“Your Majesty,” said the ambassador, “this man Drake has sunk our ships, stolen our treasure, and interfered with our possessions in the New World.”
“If you can prove his misdeeds to my satisfaction,” rejoined the queen with a little yawn, “this wonderful treasure of yours shall be restored, though one might think it was but fair payment for the rebellions that Spain has caused in Ireland—or does my good friend Philip claim Ireland too for his own? As for his possessions in the New World, I don’t know what right the Pope has to give away continents. The sea and the air are free to all, and neither Pope nor Spain can keep my brave captains from sailing the ocean, I doubt whether I could keep them from it myself. Shall we talk of other matters? You have an excellent taste in music, and here is a rare bit of song that has but newly come to me:—
“‘The little pretty nightingale
Among the leaves green—’”
“Your Majesty,” broke in the exasperated ambassador, “if I report this scene to King Philip, matters will come to the cannon.”
“You really shouldn’t say such things,” said Elizabeth with a coquettish glance at the enraged Spaniard, and she added quietly, “If you do, I shall have to throw you into one of my dungeons.”
Elizabeth made Drake a knight, she wore his jewels in her crown, and she dined with him on board the Golden Hind. She often had him at court, and never wearied of hearing the story of his adventures.
Elizabeth signing the death warrant of Mary Stuart.—From painting by Liezen-Mayer.
“Tell me of the savages,” she commanded, and Drake began:—
“We saw them moving about under the trees, and when we came near, they paddled out to meet us. They made a long speech with many gestures, and it seemed as if they couldn’t do us reverence enough. The next day they came again, and this time they brought a great ragged bunch of crow’s feathers. The man who stood at the king’s right hand knelt before me and touched the ground with his forehead three times. Then he gave me the feathers. I noticed that the king’s guards all wore such bunches on their heads, so I stuck them in my red cap as well as ever I could, and the savages all danced around me and made the most unearthly screeching that I ever heard. Then they began to show us their wounds and sores, and made signs that we should blow on them to heal them. I gave them plasters and lotions. They ought to do some good, for they were mixed on a day that Dr. Dee said would make any medicine of worth.”