Led by the Indian Pedro, the freebooters struck across country, picked up the trail behind Nombre de Dios, marched by night, hid by day, Indian scouts sending back word when a Spaniard was seen, the English scudding to ambush in the tangled woods. Twelve days and nights they marched. At ten in the morning of February 11, they were on the Great Divide. Pedro led Drake to the top of the hill. Up the trunk of an enormous tree, the Indians had cut steps to a kind of bower, or lookout. Up clambered Francis Drake. Then he looked westward.
Mountains, hills, forested valleys, rolled from his feet westward. Beyond--what? The shining { 144} expanse of the fabled South Sea! The Pacific silver in the morning light! A New World of Waters, where the sun's track seemed to pave a new path, a path of gold, to the mystic Orient! Never before had English eyes seen these waters! Never yet English prow cut these waves! Where did they lead--the endlessly rolling billows? For Drake, they seemed to lead to a New World of Dreams--dreams of gold, of glory, of immortal fame. He came down from the lookout so overcome with a great inspiration that he could not speak. Then, as with Balboa, the fire of a splendid enthusiasm lighted up the mean purposes of the adventurer to a higher manhood. Before his followers, he fell on his knees and prayed Almighty God to grant him the supreme honor of sailing an English ship on that sea!
That night the Indian came back with word that the mule train laden with gold was close on the trail. Drake scattered his men on each side of the road flat on their faces in high grass. Wealth was almost in their grasp. Hope beat riotous in the young bloods. No sound but the whir of wings as great tropic insects flitted through the dark with flashes of fire; or the clank of a soldier unstrapping haversack to steel courage by a drink of grog! An hour passed! Two hours before the eager ears pressed to earth detected a padded hoof-beat over grass. Then a bell tinkled, as the leader of the pack came in sight. Drunk with the glory of the day, or too much grog, some fool sailor leaped in { 145} mid-air with an exultant yell! In a second the mule train had stampeded.
By the time Drake came to the halfway house,[3] the gold was hidden in the woods, and the Spaniards fleeing for their lives; though an old chronicle declares "the general" went from house to house assuring the Spanish ladies they were safe. The Spaniards of Tierra Firme were simply paralyzed with fright at the apparition of pirates in the centre of the kingdom. Then scouts brought word of double danger: on the Atlantic side, Spanish frigates were searching for Drake's ships; from the Pacific, two hundred horsemen were advancing in hot pursuit. Between the two--was he trapped?--Not he! Overland went a scout to the ships--Drake's own gold toothpick as token--bidding them keep offshore; he would find means to come out to them. Then he retreated over the trail at lightning pace, sleeping only in ambush, eating in snatches, coming out on the coast far distant from Nombre de Dios and Spanish frigates. Binding driftwood into a raft, Drake hoisted sail of flour sacks. Saying good-by to the Indian, the freebooter noticed Pedro's eyes wander to the gold-embossed Turkish cimeter in his own hand, and at once presented scabbard and blade to the astonished savage. In gratitude the Indian tossed three wedges of gold to the raft now sheering out with the tide to sea. These Drake gave { 146} to his men. Six hours the raft was drifting to the sails on the offing, and such seas were slopping across the water-logged driftwood, the men were to their waists in water when the sail-boats came to the rescue.