ails on the offing, and such
seas were slopping across the water-logged driftwood, the men were to
their waists in water when the sail-boats came to the rescue.

On Sunday morning, August 9, 1573, the ships were once more in
Plymouth. Whispers ran through the assembled congregations of the
churches that Drake, the bold sea-rover, was entering port loaded with
foreign treasure; and out rushed every man, woman, and child, leaving
the scandalized preachers thundering to empty pews.

Drake was now one of the richest men in England. At his own cost he
equipped three frigates for service under Essex in Ireland, and through
the young Earl was introduced to the circle of Elizabeth's advisers.
To the Queen he told his plans for sailing an English ship on the South
Sea. To her, no doubt, he related the tales of Spanish gold freighting
that sea, closed to the rest of the world. Good reason for
England--Spain's enemy--to prove that the ocean, like air, was free to
all nations! The Pope's Bull dividing off the southern hemisphere
between Portugal and Spain mattered little to a nation belligerently
Protestant, and less to a seaman whose dauntless daring had raised him
from a wharf-rat to Queen's adviser. Elizabeth could not yet wound
Spain openly; but she received Drake in audience, and presented him a
magnificent sword with the words--"Who striketh thee, Drake, striketh
us!"

[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake.]

{147} Five ships, this time, he led out from Plymouth in November of
1577. Gales drove him back. It was December before his fleet was at
sea--the _Pelican_ of one hundred tons and twenty or thirty cannon
under Drake, Thomas Doughty, a courtier second to Drake, the
_Elizabeth_ of eighty tons, the _Swan_, _Christopher_, and _Marygold_
no larger than fishing schooners; manned in all by one hundred and
sixty sailors, mostly boys.

Outward bound for trade in Egypt, the world was told, but as
merchantmen, the ships were regally equipped--Drake in velvets and gold
braid, served by ten young gentlemen of noble birth, who never sat or
covered in his presence without permission; service of gold plate at
the mess table, where Drake dined alone like a king to the music of
viols and harps; military drill at every port, and provisions enough
aboard to go round the world, not just to Egypt.

January saw the fleet far enough from Egypt, at the islands off the
west coast of Africa, where three vessels were scuttle