright and sunny. The first care of the boys was to examine their canoe; and they found, as they had feared, that a huge hole had been made, in her bottom, by the crash against the rocks on landing. They looked for some time with rueful countenances at it; and then, as usual, turned to Ned, to ask him what he thought had best be done. "There can be no doubt," he said, "that the natives make a sort of glue out of some trees or shrubs growing in these islands, and we shall have to endeavor to discover the tree from which they obtain it. We can, of course, easily pull off the bark from some tree, which will do to cover the hole. The great point is to find some substance which will make it water tight." The grove was a very large one, and appeared to extend along the whole coast. Seaward, it was formed entirely of cocoa trees, but inland a large number of other trees were mingled with the palms. All day the boys attempted to find some semblance of gum oozing from these trees. With sharp pieces of shell they made incisions in the bark of each variety that they met with, to see if any fluid exuded which might be useful for this purpose, but in vain. "If we can kill some animal or other," Ned said, "we might boil down its sinews and skin and make glue; as Tom and myself did, to mend our bows with, among the Indians on the pampas. But even then, I question whether the glue would stand the action of the water." As to their subsistence they had no uneasiness. Besides the cocoas, fruit of all sorts abounded. In the woods parrots and other birds flew screaming among the branches at their approach, and although at present they had no means of shooting or snaring these creatures, they agreed that it would be easy to construct bows and arrows, should their stay be prolonged. This, however, they shrank from doing, as long as any possible method of escape presented itself. Were it absolutely necessary, they agreed that they could burn down a tree and construct a fresh canoe; but they were by no means sanguine as to their boat-building capabilities, and were reluctant to give up the idea of continuing their voyage in their present craft, as long as a possibility of so doing remained. So they passed four days; but succeeded in finding no gum, or other substance, which appeared likely to suit their purpose. "I should think," Reuben said one day, "that it would be possible to make the canoe so buoyant that she would not sink, even if filled with water." "How would you do that?" Tom asked. "There are many light woods, no doubt, among the trees that we see; but they would have to remain a long time to dry, to be light enough to be of any use." "I was thinking," Reuben said, "that we might use coconuts. There are immense quantities upon the trees, and the ground is covered with them, from the effects of the late gale. If we strip off the whole of the outside husk, and then make holes in the little eyes at the top and let out the milk, using young ones in which the flesh has not yet formed, and cutting sticks to fit tightly into the holes, they would support a considerable weight in the water. I should think that if we treated several hundred nuts in this way, put them in the bottom of the canoe, and keep them in their places by a sort of net, which we might easily make from the fibers of the cocoas, the boat would be buoyant enough to carry us." The idea struck all as being feasible, and Reuben was much congratulated upon his inventive powers. Without delay, they set to work to carry out the plan. A piece of thin bark was first taken and, by means of a long thorn used as a needle, was sewn over the hole in the canoe, with the fibers of the cocoa. Then a large pile of nuts was collected, and the boys set to work at the task of emptying them of their contents. It took them some hours' work to make and fit the pegs. Another two days were spent in manufacturing a net, to stretch across the boat above them. The nuts were then placed in the boat, the net put into shape and, choosing a calm night for their trial--for they feared, during the daytime, to show themselves beyond the margin of the forest--they placed it in the water, and paddled a short distance out. They found that their anticipations were justified, and that the flotation of the cocoas was amply sufficient to keep the boat afloat. She was, of course, far lower in the water than she had before been, and her pace was greatly deteriorated. This, however, they had expected and, returning to shore, they watched for the next night. Then, taking in a load of provisions, they started at once upon their way. It was weary work now, for the water-logged canoe was a very different boat to the light bark, which had yielded so easily to their strokes. Fortunately, however, they met with no misadventure. The weather continued calm. They were unseen, or at least not followed, from any of the islands that they passed on their way. But it was ten days after their final start before a large island, which they all recognized as Ternate, was seen rising above the water. "Easy all," Ned said. "We may be thankful, indeed, that we have arrived safely in sight of the island. But now that we are close, and there is no fear of tempests, had we not better talk over whether, after all, we shall land at Ternate?" "Not land at Ternate?" the others exclaimed in consternation; for indeed, the work during the last few days had been very heavy, and they were rejoicing at the thought of an end to their labors "Why, we thought it was arranged, all along, we should stop at Ternate." "Yes, but we arranged that because at Ternate, alone, there seemed a certainty of a welcome. But, as you know, Tidore only lies twelve miles away from Ternate; and from the position we are now in, it will not be more than five or six miles farther. "You see, when we were there, the king was preparing for a war with the Portuguese in Tidore, and he would certainly expect us to assist him, and probably to lead his fighting men." "But we should have no objection to that," Reuben said. "Not in the least," Ned replied. "But you see, if we are ever to get back to England, it must be through the Portuguese. Their ships alone are to be found in these seas, and were we to join the King of Ternate in an attack upon them, whether successful or not, we could never hope to be received in Portuguese ships; and should probably, indeed, be taken to Goa, and perhaps burned there as heretics, if we were to seek an asylum on board. "What do you think?" Viewed in this light, it certainly appeared more prudent to go to Tidore, and after some little discussion the boat's head was turned more to the west, and the lads continued their weary work in paddling the water-logged canoe. So slowly did she move that it was late at night before they approached the island. They determined not to land till morning, as they might be mistaken for natives, and attacked. They therefore lay down in the canoe and went to sleep, when within about a mile of the island; and the next morning paddled along its shore until they saw some canoes hauled up, together with an English boat, and supposed that they were at the principal landing place of the island. On either side of the landing place the cliffs rose steeply up, at a short distance from the beach. But at this point a sort of natural gap existed, up which the road ascended into the interior of the island. There were several natives moving about on the beach as the boys approached, and one of these was seen, at once, to start at a run up the road. The lads had carefully removed all vestige of the paint from their faces and hands and, having put on their doublets, concealed the strange appearance presented before by their white shirts. No resistance was opposed to their landing; but the natives motioned to them that they must not advance inland, until a messenger returned from the governor. The boys were only too glad to throw themselves down full length on the soft sand of the beach, and to dry their clothes in the sun; as for ten days they had been constantly wet, and were stiff and tired. Presently a native came down at a run, and announced that the governor was at hand. Rising to their feet, and making the best show they could in their faded garments, the lads soon saw a Portuguese gentleman, attended by four soldiers, coming down the road between the cliffs. "Who are you?" he asked in Portuguese, as he reached them, "and whence come you?" "We are Englishmen," Ned said in Spanish. "We belong to the ship of Captain Drake, which passed by here in its voyage of circumnavigation. By an accident, we in the canoe were separated from the ship and left behind. We have come to seek your hospitality, and protection." "We heard of an English vessel at Ternate," the governor said, sternly, "some weeks since; and heard also that its captain was making an alliance with the king there, against us." "It was not so," Ned said. "The admiral stopped there for a few days to obtain supplies such as he needed; but we are not here either to make alliances or to trade. Captain Drake, on starting, intended to voyage round the coast of America; and to return, if possible, by the north. After coasting up the western shores of that continent, he found that it would be impossible to pass round the north, as the coast extended so rapidly toward the north of Asia. He therefore started to return by the Cape, and on his way passed through these islands. "Had it been part of his plan to make alliances with the King of Ternate, or any other potentate, he would have stopped and done so; and would have given his armed assistance to the king. But his object was simply to return, as quickly as possible. Had there been any alliance made, we should naturally have made for Ternate, instead of this island. But as we have no relations with the king, and seek only means of returning to Europe, we preferred, of course, to come here, where we knew that we should find Christians; and, we hoped, friends." There was palpable truth in what Ned said; and the governor, unbending, expressed his readiness to receive and help them. He then asked a few more questions about the manner in which they had become separated from their friends; and seeing no advantage in concealing the truth, and thinking perhaps that it would be well, if an opportunity should offer, that the governor should send a vessel to search among the islands near where the wreck took place, and see if any of the crew had sought refuge there, they told him frankly the circumstances under which they had left the Golden Hind. "It would be sad, indeed," said the Portuguese, "if so grand an expedition, under so noble a commander, should have been wrecked after accomplishing such a work. We in these parts are not friendly to any European meddling. His Holiness the pope granted us all discoveries on this side of the Cape, and we would fain trade in peace and quiet, without interference. But we can admire the great deeds and enterprise of your countrymen; and indeed," he said smiling--for the Portuguese are, as a rule, a very small race--and looking at the bulk of the four young men, which was, indeed, almost gigantic by the side of himself and his soldiers, "I am scarcely surprised, now I see you, at the almost legendary deeds which I hear that your countrymen have performed on the Spanish main. "But now, follow me to my castle, and I will there provide you with proper appliances. What position did you hold in the ship?" "We are gentlemen of Devonshire," Ned said, "and bore a share in the enterprise, sailing as gentlemen adventurers under Captain Drake. I myself held the rank of third officer in the ship." "Then, senors," the Portuguese said, bowing, "I am happy to place myself and my house at your disposal. It may be that you will be able to render me services which will far more than repay any slight inconvenience or trouble to which I may be put, for we hear that the King of Ternate is preparing a formidable expedition against us; and as my garrison is a very small one, and the natives are not to be relied upon to fight against those of the other island, the addition of four such experienced soldiers as yourself will, in no slight degree, strengthen us." The boys replied that their swords were at the service of their host; and, well content with the turn things had taken, they proceeded with him up the road into the interior of the island. Upon gaining the higher land, they were surprised at the aspect of the island. In place of the almost unbroken forest which they had beheld, in other spots at which they had landed, here was fair cultivated land. Large groves of spice trees grew here and there, and the natives were working in the fields with the regularity of Europeans. The Portuguese method of cultivating the islands which they took differed widely from that of the English. Their first step was to compel the natives to embrace Christianity. Their second to make of them docile and obedient laborers, raising spice and other products, for which they received in payment calico, beads, and European goods. The castle, which stood in the center of a small plain, was built of stone roughly hewn; and was of no strength which would have resisted any European attack, but was well calculated for the purpose for which it was designed. It consisted of a pleasant house standing in an enclosure, round which was a wall, some fifteen feet in height, with a platform running behind it, to enable its garrison to shoot over the top. A ditch of some ten feet in depth and fifteen feet wide surrounded it; so that, without scaling ladders to ascend the walls, or cannon to batter holes in them, the place could be well held against any attack that the natives might make upon it. The garrison was not a formidable one, consisting only of some thirty Portuguese soldiers, whose appearance did not speak much for the discipline maintained. Their uniforms were worn and rusty in the extreme. They were slovenly in appearance, and wore a look of discontent and hopelessness. A large portion of them, indeed, had been criminals, and had been offered the choice of death or of serving for ten years, which generally meant for life, in the eastern seas. Ned judged that no great reliance could be placed upon this army of scarecrows, in the event of an attack of a serious character. "My men would scarcely show to advantage at home," the governor said, noting the glance of surprise with which the boys had viewed them. "But in a country like this, with such great heat and no real occasion for more than appearances, it is hopeless to expect them to keep up the smartness which would, at home, be necessary. The natives are very docile and quiet, and give us no trouble whatever; and were it not for interference from Ternate, where the people are of a much more warlike nature, the guard which I have would be ample for any purposes. I am expecting a vessel which calls here about once in six months, very shortly, and anticipate that she will bring me some twenty more soldiers, for whom I wrote to the viceroy at Goa when she last called here." "What is your latest news from Ternate?" Ned asked. "I have no direct news," he said. "What we know we gather from the natives, who, by means of canoes and fishing boats, are often in communication with those of the opposite island. They tell me that great preparations are being made, that several of the largest-sized canoes have been built, and that they believe, when it is full moon, which is generally the era at which they commence their adventures, there will be a descent upon this island." "Then you have seven days in which to prepare," Ned said. "Have you been doing anything to enable you to receive them hotly?" "I have not," the governor said. "But now that you gentlemen have come, I doubt not that your experience in warfare will enable you to advise me as to what steps I had better take. I stand at present alone here. The officer who, under me, commanded the garrison died two months since; and I myself, who was brought up in a civil rather than a military capacity, am, I own to you, strange altogether to these matters." Ned expressed the willingness of himself and his friends to do all in their power to advise and assist the governor; and with many mutual compliments they now entered the house, where a goodly room was assigned to them; some natives told off as their servants; and the governor at once set two native seamsters to work, to manufacture garments of a proper cut for them, from materials which he had in a storehouse for trading with the neighboring chiefs; who, like all savages, were greatly given to finery. Thus, by the end of the week, the boys were able once more to make a show which would have passed muster in a European capital. At the governor's request, they had at once proceeded to drill the soldiers, Ned and Gerald taking each the command of a company of fifteen men, as they understood Spanish and could readily make themselves understood in Portuguese, whereas Tom and Reuben knew but little of the Spanish tongue. "I think," Tom said the first morning to the governor, after the friends had discussed the prospect together, "it would be well to throw up some protection at the top of the road leading from the shore. I should order some large trees to be cut down, and dragged by a strong force of natives to the spot, and there so arranged that their branches will point downward and form a chevaux de frise in the hollow way; leaving until the last moment a passage between them, but having at hand a number of young saplings, to fill up the gap. There are, I suppose, other places at which the enemy could land?" "Oh, yes," the governor said. "On the other side of the island the land slopes gradually down to the shore, and indeed it is only for a few miles, at this point, that the cliffs rise so abruptly that they could not be ascended. Yet even here there are many points which a native could easily scale; although we, in our accoutrements, would find it impossible." While Ned and Gerald drilled their men with great assiduity, astonishing the Portuguese soldiers with their energy and authoritative manner, Tom and Reuben occupied themselves in superintending the felling of the trees; and their carriage, by means of a large number of natives, to the top of the road. Preparations were also made for blocking up the lower windows of the house so that, in case of the enemy succeeding in carrying the outer wall, a stout resistance could be made within. Large piles of provisions were stored in the building, and great jars of water placed there. "Are you sure," Ned asked the governor one evening, "of the natives here? For I own that there appears to me to be a sullen defiance in their manner, and I should not be surprised to see them turn upon us, immediately those from the other island arrive. If they did so, of course our position at the top of the road would be untenable, as they would take us in the rear. However, if they do so, I doubt not that we shall be able to cut our way back to the castle, without difficulty. "I think that it would be, in any case, advisable to leave at least ten men to hold the castle, while the rest of us oppose the landing." There were in store four small culverins and several light wall pieces. Two of the culverins were placed on the cliff, one at each side of the path, so as to command the landing. Two others were placed on the roof of the castle, which was flat and terraced. The wall pieces were also cleaned, and placed in position at the corners of the walls; and the boys, having seen that the musketoons and arquebuses of the garrison were in excellent order, and ready for service, felt that all had been done that was possible to prepare for an attack. The day before the full moon a sentinel was placed at the cliff, with orders to bring word instantly to the castle, in case any craft were seen coming from Ternate, the distance from the cliff to the house being about a mile. A short time after daybreak, next morning, the sentry arrived at full speed, saying that a great fleet of canoes was visible. Hurrying to the spot with the governor, the lads made out that the approaching flotilla consisted of eighteen great war canoes, each of which, crowded as it was, might contain a hundred men; and in addition to these were a large number of smaller craft. The invading force, therefore, would considerably exceed two thousand men. Reuben had the command of a gun at one side, Tom at the other, and these now loaded and sighted their pieces, so as to pour a volley of case shot into the canoes when they arrived within a quarter of a mile from shore. The canoes came along in a dense body, as close together as they could paddle, their rowers filling the air with defiant yells. When they reached the spot upon which the guns had been trained Tom fired his piece, and its roar was answered by wild screams and yells from the crowded fleet. Reuben followed suit, and the destruction wrought by the gnus was at once manifest. Three of the great canoes were broken to pieces, and their occupants swimming in the water climbed into the others, among which also a great many men had been wounded. The effect of this reception upon the valor of the natives was very speedy. Without a moment's delay they backed off, and were soon seen making out of range of the guns, like a troop of wild fowl scattered by the shot of a fowler. "They have a horror of cannon," the governor said, exultingly, as he witnessed their departure. "If we had a few more pieces, I should have no fear of the result." The dispersal of the canoes continued only until they thought that they were out of range; for although the lads now sent several round shot at them, these did not produce any effect, the canoes being but small objects to hit at a distance, when on the move, and the culverins being old pieces, and but little adapted for accurate shooting. The fleet were soon seen to gather again, and after a little pause they started in a body, as before, along the coast. "They are going to make a landing elsewhere," Ned said, "and we shall have to meet them in the open. It is a pity that we have no beasts of burden to which to harness our pieces; for as these are only ships' guns, it is impossible for us to drag them at a speed which would enable us to oppose their landing. Where are all the natives?" At the first alarm a large body of the islanders had assembled upon the cliff, but in the excitement of watching the approaching enemy, their movements had not been noticed. It was now seen that the whole of them had left the spot, and not a single native was in sight. "I think," Ned said, "we had better fall back and take up a position near the house, and repel their attack with the assistance of the guns mounted there. With muskets only, we should not have much chance of preventing their landing; and indeed they will row much faster along the coast than we could run to keep up with them." The governor agreed in the justice of Ned's view, and the whole force were now ordered to fall back towards the castle. As they proceeded they saw large bodies of the natives. These, however, kept at a distance; but their exultant shouts showed that they must be considered to have gone over to the enemy. "I will make you pay for this," the governor said, stamping his foot and shaking his fist angrily in their direction. "Each man shall have to furnish double the amount of spice for half the amount of calico, for the next five years. Ungrateful dogs! When we have done so much for them!" Ned could scarcely help smiling to himself, at the thought of the many benefits which the Portuguese had bestowed upon these unfortunate islanders, whom they had reduced from a state of happy freedom to one which, whatever it might be called, was but little short of slavery. It was late in the evening before great numbers of the enemy were seen approaching, and these, swelled as they were by the population of the island, appeared a formidable body, indeed, by the side of the handful of white men who were drawn up to defend the place. The enemy, numerous as he was, appeared indisposed to commence a fight at once, but began, to the fierce indignation of the governor, to cut down the groves of spice trees, and to build great fires with them. "I don't think that they will attack until tomorrow," Ned said, "and it would be well, therefore, to withdraw within the walls, to plant sentries, and to allow the men to rest. We shall want all our strength when the battle begins." "Do you think," the governor asked, when they were seated in his room, and had finished the repast which had been prepared, "that it will be well to sally out to meet them in the open? Thirty white men ought to be able to defeat almost any number of these naked savages." "If we had horses I should say yes," Ned said, "because then, by our speed, we could make up for our lack of numbers; and, wheeling about, could charge through and through them. But they are so light and active in comparison to ourselves that we should find it difficult, if not impossible, to bring them to a hand-to-hand conflict. We have, indeed, the advantage of our musketoons; but I observed at Ternate that many of the men have muskets, and the sound of firearms would therefore in no way alarm them. With their bows and arrows they can shoot more steadily at short distances than we can, and we should be overwhelmed with a cloud of missiles, while unable to bring to bear the strength of our arms and the keenness of our swords against their clubs and rough spears. I think that we could hold the house for a year against them; but if we lost many men in a fight outside, it might go hard with us afterwards." When morning dawned the garrison beheld, to their dismay, that the Indians had in the night erected a battery at a quarter of a mile in front of the gate, and that in this they had placed the culverins left on the cliff, and a score of the small pieces carried in their war canoes. "This is the work of the two white men we saw at Ternate," Gerald exclaimed. "No Indian could have built a battery according to this fashion." As soon as it was fairly light the enemies' fire opened, and was answered by the culverins on the roof of the house. The latter were much more quickly and better directed than those of the Indians, but many of the balls of the latter crashed through the great gates. "Shall we make a sortie?" the governor asked Ned. "I think that we had better wait for nightfall," he replied. "In passing across this open ground we should lose many men from the cannon shots, and with so small a force remaining, might not be able to resist the onrush of so great numbers. Let us prepare, however, to prop up the gates should they fall, and tonight we will silence their guns." At nightfall the gates, although sorely bruised and battered, and pierced in many places, still stood; being shored up with beams from behind. At ten o'clock twenty of the garrison were let down by ropes at the back of the castle, for Ned thought that scouts might be lurking near the gates, to give notice of any sortie. With great precaution and in perfect silence they made a way round, and were within a hundred yards of the battery before their approach was discovered. Then, headed by the governor, who was a valiant man by nature, and the four English, they ran at great speed forward, and were inside the battery before the enemy could gather to resist them. The battle was indeed a hard one; for the Indians, with their clubs, fought valorously. Reuben and Tom, having been furnished with hammer and long nails, proceeded to spike the guns; which they did with great quickness, their doings being covered, alike, by their friends and by darkness. When they had finished their task they gave the signal, and the Portuguese, being sorely pressed, fell back fighting strongly to the castle, where the gates were opened to receive them. In this sortie they lost eight men. The next morning at dawn the natives, being gathered in large numbers, came on to the assault, uttering loud and fierce cries. The cannon on the roof, which were under the charge of Tom and Reuben, at once opened fire upon them, while the soldiers upon the walls shot briskly with their musketoons. The natives, however, appeared determined to succeed and, firing a cloud of arrows, pushed forward towards the gate. Among them were borne, each by some thirty natives, long trees; and this party, surrounded by the main body, proceeded rapidly towards the gate, which, damaged as it was, they hoped easily to overthrow. The fire of the two culverins was, however, so deadly, and the concentrated discharge of the musketoons upon them as they advanced so fatal that, after trying several times to approach close to the gate, the natives dropped the great logs and fled. Chapter 21: Wholesale Conversion. That day and the three which followed passed without adventure. The natives were seen ravaging the fields, destroying the plantations, and doing terrible damage, to the intense exasperation of the Portuguese governor. But they did not show any signs of an intention to attack the castle. "I believe," Ned said on the fourth day, "that they have determined to starve us out. They must know that, however large our stock of provisions, they will not last forever; and indeed they will have learned, from the men who bore them in, something of the amount of stock which we have. It will last, you say, for two months; which would be little enough, were it not that we are expecting the ship you spoke of. If that comes shortly we shall, with the additional force which it is bringing; and the crew, who will no doubt aid; be able to attack them in the open. But were it not for that, our position would be a bad one." "I fear," Tom said, "that even when the ship arrives, evil may come of it." "How is that, Tom?" Ned asked. "The captain will know nothing of what is passing on shore; and if he lands his men incautiously upon the beach, and advances in this direction, the natives will fall upon them and, taking them by surprise, cut them to pieces; and our last hope will then be gone." "But we might sally out and effect a diversion," Reuben said. "Yes," Tom replied; "but, unfortunately, we should not know of the arrival of the ship until all is over." It was clear to all that Tom's view was the correct one, and that the position was much more serious than they had anticipated. For some time the governor and the four young men looked at each other, blankly. The destruction of the reinforcements, which would be followed no doubt by the capture of the ship by the war canoes, and the massacre of all on board, would indeed be fatal to their hopes. After what they had seen of the determination with which the enemy had come up to attack the gate, they were sure that they would fight valiantly, outside. The question of sallying forth was again discussed, and all were of opinion that, unequal as the fight would be, it were better to attempt to defeat the enemy than to remain quiet, and allow them to triumph over the coming reinforcements. "Upon what day do you think the ship will arrive?" Ned said, after considerable thought. "I cannot say to a day," the governor replied; "but she should be here this week. There is no exact time, because she has to touch at several other islands. She leaves Goa always on a certain day; but she takes many weeks on her voyage, even if the wind be favorable She might have been here a week since. She may not be here for another fortnight. But unless something unforeseen has occurred, she should be here by that time; for the winds are steady in these regions, and the rate of sailing regular." "The one chance appears to me," Ned said, after thinking for some time, "is to give them warning of what is happening here." "But how is that to be done?" asked the governor. "The only possible plan," Ned said, "would be for one of us--and I should be ready to accept the duty, knowing more perhaps of the ways of natives than the others--to steal forth from the castle, to make for the shore, and to lie concealed among the woods until the vessel is in sight. If then I could find a canoe, to seize it and paddle off to the ship; if not, to swim." The other lads eagerly volunteered to undertake the work; but Ned insisted that he was better suited to it, not only from his knowledge of the natives, but from his superior powers in swimming. "I may have," he said, "to keep myself up in the water for a long time, and perhaps to swim for my life, if the natives see me. It is even desirable, above all things, that whosoever undertakes the work should be a good swimmer; and although you have long ago given up calling me The Otter, I do not suppose that my powers in the water have diminished." After long consultation, it was agreed that this plan offered more chances of success than any other. "It would be most desirable," Gerald said, "that we should have some notice, here, of the ship being in sight; in order that we might sally out, and lend a hand to our friends on their arrival. I will, therefore, if you will allow me, go with Ned; and when the ship is in sight, I will make my way back here, while he goes off to the vessel." "But it will be impossible," Ned said, "to make your way back here in the daytime. I can steal out at night, but to return unnoticed would be difficult, indeed." "But when you see the ship, Ned, and get on board, you might warn them to delay their landing until the next morning; and in the night I might enter here with the news, and we might sally out at daybreak." This plan appeared to offer more advantages than any other; and it was agreed, at last, that the two lads should, having darkened their skins and put on Indian dress, steal out that night from the castle and make for the shore. Tom and Reuben regretted much that they could not take part in the enterprise; but the governor assured them that, even were it desirable that four should undertake the mission, they could not be spared, since their presence would be greatly needed in the castle should the natives, before the arrival of the ship, make an attack upon it. That night Ned and Gerald, according to the arrangement, stole out from the castle. Their skins had been darkened from head to foot. Round their waists they wore short petticoats, reaching to their knees, of native stuff. They had sandals on their feet; for, as Ned said, if they were seen close by the natives they were sure to be detected in any case, and sandals would not show at a short distance, while they would enable them to run at full speed, which they certainly could not do barefooted. They took with them a bag of provisions, and each carried a sword. Reuben had pressed upon them to take pistols also; but Ned said that, if cut off and detected, pistols would be of no use, as nothing but running would carry them through; while should a pistol be fired inadvertently, it would call such a number of assailants upon them that their escape would be impossible. A thrust with a sword did its work silently, and just as well as a pistol bullet. The natives apparently had no fear of any attempt at a sally from the castle, for there was nothing like a watch set round it; although near the entrance a few men were stationed, to give warning should the garrison sally out to make a sudden attack upon the invaders. The natives were, for the most part, scattered about in small parties, and once or twice the lads nearly fell in with these; but by dint of keeping their ears and eyes open they steered through the dangers, and arrived safely upon the coast, at a point two miles to the west of the landing place. Here the cliff had nearly sloped away, the height being only some twenty or thirty feet above the water, and being practicable in many cases for descent; while behind lay a large wood in which concealment was easy, except in the case of an organized search, of which they had no fear, whatever. The next morning they made along the shore as far as the point where the native war canoes had been pulled up, in hopes of finding some canoe small enough for Ned to use for rowing off to the ship. But none of them rowed less than twelve or fourteen paddles, and so cumbrous a boat as this would be overtaken in a very short time, should it be seen making out from shore. Ned therefore determined to swim out, especially as they observed that a watch was kept, both day and night, near the canoes. Five days passed in concealment. The coconuts afforded them both food and drink. Occasionally they heard the boom of the culverins at the castle, and knew that the natives were showing within range; but as these shots were only heard at times, they were assured that no persistent attack was being made. It was late in the afternoon of the fifth day that the lads observed a sail in the distance. It was indeed so far away that, as the light was fading, they could not say with absolute certainty that it was the longed-for ship. They both felt convinced, however, that they had seen a sail; and watched intently, as night darkened, for some sign of its passage. It was four hours later when they saw, passing along at a distance of about half a mile, a light on the ocean which could be no other than that on board a ship. "Now is the time," Ned said. "I will keep along the shore, under the cliff, until I get nearly to the landing; and will then strike out. Do you make for the castle, and tell them that the ship has arrived, and that we will attack tomorrow; but not at daybreak, as we proposed, but at noon." As Ned proceeded on his way along the shore, he saw suddenly blaze up, far ahead at the landing place, a small bonfire. "Ah!" he muttered to himself. "The natives have seen the ship, too; and are following the usual custom, here, of making a fire to show them where to land. I trust that they will not fall into the snare." When, however, he had reached within a quarter of a mile of the landing, he saw a small boat come suddenly within its range of light, and two white men step out of it. They were received, apparently, with much respect by the natives assembled there, and at once advanced up the road; while the boat, putting off, disappeared in the darkness. "They will be murdered," Ned said to himself, "before they have gone a hundred yards. The natives were crafty enough to allow them to land without hindrance, in order that no suspicion might arise among those on board ship." In the stillness of the night he thought that he heard a distant cry. But he was not sure that his ears had not deceived him. Far out he could see a faint light and, knowing that this marked the place where the ship was moored, he prepared to strike out for it. It was a long swim, and further than he had expected; for in the darkness the captain, unable to see the land, had prudently anchored at a considerable distance from it. Even, however, had it been several times as far, Ned could have swum the distance without difficulty; but the whole way he could not forget that those seas swarmed with sharks, and that any moment he might have to encounter one of those hideous monsters. He had left his sword behind him, but carried a dagger and, as he swam, kept his eyes in all directions, in order that he should not be attacked unprepared. The ocean was however, fortunately, at that time deserted by these beasts; or if they were in the neighborhood, the quiet, steady, noiseless stroke of the swimmer did not reach their ears. As he neared the ship his heart rose, and he sang out blithely, "Ship ahoy!" "Hullo!" was the reply. "Where are you? I cannot see your boat." "I am swimming," Ned answered. "Throw me a rope, to climb up the side. I have a message from the governor for the captain of the ship." A minute later Ned stood upon the deck of the Portuguese vessel, the soldiers and sailors looking on wonderingly at him, his body being white, but his face still colored by the preparation. The captain himself soon appeared. "I am the bearer of a message to you, senor, from the governor," Ned said. "It is here in this hollow reed. He gives you but few particulars, but I believe tells you that you may place every confidence in me, and that I have detailed instructions from him." The captain split open the little reed which Ned handed to him, and taking out a paper coiled within it, opened it, and by the light of a lantern read: "We are in a very critical position, and it will need at once courage and prudence to come out of it. I have sent my friend Don Eduardo Hearne, an English gentleman of repute, to warn you against the danger which threatens, and to advise you on your further proceedings. He will give you all particulars." The captain invited Ned to follow him to his cabin and, calling in the officers, asked for an explanation of this singular visit. Ned briefly entered into an account of the landing of the natives of Ternate, and of the present situation; and the captain rejoiced at the escape, which he had had, from falling into an ambuscade. This he would assuredly have done, had he landed the troops in the morning as he had intended, and marched them inland, fearing no danger, and unprepared for attack. Ned explained that the plan was that the troops on board the ship should land, and fight their way into the interior; and that, simultaneously, the garrison should sally out and attack the natives in the rear; and fight their way towards each other, until they effected a junction. They could then retire into the castle, where their future plans could be arranged. "I have, however," Ned said, "ventured to modify that plan, and have sent word to the governor that we shall not attack until noon, instead of landing at daybreak, as before arranged. We have been examining the position where the canoes are lying. They are all hauled up on the beach, in a compact body. It is in a quiet creek, whose mouth you would sail past without suspecting its existence. I cannot say, of course, the depth of water; but these creeks are generally deep, and I should think that there would be enough water for the ship to float. At any rate, should you not like to venture this, your pinnace might row in, carrying a gun in her bow, and might play havoc among the canoes. Or, better still, if you could send two boat loads of men there, tonight, and could manage to land and destroy a portion of the canoes, and launch and tow out the others, I think that we should have a fair chance of getting peace. The natives would be terrified at the loss of their canoes, and would be likely to make any terms which would ensure their return to their island." The captain at once agreed to the proposition. The three boats of the ship were lowered, and the sailors and soldiers took their places; only two or three being left on board ship, as there was no fear, whatever, of an attack from the shore during the night. Ned took his place in the leading boat of the captain, and acted as guide. They coasted along at a short distance from the land, until Ned told them to cease rowing. "We must," he said, "be close to the spot now; but it is needful that one boat should go forward, and find the exact entrance to the creek." Rowing very quietly, the boat in which he was advanced, until within a few yards of the shore; and then proceeded quietly along, for a distance of a few hundred yards, when the black line of shore disappeared, and a streak of water was seen stretching inland. Quietly they rowed back to the other two boats, and the three advancing, entered the creek together. Before starting, each officer had been assigned his work. The crew of one of the boats, consisting principally of soldiers, were to land, to advance a short distance inland, and to repulse any attacks that the natives might make upon them. Another party were to stave in all the small canoes and, this done, they were to assist the third boat's crew in launching the war canoes into the water. As they approached the spot they were hailed, in the Indian tongue, by someone on shore. No reply was given, and the hail was repeated louder. Then, as the boats rowed rapidly up to the place where the canoes were hauled up, a shrill yell of alarm was given, which was re-echoed in several directions near; and could be heard, growing fainter and fainter, as it was caught up by men inland. The moment the boats touched the shore the men leaped out. The soldiers advanced, and took up the position assigned to them to defend the working parties; while the rest set to, vigorously, to carry out their portion of the work. The war canoes were heavy, and each required the efforts of the whole of the crew to launch her into the water. It was, therefore, a work of considerable time to get fifteen of them afloat; and long ere this had been done, the natives, called together by the alarm, were flocking down in great numbers. They were, however, in entire ignorance as to the number of their assailants; and the fire which the soldiers opened, with their arquebuses, checked them in their advance. Feeling sure that their canoes were being destroyed, they filled the air with yells of lamentation and rage; discharging such volleys of arrows at random, in the direction of the Portuguese, that a great number of these were wounded. Indeed, the natives pressed on with such audacity that a considerable portion of the workers had to go forward, to assist the soldiers in holding them at bay. At last, however, the whole of the canoes were in the water, and every other boat disabled. The canoes were tied together, five abreast, and one of the boats towed these out of the harbor, while the crews of the others remained, keeping the natives at bay; for it was felt that if the whole were to embark at once, while still encumbered with the canoes, they would be able to get out of the creek but slowly; and would, for the most part, be destroyed by the arrows of the natives. When the boat had towed the canoes well out to sea, it cast them adrift and returned up the creek. Then, covered by the muskets of the soldiers, the others took their places, in good order and regularity, until at last all were in the boats. The soldiers were ordered to stand up, and to keep up a steady fire upon the shore; while the sailors laid to, with a hearty goodwill. The natives rushed down to the shore in great numbers, and although many of them must have fallen under the fire of the soldiers, they yet waded into the water, in their anxiety to seize the boats, and poured large numbers of arrows into them. When the three boats gained the open sea there were few, indeed, of the Portuguese who had not received wounds, more or less severe, by the arrows; and several had been killed, in addition to others who had fallen on shore. The soldiers had suffered much less severely than the sailors; for although they had been more hotly engaged, their breast pieces and steel caps had protected them, and they were principally wounded in the limbs. The canoes were now picked up, and with these in tow the party returned to the ship. Here their wounds were dressed, by a priest who accompanied the vessel in her voyages, landing at the different stations, and ministering to the garrisons of the islands. He had some knowledge of the healing art, and poured soothing oils into the wounds inflicted by the arrows. The men were much alarmed lest these arrows should be poisoned, but Ned assured them that none of those who had been wounded, during the attacks on shore, had died from the effects; and that, although it was the custom in many of these islands to use poisoned weapons, the people of Ternate, at least, did not practice this barbarous usage. Morning was just breaking as the party gained the ship, and the captain was glad that Ned had postponed the landing until midday; as it gave the tired men time to rest, and prepare themselves for fresh labors. As soon as the shore could be seen, it was evident that the destruction and carrying off of the canoes had created an immense impression. The cliff was lined with natives, whose gesticulations, as they saw their canoes fastened to the stern of the ship, were wild and vehement. A little before noon the boats were hauled up alongside, the soldiers took their places in them with loaded arquebuses, and as many sailors as could be spared also entered, to assist in their advance. The ship carried several pieces of artillery, and these were loaded, so as to open fire before the landing was effected, in order to clear the shore of the enemy. This was soon accomplished, and the natives who had assembled on the beach were seen, streaming up the road through the cliff. This was the most dangerous part that the advancing party would have to traverse, as they would be exposed to a heavy fire, from those standing above them, on both flanks. They would have suffered, indeed, very severely, had not the captain turned his guns upon the masses gathered on the high ground and, by one or two lucky shots plumped into the middle of them, created such an effect that the fire of arrows kept up upon the troops, as they advanced, was wild and confused. Several of the sailors were severely wounded, but the soldiers, well sheltered by their mail, pressed on and gained the level ground; their blood being fired, as they went, by the spectacle of the dead bodies of their first officer and supercargo, who had landed the night before. Here the natives were assembled in great force and, as they were now out of sight of those on board ship, the guns could no longer render assistance to the little party. These showed a good front as the masses of the enemy approached them, and charged boldly at them. The natives, however, maddened by the loss of their canoes, and feeling that their only hope was in annihilating their enemies, came on with such force, wielding heavy clubs, that the array of the Portuguese was broken, and in a short time each was fighting desperately for himself. Several had been stricken down and, although large numbers of the natives had been killed, it was plain that the victory would in a few minutes be decided; when suddenly a great shout was heard, and a volley of musketry was poured into the rear of the natives. The hard-pressed whites gave a cheer, for they knew that assistance had arrived from the castle. The natives, whose attention had been directed to the attack in front, were taken completely by surprise; and as both the parties of whites simultaneously charged, large numbers were unable to escape and were cut down, while the rest fled precipitately from the spot. Very hearty were the congratulations of the Portuguese, as the forces came together. Gerald had safely reached the castle, after some narrow escapes. He, having fallen among some sleeping natives, had been attacked and forced to trust to his speed. After a short consultation it was decided to press the enemy, and to leave them no time to recover from the demoralization caused by the loss of their boats, and the junction of the two parties of white men. The forces were, therefore, divided into two equal parts, and these started in different directions. Clump after clump of trees was searched, and the enemy driven from them. At first some resistance was made; but gradually the natives became completely panic stricken, and fled without striking a blow. Until nightfall the two parties continued to hunt, and shoot down, a large number of the natives. Then they returned to the castle. They now had a consultation as to the terms which they should grant the natives; for they had no doubt that victory had declared itself, finally, in their favor Some were for continuing the strife until the enemy were exterminated; but the governor of the island was opposed to this. "In the first place," he said, "mixed up with the Ternate people are all the natives of this island, and to exterminate them would be to leave us without labor, and to ruin the island. In the next place, the havoc which has been already wrought in our plantations is such that it will take years to repair; and the longer this fighting goes on, the more complete will be the destruction. I think, then, that we should grant them the easiest terms possible. They will be only too glad to escape, and to get back to their own land, and will be long before they invade us again." "I think," the officer who had arrived with the reinforcements of soldiers said, "it would be well, senor, if you were to consult with the priest who is on board. He is a man who has the ear of the council at Goa. He was but recently arrived, and knows but little of the natives; but he is full of zeal, and it would be well, I think, were we to make an arrangement of which he would perfectly approve; so that his report, when he reached Goa, should be altogether favorable" The governor agreed to this proposal, and decided to send a party down to the shore, in the morning, to bring the priest up to the castle. Early in the morning, a large crowd of natives were seen at a short distance. In their hands they held boughs of trees, and waved them to express their desire to enter into negotiations. The governor, however, fired two or three shots over their heads, as a signal to them to keep farther away, as their advances would not be received. Then, while a party went down to the shore to fetch the priest, he again sallied out and drove the natives before him. When the holy father arrived another council was held, and he was informed that the people were ready to treat, and asked what, in his opinion, should be the terms imposed upon them. He heard the arguments of the governor, in favor of allowing them to return to their island, but he said: "In my opinion it is essential, above all things, that they should be forced to accept Christianity." At this the Englishmen, and indeed the two Portuguese officers, could with difficulty repress a smile; but the governor at once saw that a wholesale conversion of this sort would do him much good with the authorities at Goa, and he therefore willingly fell into the priest's views. The next morning the natives again appeared with their green boughs; and the governor, with the officer, the priest, and a body of ten soldiers, went out to meet them. The King of Ternate advanced, and bowed himself submissively to the ground, and expressed his submission; and craved for pardon, and for permission to return with his people to Ternate, promising solemnly that never again would they meddle with the Portuguese settlement. The governor, who spoke the language fluently, having been there for some years, uttered an harangue reproaching him with his folly, and wickedness, in wantonly declaring war against the Portuguese. He pointed to the destroyed plantations, and asked if any punishment could be too great for the ruin caused. The king and his councilors offered to pay large tributes, annually, of spice and other products, until the ruined plantations were again in bearing. "This will not repay us for the losses we have suffered, and for the evil spirit which you have introduced into this island. "We have, however," the governor said, "only your interests at heart; and therefore we have decided to pardon you, and to allow you to return to your island, upon the condition that you and all your people embrace Christianity, and pay such a tribute as we may impose." The king had no understanding of the meaning of what was proposed to him, and the governor said that he and his people were, in the morning, to assemble before the castle, and that the holy father, who had been sent on purpose to turn them from the wickedness of their ways, would then explain the doctrines of Christianity to them; that if they accepted and believed what he said, pardon would be theirs; if not, they would be hunted down until all were destroyed. Next morning the assembly took place in front of the castle gate. The King of Ternate, surrounded by all his principal councilors and warriors, took his place, while the fighting men stood around him. The priest mounted on the platform of the wall, the governor standing beside him to interpret. The Englishmen, much amused at the ceremony, stood at a short distance off. They did not wish to be recognized by any of the people of Ternate, as it was possible that some English vessels might again come into these seas, and they did not desire that the pleasant remembrance of the visit of the Golden Hind should be obliterated, by the sight of some of its crew in alliance with the Portuguese. The priest began an elaborate explanation of the Christian religion, which he continued for the space of two hours; to the surprise and astonishment of the natives, who could not, of course, comprehend a single word that he said. Then he paused, and turning to the governor said: "Will you translate this, for the benefit of these benighted heathens?" "I fear," said the governor, "that it will be impossible for me to do full justice to your eloquent words; and, indeed, that these poor wretches would scarcely take in so much learning and wisdom all at once; but in a few words I will give them the sense of what you have been telling them." Then, lifting up his voice, he addressed the king. "There is only one God. These idols of yours are helpless, and useless. We have brought ashore those from your war canoes, which my men will now proceed to burn, and you will see that your gods will be unable to help themselves. Indeed, they are not gods, and have no power. God is good, and hates wickedness. All men are wicked. Therefore He would hate all men; but He has sent His Son down, and for His sake pardons all who believe in Him. "Now, if you believe in Him, as I tell you, you will be pardoned both by us and by God. If you do not believe, we shall kill you all, and you will be punished eternally. Now you have the choice what to do." The matter, thus pithily put, did not require much consideration. After a short consultation between the chiefs, the king demanded what ceremonies would have to be gone through, to become Christians; and was informed, by the governor, that the only ceremony would be that he would have to declare himself a Christian; that the priest would make upon him the sign of a cross with his finger, and would sprinkle him with water; and that, when this was done, he would be a Christian. Much relieved to find that the entry into this new religion was so easy, the king and his people at once agreed to accept Christianity. The governor informed them that the priest thought that they were hardly yet prepared, but that on the morrow the ceremony should take place, after a further explanation. The next day a great altar was erected outside the walls of the castle, gay with banners and wax lights. Before this the King of Ternate and his people assembled, the gunners on the walls standing, with lighted matches, by their cannon in case of trouble. The priest then made another long oration, which was again briefly and emphatically translated by the governor. The king and all his people then knelt and, according to the instruction of the priest, made the sign of the cross. The priest then went along between the lines of the people, sprinkling them with holy water, and this being done the ceremony was declared complete, and the King of Ternate and his people were received into the bosom of the Church. Then, escorted by the soldier, they were taken down to the seashore. The two white men were permitted to depart with them. The governor had, at first, insisted that these should be put to death. They pleaded, however, that they had acted under force; and, Ned interceding for them, their lives were granted on the condition that they should, on reaching Ternate, at once embark for some other island, and never return to Ternate. The canoes were brought alongside and, there being now no fear of any attempt at resistance, as the entire body of invaders had given up their arms, they were allowed to enter the canoes, and to paddle away to their own island; with numbers greatly diminished from those which had landed, to the attack of Tidore, a week before. The governor and the priest were, alike, delighted at the termination of the war; the former because he was really anxious for the good of the colony which had been entrusted to him, and believed that it would now progress peaceably, and without disturbance. He believed, too, that his successful resistance, to so large a body of enemies, would insure him the approval of the viceroy at Goa; and that the report of the priest would also obtain for him the valuable protection and patronage of the ecclesiastics, whose power in the eastern seas was even greater than it was at home. Tidore was the furthest of the Portuguese settlements, and the ship, having now made her round, was to return direct to Goa. The priest hesitated whether to remain, or to return in her. He had made it one of the conditions of peace with Ternate that a missionary should be received there, a place of worship erected, and that he should be allowed to open schools, and to teach the tenets of his religion to all; and he hesitated whether he would, himself, at once take up that post, or whether he would report the matter at Goa, where perhaps it might be decided to send a priest who had acquired something of the language of the Southern Seas. He finally decided upon the latter course. The governor furnished the lads with letters, recommending them most warmly to the viceroy, and stating the great services which they had rendered to him in the defense of the island; saying, indeed, that had it not been for their prudence, and valor, it was probable that the natives would have succeeded in destroying the small body of Portuguese, and in massacring the reinforcements landed from the vessel. The priest also, while viewing the young men with the natural horror of a Portuguese ecclesiastic for heretics, was yet impressed with the services that they had rendered; and considered their own shortcomings to be, in a great measure, atoned for by the wholesale conversion which had, to some extent, been effected by their means. Bidding a hearty adieu to the governor, they took their places on board ship and sailed for Goa. It was a six weeks' voyage, but the vessel was well furnished with provisions and, after their hardships, the boys greatly enjoyed the rest and tranquility on board. In due time they found themselves lying off the mouth of the river up which, at a short distance from its mouth, the capital of Portuguese India was situated. Chapter 22: Home. The captain, who was accompanied by the priest, rowed up the river to report the arrival of the ship and the events of his voyage to the authorities, and to place in their hands the letter of the governor of Tidore. Twenty-four hours later the captain returned, with orders for the ship to sail up the river; and that, on their arrival, the young Englishmen were to be landed and conducted to the presence of the viceroy himself. The young adventurers, much as they had traveled, were greatly struck with the appearance of Goa. It was, indeed, a city of palaces, most solidly built of stone, and possessing an amount of magnificence and luxury which surpassed anything they had ever seen. In the streets a few Portuguese, magnificently dressed and escorted by guards, moved among a throng of gaily attired natives; whose slight figures, upright carriage, and intelligent faces struck the boys as most pleasing, after their experience of the islanders of the South Seas. The immense variety of turbans and headgear greatly astonished them, as well as the magnificence of the dresses of some of these, who appeared to be men of importance and who were attended by a retinue of armed followers. The young men were escorted by two officers of the viceroy, who had come on board ship as soon as she dropped anchor, to conduct them to his presence. At the sight of these officials the natives hastily cleared the way, and made every demonstration of respect, as the party passed through them. The vice-regal palace was a magnificent building, surpassing any edifice the boys had ever seen, and they were still more struck by the luxury of the interior. They were led through several vestibules, until at last they arrived in a large chamber. At a table here the viceroy was seated, while around him were a large number of the councilors and leading men of the place. The viceroy rose as the young men advanced, and bowed profoundly. "You are, I hear, Englishmen; and I am told, but I can scarcely believe it, that you belong to the ship of the Captain Drake whose exploits in the West Indies, against the Spaniards, have made him so famous. But how, belonging to him, you came to be cast on an island in the South Seas is more than we are able to understand." No news of the expedition had reached the Portuguese, and the surprise of the viceroy was only natural. "The Golden Hind, sir, the vessel in which we were gentlemen adventurers, rounded Cape Horn, sailed up the American coast, and then, keeping west, crossed through the islands; and has, we trust, long since rounded the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in England, having circumnavigated the globe." An expression of surprise broke from the assembled Portuguese. But a frown passed over the face of the viceroy. "What was the object of your captain, in visiting these seas?" he asked "They are the property of Portugal, and without the permission of his majesty, no ship of any other nation may pass through our waters." "I can assure you," Ned said, "that there was no object, either of conquest or of trade, on the part of our admiral in visiting these seas. When he rounded the Cape his object was to discover, if possible, a passage round the northern coast of America back to England. But when we went north we found the cold was great, and that the land stretched away so that it would join with Asia to the north. Being convinced, then, that no passage could be obtained in that way, he sailed for England round the Cape of Good Hope, fearing the dangers of a passage round the Horn, by which he lost on our passage out two of his ships, and was well-nigh wrecked himself. He only abode in the islands of the South Seas for a few days, to get provisions and water, and then sailed straight for home." Assured by this explanation, the viceroy now begged the boys to sit down, and he and his council listened with admiration and astonishment to the records of the expedition, and especially to the passage across America of two of the young men before him. The depredations which had been committed upon the Spaniards excited no indignation among the Portuguese; for these nations were rivals, and although they did not put their contentions to the test of the sword, each was glad enough to hear of any misfortune befalling the other. The viceroy now assured the young men that he was proud to welcome the members of so gallant a crew as that of the great English navigator. "England and Portugal," he said, "did not clash, and were always natural allies." He trusted they would always remain so, and in the meantime he should be glad to treat the boys with all honor, and to forward them home by the first ship which might be sailing. Apartments were now assigned to them in the palace, and here they were delighted to find a stock of clothes suited for them. For the next fortnight they passed a pleasant time at Goa. They were the objects of much attention on the part of the Portuguese, and all vied in the attempt to make their stay pleasant to them. They found that the town of Goa occupied but a small space, and that it was strongly fortified, and the Portuguese made no attempt to conceal their very high estimate of the fighting power of the natives. One young officer, who was specially told off to accompany the lads, and who spoke Spanish fluently, was particularly frank in his description of the state of affairs. "All these gaily dressed natives that one sees in the streets are, I suppose, Christians?" Ned asked. "No, indeed," the other said surprised. "What should make you think so?" Ned replied that, in America, he had found that the Spaniards insisted on all the natives at once embracing Christianity, on pain of death. "The Spaniards," the young Portuguese said, "are lords and masters there. The natives are weak and timid, and able to offer no resistance, whatever. That is very far from being our position here. We are, I can assure you, only here on sufferance. You can have no idea of the power of some of these native sovereigns of India. The Mahrattas, who live beyond the mountains you see on the horizon, could pour down such hosts of armed men that, if they combined against us, no resistance that we could offer would be likely to be successful. And yet they are but one among a score of warlike peoples. "So long as we do not attempt to proselytize, and are content to appear as merchants and traders, no general feeling exists against our residence here. But I can assure you that, if it became known in India that we were forcing the natives to accept Christianity, the footing which we have obtained here would be speedily lost. These people have regular armies. They may not, indeed, be trained as are ours at home but individually they are very brave. They have artillery of heavy caliber. "In the South Seas, as you know, we endeavor to convert the heathen. The people there are degraded savages by the side of these Indians. But we do not adopt the strong methods which the Spaniards have done. We have, in Portugal, a good deal of your English freedom of opinion, and the Inquisition has never gained any firm footing amongst us." Upon one occasion the boys had the satisfaction of seeing a grand Indian durbar; for the chief, on the corner of whose territory the Portuguese had built their town with his permission, came in to see the viceroy. The boys were surprised at the magnificence of his cavalcade, in which elephants, camels, and other animals took part, and in which the trappings and appointments were gorgeous, indeed, while the dresses of the chiefs absolutely shone with jewels. The attendants, however, made but a poor show, according to European ideas. There was at this time, in European armies, no attempt at regular uniform, but there was a certain resemblance between the attire and arms of the men who fought side by side. When upon the march regularity and order were maintained, and the men kept together in step. Nothing of this kind was apparent among the troops who accompanied the Indian chief. They marched along by the side of the elephants, and in groups ahead and in rear of them, in a confused disorder; and it seemed to the lads that a mere handful of European troops would rout such a rabble as this. They said as much to their Portuguese friend, but he told them that the people on the coast could scarcely be considered as a fair sample of those who dwelt in the hill country behind. "The climate here," he said, "is much more relaxing. Vegetation is extremely abundant, and all the necessities of life can be obtained in the easiest manner. Consequently the people here are enervated, and cannot be compared to the horsemen of the plains. The seat of the Indian power lies at Agra and Delhi--sometimes one and sometimes the other. The emperors there can take the field with two hundred thousand men, if necessary; and even these, with all their power, have difficulty in maintaining their authority throughout India. You may judge, therefore, of the power of the various territorial chiefs." A fortnight later, to their great delight, the lads heard that a vessel would start in three days for Lisbon. She was taking home a large cargo of spice, and articles of Indian manufacture, and a number of invalided soldiers. She was said to be a slow sailer, but as no other was likely to start for some months, the lads did not hesitate to avail themselves of the offer of the viceroy. At parting he presented them each with a sword set with diamonds, and also purses of money, in token of his appreciation of the valor displayed by them in the defense of Tidore. "It is," the viceroy said, "an honor to us to honor the members of the greatest marine expedition which has yet been made. We Portuguese may boast that we have been among the foremost in maritime discovery, and we can therefore the more admire the feats of your valiant Captain Drake." The ship, the Maria Pia, was a large one, far greater, indeed, than the Golden Hind, and the boys felt that in a floating castle of this description, their voyage ought to be a safe and pleasant one. The captain had received instructions to do all in his power to make the voyage agreeable to them. A handsome cabin had been placed at their disposal, and their position on board was altogether an honorable one. The result justified their expectations. The voyage, although long, passed without incident. The Maria Pia experienced fine weather round the Cape and, catching the trade winds, made her course northward, and arrived off the mouth of the Tagus without accident or adventure of any kind. Sailing up the river, she fired a salute with her guns, which was answered by those of the fort at the entrance. The news had been signaled to the capital of the arrival of a ship from the Indies, and officials boarded her, as soon as she cast anchor. The captain at once went on shore, and reported to the minister of the Indies the news which he had brought from Goa, and gave an account of his voyage. He delivered a letter from the viceroy, stating that he had given a passage to four English gentlemen, who had formed part of Captain Drake's equipage, and who had rendered very great services in defeating an attack upon the island of Tidore by the people of Ternate, of which matters, the viceroy added, the gentlemen would themselves give a full account. The minister at once sent on board an official, to request the young men to land; and upon their so doing, he received them with great courtesy, and gave a grand banquet the next day, at which the British minister was present. The lads were delighted, upon landing, to receive the news that the Golden Hind had arrived safely in England four months before, and that all Europe was ringing with the great feat which she had accomplished. The lads found that they were received, by the distinguished company which met them at the table of the minister, with much honor and respect, and this was heightened upon their giving a detailed account of the adventures which had befallen them since leaving England. The British minister offered them a passage to England in one of the Queen's ships; and having provided them amply with money, they were enabled to make a good appearance, and to enter with zest into the round of festivities of which they were made the objects during their stay. They were presented to the king, who received them most graciously, and presented each with a sword of honor. Three weeks later they sailed up the Thames, and upon landing in London at once inquired for the residence of Captain Drake. This they had no difficulty in discovering, as he was the hero of the hour. It was with great pleasure that they were received by the commander. He expressed but little surprise at seeing them; for, as he told them, he made sure that sooner or later they would arrive, and had given orders that, upon the division of the great sums which had been gained by the Golden Hind on her voyage, their shares should be scrupulously set aside. "You had twice before," he said to Ned, "appeared after we had all given you up as dead; and I could not believe that the four of you, together, could all have succumbed. "We got off the reef the next day, shifting her cargo all upon one side and hoisting some sail, so that the wind bore her down, her keel lifted from the reef upon which she had fastened, and without damage she went into deep water. We spent four days in looking for you. We landed at the island to which you had been directed, and searched it thoroughly. We then went to an island further to the south, and spent three days in cruising round its shores. We landed and captured some natives, but could not learn from them that they had seen any traces of you, whatever. Most on board conceived that the canoe must have upset, and that you must have been drowned; but I never believed this, and felt convinced that, from some unknown reason, you had been unable to return to the ship, but that sooner or later you would arrive. "From that point all went well with us. We had a rapid voyage down to the Cape, and coasted along it at a short distance. The weather was fair, and we turned our head north without loss of time; and so, by the help of Providence, and a fair wind, we made our course to England, where our gracious sovereign has been pleased to express her approval of our doings. "I told her something of your journey across the south of the American continent, and she was pleased to express her sorrow at the loss of such gallant and promising gentlemen. I am sure that her majesty will receive, with pleasure, the news of your return. "Now, tell me all that has happened since I last saw you." Ned recited the history of their adventures, and Captain Francis approved of the course which they had taken, in making for Tidore instead of Ternate. He was greatly amused at their experiences as South Sea deities, and said that henceforth, let them be lost where they would, or for as long as they might be, he would never again feel any uneasiness as to their fate. He invited them to take up their abode with him, while they stayed in London; and although they were eager to return to Devonshire, he told them that he thought they ought to wait until he had communicated with the Queen, and had seen whether she would wish to see the gentlemen in whom she had kindly expressed interest. Captain Drake had received the honor of knighthood from the Queen's hand on his return from his voyage, and was now Sir Francis Drake, and was for the time the popular idol of the people, whose national pride was deeply gratified at the feat of circumnavigation, now for the first time performed by one of their countrymen. Captain Drake dispatched a letter to her majesty at Westminster, and the following day a royal messenger arrived, with an order that he should bring the four gentlemen adventurers with him, and present them to her majesty. The young men felt not a little awed at the thought of being received by Queen Elizabeth. But upon their presentation by Sir Francis, the Queen received them with so much condescension and grace that their fears were speedily removed. "I thought," she said to Captain Drake, "that I should see four huge and bearded paladins. You told me indeed that they were young, but I had not pictured to myself that they were still beardless striplings, although in point of size they do credit to their native country. "I love to listen to tales of adventure," she continued, "and beg that you will now recite to me the story of those portions of your voyage, and journeyings, of which I have not heard from the lips of Sir Francis." Then, modestly, Ned recited the story of their journey across America, and afterwards took up the narrative at the point when they left the ship, and her majesty was pleased to laugh hugely at the story of their masquerading as gods. When they had finished she invited them to a banquet, to be given at Greenwich on the following day, gave them her hand to kiss, and presented each with a diamond ring, in token of her royal favor. The following day they went down in the barge of Sir Francis Drake, which formed part of the grand cortege which accompanied her majesty on her water passage to Greenwich. There a royal banquet was held, with much splendor and display; after which a masque, prepared by those ingenious authors Mr. Beaumont and Mr. Fletcher, was enacted before her. Three days later they embarked upon a country ship, bound for Plymouth, and after a rough tossing in the Channel, landed there. They were received with much honor by the mayor and dignitaries of Plymouth, for Sir Francis had already written down, giving a brief account of their adventures, and of the marks of esteem which the Queen had been pleased to bestow upon them; and Plymouth, as the representative of the county of Devon, rejoiced in giving a hearty welcome to her sons, who had brought so much credit upon them. After a stay of a few hours the lads separated, Tom and Reuben each starting for their respective homes, while Ned, who had no family of his own, accompanied Gerald, in whose home he was looked upon almost as a son, and where the welcome which awaited him was as cordial as that given to Gerald. The share of each of the adventurers in the Golden Hind was a very large one, and Ned purchased a nice little property and settled down upon it, having had enough of the dangers of the seas, and resolving no more to leave his native country, unless his duty to his Queen should demand his services. That time was not long in arriving, for towards the end of 1586 all Europe rang with the preparations which Philip of Spain was making to invade England. The Devonshire gentlemen who had fought on the Spanish Main, and who but lightly esteemed Spanish valor at sea, at first scoffed at the news, but soon no doubt could be entertained. Early in 1587 Sir Francis Drake wrote, to his friends who had fought under him, that her majesty had honored him with a commission to beat up the Spanish coast, and invited them to accompany him. The four friends hastened, with many others, to obey the summons; and on joining him at Plymouth, he was pleased to appoint each to the command of a ship. Some weeks were spent in earnest preparation, and in March a fleet of thirty vessels set forth, full manned and equipped. Accustomed as the young men were to see great Spanish ships taken by single boats, and a whole fleet submissive before one ship, it seemed to them that with such an armament they could destroy the whole navies of Spain, and even then that little glory would be divided between each vessel. Upon the 18th of April the fleet was off Cadiz, and Sir Francis made the signal for the captains of the fleet to go on board the flagship. There he unfolded to them his plan of forcing the entrance to the port, and destroying the Spanish fleet gathered there. Cadiz was one of the strongest places of Spain, and the enterprise would, to most men, have seemed a desperate one. But to men who had fought in the Spanish Main it seemed but a light thing. As they left the admiral's cabin, Ned invited his three friends to dine on board his ship, the Sovereign; and a right merry gathering it was, as they talked over their past adventures, and marveled to find themselves each commanding a ship, about to attack the fleet of Spain in its own harbor. Upon the following day the fleet sailed boldly towards the port of Cadiz, where the people could scarce believe that the British intended to force the entrance to the fort. When they saw that such was indeed their purpose, they opened fire with all their batteries, great and small. The English ships sailed on, unheeding their reception, and delivering their broadsides as they neared the port. Although they had been in many fights, this was the first great battle at which the friends had been present; and the roar and din of the combat, the sound of their own guns and of those of the enemy, the crash and rending of wood, and the cheers of the sailors in no little surprised them. The Spanish gunners in their haste shot but badly, and with Sir Francis Drake's ship leading the way, the fleet forced the entrance into the port. As they entered they were saluted by the cannon of the Spanish vessels within, but without more ado they lay these aboard. So mightily were the Spaniards amazed by the valor, and boldness of the English that they fought but feebly, jumping over for the most part, or making their way in their boats to shore. Then Sir Francis caused fire to be applied to the Spanish ships, and thirty great war vessels were destroyed before the eyes of the townspeople, while the English fleet sailed triumphantly away. Then, following the line of coast as far as Saint Vincent, the admiral captured and burned a hundred other ships, and destroyed four great land forts. Looking into the Tagus, the King of Portugal having been forced by Spain to aid her, Captain Drake captured the Saint Philip, the largest ship of their navy; which was, to the gratification of the sailors, laden with a precious cargo. After these exploits the fleet returned to England in triumph, having for the time crippled the forces of Spain. Philip, however, redoubled his preparations. The fleets of Naples and Sicily, of Venice and Genoa, were added to those of Spain. The dockyards worked night and day, and by the end of the year all was in readiness. In England men had not been idle. A great army was raised of people of every rank and condition, Catholics as well as Protestants uniting in the defense of the country; while in every port round, the din of preparation was heard. The army was destined to combat the thirty thousand Spanish soldiers commanded by the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands, where a fleet of transports had been prepared to bring them across, when the great armada should have cleared the sea of English ships. By dint of great efforts, 191 English ships of various sizes, these mostly being small merchantmen--mere pygmies in comparison with the great Spanish galleons--were collected, while the Dutch dispatched sixty others to aid in the struggle against Spain. On the 29th of May the Spanish armada sailed from the Tagus but, being delayed by a storm, it was not till the 19th of June that its advance was first signaled by the lookout near Plymouth. Then from every hill throughout England beacon fires blazed to carry the tidings, and every Englishman betook himself to his arms, and prepared to repel the invaders. Instead, however, of attempting to land at once, as had been expected, the Spanish fleet kept up channel; the orders of the king being that it should make first for Flanders, there form junction with the fleet of the Duke of Parma, and so effect a landing upon the English coast. As the great fleet, numbering a hundred and thirty large war vessels, and extending in the form of a crescent nine miles in length from horn to horn, sailed up channel, the spectacle, although terrible, was magnificent indeed. The ships at Plymouth at once slipped anchor and set out in pursuit. Sir Francis Drake led, and close by him were the vessels commanded by the four friends. Paltry, indeed, did the squadron appear by the side of the great fleet, but from every port as they passed along came reinforcements, until in numbers they equaled those of the great ships of Spain. These reinforcements were commanded by Admirals Hawkins, Frobisher, and other gallant seamen; while Lord Howard, lord high admiral of England, was in chief command. There was no general action attempted, for the floating Spanish castles could have ridden over the light ships of England; but each commander fell upon the enemy, like dogs upon the flank of an array of lions. Sir Francis threw himself into the center of the Spanish lines, followed by many other English ships, and thus separated several of the great galleons from their consorts, and then fell to work battering them. The Spaniards fought valiantly, but at a disadvantage, for the smaller ships of the English were so quickly handled that they were able to take up positions to rake their enemy, without exposing themselves to the broadsides which would have sunk them. When at last they had crippled their foes, they would either close upon them and carry them by boarding, or, leaving them helpless wrecks upon the water, would hoist all sail and again overtake the Spanish fleet. The battle continued day and night for five days, with scarce an intermission, the various English admirals sometimes attacking all together, sometimes separately. The same tactics ever prevailed, the Spaniards sailing on and striving to keep in a compact body, the English hovering round them, cutting off every ship which lagged behind, breaking the ranks of the enemy, and separating vessels from their consorts. Hard was it to say that, in that long struggle, one man showed more valor than another, but the deeds of the ships commanded by the Devonshire gentlemen were second to none. On the 27th their ships were signaled to sail to join those assembled near Dunkirk, to check the progress of the Duke of Parma's fleet. They reached the English fleet in time, and soon the Spaniards were seen approaching. They kept in a compact mass, which the English ships could not break. For a while the fight went badly, and then a number of fire ships were launched at the Spaniards. Seized with panic, these at once scattered and, the English falling upon them, a series of desperate conflicts ensued, ending almost always in the capture or destruction of the enemy. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who commanded the main Spanish fleet, sailed north, intending to coast round the north of Scotland and so return to Spain. The English ships followed for a while, but were, from the shortness of the supplies which had been placed on board, forced to put into harbor; and a great storm scattering the Spanish fleet, and wrecking many, only 60 vessels, and these with their crews disabled by hardship and fatigue, ever returned to Spain. As a consequence of their gallantry in these battles, and upon the urgent recommendations of Sir Francis Drake, her majesty was pleased to bestow the honor of knighthood upon each of the four young Devonshire gentlemen, as upon many other brave captains. After this they went no more to sea, nor took any part in the disastrous expedition which Admirals Drake and Hawkins, together, made to the Spanish Main, when the brave Sir Francis lost his life, from fever and disappointment. Soon after their return from the defeat of the armada, Sir Edward Hearne married the only sister of his friend Gerald, and lived with her happily to a green old age. The friendship between the four friends never diminished, but rather increased as they grew in years, and many marriages took place between their children and grandchildren. Four times a year, upon the occasion of special events in their lives, great family gatherings were held at the house of one or other. Sir Gerald generally held festival on the anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish attack on the forest fortress in Porto Rico; Tom upon that of his escape from the prison of the Inquisition; Reuben generally celebrated the day when, in the character of a South Sea idol, he aided to defeat the hostile islanders; while Ned kept up the anniversary of their return to England. As to the victory over the armada, they always had to draw lots as to the house in which that great event should be celebrated. Upon all these occasions stories were told at great length, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, for all lived to see these growing up, were never tired of listening to tales of the Spanish Main.