Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main

"Captain Drake, if it is your fortune to come into this part, make haste away; for the Spaniards which were with you here, last year, have betrayed the place; and taken away all that you left here. I departed hence on this present 7th July, 1572. Your very loving friend, John Garrett."

"I would I had been here a few days earlier," Captain Drake said, when he read this notice, "for John Garrett would assuredly have joined us, and his aid would have been no slight assistance in the matter in which we are about to engage. However, it will not do to despise his caution; therefore, lest we be attacked while on shore by the Spaniards, we will even make a fort; and we shall be able to unload our stores, and put our pinnaces together, without fear of interruption."

The crew were now landed; and set to work, with hatchet and bill, to clear a plot of ground. Three quarters of an acre was, after three days' work, cleared; and the trees were cast outwards, and piled together in such form as to make a sort of wall, 30 feet high, round it. This hard work done, most of the crew were allowed a little liberty; the carpenters, and experienced artificers, being engaged in putting the three pinnaces together.

The boys, in pairs, for all could never obtain leave together, rambled in the woods, full of admiration for the beauties of nature. Huge butterflies flitted about upon the brilliant flowers. Long trailing creepers, rich with blossom, hung on the trees. Here and there, as they passed along, snakes slipped away among the undergrowth; and these, in truth, the boys were as ready to leave alone as the reptiles were to avoid them, for they were told that it was certain death to be bitten by these creatures. Most of all the boys admired the little birds, which indeed it was hard for them to believe not to be butterflies, so small were they, so rapid their movements, and so brilliant their color.

On the 7th day from landing the pinnaces were finished; and, the vessels being anchored near the shore, the crews went on board for the last time, preparatory to making their start the next day.

There was one tall and bright-faced sailor with whom the boys had struck up a great friendship. He had sailed before with Captain Drake; and as the evening was cool, and there was naught to do, they begged him to tell them of his former visits in the Caribbean Seas.

"My first," he said, "was the worst, and might well have been my last. Captain John Hawkins was our captain, a bold man and a good sailor; but not gentle as well as brave, as is our good Captain Francis. Our fleet was a strong one. The admiral's ship, the Jesus, of Lubeck, was 700 tons. Then there were the smaller craft; the Minion, Captain Hampton, in which I myself sailed; the William and John of Captain Boulton; the Judith with Captain Francis Drake; and two little ships, besides. We sailed later in the year. It was the 2nd October, five years back; that is, 1567. We started badly, for a storm struck us off Finisterre, the ships separated, and some boats were lost.

"We came together at Cape de Verde, and there we tried to get slaves; for it was part of the object of our voyage to buy slaves on the coast of Africa, and sell them to the Spaniards, here. It was a traffic for which I myself had but little mind; for though it be true that these black fellows are a pernicious race, given to murder, and to fightings of all kinds among themselves, yet are they human beings; and it is, methinks, cruel to send them beyond the seas into slavery, so far from their homes and people. But it was not for me, a simple mariner, to argue the question with our admirals and captains; and I have heard many worshipful merchants are engaged in the traffic.

"However that be, methinks that our good Captain Francis did, likewise, turn himself against this kind of traffic in human flesh; for although he has been three times, since, in these regions, he has never again taken a hand in it.

"With much to do at Cape de Verde, we succeeded in getting a hundred and fifty men; but not without much resistance from the natives, who shot their arrows at us, and wounded many; and most of those who were wounded did die of lock-jaw, for the arrows had been smeared in some poisonous stuff. Then we went farther down the coast, and took in two hundred more.

"Coasting still farther down, to Saint Jorge de Mina, we landed; and Captain Hawkins found that the negro king there was at war with an enemy, a little farther inland. He besought our assistance, and promised us plenty of slaves, if we would go there and storm the place with him. Captain Hawkins agreed, cheerfully enough; and set off, with a portion of his crews, to assist the king.

"The enemy fought well, and it was only after a very hard fight on our part, and a loss of many men, that we took the town. Methinks the two hundred and fifty slaves which we took there were dearly paid for; and there was much grumbling, among the ships, at the reckless way in which our admiral had risked our lives, for meager gain. It is true that these slaves would sell at a high price, yet none of us looked upon money, gained in that way, quite as we do upon treasure taken in fair fight. In the one case we traffic with the Spaniards, who are our natural enemies; and it is repugnant, to a Christian man, to hand over even these poor negroes to such willful masters as these; in the other we are fighting for our queen and country. The Spaniards are the natural enemies of all good Protestants, and every ship we see, and every treasure bag we capture, does something to pare the nails of that fierce and haughty power.

"Having filled up our hold with the slaves which we had captured at Saint Jorge de Mina, we turned our back upon the African coast, and sailed to the West Indies. At Rio de Hacha, the first port at which we touched, the people did not wish to trade with us; but the admiral was not the man to allow people to indulge in fancies of this kind. We soon forced them to buy, or to sell, that which we chose; and not what they had a fancy for.

"Sailing along, we were caught in a storm; and in searching for the port of Saint Juan d'Ulloa, where we hoped to refit, we captured three ships. In the port we found twelve other small craft, but these we released; and sent some of them to Mexico, to ask that victuals and stores might be sent.

"The next day thirteen great ships appeared off the harbor In them was the Viceroy of Mexico. We had then only the Jesus, the Minion of 100 tons, and the Judith of 50 tons, and this big fleet was large enough to have eaten us; but Captain Hawkins put a good face on it, and sailed out to meet them, waiting at the mouth of the harbor Here he told them haughtily that he should not allow their fleet to enter, save on his terms. I doubt not that Hawkins would have been glad enough to have made off, if he could have done so; for what with the sale of the slaves, and the vessels we had captured, we had now 1,800,000 pounds, in silver and gold, on board of the ships. The Spanish admiral accepted the terms which Captain Hawkins laid down, and most solemnly swore to observe them.

"So with colors flying, both fleets sailed into the harbor together. It is true, however, that the man who places faith in a Spaniard is a fool, and so it proved to us. No sooner had they reached the port than they began to plot, secretly among themselves, how to fall upon us. Even then, though they had thirteen big ships, the smallest of which was larger than the Jesus, they feared to attack us openly.

"Numbers of men were set to work by them on the shore, secretly, to get up batteries by which they might fire into us; while a great ship, having 500 men on board, was moored close alongside the Minion.

"I remember well talking the matter over with Jack Boscowan, who was boatswain on board; and we agreed that this time we had run into an ugly trap, and that we did not see our way out of it. Englishmen can, as all the world knows, lick the Spaniards when they are but as one to five; but when there are twenty of the Dons to one of us, it is clear that the task is a hard one.

"What made it worse was that we were in harbor At sea, our quickness in handling our ships would have made us a match for the Spanish fleet; but at anchor, and with the guns of the port commanding us, we did not truly see how we were to get out of it.

"The fight began by the Spaniards letting their big ship drift alongside the Minion; when, suddenly, 500 men leapt out on our decks. We were beaten below in no time, for we were scarce prepared for so sudden an onslaught. There, however, we defended ourselves stoutly, firing into the hull of the ship alongside, and defending our ports and entrances from the Spaniards.

"For a while our case seemed desperate. The Jesus was hard at work, too; and when she had sunk the ship of the Spanish admiral, she came up, and gave a broadside into the ship alongside of us. Her crew ran swiftly back to her; and we, with much rejoicing, poured on deck again, and began to pay them hotly for their sudden attack upon us.

"It was a great fight, and one that would have done your heart good, to see the three English ships, two of them so small as to be little more than boats, surrounded by a whole fleet of Spaniards, while from on shore the guns of the forts played upon us. Had it not been for those forts, I verily believe that we should have destroyed the Spanish fleet. Already another large vessel had followed the example of their admiral's ship, and had gone to the bottom. Over 540 of their sailors we had, as they have themselves admitted, slain outright.

"We were faring well, and had begun to hope that we might get to find our way out of the toils, when a cry came from the lookout, who said that the Jesus was hoisting signals of distress, and that he feared she was sinking.

"Close as she was lying to a battery, and surrounded by enemies, our bold captain did not hesitate a minute; but sailed the Minion, through a crowd of enemies, close to the Jesus. You should have heard the cheer that the two crews gave each other. It rose above all the noise of the battle, and would assuredly have done your heart good. The Jesus was sinking fast, and it was as much as they could do to tumble into the boats, and to row hastily to our side. We should have saved them all, but the Spaniards, who dared not lay us aboard, and who were in no slight degree troubled by the bravery with which we had fought, set two of their great ships on fire, and launched them down upon us, preferring to lose two of their own ships for the sake of capturing or destroying our little bark. The sight of the ships coming down, in flames, shook the hearts of our men more than all the fury of the Spaniards had been able to do; and without waiting for orders, they turned the ship's head for the mouth of the port.

"The admiral, who had just come on board, cursed and shouted when he saw what was being done; but the panic of the fire ships got the better of the men, and we made off, firing broadsides at the Spaniards' fleet as we passed through them; and aided by the little Judith, which stuck to us through the whole of the fight.

"When we cooled down and came to think of it, we were in no slight degree ashamed of our desertion of our comrades in the Jesus. Fortunately the number so left behind was not large; but we knew that, according to their custom, the Spaniards would put all to death, and so indeed it afterwards turned out, many of them being dispatched with horrible tortures.

"This terrible treatment of the prisoners caused, when it was known, great indignation; and although Queen Elizabeth did not declare war with Spain, from that time she gave every countenance she could to the adventurers who waged war, on their own account, against her.

"The Minion suffered severely, packed close as she was with all her own crew, and a great part of that of the Jesus, vast numbers of whom were wounded. However, at length a hundred were, at their own request, landed and left to shift for themselves, preferring to run the risk of Indians, or even of Spaniards, to continue any longer amid the horrors on board the ship. I myself, boys, was not one of that number, and came back to England in her.

"Truly it was the worst voyage that I ever made, for though fortune was for a time good to us, and we collected much money; yet in the end we lost all, and hardly escaped with our lives. It has seemed to me that this bad fortune was sent as a punishment upon us, for carrying off the negroes into slavery. Many others thought the same, and methinks that that was also the opinion of our present good admiral."

"Did you come out with him, in his further voyages here?" Ned asked.

"I was with him in the Dragon, two years ago, when with the Swanne she came here. Last year I sailed with him in the Swanne, alone."

"You did not have any very stirring adventures?"

"No, we were mainly bent on exploring; but for all that we carried off many prizes, and might, had we been pilgrims, have bought farms in Devonshire, and settled down on our share of the prize money; but there, that is not the way with sailors. Quick come, quick go, and not one in a hundred that I have ever heard of, however much he may have taken as his share of prizes, has ever kept it, or prospered greatly therefrom."

It was now evening, and many of the men had betaken themselves to the water, for a swim. The heat had been great all day, and as it was their last, they had been pressed at work to get the stores, which had been landed, again on board ship; and to finish all up, ready for the division of the party, next day.

"I do not care for bathing here," Ned said, in reply to a sailor, who asked him why he too did not join in the sport. "I confess that I have a dread of those horrible sharks, of which we have heard so much, and whose black fins we see from time to time."

"I should have thought," said the harsh, sneering voice of Giles Taunton, "that an Otter would have been a match for a shark. The swimmers of the South Isles, and indeed the natives here, attack the sharks without fear. I should have thought that anyone who prides himself, as you do, upon swimming, would have been equally willing to encounter them."

"I do not know that I do pride myself on my swimming, Giles Taunton," Ned said composedly; "at any rate, no one has ever heard me speak of such abilities as I may have in that way. As to the natives, they have seen each other fight with sharks, and know how the matter is gone about. If I were to be present a few times, when such strife takes place, it may be that I should not shirk from joining in the sport; but knowing nothing whatever of the method pursued, or of the manner of attack, I should be worse than a fool, were I to propose to venture my life in such a sport."

Many sailors who were standing round approved of what Ned said.

"Aye, aye, lad," one said, "no one would think of making his first jump across the spot where he might be dashed to pieces. Let a man learn to jump on level ground; and then, when he knows his powers, he may go across a deep chasm."

By this time a good many of the men were out of the water, when suddenly there arose the cry of, "Shark!" from the lookout on the poop. There was a great rush for the ship, and the excitement on board was nearly as great as that in the water. Ned quietly dropped off his jacket and his shoes and, seizing a short boarding pike, waited to see what would come of it.

It chanced that his friends, the other boys, were farther out than the men; having, with the ardor of youth, engaged themselves in races, regardless of the admonition that had frequently been given them to keep near the ship; for the terror of these water beasts was very great.

The men all gained the ship in safety, but the shark, which had come up from a direction in which it would cut them off, was clearly likely to arrive before the boys could gain the side. At first it seemed, indeed, that their fate was sealed; but the shark, who in many respects resembles a cat with a mouse, and seems to prefer to trifle with its victim to the last, allowed them to get close to the ship; although, by rapid swimming, it could easily have seized them before.

The nearest to it, as it approached the ship, was Tom Tressilis, who was not so good a swimmer as the others; but he had swum lustily, and with good heart, though his white face showed how great the effect of the danger was upon him. He had not spoken a word, since the shark first made its appearance. As he struck despairingly to gain the ship, from which the sailors were already casting him ropes, his eye caught that of Ned, who cried to him cheerily:

"Keep up your spirits, Tom. I will be with you."

As the huge fish swept along, at a distance of some four yards from the side of the ship, and was already turning on its back, opening its huge mouth to seize its victim, Ned dived head foremost from the ship onto him. So great was the force and impetus with which he struck the creature, that it was fairly driven sideways from its course, missing by the nearest shave the leg of Tom Tressilis. Ned himself was half stunned by the force with which his head had struck the fish, for a shark is not so soft a creature to jump against as he had imagined; however, he retained consciousness enough to grasp at the fin of the shark, to which he held on for half a minute.

By this time the shark was recovering from the effects of the sudden blow, and Ned was beginning to be able to reflect. In a moment he plunged the half pike deep into the creature's stomach. Again and again he repeated the stroke; until the shark, rolling over in his agony, and striking furiously with his tail, shook Ned from his hold. He instantly dived beneath the water, and came up at a short distance. The shark was still striking the water furiously, the sailors on board were throwing down upon him shot, pieces of iron, and all sorts of missiles, and some of the best archers were hastily bringing their bows to the side.

The shark caught sight of his opponent, and instantly rushed at him. Ned again dived, just before the creature reached him; and, rising under him, inflicted some more stabs with the pike; then he again swam off, for he was in no slight fear that he might be struck by his friends on board ship, of whose missiles, indeed, he was more in dread than of the shark himself.

When he rose, at a short distance from the shark, he was again prepared for a rush on the part of his enemy; but the great fish had now had enough of it. He was still striking the water, but his movements were becoming slower, for he was weakened by the loss of blood from the stabs he had received from below, and from the arrows, many of which were now buried to the goose quill in him. In a minute or two he gradually turned on one side, and floated, with his white belly in the air.

A shout broke from the crew of the Swanne, and also of the Pacha, who had been attracted to the side by the cries. When he saw that the battle was over, and that the enemy had been vanquished without loss of life, or hurt to any, Ned speedily seized one of the ropes, and climbed up the side of the ship; where he was, you may be sure, received with great cheering, and shouts of joy and approval.

"You are a fine lad," Captain John Drake said, "and your name of Otter has indeed been well bestowed. You have saved the life of your comrade; and I know that my old friend, Mr. Frank Tressilis, his father, will feel indebted indeed to you, when he comes to learn how gallantly you risked your life to preserve that of his son."

Ned said that he saw no credit in the action, and that he was mightily glad to have had an opportunity of learning to do that which the negroes thought nothing of; for that it shamed him to think that these heathens would venture their lives boldly against sharks, while he, an English boy, although a good swimmer, and not, he hoped, wanting in courage, was yet afraid to encounter these fierce brutes.

This incident acted, as might be expected, as a fresh bond between the boys; and as it also secured for Ned the cordial goodwill of the sailors, they were, in future, free from any persecution at the hands of Master Taunton, or of his fellows.