With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

Map to illustrate the adventures of Drake in 1572-73

One day, about a week after their arrival at the camp, Drake called his men together in council, and unfolded to them his daring plan. The Spanish treasure fleet, he had learnt, had arrived at Nombre de Dios, and was awaiting there the consignments of gold and jewels which were brought by long mule trains across the isthmus from Panama. He purposed to ambush one of these trains in a lonely spot on the north road. Solemnly he placed before the men the dangers of the expedition. They had a march of sixty miles before them, through poisonous jungles and fever-haunted swamps. It was an enterprise for none but hardy and courageous men, ready to endure labour and fatigue without murmuring.

Of his original company he had only forty-two left. Some of these were sick, others were required to guard the ships; and when Drake had weeded out the least fit of the rest, he had only eighteen Englishmen for the adventure. To those he added thirty maroons, making a little company of forty-eight all told. Dennis observed with admiration how carefully all things were prepared. The men were provided with spare boots, so that they might not go footsore and be troubled by the jiggers of the jungles and the leeches of the swamps. The bows were all re-fitted, the arrows and fire-arms cleaned and scoured; large stores of dried meat and biscuit were packed in bundles; and bottles were filled with wine and rum, for it was unsafe to drink the water of the rivers.

It was a bright February day, Shrove Tuesday, when the adventurous band set out, the ships in the harbour dipping their colours and the trumpeters sounding "a loath to depart." The Englishmen carried nothing but their weapons, the baggage being strapped to the shoulders of the stalwart maroons. They marched in the coolest part of the morning, from sun-rise to ten, when they paused for dinner. Soon after noon they were afoot again, and at four halted for the night, the maroons building for them with extraordinary rapidity little huts of grass and palm-leaves, where they ate their supper over cheerful wood-fires, beguiling the evening hours with song and talk. It was a new life for Dennis, and full of strange charm. He spent many an hour in the company of Drake and Oxnam, listening with a boyish admiration to their talk, revelling in their tales of fight and adventure.

The great captain exercised a wonderful fascination upon him. Drake was at this time little more than thirty years old, below the medium height, but with brawny limbs and a broad chest. Brown hair clustered close on a bullet-shaped head; his beard grew thick and strong; his face was ruddy and pleasant to look upon; and the honesty of his soul spoke out of his large, round blue eyes. His voice was clear and musical, and he had a natural eloquence, set off by the burr of his native speech. Nothing impressed Dennis more than to hear the Captain, every night at sunset, recite the evening prayers and collects bare-headed among his men assembled. "By Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night"—there was something very real and earnest in the petition, uttered in the shade of the forest where wild animals dwelt, and in a country where every man was a foe. There was no doubt about the reality of Drake's religion; and it was part of his simple belief that he was chosen of God to scourge a pestilent enemy of mankind.

The order of the march was the same every day. Four maroons led the way, marking a trail by flinging broken branches or bundles of leaves upon the ground. Then came twelve more maroons, followed at an interval by Drake and his eighteen Englishmen, and two maroon chiefs. The rear was brought up by the rest of the maroons.

After four days' tramping through swampy woods, much entangled with undergrowth, steaming with heat and infected with noisome odours, they entered a pleasanter country, where the trees grew larger, and with branches so thickly interlaced that they were defended from the sun's rays and found their path less obstructed by creeping plants. The ground rose gradually, and Pedro, the maroon chief, told Drake that on the summit of the ridge they were ascending, half way across the isthmus, there grew an immense tree from which he could descry the North Sea whence he had come and the South Sea whither he was going. At ten o'clock on the eighth day of their march they came to the place, and while the dinner was being got ready, Drake went with Pedro to the tree of which he had spoken. Ascending big steps cut on the bole, they reached, near the top, a pleasant thatched arbour, large enough to seat a dozen men. The sky was clear; no haze blanketed the view; and looking forth, Drake caught, thirty miles away, the sparkle of the southern ocean on which no English boat had sailed. The soul of the great mariner was strangely moved: he fell on his knees, and "besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship on that sea." Then he called up Oxnam and others of his company, and told them of his desire and prayer. Dennis never forgot the scene in that shady bower at the tree-top: the kindling face of the sturdy captain, his shining eyes, the fervency of his speech.

They went on again, and in two days more reached the wide savannah, with grass as high as corn, and great herds of black cattle. Now and then they got a glimpse of Panama, the city of their dream, and by and by, when they were near enough to see the ships riding at anchor in the roadstead, Drake called a halt: they had come within touch of danger and must walk warily. Resting in a grove some three miles from the city, Drake sent one of the maroons, dressed like a negro of Panama, into it as a spy an hour before dark. He was to find out on what night, and at what hour, the mule train set out with its precious burden for Nombre de Dios. He had learnt from Pedro that the first stage of the journey, from Panama to Venta Cruz, was always performed by night, because by day the open plain was scorched by the sun. But the second stage, from Venta Cruz to Nombre de Dios, was accomplished by day, the road lying among cool shaded woods. It was clear that the first stage offered the best chances of a successful ambush, and Drake had resolved to intercept the treasure-train between Panama and Venta Cruz.

The spy returned sooner than he was expected. From old acquaintances in the city he had learnt that a train was to start that very night, its departure being expedited because a Spanish hidalgo, the treasurer of Lima, was in haste to reach a ship waiting at Nombre de Dios to convey him to Spain. His train consisted of fourteen mules, of which eight were laden with gold and one with jewels. Two other trains, of fifty mules each, would follow, with provisions for the fleet and a quantity of silver.

Within an hour of the receipt of this news, Drake and his men were afoot on the road for Venta Cruz, some twelve miles away. Before starting, the English men all put their shirts on outside their other garments, so that they might have some means of telling friend from foe in the darkness. When they had marched about half the distance, two of the maroons, going ahead as scouts on the narrow track between long grass, detected the smell of a burning match, and creeping stealthily on, guided by the scent, and the now audible sound of snoring, came upon a Spanish sentry fast asleep by the roadside. In a trice they pounced on him; they stuffed a gag into his gaping mouth, put out his match, tied his arms to his sides, and haled him back to the main body. This danger removed, Drake divided his band into two companies. One of these, under John Oxnam and Pedro the maroon, he stationed in long grass fifty paces from the road; with the other he went to the same distance on the other side, posting them so that, if it came to a fight, their fire would not harm their comrades. He gave strict orders that no man should stir from his post, but that all should maintain perfect quiet, and, if any travellers should come from the direction of Venta Cruz, that these were to be allowed to pass without molestation.