biggest and most important city on the continent at that
time, and, apart from the question of soldiers, the citizens alone if
they chose to arm themselves and fight were sufficiently numerous to
overwhelm the English; but George had by that time learned to gauge the
courage of the American Spaniard pretty accurately, and he felt that the
undertaking which he had planned, although difficult, was by no means
beyond his power to accomplish.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

HOW THEY TOOK THE GREAT GALLEON.

In order to obtain possession of the caravel which George had marked
down as his prey, boats were necessary, since the vessel lay at anchor
in the roadstead, instead of alongside the wharf; and to obtain boats it
would be necessary to enter the city. But Panama, like Nombre and San
Juan, and indeed all the Spanish settlements in America, was fortified
on the landward side as a protection against the incursions of the
savages who, gentle enough when the white man first came among them,
soon had their most ferocious and bloodthirsty instincts fully aroused
by the heartless cruelty and treachery with which the Spaniards quickly
began to treat them; to enter the city from its landward side was
therefore impossible for the English without at once betraying
themselves and something of their purpose. The only alternative,
therefore, was to gain an entrance from the water; and the problem was
how to do this without betraying themselves and putting the inhabitants
on their guard.

At first the difficulty seemed to be insurmountable, but George Saint
Leger was one of those who refuse to acknowledge anything as impossible;
and at length, when the party had halted at mid-day behind the very last
screen of timber between them and the city, he believed he had
discovered the answer to his problem.

It has been said that Panama stood not only on the shore of the ocean
but also on the left bank of a small stream which, taking its rise
somewhere among the adjacent mountains, discharged itself into the
waters of the harbour, and when once it had come to be recognised that
the approach of the party must be made by water, it was upon this stream
that George concentrated his attention. It was but an insignificant
affair as to width, and to all appearance shallow, but just before it
reached the city it widened out to about sixty yards across; and while
the young captain was studying it through his perspective glass, during
the mid-day halt, he