ing another reco (that is, a
mule-train, sirs) now. The Cimaroons say that since our last visit
they never move without plenty of soldiers, two hundred shot at least.
Therefore,' he said, 'my gallants, we must either return empty-handed
from this, the very market and treasury of the whole Indies, or do such
a deed as men never did before, which I shall like all the better for
that very reason.' And we, asking his meaning, 'Why,' he said, 'if Drake
will not sail the South Seas, we will;' adding profanely that Drake was
like Moses, who beheld the promised land afar; but he was Joshua, who
would enter into it, and smite the inhabitants thereof. And, for our
confirmation, showed me and the rest the superscription of a letter: and
said, 'How I came by this is none of your business: but I have had it in
my bosom ever since I left Plymouth; and I tell you now, what I forbore
to tell you at first, that the South Seas have been my mark all along!
such news have I herein of plate-ships, and gold-ships, and what not,
which will come up from Quito and Lima this very month, all which, with
the pearls of the Gulf of Panama, and other wealth unspeakable, will be
ours, if we have but true English hearts within us.'

"At which, gentles, we were like madmen for lust of that gold, and
cheerfully undertook a toil incredible; for first we run our ship
aground in a great wood which grew in the very sea itself, and then took
out her masts, and covered her in boughs, with her four cast pieces of
great ordnance (of which more hereafter), and leaving no man in her,
started for the South Seas across the neck of Panama, with two small
pieces of ordnance and our culverins, and good store of victuals, and
with us six of those negroes for a guide, and so twelve leagues to a
river which runs into the South Sea.

"And there, having cut wood, we made a pinnace (and work enough we had
at it) of five-and-forty foot in the keel; and in her down the stream,
and to the Isle of Pearls in the Gulf of Panama."

"Into the South Sea? Impossible!" said Sir Richard. "Have a care what
you say, my man; for there is that about you which would make me sorry
to find you out a liar."

"Impossible or not, liar or none, we went there, sir."

"Question him, Amyas, lest he turn out to have been beforehand with
you."

The man looked inquiringly at Amyas, who said--

"Well, my man, of the Gulf of Panama I cannot ask you, for I never was
inside it, but what other parts