Chapter XXV: The Mule Trains

"No Bobby Pike this time," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis, as they lay eating their supper amid the scrub a mile or more south of Nombre de Dios. "And with all my soul I hope the Frenchmen be sober men, for to fail of our purpose now through any frowardness would break Master Drake his noble heart and send me into a decline."

"Hush!" returned Dennis, in a voice equally low. "List to the church bells, Amos, and the clatter of the hammers. Does it not mind you of home--the church on the cliff, and the busy carpenters in the docks below? My soul yearns for home, Amos."

"Ay, and so do I. But I would fain return home with full hands--money enough to buy a little fishing craft, and a cottage by the sea. 'Tis five year and more since I sailed in the _Jesus_ out of Plimworth Sound, and there was Margery Tutt a-waving her little handkercher to me, thinking, poor soul, to see me again within a twelvemonth. And I warrant the pretty maid counted the days and went to every wedden in church, to larn the fearsome promises word by word, so that she might not fail when we should come to stand afore holy pa'son. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow': so it runs for the man to say, and here I be, five year after, with not so much worldly goods as I had then, saving some few pearls; and I warrant some knavish land-lubber has come along and snatched up my little Margery, and I'll find her a bowerly 'ooman that has clean forgot poor Haymoss Turnpenny. Ah me! I be sick of adventures, be jowned if I bean't."

"Be of good cheer, Amos. If Fortune stand our friend, we shall have more gold and silver than we can bear away before this night be ended; and then Master Drake will sail away home, and who knows?--Margery may be looking for you even yet. 'Twas seven years that Jacob served for Rachel."

"Ay, but always within arm's length. I warrant he kept an eye on the wench. There was never a thousand leagues of sea betwixt him and the maid. Od-rat-en, if I find Margery have changed her name with any lubberly chaw-bacon, dang me if I don't deal en a clout he'll remember, good-now, I will."

Turnpenny relapsed into silence, brooding on his melancholy forebodings.

It was the night of March 31. Some forty men lay in the scrub overlooking Nombre de Dios, awaiting the clang of mule-bells that would announce the approach of a treasure train from Venta Cruz. Half of them were French, for a week or two before, as Drake and his men were sportively pitching stones at the land crabs on the beach, a ship came down from the west, whose captain proved to be a French Huguenot named Le Testu, with a company of some seventy men and boys. They were perishing for want of water. Having obtained from Drake, ever generous to adventurers like himself, the supplies they needed, they prepared to join themselves to him, in the hope of obtaining some share of Spanish gold.

Drake hesitated to admit the Frenchmen to a partnership, for he had but thirty-one men left, and feared that the seventy would claim too large a portion of the booty if his projected attack on the mule-train should succeed. But the matter was compromised by Captain Le Testu joining Drake with twenty men. These, with fifteen Englishmen and a few maroons, sailed in two of Drake's pinnaces for the mouth of the Francisco river, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. The rest of the company were left at a secret spot in charge of one Richard Doble. When the river mouth was made, Drake sent a few maroons back with the pinnaces, ordering them to remain in hiding with Doble and to return in four days' time to take off the adventurers.

Dennis and Turnpenny were among those who accompanied Drake in the _Minion_. They had won great praise from him for their exploits in Maiden Isle and their capture of the Spanish ship, whose stores of food and ammunition were very welcome. The damage to the pinnace was speedily repaired, Drake saying with a laugh that had she been rendered unseaworthy he would have pinioned Dennis between decks and kept him there until they dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound.

The adventurers were encamped on rising ground above the town. Taking a lesson from the previous failure, the men spoke in the lowest of whispers, even though they were a mile away from the track. All through the night they heard the clatter of hammers from the bay, where the Spanish shipwrights, avoiding the heat of the day, were preparing the ships of the treasure fleet for sea. The ambuscaders were grimly resolved that the cargoes should be less by the weight of a good many tons of silver and gold.

The hours passed too slowly for the impatient adventurers. But at length, a little before dawn, they heard a faint tinkle of bells afar in the woods, and soon the maroon scouts came in with the news that three trains, numbering nearly two hundred mules in all, were approaching from Venta Cruz. Such good fortune was unlooked for; and though the scouts reported that the trains were escorted by soldiers, not a man gave a thought to the odds against them. Instantly they all seized their calivers and bows and arrows, and hastened to the trackway, where, as before, they posted themselves in the long grass on either side.

On came the mules, their bells jangling and clanging in musical discord. In the grass lurked the raiders, silent--though Turnpenny gave Dennis a nudge and whispered, "'Tis All Fools' Day!" Suddenly there sounded a blast from Drake's whistle; the men started up, and, sending a volley of bullets and arrows at the Spanish infantrymen that guarded the convoy, made straight for the heads of the leading mules. Nothing loath to rest a while, the mules behind lay down contentedly on the ground. But the soldiers, who had blown on their matches as they marched, to keep them alight, rallied in a group and fired back at the assailants. A maroon was killed outright: Captain Le Testu fell seriously wounded; but the rest, kneeling down and supporting their weapons on the prostrate mules, briskly returned the fire; then, springing up before the enemy could reload, charged upon them with fierce cries and drove them helter-skelter towards the town. Immediately afterwards two men came rushing up to Turnpenny.

"Be jowned if it bean't Billy Hawk and fat Baltizar!" he cried in astonishment. "Oh Billy, poor soul, what a scarecrow 'ee do look! Get out, you jelly!" he cried to Baltizar, speeding him with a kick. "You be fat as butter; all is well with 'ee; get 'ee to the town after your masters, and thank God your oily carcass be not left to fatten the land.--Billy, dear heart, what hath happed to thee?"

Hawk told his story while Turnpenny and the other seamen, selecting the mules that bore the heaviest loads, with nimble fingers cast off their packs, unstrapped them, and helped themselves to the precious contents--bars and quoits of solid gold, and silver uncountable. He had followed Biddle and the other mutineers in the hope of persuading them to return to their duty; but they had soon fallen upon him, robbed him of his bag of pearls, and left him bound in the forest. There he had been found by some fugitives from the routed Spaniards, who carried him to their vessel, and conveyed him to Nombre de Dios. Believing him to be one of Drake's men, they tortured him to make him confess where his captain's secret haven was, which he stedfastly refused to do; and since then he had been kept in slavery, drudging as a muleteer between Nombre de Dios and Panama.

"God be praised we have found 'ee!" cried Turnpenny. "You shall come back with us, and I'll give 'ee a share of all my treasure."

The raiders did up in bundles and bestowed about their persons as much as they could stagger under, and set to work to bury what they could not carry in the burrows of landcrabs and under the great trunks of fallen trees. For two hours they toiled on; then, hearing the clatter of hoofs from the direction of the town, they seized their booty and made off to the woods. Up came a troop of horse; but when they reached the mules they halted, for they heard in the woods the "Yo peho!" of the maroons, and shrank from engaging those terrible forest fighters. Staggering under the weight of their treasure, the raiders tramped with what haste they might through the jungle. They had not gone far when Captain Le Testu lay down groaning; weak from loss of blood, he could go no farther. Two of his men volunteered to stay with him, and help him on after he had rested. The others hurried on, and after struggling through the forest for two days and nights, drenched by terrible rainstorms, burnt black by the torrid heat, reached their landing-place on the bank of the Francisco River.

It was four days since they had left it; the pinnaces should have been there awaiting them; but not a sign of them met their hungry eyes. Instead, seven Spanish pinnaces were observed rowing from the island, where the maroons had been ordered to shelter with Richard Doble. The drenched and footsore raiders were aghast. Had their enemies captured the pinnaces, and slain their comrades? Were they to be imprisoned in this swampy jungle, with no means of sailing or rowing away to Fort Diego? Loud murmurs, cries of despair, curses at being deserted, broke from the seamen. They cried out that they were betrayed; that the Spaniards would fall on them and overwhelm them; that they would never see home again. Drake expostulated with them; the maroons offered to lead them the sixteen days' journey overland, and promised, if the ships proved indeed to be taken, to give them shelter in their villages. But the men cried out the more; some threw down the treasure they had dared so much to win; some began to cry out against their leader himself.

Then Drake showed the stuff of which he was made.

"Silence, you knaves!" he cried. "Am I any whit better off than you? Is this a time to yield to craven fear? Nay, but rather to pluck up heart and play the man. If the Spaniards have in truth taken our pinnaces, which God forbid, yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, and, if they compel them by torture to confess where our ships are, time to execute their resolution after it is determined. Before all these times be taken, we may get to our ships if ye will. We may not hope to go by land, for that the journey is too long and the ways too foul. But we may surely go by water. Look at the trees here rolling down upon the flood, thrown down by the storms that beset us so sorely. May we not build ourselves a raft, and put ourselves to sea? I will be one; who will be the others?"

"That will I," said Dennis, stepping forward.

"And I too, good-now," cried Turnpenny.

"Nay, Master Hazelrig, you I will leave to command these timid rascals if ill befall me; but Amos I will take, and go fetch those laggard pinnaces."

Then the maroons, taking hands and forming into a line, stepped into the river and intercepted the trees as they came down on the torrent. With their hatchets they lopped off the branches; they bound the trunks together with leathern thongs taken from the mules, and with tendrils of creepers from the jungle. A stout sapling was reared as a mast, and with his own hands Turnpenny rigged up a biscuit sack for a sail, and fashioned a crutch in which another sapling might serve as a rudder. The raft being now ready, Drake selected two of the Frenchmen who could swim well to accompany him and Turnpenny. The four men stepped on to the frail craft, and as she was hauled off over the bar at the river mouth, Drake cried out:

"Be of good cheer, my hearts. If it please God I put my foot in safety aboard my frigate, I shall, God willing, by one means or other get ye all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies."

And the seamen, with new hope born within their breasts, sped their gallant captain with a cheer.

"My heart, 'twas a fearsome voyage!" said Turnpenny, relating the adventure to Dennis afterwards. "We sat inches deep in water, holding on for very life, and the sea came tumbling aboard, swingeing us to the armpits at every surge of the waves. We scudded along before the wind, but though 'twas strong, it scarce tempered the great heat; and what with the parching of the sun, and what with the beating of the salt water, we had all of us our skins much fretted away. We had sailed for six hours, and were making our third league, when God gave us the sight of two pinnaces bearing towards us. 'God be praised!' cried our captain; 'there is now no cause to fear.' But the sky was become dark, and the men on the pinnaces as they laboured towards us, the wind driving the spray into their eyes, did not perceive us; and the gale being exceedingly fierce, they bore up to the lee of a point of land, and vanished from our sight. Whereupon our captain ran ashore to windward of the headland, and being mightily enraged for that the knaves had not obeyed his command to wait us at the river, he was minded to play a trick on them and turn their hearts sick with very fear. So when we did land, we ran in great haste towards where the pinnaces were at anchor, making such speed as if we had been chased by the enemy. My heart! their eyes were astare with fear when they espied us. They hauled us aboard their boats, crying out, this one and that, 'Where be our comrades?' 'How fares it with them?' and other such questions, to all which our Captain in a cold voice did answer only 'Well!' Whereupon they began to lament with tears, crying out that verily their dear comrades were dead or in captivity.

"Our captain for a space looked sternly upon them in their misery. But then, being willing to rid all doubts and fill them with joy, he took from out his shirt a quoit of gold, and bade them praise God, for their comrades were safe and had of that treasure enough and for all. Then he commanded them to get their anchors up, for that he was resolved that very night to come back to the river. And we rowed hard through the darkness and in the teeth of the gale, and here we be, with blistered skins indeed, but sound men and hearty."

Dennis had collected the men on the shore, and built a fire to keep their spirits up. With great joy they heard their comrades hailing them as the vessels came up out of the dark, and they begged Drake's forgiveness for their mutinous murmurs. As soon as day dawned they embarked; the pinnaces ran before the wind, picked up Richard Doble in his frigate, and before noon arrived safely at Port Diego. The treasure was carried on shore, and in the middle of the smooth open space, amidst cries of wonderment from those who had not had a part in the adventure, Drake weighed the gold and silver on the steward's meat-scales, delivering to the Frenchmen the half agreed upon. These then sailed away westward, to get news of their ill-fated captain.

Drake was not easy in mind about Le Testu. It was pitiful to think of him wounded and left with only two of his men deep in the woods. So while his vessel, the _Pascha_, too foul to be easily fitted for the voyage home, was being stripped to equip the Spanish frigate Dennis had captured, he prepared to lead an expedition in search of the French Captain. But his men raised such an outcry at his leaving them that he gave the command to Oxnam, contenting himself with accompanying them to the Francisco River.

Oxnam had not gone far up stream when a haggard figure emerged tottering from the reeds, and falling on his knees, burst into tears and thanked God that help had come. Not many minutes after Drake had left him and his comrade with Captain Le Testu, some Spanish arquebusiers came upon them. The Captain bade the two men flee, and they ran off in haste, carrying their treasure. But the Spaniards gave chase, and this man, fearing that, burdened as he was, he must be overtaken, flung away his possessions one after another. Among them was a box of jewels, and this his comrade, cupidity getting the better of his fear, stopped to pick up. The delay was fatal. He was caught and carried away with the captain. The other fugitive was not farther pursued; he reached the river after wandering for several days, during which he had seen a great host of near two thousand Spaniards and negroes searching for the treasure that had been buried.

Hearing this, Oxnam was not willing to return until he had seen whether anything was left. The Spaniards had dug up the ground over nearly a square mile; but Oxnam found in the crab-holes a small quantity of gold, with silver weighing about five hundred pounds. Loaded with this, his men returned to their pinnace, and came merrily back to Port Diego.

Now all thoughts turned longingly homewards. The value of the treasure taken from the Spaniards was near L50,000, and it was not to be supposed that so great a loss would be accepted by them with equanimity. Before long ships of war would doubtless be fitted out to punish this audacious sea-rover who had made himself a terror throughout the Main, and Drake thought it but prudent to get away with his booty before his little band was overwhelmed. He still needed a vessel to serve as victualler to the frigate in which he purposed to sail for England. With his usual daring he set off for the mouth of the Grande river, running right under the guns of Cartagena. In the middle of the night he chased and boarded a frigate that endeavoured to slip past him to the west, and, returning to his secret haven with his prize, he unloaded her cargo of maize, hens, hogs, and wild honey, and prepared for the voyage home.

All hands were set to break up the pinnaces, which had been brought in sections from England and were now, after a year's sailing, past further service. Their timbers were burned on the beach; their ironwork was given to the maroons. The two Spanish frigates were overhauled, their keels cleared of barnacles, their spars and rigging put in good repair, their holds filled with a plentiful store of food. Then, when all was ready, Drake invited Pedro, the maroon chief, and three of his best men to choose some reward for their good and loyal services. Pedro took a great fancy to a splendid scimitar which had been given to Drake by Captain Le Testu and had once belonged to the King of France. Drake would rather he had chosen something else, but he handed over the weapon with a good grace, and accompanied it with a present of silk and fine cloth for the maroons' wives. Pedro was so much delighted that he begged Drake to accept four wedges of gold in return, which the Captain threw into the common stock, saying it was only just that those who had shared with him the dangers and hardships of the adventures should share also in the full profits.

Dennis did not part from Juan without giving him a token of his thanks and a memento of their common adventures. He had lost almost all that he had saved from the _Maid Marian_; with the _Mirandola_ it had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; and the division of the spoils of the mule-train would not be made until they reached Plymouth. But he had always kept the sword of Sir Martin Blunt, and this he gave to Juan, who received it with great satisfaction.

On the 17th of July the company went aboard the two frigates; the anchors were heaved, all sail was set, and the little craft stood out to sea. The flag of St. George flew at their maintops; silk streamers and ensigns dipped down to the water; a parting salute was fired; the trumpeters blew a blast; and the English mariners shouted a farewell cheer to the maroons gathered on the beach. Down in the hold lay Jan Biddle, repenting in darkness, it is to be hoped, his treacherous conduct. He alone of the company had no treasure to rejoice in; Drake had sternly decreed that he should go home empty-handed, a prisoner throughout the long voyage.

High up in the rigging sat a monkey, blinking and chattering, wondering perhaps into what further perils his adventurous master would lead him.

"There is our Maiden Isle," said Dennis to Turnpenny, as they sailed merrily northward. "My vice-royalty was but brief; and methinks 'tis but a poor jewel in the crown of Queen Bess. Yet will it be a precious jewel in my memory, for there I found a true friend in thee, Amos, and we two have been enabled by God's providence to do somewhat for our countrymen in distress."

"Good-now, Master Hazelrig," said Drake, coming up to them; "art wishing to return and set up a monarchy on yonder small isle?"

"Nay, sir, it is already bespoke for our gracious queen, though meseems the sovereignty belongs rightly to Mirandola, who now sits aloft, with a most forlorn and wistful look."

"Well, my lad, maybe you and I shall live to see Her Majesty's sway extend over all these islands, and far beyond. Meantime, what think 'ee is my dearest wish at this moment?"

"I know not, sir."

"Why," said Drake, with a smile, "'tis to bowl at the jack once more on Plymouth Hoe."

Conclusion

Little more than three weeks later, on Sunday, August 9, 1573, about noon, the congregation in St. Andrew's church at Plymouth was startled into wakefulness by the booming of guns. The vicar was in the midst of his sermon, and the good people were torn between their desire not to offend the worthy parson and their longing to see what was happening at the harbour. A few minutes passed; then a whisper began to run through the church: "Master Drake is home again!" One looked at another; anxious eyes were cast at the high pews where the gentry sat; then, careless what squire or parson might think, by ones and twos and threes the people stole from the church, and, when once outside, set off running with all their might to the harbour. And before they got there a merry peal of bells rang out behind them. The ringers in the belfry, knowing, we must suppose, that their vicar was an easy man, a patriot, and a Devonian to boot, were handling the ropes most lustily.

The two little frigates had just dropped anchor, and the men were putting off in boats. On shore men shouted, women wept and waved handkerchiefs, boys yelled and dodged among their elders; but nobody minded hustling and knocks, for was not Master Drake home again? Deafening cheers rent the air as he landed; hundreds thronged around him to clasp his hand.

"Good-now, dear friends," he said with a laugh as he passed through: "ye'll do me more hurt than the Spaniards ever did."

"Huzzay! huzzay! Spaniards be jowned! What have 'ee got in thikky ships, Master Drake?"

"Where be Bobby Pike?" cried a buxom dame with half a dozen children clinging to her skirts.

"Here I be, Mally," cried the seaman, catching her in his arms, "and i'fecks, I'll be sober for ever more, my lass."

"On my soul and body there be Ned Whiddon, and Tom Copstone, and Hugh Curder, and Billy Hawk!" cried several voices in the crowd. "Huzzay! huzzay! we never thought to see 'ee more."

"And Haymoss Turnpenny! Od's my life, what a day for Margery Tutt!"

And when Dennis, with Mirandola on his shoulder, returning glance for glance with interest, got clear of the press, he saw Amos marching along with a girl on each arm, his ruddy face beaming like the rising sun.

"Why, Amos," said Dennis, "are there two Margerys?"

"My heart, I know a score!" cried Amos. "But this be Margery Tutt, sir, thikky wench on my left. Loose my arm, lass, and drop a curtsey to Master Hazelrig, for 'ithout him I'd never have been here this day. She've waited for me, sir, bided single for my sake, and there's no landlubber to whop after all. T'other wench be Tom Copstone's Joan; his mother's most terrible jealous, and she've got a hold of Tom now; so 'You and me, Haymoss!' he sings out, and I've got his Joan under convoy till the old 'ooman 's done a-kissing of him. Margery, lass, if 'ee be willing, I'll go up along and see pa'son this very day and ax en to call us next Sunday, for I've gold and silver and pearls, lass, and won't they become your little plum neck! Master Hazelrig, I do pity 'ee, I do so. Bean't there a lass to welcome 'ee? Good-now, bear up, for 'ee be but a stripling yet."

And then he was borne away by the crowd, and Dennis saw him no more that day.

Dennis found himself, when the treasure was divided, the possessor of L2,000 in money in addition to the pearls he had got at Fort Aguila. He devoted a goodly sum to the erection of a monument in his parish church to the memory of Sir Martin Blunt and the other adventurers who had sailed in the _Maid Marian_ eighteen months before. A smaller amount sufficed for a stone over the grave of Mirandola, who died in the following winter. The greater part of the money Dennis gave into the hands of John Holles, his steward, who received it with all due gravity, expressing the hope that his young master had had his fill of adventuring and would now remain at home.

For a time Dennis was content to live in his rambling old house at Shaston. But four years later, learning that Drake was fitting out five ships for a voyage round the world, he asked to be allowed to join the expedition at his own charge. His offer was accepted, and he shared in the joys and sorrows, the failures and successes, of that three years' voyage. With closer intercourse he admired the great Captain more and more; and Drake on his part came to regard him with peculiar affection. During the five years spent on shore after his return, Sir Francis, as he now was, paid many visits to the house at Shaston, and often played bowls with Dennis on the lawn behind.

In 1585, when Drake went out to the West Indies with a direct commission from the Queen, Dennis was of his company. He was one of the first to enter the town of St. Domingo when it was assaulted; and in the subsequent attack on Cartagena he was seriously wounded. To his great disappointment, he had not fully recovered in time to take part in the famous expedition to Cadiz, when Drake "singed the King of Spain's beard." But next year, when all England was stirred at the news that the long-expected Armada was at last approaching, Dennis joined Drake on the _Revenge_, and had his part in the work of fighting in the Channel and the North Sea.

At the conclusion of this year Dennis, now in his thirty-fourth year, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire. Her name happened to be Margery. Soon after the marriage Dennis took her to Plymouth on a visit to his old comrade Amos Turnpenny, who was now blest with a family of five boys and five girls.

"Do 'ee mind, sir," said Amos with a twinkling eye--"do 'ee mind the day when we landed, and you axed me whether there were two Margerys? Seems as if there be, sir; ay, and more; your madam be one, and my 'ooman be two, and my darter yonder be three, and Tom Copstone's darter be four, and I shouldn't be mazed if there was five some day. 'A good name,' says the Book, 'is rayther to be chosen than great riches.' Margery be a good name, to be sure--a better name than Mirandola, poor fond beast! Next to Margery comes _Anne Gallant_, and that be my second darter yonder."

Dennis Hazelrig became a man of weight in his county. His wife and little daughter--the fifth Margery--dissuaded him from joining Drake and Hawkins in their fatal expedition to the Main in 1594, and he found an outlet for his energies in organizing the yeomanry of Devon.

When James the First came to the throne Dennis received the honour of knighthood. None of his old friends was more delighted than Amos Turnpenny, who was by this time nearly eighty, and a hale old grandfather.

"Ay, I says to Tom Copstone when I heard the news, 'Tom,' says I, 'we've a king again now, my lad, though by all I hear tell he bean't so proper a man as King Hal. But he do have his good points too. What be fust thing 'ee done, think 'ee?' 'Be jowned if I know,' says Tom. (He do have common ways o' speech, poor soul!) 'Why, 'fecks,' says I, 'he bin and made Master Hazelrig a noble knight, and we must call en Sir Dennis to's face for ever more.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'we won't mind that,--night or day,' says he--'you and me, Haymoss?' And be jowned if they were not the very words of my dream!"

End of Project Gutenberg's With Drake on the Spanish Main, by Herbert Strang