le Oxenham's party did that service for
those which followed. The arrangement also provided "that if we should
have need to use our weapons that night, we might be sure not to
endamage our fellows." Having reached their stations, the men lay down
to wait, keeping as quiet as they could. In about an hour's time they
heard the clanging of many mule bells, making a loud music, in the
direction of Venta Cruz. Mules were returning from that town to Panama;
for with the fleet at Nombre de Dios there was much business between the
two seaports, and the mule trains were going and coming several times a
day. As they listened, they heard more mule bells ringing far away on
the road from Panama. The treasurer with his company was coming.

Now, Drake had given strict orders that no man should show himself, or
as much as budge from his station, "but let all that came from Venta
Cruz [which was nothing but merchandise] to pass quietly." Yet one of
the men, probably one of Oxenham's men, of the name of Robert Pike, now
disobeyed those orders. "Having drunken too much aqua-vitae without
water," he forgot himself. He rose from his place in the grass,
"enticing a Cimaroon with him," and crept up close to the road, "with
intent to have shown his forwardness on the foremost mules." Almost
immediately a cavalier came trotting past from Venta Cruz upon a fine
horse, with a little page running at the stirrup. As he trotted by,
Robert Pike "rose up to see what he was." The Cimmeroon promptly pulled
him down, and sat upon him; but his promptness came too late to save the
situation. All the English had put their shirts over their other
apparel, "that we might be sure to know our own men in the pell mell in
the night." The Spanish cavalier had glanced in Robert Pike's direction,
and had seen a figure rising from the grass "half all in white" and very
conspicuous. He had heard of Drake's being on the coast, and at once
came to the conclusion that that arch-pirate had found his way through
the woods to reward himself for his disappointment at Nombre de Dios.
He was evidently a man of great presence of mind. He put spurs to his
horse, and galloped off down the road, partly to escape the danger, but
partly also to warn the treasure train, the bells of which were now
clanging loudly at a little distance from the ambuscade.

Drake heard the trotting horse's hoofs clatter out into a furious
gallop. He suspected that he had been discovered, "but could not