For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

'Hearkye, lads,' he cried, very excited, 'you have heard the captain's prayer, and know his resolution. Now bear witness that by yea and nay I protest, as I am a gentleman, that, unless he beat me from his company, I will follow him, by God's grace, into that sea.'

So one after another we all protested to the like intent, very earnest and eager for that time to come; and yet, resolute as we all were, how few ever made good our resolve, and notably Mr. Oxenham! Had he but been content to follow Frank, instead of faithlessly trying to be before him, who knows but he too might have died a knight with a golden collar, and not, as he did, like a felon with a necklet of Spanish hemp! But let that pass, for who knows better than I how hard it may be to keep a resolution which in the making seemed so easy? Such falling away we must openly condemn, for the sake of the state and reverence for the laws; yet no wise man will inwardly hasten to loathe sin, since he is well aware that until he has made trial he cannot tell how small a shock of temptation will lay his own honour in ruins.

And surely the sight of that golden sea, whereof no man knew the bounds, was enough to turn any man's head. None of us were in haste to leave that glorious sight, feeling as though we could never gaze our fill. To us, the first of Englishmen, was unfolded the portentous secret which the Spaniards had kept so well. That night, then, we lay there to dream over the boundless visions to which our discovery gave birth.

On the morrow, refreshed with our rest, and feeling each one of us a new man in the presence of that new ocean, we began our perilous descent towards Panama. And perilous indeed it was, though none of us now could think of danger or anything but the golden sea.

We were, as I have said, but eighteen Englishmen. This little band was all we could muster for our attempt. Eight and twenty of our company were lying dead in graves already half hidden in brakes. Well-nigh half the rest were sick; and when these were set aside with a sufficiency of whole men to tend them, and above all to protect our ships and prisoners, eighteen were all we could spare.

I had been appointed one of the number, seeing that I was still whole; yet it must be said I was hard put to it to go. For my prisoner coaxed me so prettily to stay and protect her, and pouted so sweetly with her full red lips when I would not be moved, that I more than once came near to yielding, and was not a little glad that we marched as soon as we did.

Besides our eighteen we had with us thirty Cimaroons, who lightened the labour of our march not only by their ready bearing of our burdens, which they would not suffer us to touch, but also by their cheerful spirits. They seemed never to weary, and were ever laughing and singing, even when the way was steepest and the brakes most dense. They seemed, now that they were away from the Spaniards and we came to know them better, an altogether docile, childlike people, whom one could but love, for all their hidden fierceness, as one would a staunch and faithful hound.

Pedro, their chief, who best knew the danger of our enterprise, had put it hard to the general that he should tarry at a certain town of theirs till a greater force of Cimaroons could be gathered. But this Frank would not hearken to. 'No, Pedro,' said he; 'the time speeds for "making" my voyage, and since I have enough I would not delay an hour though I might have twenty times as many.' A resolute answer which rejoiced and gave heart to us all.

So on the morrow of our discovery of the South Sea we began our descent as we were towards Panama. It was our general's purpose to waylay a recua as close as possible to Panama, where the Spaniards would least look for us, in case they had any wind of our still being on the coast. To this end we had made our toilsome march, going a good way about that we might not be descried, and so come down secretly upon the road which led from Panama to Venta Cruz, where, as I have said, the gold was embarked in frigates to be carried down the Rio Chagres to Nombre de Dios. We were the more moved to this course because of our uncertainty whether the recuas went as yet all the way by land to Nombre de Dios. As we were now it mattered little; for by thus striking boldly across the Main we could deal with them before they reached the river, and thus save them the pain of disappointing us.

Very warily now we pursued our painful way through the matted forest, in the order which Pedro besought us to adopt. First went, about a mile ahead of us, four Cimaroons, who best knew those trackless solitudes. For not a sign of a way was there, and even had there been one it would have been overgrown by the luxuriant brakes as fast as it was made. We had nothing further to direct us than the broken branches by which our guides marked the way we were to follow. How they could know their road amidst those wellnigh impenetrable woods, where they could not even see the sky above their heads, was more than I could tell. Mr. Oxenham said it was a special instinct which God had given them that they might the better be revenged upon the Spaniards who had so foully ill-treated them. How this may be I cannot say, but I know that Frank and most of the company said openly it was nothing short of a miracle, by which God showed His great love and tenderness towards us. For it is certain that without the aid of these poor folk we could never even have attempted the Spaniards by land.