The work of plunder was nearly over. Again sailing north, the Pelican fell in with a Spanish nobleman who was going out as Governor to the Philippines. He was detained a few hours and relieved of his finery, and then, says one of the party: "Our general, thinking himself both in respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, as also their contempt and indignities offered to our country and prince in general, sufficiently satisfied and revenged, and supposing her Majesty would rest contented with this service, began to consider the best way for his country."
The first necessity was a complete repair of the Pelican's hull. Before the days of copper sheathing, the ships' bottoms grew foul with weed; the great barnacles formed in clusters and stopped their speed, and the sea-worms bored holes into the planking. Twenty thousand miles of unknown water lay between Drake and Plymouth Sound, and he was not a man to run idle risks. Running on till he had left the furthest Spanish station far to the south, he put into the Bay of Canoa in Lower California. There he laid his ship on shore, set up forge and workshop, and refitted her with a month's labour from stem to stern.
By the sixteenth of April, 1579, the Pelican was once more in order, and started on her northern course in search of the expected passage. She held on up the coast for eight hundred miles into latitude forty-three degrees North, but no signs appeared of an opening. Though it was summer the air grew colder, and the crew having been long in the tropics suffered from the change. Not caring to run risks in exploring with so precious a cargo, and finding by observation that the passage, if it existed, must be of enormous length, Drake resolved to go no further, and expecting, as proved to be the case, that the Spaniards would be on the look-out for him at Magellan's Strait, he determined on the alternative route by the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had long traded with China. In the ship going to the Philippines he had found a Portuguese chart of the Indian Archipelago, and with the help of this and his own skill he trusted to find his way.
At the little island of Ternate, south of the Celebes, the ship was again docked and scraped. The crew were allowed another month's rest, when they feasted their eyes on the marvels of tropical life, then first revealed to them in their luxuriance—vampires "as large as hens," crayfish a foot round, and fireflies lighting the midnight forest. Starting once more, they had now to feel their way among the rocks and shoals of the most dangerous waters in the world. They crept round Celebes among coral reefs and low islands scarcely visible above the water-line. The Malacca Straits formed the only route marked in the Portuguese chart, and between Drake and his apparent passage lay the Java Sea and the channel between Borneo and Sumatra. But it was not impossible that there might be some other opening, and the Pelican crawled in search of it along the Java coast. Here, if nowhere else, her small size and manageableness were in her favour. In spite of all the care that was taken, she was almost lost. One evening as the black tropical night was closing, a grating sound was heard under her keel: another moment she was hard and fast upon an invisible reef. The breeze was light and the water calm, or the world would have heard no more of Francis Drake and the Pelican. She lay immovable till morning; "we were out of all hope to escape danger," but with the daylight the position was seen not to be utterly desperate. "Our general, then as always, showed himself most courageous, and of good confidence in the mercy and protection of God; and as he would not seem to perish wilfully, so he and we did our best endeavour to save ourselves, and in the end cleared ourselves of that danger."
The Pelican had no more adventures; and sweeping in clear fine weather close to the Cape of Good Hope, and touching for water at Sierra Leone, she sailed in triumph into Plymouth harbour in the beginning of October, having marked a furrow with her keel round the globe.
Froude: "History of England."
(Adapted)
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all.
Wordsworth: "The Happy Warrior."