On the last night of March, as the mule-trains, laden with silver and gold, were drawing near to Nombre de Dios, there was a sudden yell from the Maroons, "Yo Peho!" and a crashing of firearms. The mules knelt down, and Drake's men rifled the packs, and were away before the alarm could be given.
One day before this, a Huguenot privateer came across an English ship and begged for help. "Come on board and tell your story," signalled the English captain.
The Frenchman came and told a tale which startled all who understood. It was just the latest news from Paris—nothing else but the St. Bartholomew massacre!
"Just God!" cried Francis Drake, "may I do something to crush this tyranny!"
There and then the Huguenot and the sea-rover made a compact to work together. The Frenchmen were with Drake when he made his attack on the mule-train, and helped to carry the silver bars to the river-mouth, where the pinnaces were to meet them. Drenched by a rain-storm they looked for the pinnaces; but, instead, saw seven Spanish vessels rowing towards Nombre de Dios. What was the good of their staggering under a weight of treasure if they had no means of carrying it home! They sat down and looked at one another in blank despair.
But Francis Drake alone was laughing—positively laughing—though his fate was apparently sealed; torture and a hideous prison, and a shameful death.
The Frenchmen gazed upon him with open-mouthed wonder. Who was this short, well-set seaman, with broad chest and long brown hair, with full beard tapering, brown to russet, with full blue eyes and fair complexion, that he should exercise so strange an influence over his men?
For already, when Drake came to them, and in a few cheery words heartened them, they smiled the smile of hope, and were ready to do his bidding.
"Now, boys, cheer up! See ye not how God hath sent a heavy storm to help us? What are those things drifting down with the current? are they not big trees sent to help us home, boys? Come, let us make a raft; we will reach our ships long before the lazy Spaniards have made up their minds how to catch us. This is no time to fear, but rather to haste, and prevent that which is feared. The raft, boys, the raft! quick! to stay the tree-trunks."
In a very short time they had caught and harnessed the drifting trunks—one Englishman and two Frenchmen joined Drake upon the raft. They had a biscuit-bag for a sail and a slender tree for a rudder, and as they pushed off into the stream, Drake waved his hat and shouted cheerily: