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]