Nombre de Dios, now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not an easy nut to crack.  But Panama?  Panama meant a risky march inland and a still riskier return by the regular treasure trail.  But with the help of the Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might yet be done.  Ranse thought the game not worth the candle and retired from the partnership, much to Drake’s delight.

A good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagena.  Here Drake found a frigate deserted by its crew, who had gone ashore to see fair play in a duel fought about a seaman’s mistress.  The old man left in charge confessed that a Seville ship was round the point.  Drake cut her out at once, in spite of being fired at from the shore.  Next, in came two more Spanish sail to warn Cartagena that ’Captain Drake has been at Nombre de Dios and taken it, and if a blest bullet hadn’t hit him in the leg he would have sacked it too.’

Cartagena, however, was up in arms already; so Drake put all his prisoners ashore unhurt and retired to reconsider his position, leaving Diego, a negro fugitive from Nombre de Dios, to muster the Maroons for a raid overland to Panama.  Then Drake, who sank the Swan and burnt his prizes because he had only men enough for the Pascha and the pinnaces, disappeared into a new secret harbor.  But his troubles were only beginning; for word came that the Maroons said that nothing could be done inland till the rains were over, five months hence.  This meant a long wait; however, what with making supply depots and picking up prizes here and there, the wet time might pass off well enough.

One day Oxenham’s crew nearly mutinied over the shortness of provisions.  ‘Have ye not as much as I,’ Drake called to them, ’and has God’s Providence ever failed us yet?’ Within an hour a Spanish vessel hove in sight, making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her was out of the question.  But ’We spent not two hours in attendance till it pleased God to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our guns and approach her at pleasure.  We found her laden with victuals, which we received as sent of God’s great mercy.’  Then ‘Yellow Jack’ broke out, and the men began to fall sick and die.  The company consisted of seventy-three men; and twenty-eight of these perished of the fever, among them the surgeon himself and Drake’s own brother.

But on the 3d of February, 1573, Drake was ready for the dash on Panama.  Leaving behind about twenty-five men to guard the base, he began the overland march with a company of fifty, all told, of whom thirty-one were picked Maroons.  The fourth day out Drake climbed a forest giant on the top of the Divide, saw the Atlantic behind him and the Pacific far in front, and vowed that if he lived he would sail an English ship over the great South Sea.  Two days more and the party left the protecting forest for the rolling pampas where the risk of being seen increased at every