uld make no real resistance; and so rapidly was the English
advance pushed home that the struggling mass of friend and foe entered
pell-mell through the open gates of the town. For an hour, alarms of
drum and trumpet mingling confusedly with the sounds of street-fighting
reached the listening fleet as the two columns forced their way to meet
upon the Plaza. But how they fared none could tell, till on a tower a
white staff suddenly appeared, and in another moment the cross of St.
George fluttered gayly out upon the breeze. With a roar of triumph the
ships' guns saluted the signal of victory. The town was won.

Though the garrison fled panic-stricken across the river on the far side
of the city, and the citadel was evacuated in the night, the place was
far too large to be occupied by the force at Drake's command. Following,
therefore, the same tactics that had been successful at Nombre de Dios,
he ordered the troops to intrench themselves in the Plaza and to occupy
the principal batteries. In this way he held the city for a month. The
plunder was disappointing. The city was already a hundred years old, and
its day was done; for the reckless native policy of the colonists had
almost ruined the island. It remained but to treat for a ransom. The
Governor at once declared himself unable to meet the extravagant demands
of the English admiral, and in order to bring him to terms Drake began
to burn the town piecemeal. But so well was it built that little harm
could be done, and every day his impatience increased.

Once, in the course of the negotiations, he sent a boy with a flag of
truce to the Spanish camp. A Spaniard, meeting the lad, so ill-treated
him that he could barely crawl back to die at the admiral's feet. Then
all the fury of Drake's nature burst forth. Two friars who were among
the prisoners were immediately sent ashore and hanged by the
provost-marshal on the scene of the crime. Another was despatched to the
Spanish camp to declare that two more would be executed every morning
until the offender was brought down and hanged on the spot by his own
authorities. In hasty alarm the demand was complied with, and then the
international dinners and the negotiations went on more smoothly.
Convinced at last of the poverty of the colony, Drake accepted a ransom
of twenty-five thousand ducats. The sum, which is equal to about fifty
thousand pounds of our money, though little enough to satisfy the
shareholders, was very serious