“To God alone,” spake an humble citizen of Plymouth, “be the Glory.”
DRAKE’S GREATEST VICTORY ON THE SPANISH MAIN.
(The surrender of Don Anton to Sir Francis Drake, March 1, 1579.)
And all echoed these pious sentiments, in spite of the fact that Drake was a robber, a pirate, and a buccaneer. But was he not their own countryman?
The scene now changes. It is a gray day at Plymouth and anxious faces peer into the street from the windows of the low, tiled houses. A crowd has collected upon the jutting cliffs and all gaze with eager eyes towards the ocean. Men speak in hushed and subdued voices, for there is trouble in the air.
Among the knots of keen-eyed English there is one small party which seems to be as joyous as a lot of school-boys. Five men are playing at bowls, and one of them is stout, and well knit, and swarthy visaged with long exposure to the elements. He is laughing uproariously, when a lean fellow comes running from the very edge of those beetling cliffs which jut far out into the gray, green Atlantic.
“Hark’ee, Captain Drake!” he cries. “Ships are in the offing, and many of them too! It must be the fleet of Philip of Spain come to ravage our beauteous country!”
“Ah, indeed,” answers the staunch-figured captain, without looking up. “Then let me have one last shot, I pray thee, before I go to meet them.”