o avoid the native towns and villages, so
at the first we engaged a guide who knew enough of coast Spanish to
understand our wants and be our interpreter to his friends. We found
that the Indians hated the Spaniards and dreaded their rapacity and
cruelty. As Englishmen and foes of Spain, we always got a welcome; and
Oxenham had wit enough to be kind, courteous, and generous, and so win
a welcome for us for our own sakes. Our voyage down the river was a
sort of triumphal progress, and we made ten thousand faithful allies.
At last came the day when the river broadened to an estuary; when we
saw the tide marks along the roots of the mangroves, and the salt
flavour was in the air, and white-winged gulls swept screaming over our
heads, scaring away the gaudy, noisy parrots that had been our
feathered companions for so long. The next morning the sun shot up for
us, a golden ball of cheering presage, from out the glittering bosom of
the Pacific. What a shout we raised! Weeks of toil and fever were
forgotten, scars and bruises healed--or were felt no longer--when the
glorious heave of ocean waters lifted our keel!"

Paignton Rob paused and lifted his flagon to his lips. He put it down
reflectively. "Do ye mind that morn, comrades?" he asked.

"Shall we ever forget it!" exclaimed the two Plymouth men in a breath.
The company nodded to Rob, and took a friendly sip of sack in his
honour. He took up again the thread of his story.

"A native that had come down the coast from the direction of Panama
came to our captain with information that two treasure-ships were
expected from Peru, and he offered to be our guide to the Isle of
Pearls, situated about five-and-twenty leagues from Panama itself, and
in the direct line of sailing to the city. We accepted his offer
gladly, and the fellow led us to a snug anchorage whence we could espy
our prey and make ready to sally forth and seize him.

"We lay under the island for one night and the better part of a day
before our lookout in a tree-top at the edge of a steep cliff sang out,
'Sail ho! Spanish rig!' We were alert on the instant, watching the
Spaniard bowling north-eastwards before a stiff breeze. At the right
moment we slipped our cable, hoisted sail, and stood out to sea right
in his path. No news of our presence on the isthmus had got abroad,
and the foe did not suspect us until he was within range of our small
guns, when we promptly sent a couple of shots splintering