As they sailed west they got entangled among islands and shoals, and on the 9th of January 1579 they sailed full tilt upon a rocky shoal and stuck fast.
Boats were got out to find a place for an anchor upon which they might haul, but at the distance of a boat's length they found deep water and no bottom. The ship remained on the shoal all that night. First they tried every shift they could think of, but the treasure-laden vessel refused to budge. Then Drake, seeing all was hopeless, and that not only the treasure, but all their lives, were likely to be lost, summoned the men to prayers. In solemn preparation for death they took the Sacrament together.
Then, when the ship seemed fast beyond their strength to move her, Drake, with the same instinct that prompted Cromwell after him to say, "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry," gave orders to throw overboard eight guns.
They went splash into the six feet of water by the side, and the ship took no notice at all; so Drake, with a sigh, cried, "Throw out three tons of cloves—sugar—spices—anything;" till the sea was like a caudle all around. And the Golden Hind still rested quietly on the shelving rock, with only six feet of water on one side, whereas it needed thirteen to float her. The wind blew freshly and kept her upright as the tide went down. The crew began to look curiously at one another, and to wonder what would happen when all their food was consumed.
At the lowest of the tide the wind suddenly fell, and the ship losing this support, fell over sideways towards the deep water.
So they were to be drowned after all, for she must fill now.
No; there was a harsh scraping sound heard. Could it be possible? Yes; her keel was slipping down the slope very gently and mercifully.
What a shout these sea-worn mariners raised; how they thanked God for this salvation; for the relief had come at low tide, when all their efforts seemed to be useless. Surely it was a miracle—an answer to their captain's prayers. On reaching Java, Drake was informed that there were large ships not far off—Portuguese settlements were rather too near to be safe; so he steered for the Cape of Good Hope, which his men thought "a most stately thing, and the fairest cape they had seen in the whole circumference of the earth."
As the Golden Hind sailed along by Sierra Leone and towards Europe, the great sea rover must have felt that the prayer he had breathed within the mammoth tree on Darien six years before was at last fulfilled.
He had sailed the South Sea and crossed the Pacific and made the compass of the round world in the Golden Hind within three years.