BACK TO THE MAIN BODY
The treasure train--The spoil--Captain Tetû hurt
As soon as the town was in his hands, Drake set guards on the bridge
across the Chagres and at the gate by which he had entered the town. He
gave orders to the Maroons that they were not to molest women or unarmed
men. He gave them free permission to take what they would from the
stores and houses, and then went in person to comfort some gentlewomen
"which had lately been delivered of children there." They were in terror
of their lives, for they had heard the shouts and firing, and had
thought that the Maroons were coming. They refused to listen to the
various comforters whom Drake had sent to them, and "never ceased most
earnestly entreating" that Drake himself would come to them. Drake
succeeded in reassuring them that nothing "to the worth of a garter"
would be taken from them. They then dried their tears, and were
comforted.
The raiders stayed in the town about an hour and a half, during which
time they succeeded in getting together a little comfortable dew of
heaven--not gold, indeed, nor silver, but yet "good pillage." Drake
allowed them this latitude so that they might not be cast down by the
disappointment of the night. He gave orders, however, that no heavy loot
should be carried from the town, because they had yet many miles to go,
and were still in danger of attack. While the men were getting their
spoils together, ready for marching, and eating a hasty breakfast in
the early morning light, a sudden fusillade began at the Panama gate.
Some ten or twelve cavaliers had galloped in from Panama, supposing that
the pirates had left the town. They had come on confidently, right up to
the muzzles of the sentries' muskets. They had then been met with a
shattering volley, which killed and wounded half their number and sent
the others scattering to the woods. Fearing that they were but a
scouting party, and that a troop of horse might be following to support
them, Drake gave the word to fall in for the road. The spoil, such as it
was, was shouldered; Drake blew a blast upon his whistle; the men formed
up into their accustomed marching order, and tramped away from Venta
Cruz, across the Chagres bridge, just as the dawn set the parrots
screeching and woke the monkeys to their morning song. They seem to have
expected no pursuit; but Drake was not a man to run unnecessary risks.
His men, including the Maroons, were "grown very valiant," yet they were
granted no further chance to show their valour. Drake told them that
they had now been "well near a fortnight" from the ship, with her
company of sick and sorry sailors. He was anxious to rejoin her without
delay, so the word was given to force the marching. He refused to visit
the Indian villages, though the Maroons begged him earnestly to do so.
His one wish was to rejoin Ellis Hixom. He "hustled" his little company
without mercy, encouraging them "with such example and speech that the
way seemed much shorter." He himself, we are told, "marched most
cheerfully," telling his comrades of the golden spoils they would win
before they sailed again for England. There was little ease on that
march to the coast, for Drake would allow no one to leave the ranks.
When provisions ran out they had to march on empty stomachs. There was
no hunting of the peccary or the deer, as on the jolly progress
westward. "We marched many days with hungry stomachs," says the
narrative, and such was the hurry of the march that many of the men
"fainted with sickness of weariness." Their clothes were hanging on
their backs in shreds and tatters. Their boots had long since cracked
and rotted. Many of them were marching with their feet wrapped up in
rags. Many of them were so footsore they could scarcely put their feet
upon the ground. Swaying, limping, utterly road-weary, they came
tottering into a little village which the Maroons had built as a
rest-house for them, about three leagues from the ship. They were quite
exhausted. Their feet were bloody and swollen. The last stages had been
marched with great bodily suffering, "all our men complaining of the
tenderness of their feet." Drake complained also, "sometimes without
cause, but sometimes with cause indeed; which made the rest to bear the
burden the more easily." Some of the men were carried in by the Maroons.
Indeed, the Maroons had saved the whole party from collapse, for they
not only built them shelter huts at night, carried the weary, and found,
or made, them a road to travel by, but they also bore the whole burden
of the company's arms and necessaries. Their fellows who had stayed with
Ellis Hixom had built the little town in the woods, for the refreshment
of all hands, in case they should arrive worn out with marching. At
sunset on the evening of Saturday, the 22nd of February, the weary crew
arrived at the little town, to the great joy of the Maroons who kept
watch and ward there. The tired men lay down to rest, while Drake
"despatched a Cimaroon with a token and certain order to the Master."
The day had dawned before this messenger arrived upon the sands near
which the ship was moored. He hailed her, crying out that he came with
news, and immediately a boat pushed off, manned by men "which longed to
hear of our Captain's speeding." As soon as he appeared before Ellis
Hixom, he handed over Drake's golden toothpick, "which he said our
Captain had sent for a token to Ellis Hixom, with charge to meet him at
such a river." The sight of the golden toothpick was too much for Ellis
Hixom. He knew it to be his Captain's property, but coming as it did,
without a sign in writing, it convinced him that "something had befallen
our Captain otherwise than well." The Maroon saw him staring "as
amazed," and told him that it was dark when Drake had packed him off, so
that no letter could be sent, "but yet with the point of his knife, he
wrote something upon the toothpick, 'which,' he said, 'should be
sufficient to gain credit to the messenger.'" Looking closely at the
sliver of gold, Hixom saw a sentence scratched upon it: "By me, Francis
Drake," which convinced him that the message was genuine. He at once
called away one of the pinnaces, storing her with "what provision he
could," and promptly set sail for the mouth of the Tortugos River, a few
miles along the coast, to the west of where he lay, for there Drake
intended to await him.
At about three o'clock that afternoon, Drake marched his men, or all
who were fit to march, out of the forest to the sandy beach at the
river's mouth. Half-an-hour later the tattered ragamuffins saw the
pinnace running in to take them off, "which was unto us all a double
rejoicing: first that we saw them, and next, so soon." The whole
company stood up together on the beach to sing some of the psalms of
thanksgiving--praising God "most heartily, for that we saw our pinnace
and fellows again." To Ellis Hixom and his gang of shipkeepers the
raiders appeared "as men strangely changed," though Drake was less
changed than the others, in spite of the wound he got at Venta Cruz.
The three weeks' march in that abominable country, and the last few
days of "fasting and sore travail," would have been enough to "fore
pine and waste" the very strongest, while "the grief we drew inwardly,
for that we returned without that gold and treasure we hoped for, did
no doubt show her print and footsteps in our faces." The next day the
pinnace rowed "to another river in the bottom of the bay" to pick up
the stragglers who had stayed to rest with the Maroons. The company was
then reunited in the secret haven. Wonderful tales were told of the
journey across the isthmus, of the South Sea, with its lovely city, and
of the rush through the grass in the darkness, when the mule bells came
clanging past, that night near Venta Cruz. The sick men recovering from
their calentures "were thoroughly revived" by these tales. They
importuned Drake to take them with him on the next foray; for Drake
gave out that he meant not to leave off thus, but would once again
attempt the same journey. In the general rejoicing and merry-making it
is possible that Robert Pike remained aloof in the darkness of the
'tween decks, deprived of his allowance of aqua-vitæ.
Drake noted the eager spirit among his men, and determined to give it
vent. He called them together to a consultation, at which they discussed
what was best to be done until the mule trains again set forth from
Panama. There was Veragua, "a rich town lying to the Westward, between
Nombre de Dios and Nicaragua, where is the richest mine of fine gold
that is on this North side." At Veragua also there were little rivers,
in which "oftentimes they find pieces of gold as big as peas." Then, if
Veragua were thought ill of, as too difficult, there were treasure ships
to intercept as they wallowed home for Spain from Nombre de Dios. Or the
men might keep themselves employed in capturing victual frigates for the
stocking of the ship before they attacked another recua. This last
scheme was flouted by many as unnecessary. They had food enough, they
said, and what they lacked the country would supply, but the treasure,
the comfortable dew of heaven, for which they had come so far, was the
main thing, and to get that they were ready to venture on the galleons,
soldiers or no soldiers. At this point the Maroons were called in to
give their opinion. Most of them had served the Spaniards as slaves in
one town or another of the Main. Several of them had worked under the
whip of a wealthy Spaniard in Veragua, a creature of the name of Pezoro,
who was "bad and cruel, not only to his slaves, but unto all men." This
gentleman lived in a strong stone house at a little distance from the
town. He had amassed a vast quantity of treasure, for he owned a gold
mine, which he worked with 100 slaves. He lived with a guard of
soldiers, but the Maroons felt confident that by attacking from the
shore side of the house they could easily break in upon him. His gold
was stored in his house "in certain great chests." If they succeeded in
surprising the house, it would be an easy matter to make a spoil of the
whole. Drake did not care for the scheme, as it involved a long march
through the woods. He hesitated to put his men to so much labour, for he
had now seen something of this woodland marching, and knew how desperate
a toil it was. He thought that they would be better employed in
gathering victuals and looking out for treasure transports. They might
practise both crafts at the same time by separating into two companies.
John Oxenham, in the _Bear_ frigate, could sail "Eastwards towards Tolu,
to see what store of victuals would come athwart his halse." In the
meanwhile he would take the _Minion_ pinnace to the west, to "lie off
and on the Cabezas" in order to intercept any treasure transports coming
from Veragua or Nicaragua to Nombre de Dios. Those of the Maroons who
cared to stay aboard the _Pascha_ were free to do so. The rest were
dismissed "most courteously" with "gifts and favours" of the sorts most
pleasing to them, such as knives, iron, coloured ribbons and cloth.
The companies were picked; the pinnaces received their stores; sails
were bent and set, and the two boats sailed away to their stations. Off
the Cabezas the _Minion_ fell in with a frigate from Nicaragua "in which
was some gold and a Genoese pilot." Drake treated this pilot in his
usual liberal manner till he won him over to his interests. He had been
in Veragua harbour, he said, but eight days before. He knew the channel
perfectly, so that he could carry Drake in, at night if need were, at
any state of the tide. The townsfolk, he said, were in a panic on
account of Drake's presence in those seas; they were in such a state of
terror that they could not decide upon a scheme to defend the town in
case he attacked it. Signor Pezoro was thinking of removing himself to
the South Seas. The harbour lay open to any enemy, for the only guns in
the place were up at the town, about fifteen miles from the haven's
mouth. If Drake made a sudden dash, he said, he would be able to cut out
a frigate in the harbour. She was fitting for the sea there, and was
very nearly ready to sail. She had aboard her "above a million of gold,"
which, with a little promptness and courage, might become the property
of the raiders. On hearing of this golden booty, Drake thought of all
that the Maroons had told him. He was minded to return to the anchorage,
to fetch off some of those who had lived with Senor Pezoro, in order
that he might have a check upon the pilot's statements, and a guide, if
need were, to the city. The Genoese dissuaded him from this scheme,
pointing out that a return to the ship would waste several days, during
which the frigate might get away to sea. Drake, therefore, took the
packets of gold from the Nicaraguan prize, and dismissed her "somewhat
lighter to hasten her journey." He then got his oars out, and made all
haste to the west, under a press of sail, "to get this harbour, and to
enter it by night." He hoped to cut out the treasure ship and to have a
look at the house of Senor Pezoro--two investments which would "make"
the voyage if all went well. But as the boat drew near to the mouth of
the harbour "we heard the report of two Chambers, and farther off, about
a league within the bay, two others as it were answering them." The
Spaniards had espied the boat, and had fired signal guns to warn the
shipping and the town. The report of the guns called the Spaniards to
arms--an exercise they were more ready to since the Governor of Panama
had warned them to expect Drake. "The rich Gnuffe Pezoro," it was
thought, had paid the cost of the sentries. "It was not God's will that
we should enter at that time," says the narrative. The wind shifted
opportunely to the westward; and Drake put his helm up, and ran away to
the east, where he picked up the _Bear_, "according to appointment."
Oxenham had had a very prosperous and pleasant cruise, for off Tolu he
had come across a victual frigate "in which there were ten men [whom
they set ashore], great store of maize, twenty-eight fat hogs, and two
hundred hens." The lading was discharged into the _Pascha_ on the 19th
and 20th of March as a seasonable refreshment to the company. The
frigate pleased Drake, for though she was small (not twenty tons, in
fact) she was strong, new, and of a beautiful model. As soon as her
cargo was out of her, he laid her on her side, and scraped and tallowed
her "to make her a Man of war." He then fitted her with guns from the
_Pascha_, and stored her with provisions for a cruise. The Spaniards
taken in her had spoken of "two little galleys built in Nombre de Dios,
to waft [tow] the Chagres Fleet to and fro." They were "not yet both
launched," and the Chagres fleet lay waiting for them within the mouth
of the Chagres River. Drake "purposed now to adventure for that Fleet."
The day on which he made his plan was Easter Sunday, the 22nd March.
"And to hearten his company" for that bold attempt "he feasted them that
Easter Day with great cheer and cheerfulness" on the dainties taken from
the Spaniards.
The next day, he manned "the new tallowed frigate of Tolu," and sailed
away west (with Oxenham in the _Bear_ in company) "towards the
Cativaas," where they landed to refresh themselves. As they played about
upon the sand, flinging pebbles at the land-crabs, they saw a sail to
the westward coming down towards them. They at once repaired aboard, and
made sail, and "plied towards" the stranger, thinking her to be a
Spaniard. The stranger held on her course as though to run the raiders
aboard, "till he perceived by our confidence that we were no Spaniards,
and conjectured we were those Englishmen of whom he had heard long
before." He bore up suddenly under the lee of the English ships, "and in
token of amity shot off his lee ordnance"--a salute which Drake at once
acknowledged by a similar discharge. As the ships neared each other, the
stranger hailed Drake, saying that he was Captain Tetû, or Le Testu, a
Frenchman of Newhaven (or Havre), in desperate want of water. He had
been looking for Drake, he said, for the past five weeks, "and prayed
our Captain to help him to some water, for that he had nothing but wine
and cider aboard him, which had brought his men into great
sickness"--gastritis or dysentery. Drake at once sent a boat aboard with
a cask or two of drink, and some fresh meat, "willing him to follow us
to the next port, where he should have both water and victuals."
As soon as they had brought their ships to anchor, the French captain
sent Drake "a case of pistols, and a fair gilt scimitar (which had been
the late King's of France) whom Monsieur Montgomery hurt in the eye."
The Frenchman had received it from "Monsieur Strozze," or Strozzi, a
famous general of banditti. Drake accepted the gift in the magnificent
manner peculiar to him, sending the bearer back to Tetû with a chain of
gold supporting a tablet of enamel. Having exchanged gifts, according to
the custom of the sea, Captain Tetû came off to visit Drake. He was a
Huguenot privateer, who had been in France at the time of the Massacre
of St Bartholomew, the murder of Coligny, "and divers others murders."
He had "thought those Frenchmen the happiest which were farthest from
France," and had, therefore, put to sea to escape from persecution. He
was now cruising off the Spanish Main, "a Man of war as we were." He had
heard much of Drake's spoils upon the coast, and "desired to know" how
he too might win a little Spanish gold. His ship was a fine craft of
more than eighty tons, manned by seventy men and boys. He asked Drake to
take him into partnership, so that they might share the next adventure.
The offer was not very welcome to Drake, for the French company was more
than double the strength of the English. Drake had but thirty-one men
left alive, and he regarded Tetû with a good deal of jealousy and a good
deal of distrust. Yet with only thirty-one men he could hardly hope to
succeed in any great adventure. If he joined with the French, he thought
there would be danger of their appropriating most of the booty after
using him and his men as their tools. The English sailors were of the
same opinion; but it was at last decided that Tetû, with twenty picked
hands, should be admitted to partnership, "to serve with our Captain for
halves." It was something of a risk, but by admitting only twenty of the
seventy men the risk was minimised. They were not enough to overpower
Drake in case they wished to make away with all the booty, yet they made
him sufficiently strong to attempt the schemes he had in hand. An
agreement was, therefore, signed; a boat was sent to the secret
anchorage to bring the Cimmeroons; and the three ships then sailed away
to the east, to the magazines of food which Drake had stored some weeks
before.
Here they lay at anchor for five or six days to enable the sick
Frenchmen to get their health and strength after their weeks of misery.
The Huguenot ship was revictualled from the magazines and then taken
with the _Bear_ into the secret haven. The third pinnace, the _Lion_,
had been sunk a few days before, but the other two, the _Eion_ and the
_Minion_, with the new Tolu frigate, were set in order for the next
adventure. Drake chose fifteen of his remaining thirty hands, and sent
them down into the pinnaces with a few Maroons. The twenty Frenchmen
joined him, under their captain, and the expedition then set sail for
Rio Francisco, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. As they sailed, the
Maroons gave out that the frigate was too deep a ship to cross the Rio
Francisco bar, which had little water on it at that season of the year.
They, therefore, sailed her back, and left her at the Cabezas, "manned
with English and French, in the charge of Richard Doble," with strict
orders not to venture out until the return of the pinnaces.
Putting her complement into the pinnaces, they again set sail for the
mouth of the Francisco River. They crossed the bar without difficulty,
and rowed their boats upstream. They landed some miles from the sea,
leaving the pinnaces in charge of some Maroons. These had orders to
leave the river, and hide themselves in the Cabezas, and to await the
raiders at the landing-place, without fail, in four days' time.
As soon as Drake had landed, he ordered the company in the formation he
had used on his march to Panama. He enjoined strict silence upon all,
and gave the word to march. They set forward silently, through the
cane-brakes and lush undergrowth, upon the long, seven leagues march to
the town of Nombre de Dios. They marched all day uncomplainingly, so
that at dusk they had crept to within a mile of the trackway, a little
to the south of the town. They were now on some gently rising ground,
with the swamps and Nombre de Dios at their feet. It made a good
camping-ground; and there they passed the night of the 31st of March,
resting and feasting "in great stillness, in a most convenient place."
They were so close to the town that they could hear the church bells
ringing and the clatter of the hammers in the bay, where the carpenters
were at work upon the treasure ships. They were working there busily,
beating in the rivets all night, in the coolness, to fit the ships for
sea. Nearer to them, a little to the west, was the trackway, so that
they could hear the mule trains going past to Panama with a great noise
of ringing bells.
Early on the morning of the 1st of April they heard a great clang of
bells among the woods. The mule trains were coming in from Venta
Cruz--three mule trains according to the Cimmeroons, laden with "more
gold and silver than all of us could bear away." The adventurers took
their weapons, and crept through the scrub to the trackway "to hear the
bells." In a few minutes, when each side of the track had been manned by
the adventurers, the treasure trains trotted up with a great clang and
clatter. There were three complete recuas, "one of 50 mules, the other
two of 70 each, every of which carried 300 lbs. of silver; which in all
amounted to near thirty tons." The trains were guarded by a half company
of Spanish foot, "fifteen to each company." The soldiers marched by the
side of the trains, blowing on their matches to keep the smouldering
ends alight. As the leading mules came up with the head of the ambush
Drake blew a blast upon his whistle. The raiders rose from their
hiding-place, and fired a volley of shot and arrows at the troops. At
the same moment tarry hands were laid upon the heads of the leading
mules, so that "all the rest stayed and lay down as their manner is."
The Spanish soldiers, taken by surprise, were yet a credit to their
colours. They fell into confusion at the first assault, but immediately
rallied. A brisk skirmish began, over the bodies of the mules, with
sharp firing of muskets and arrows. Captain Tetû was hit in the belly
with a charge of hail-shot; a Maroon was shot dead; and then the sailors
cleared the road with a rush, driving the Spanish pell-mell towards the
town. Then with feverish hands they cast adrift the mule packs "to ease
some of the mules, which were heaviest loaden, of their carriage." They
were among such wealth as few men have looked upon at the one time. How
much they took will never now be known, but each man there had as much
pure gold, in bars and quoits, as he could carry. They buried about
fifteen tons of silver "partly in the burrows which the great land-crabs
had made in the earth, and partly under old trees which were fallen
thereabout, and partly in the sand and gravel of a river, "not very deep
of water." Some of it, no doubt, remains there to this day.
In about two hours' time, they were ready to return to their pinnaces.
They formed into order, and hurried away towards the woods, making as
much haste as the weight of plunder would allow. As they gained the
shelter of the forest they heard a troop of horse, with some
arquebusiers, coming hurriedly to the rescue of the mules. They
attempted no pursuit, for no Spaniard cared to enter the forest to
attack a force in which Maroons were serving. The raiders were,
therefore, able to get clear away into the jungle. All that day and the
next day they hurried eastward through the scrub. They made a brief
pause, as they tramped, to lay down Captain Tetû, whose wound prevented
him from marching. He could go no farther, and begged that he might be
left behind in the forest, "in hope that some rest would recover him
better strength." Two French sailors stayed with him to protect him.