_ with twenty-six
of a crew, only one man older than fifty, the rest mere boys with hate
in their hearts for Spanish blood, love in their hearts for Spanish
gold. Touching at a hidden cove for provisions left the year before,
Drake found this warning from a former comrade, stuck to the bark of a
tree by a hunting knife:--

"_Captain Drake--if you do fortune into this port, haste away; for the
Spaniards have betrayed this place, and taken all away that you left
here--your loving friend--John Garret._"

Heeding the warning, Drake hastened away to the Isle of Pinos, off the
isthmus, left the ships at a concealed cove here, armed fifty-three of
his boldest fellows with muskets, crossbows, pikes, and spontoons.
Then he called for drummers and trumpeters, and rowed in a small boat
for Nombre de Dios, the treasure house of New Spain. The small boat
kept on the offing till dark, then sent ashore for some
Indians--half-breeds whom Spanish cruelty had driven to revolt. This
increased Drake's force to one hundred and fifty men. Silently, just
as the moon emerged from clouds lighting up harbor and town, the
long-boat glided into Nombre de Dios. A high platform, mounted with
brass cannon, fronted the water. Behind were thirty houses,
thatch-roofed, whitewashed, palisaded, surrounded by courtyards with an
almost European pomp. The King's Treasure House stood at one end of
the market. Near it was a chapel with high wooden steeple.

{142} A Spanish ship lay furled in port. From this glided out a punt
poled like mad by a Spaniard racing to reach the platform first. Drake
got athwart the fellow's path, knocked him over, gagged his yells, and
was up the platform before the sleepy gunner on guard was well awake.
The sentry only paused to make sure that the men scrambling up the fort
were not ghosts. Then he tore at the top of his speed for the
alarm-bell of the chapel and, clapping down the hatch door of the
steeple stairs in the faces of the pursuing Englishmen, rang the bells
like a demon possessed.

Leaving twelve men to hold the platform as a retreat, Drake sent
sixteen to attack the King's Treasure just at the moment he himself,
with his hundred men, should succeed in drawing the entire Spanish
garrison to a sham battle on the market-place. The cannon on the
platform were spiked and overturned. Drums beating, trumpets blowing,
torches aflare, the English freebooter marched straight to the market.
Up at the Treasure H