waiting for the lightning now
To swoop upon his prey. One iron hand
Gripped a rough tree-root like a bunch of snakes;
And, as the rain rushed round him, far away
He saw to northward yet another flash,
A scribble of God's finger in the sky
Over a waste of white stampeding waves.
His eye flashed like a falchion as he saw it,
And from his lips there burst the sea-king's laugh;
For there, with a fierce joy he knew, he knew
Doughty, at last--an open mutineer!
An open foe to fight! Ay, there she went,--
His _Golden Hynde_, his little _Golden Hynde_
A wild deserter scudding to the North.
And, almost ere the lightning, Drake had gone
Crashing down the face of the precipice,
By a narrow water-gully, and through the huge
Forest he tore the straight and perilous way
Down to the shore; while, three miles to the North,
Upon the wet poop of the _Golden Hynde_
Doughty stood smiling. Scarce would he have smiled
Knowing that Drake had seen him from that tower
Amidst the thunders; but, indeed, he thought
He had escaped unseen amidst the storm.
Many a day he had worked upon the crew,
Fanning their fears and doubts until he won
The more part to his side. And when they reached
That coast, he showed them how Drake meant to sail
Southward, into that unknown Void; but he
Would have them suddenly slip by stealth away
Northward to Darien, showing them what a life
Of roystering glory waited for them there,
If, laying aside this empty quest, they joined
The merry feasters round those island fires
Which over many a dark-blue creek illumed
Buccaneer camps in scarlet logwood groves,
Fringing the Gulf of Mexico, till dawn
Summoned the Black Flags out to sweep the sea.

But when Drake reached the flower-embowered boat
And found the men awaiting his return
There, in a sheltering grove of bread-fruit trees
Beneath great eaves of leafage that obscured
Their sight, but kept the storm out, as they tossed
Pieces of eight or rattled the bone dice,
His voice went through them like a thunderbolt,
For none of them had seen the _Golden Hynde_
Steal from the bay; and now the billows burst
Like cannon down the coast; and they had thought
Their boat could not be launched until the storm
Abated. Under Drake's compelling eyes,
Nevertheless, they poled her d