He was met by Captain
Tetu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Tetu gave Drake
news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this drew the French and
English Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further raiding
of Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though Drake had
now only thirty-one men against Tetu's seventy. Nombre de Dios, they
decided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish forces were
concentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to seize a
Spanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give them
time to get away with the plunder before the garrison could reach them.
Somewhere on the coast they established a base of operations and then
marched overland to the Panama trail and lay in wait.

This time the marauders were successful. When the Spanish train of gold
and jewels came opposite the ambush, Drake's whistle blew. The leading
mules were stopped. The rest lay down, as mule-trains will. The guard
was overpowered after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Tetu. And
when the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the gold
and jewels had all gone.

For a day and a night and another day Drake and his men pushed on,
loaded with plunder, back to their rendezvous along the coast, leaving
Tetu and two of his devoted Frenchmen to be rescued later. When they
arrived, worn out, at the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drake
built a raft out of unhewn tree trunks and, setting up a biscuit bag as
a sail, pushed out with two Frenchmen and one Englishman till he found
his boats. The plunder was then divided up between the French and the
English, while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Tetu to the coast.
One Frenchman was found. But Tetu and the other had been caught by
Spaniards.

The _Pascha_ was given to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail away
in. The pinnaces were kept till a suitable, smart-sailing Spanish craft
was found, boarded, and captured to replace them; whereupon they were
broken up and their metal given to the Maroons. Then, in two frigates,
with ballast of silver and cargo of jewels and gold, the thirty
survivors of the adventure set sail for home. 'Within 23 days we passed
from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at
Plymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time the
news of our Captain's return, brought unto his friends, did so speedily
pass over all the church, and