Turnpenny relapsed into silence, brooding on his melancholy forebodings.
It was the night of March 31. Some forty men lay in the scrub overlooking Nombre de Dios, awaiting the clang of mule-bells that would announce the approach of a treasure train from Venta Cruz. Half of them were French, for a week or two before, as Drake and his men were sportively pitching stones at the land crabs on the beach, a ship came down from the west, whose captain proved to be a French Huguenot named Le Testu, with a company of some seventy men and boys. They were perishing for want of water. Having obtained from Drake, ever generous to adventurers like himself, the supplies they needed, they prepared to join themselves to him, in the hope of obtaining some share of Spanish gold.
Drake hesitated to admit the Frenchmen to a partnership, for he had but thirty-one men left, and feared that the seventy would claim too large a portion of the booty if his projected attack on the mule-train should succeed. But the matter was compromised by Captain Le Testu joining Drake with twenty men. These, with fifteen Englishmen and a few maroons, sailed in two of Drake's pinnaces for the mouth of the Francisco river, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. The rest of the company were left at a secret spot in charge of one Richard Doble. When the river mouth was made, Drake sent a few maroons back with the pinnaces, ordering them to remain in hiding with Doble and to return in four days' time to take off the adventurers.
Dennis and Turnpenny were among those who accompanied Drake in the Minion. They had won great praise from him for their exploits in Maiden Isle and their capture of the Spanish ship, whose stores of food and ammunition were very welcome. The damage to the pinnace was speedily repaired, Drake saying with a laugh that had she been rendered unseaworthy he would have pinioned Dennis between decks and kept him there until they dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound.
The adventurers were encamped on rising ground above the town. Taking a lesson from the previous failure, the men spoke in the lowest of whispers, even though they were a mile away from the track. All through the night they heard the clatter of hammers from the bay, where the Spanish shipwrights, avoiding the heat of the day, were preparing the ships of the treasure fleet for sea. The ambuscaders were grimly resolved that the cargoes should be less by the weight of a good many tons of silver and gold.
The hours passed too slowly for the impatient adventurers. But at length, a little before dawn, they heard a faint tinkle of bells afar in the woods, and soon the maroon scouts came in with the news that three trains, numbering nearly two hundred mules in all, were approaching from Venta Cruz. Such good fortune was unlooked for; and though the scouts reported that the trains were escorted by soldiers, not a man gave a thought to the odds against them. Instantly they all seized their calivers and bows and arrows, and hastened to the trackway, where, as before, they posted themselves in the long grass on either side.
On came the mules, their bells jangling and clanging in musical discord. In the grass lurked the raiders, silent—though Turnpenny gave Dennis a nudge and whispered, "'Tis All Fools' Day!" Suddenly there sounded a blast from Drake's whistle; the men started up, and, sending a volley of bullets and arrows at the Spanish infantrymen that guarded the convoy, made straight for the heads of the leading mules. Nothing loath to rest a while, the mules behind lay down contentedly on the ground. But the soldiers, who had blown on their matches as they marched, to keep them alight, rallied in a group and fired back at the assailants. A maroon was killed outright: Captain Le Testu fell seriously wounded; but the rest, kneeling down and supporting their weapons on the prostrate mules, briskly returned the fire; then, springing up before the enemy could reload, charged upon them with fierce cries and drove them helter-skelter towards the town. Immediately afterwards two men came rushing up to Turnpenny.
"Be jowned if it bean't Billy Hawk and fat Baltizar!" he cried in astonishment. "Oh Billy, poor soul, what a scarecrow 'ee do look! Get out, you jelly!" he cried to Baltizar, speeding him with a kick. "You be fat as butter; all is well with 'ee; get 'ee to the town after your masters, and thank God your oily carcass be not left to fatten the land.—Billy, dear heart, what hath happed to thee?"
Hawk told his story while Turnpenny and the other seamen, selecting the mules that bore the heaviest loads, with nimble fingers cast off their packs, unstrapped them, and helped themselves to the precious contents—bars and quoits of solid gold, and silver uncountable. He had followed Biddle and the other mutineers in the hope of persuading them to return to their duty; but they had soon fallen upon him, robbed him of his bag of pearls, and left him bound in the forest. There he had been found by some fugitives from the routed Spaniards, who carried him to their vessel, and conveyed him to Nombre de Dios. Believing him to be one of Drake's men, they tortured him to make him confess where his captain's secret haven was, which he stedfastly refused to do; and since then he had been kept in slavery, drudging as a muleteer between Nombre de Dios and Panama.
"God be praised we have found 'ee!" cried Turnpenny. "You shall come back with us, and I'll give 'ee a share of all my treasure."