It was a reckless jest, for every one knew that if Elizabeth were dead or married to a Catholic or at peace with Spain when they saw England again, it was extremely likely that the gallows would be their reward.  But here, at any rate, was one spot not yet haunted by the Spanish spectre.

The Indians, persuaded at last that the white chief was not a god, insisted on making him their King.  They crowned him with a headdress of brilliant feathers, in all due ceremony, hung a chain of beads about his neck, and looked on with the utmost reverence while Drake fixed to a large upright post a tablet claiming the land for the Queen of England, and a silver sixpence with the portrait of Elizabeth and the Tudor rose.  Securely hidden under the tablet in a hollow of the wood were memoranda concerning the direction in which, according to the Indians, gold was to be found in the streams,—­plenty of gold.  When she was ready to the last rope’s end the little ship spread her wings and sailed straight across the Pacific, round the Cape of Good Hope, home to England.

Battered and scarred but still seaworthy the Golden Hynde crept into Plymouth Sound, where Drake heard that the plague was in the seaport.  Using this for excuse not to land until he knew his footing, he anchored behind Saint Nicholas Island and sent letters to Court.

The sea-dogs who patrolled the Narrow Seas in Elizabeth’s time understood her better than her courtiers did.  To Drake she was still the keen-minded woman who, like the jeweled silent birds he had seen in tropical jungles, sat in her palace, with enemies all about her alert and observant, and ready to seize her if she came within their grasp.  He knew her waywardness to be half assumed, since to let an enemy know what he can count on is fatal.  He had not much doubt of her action, but he must wait for her to give him his cue.

Within a week came her answer.  She demurely suggested that she should be pleased to see any curiosities which her good Captain had brought home.  Drake went up to London, and with him a pack train laden with the cream of his spoil.  The Spanish Ambassador Mendoza came with furious letters from Philip demanding the pirate’s head.  A Spanish force landed that very week in Ireland.  Burleigh and the peace party were desperate.  All that Mendoza could get out of Elizabeth was an order to Edmund Tremayne at Plymouth to register the cargo of the Golden Hynde and send it up to London that she might see how much the pirate had really taken.  At the same time Drake himself went down with her private letter to Tremayne telling him to look another way while her captain got his share of the bullion.  Meanwhile she suggested that Philip call his Spaniards out of Ireland.  Philip snarled that they were private volunteers.  Elizabeth replied, so was Drake.  An inquiry was held, and not a single act of cruelty or destruction of property could be proved against any of Drake’s crews.  The men were richly rewarded by their Admiral; the Golden Hynde came up to Deptford; a list of the plunder was returned to Mendoza; and London waited, excited and curious.