drowning sailors cursed him while they sank.

Suddenly a rumour shook the Spanish Court,
He has gone once more to the Indies. Santa Cruz,
High Admiral of Spain, the most renowned
Captain in Europe, clamoured for a fleet
Of forty sail instantly to pursue.
For unto him whose little _Golden Hynde_
Was weapon enough, now leading such a squadron,
The West Indies, the whole Pacific coast,
And the whole Spanish Main, lay at his mercy.

And onward over the great grey gleaming sea
Swept like a thunder-cloud the pirate fleet
With vengeance in its heart. Five years agone,
Young Hawkins, in the Cape Verde Islands, met--
At Santiago--with such treachery
As Drake burned to requite, and from that hour
Was Santiago doomed. His chance had come;
Drake swooped upon it, plundered it, and was gone,
Leaving the treacherous isle a desolate heap
Of smoking ashes in the leaden sea,
While onward all those pirate bowsprits plunged
Into the golden West, across the broad
Atlantic once again; "For I will show,"
Said Drake, "that Englishmen henceforth will sail
Old ocean where they will." Onward they surged,
And the great glittering crested majestic waves
Jubilantly rushed up to meet the keels,
And there was nought around them but the grey
Ruin and roar of the huge Atlantic seas,
Grey mounded seas, pursuing and pursued,
That fly, hounded and hounding on for ever,
From empty marge to marge of the grey sky.
Over the wandering wilderness of foam,
Onward, through storm and death, Drake swept; for now
Once more a fell plague gripped the tossing ships,
And not by twos and threes as heretofore
His crews were minished; but in three black days
Three hundred seamen in their shotted shrouds
Were cast into the deep. Onward he swept,
Implacably, having in mind to strike
Spain in the throat at St. Domingo, port
Of Hispaniola, a city of far renown,
A jewel on the shores of old romance,
Palm-shadowed, gated with immortal gold,
Queen city of Spain's dominions over sea,
And guarded by great guns. Out of the dawn
The pirate ships came leaping, grim and black,
And ere the Spaniards were awake, the flag
Of England floated from their topmost tower.
But since he had not troops enough to hold
So great a city, Drake entrenched his men
Within the Plaza and he