After a fairly uneventful journey, the company arrived at the other side of the isthmus, and found before them a high mountain, up which they toiled, to see, as Pedro had told them, the great sea. The summit being reached, they saw that on a tree-trunk the Cimaroons had cut steps, and in its branches had erected a platform. Drake clambered up to this, and stood there facing the sea—the mighty Pacific rolling before him, the great Atlantic spread out behind him. He had come within sight of the South Sea—the first Englishman to do so.
A moment’s silence. The sight seemed too much for the adventurer; then, bursting out a vow that he would be the first Englishman to sail its waters, he cried:
“But one thing do I ask of Heaven, and that to sail once in an English ship in that sea!”
Then, having feasted his eyes upon the scene before him, he called up his company, and there, one by one, the English sailors registered their vows to follow him wherever he went, and when.
But there was no time to dally. Pressing work must be attended to; the future must be left to itself. So away towards Panama City Drake and his men went, cutting their way through the forest and keeping a good look-out lest they be surprised by Spaniards. However, they escaped notice, and after two days’ hard work came to open country, and before them lay Panama, the city of gold and silver; and away in the harbour rode the treasure fleet, waiting to disgorge its rich cargoes.
The day was still young when they came within sight of their objective, and, knowing that they must not be seen yet, Drake kept his men under cover until night, meanwhile sending a Cimaroon to spy out the land and to discover when the treasure-train would set out on its journey to Nombre de Dios.
Anxiously the adventurers waited, longing to get to business, wondering whether it might happen that they would have to wait hidden very long. But presently the spy came back with news that cheered, and made them feel that they had the treasure in their hands already! That very night the treasure-train was to set out for Nombre de Dios—a train of fifty mules, heavy laden, to be followed the next night by two other trains of like size. How those Englishmen’s fingers itched!
But they knew there would be stern work before them ere their hands laid hold on the treasure, and, wasting no time on anticipatory visions, they marched forward through the darkness till they came to the junction of the Nombre de Dios and Panama roads. Here Drake disposed his forces carefully, dividing them into two companies of eight Englishmen and fifteen Cimaroons—a company on each side of the road, under command of Drake and John Oxenham respectively. The companies were posted, not exactly opposite each other, but in such positions that one could seize the hindmost mules and the other the foremost, and so get the Spaniards between two fires.
There followed an anxious time of waiting, during which a man dared hardly breathe, let alone speak. Then through the night air came the cheery tinkling of bells, and they knew that the train was approaching. The only thing that worried them was that the tinkling came from two ways—from Venta Cruz and from Panama. They knew that the treasure-train would not come from Venta Cruz; but the question was which would get there first?
They needn’t have worried; the whole matter was settled for them! One of Drake’s men had been drinking too much, and the neat brandy had got into his head; so that when he heard the bells he got muddled and lost his sense of locality. When the bells from Venta Cruz drew nearer he thought they were the bells from Panama. Now, the former heralded only the approach of a single Spanish officer, who would have been allowed to proceed without molestation had not the drunken sailor raised himself up from the long grass to hurl himself at the Spaniard. Quick as lightning a Cimaroon hauled him back. But too late; the officer had seen the white shirt which the man wore—as did his comrades, for identification—and, suspicious that there should be anyone lying in wait at such a spot, and at such a time, he urged his mule on towards Panama at top speed, expecting to be followed.