truck.

Madeira was passed by and the Canaries spared; for Palma, which Drake
intended should revictual him, showed so bold a front that he would not
waste time in trying to reduce it. It was on another point that his
implacable glance was fixed.

Five years ago at Santiago, the chief town of the Cape Verd Islands,
young William Hawkins, a personal adherent of Drake's, had been made the
victim of some such treachery as his father and captain had suffered
together at Vera Cruz. From that hour it was doomed. In the middle of
November the fleet arrived in the road and the troops landed. Threatened
by Carleill from the heights above the valley where it lies, and from
the sea by Drake, without a blow the town was abandoned to its fate. For
ten days the island was scoured for plunder and provisions, and ere the
month was out the anchorage was desolate and Santiago a heap of ashes.

Drake's vengeance was complete, and, exulting like Gideon in the
devastation that marked his course, he led his ships across the
Atlantic. Is there a moment in history more tragic than that? For the
first time since the ages began, a hostile fleet was passing the
ocean--the pioneer of how many more that have gone and are yet to
go--the forerunner of how much glory and shame and misery! What wonder
if the curse of God seemed upon it? Hardly had it lost sight of land
when it was stricken with sickness. In a few days some three hundred men
were dead, and numbers of others prostrate and useless; but in unshaken
faith, and with reverent wonder at the inscrutable will of Heaven, Drake
never flinched or paused. His only thought was how to check the evil. At
Dominica he got fresh provisions from the natives, and refreshed his
sick with a few days on shore. At St. Christopher he again halted to
spend Christmas and elaborate the details of his next move.

The point where Philip was now to feel the weight of his arm was the
fair city of Santo Domingo in Espanola. It was by far the most serious
operation Drake had yet undertaken. Hitherto his exploits had been
against places that were little more than struggling settlements, but
Santo Domingo was indeed a city, stone-built and walled, and flanked
with formidable batteries. It was held by a powerful garrison, as Drake
learned from a captured frigate, and a naval force had been concentrated
in the harbor for its defence. As the oldest town in the Indies, its
renown had hitherto secured it from attack, and in