k days. Francis, the eldest
son, was born in the hull of an old vessel where the family had taken
refuge in time of religious persecution. In spite of his humble
origin, Sir Francis Russell had stood his godfather at baptism. The
Earl of Bedford had been his patron. John Hawkins, a relative,
supplied money for his education. Apprenticed before the mast from his
twelfth year, Drake became purser to Biscay at eighteen; and so
faithfully had he worked his way, when the master of the sloop died, it
was bequeathed to young Drake. Emulous of becoming a great sailor like
Hawkins, Drake sold the sloop and invested everything he owned in
Hawkins's venture to the West Indies. He was ruined to his last penny
by Spanish treachery. It was almost a religion for England to hate
Spain at that time. Drake hated tenfold more now. Spain had taught
the world to keep off her treasure box. Would Drake accept the lesson,
or challenge it?

{140} Men who master destiny rise, like the Phenix, from the ashes of
their own ruin. In the language of the street, when they fall--these
men of destiny--they make a point of falling _up_stairs. Amid the ruin
of massacre in Mexico, Drake brought away one fact--memory of Spanish
gold to the value of one million eight hundred thousand pounds. Where
did it come from? Was the secret of that gold the true reason for
Spain's resentment against all intruders? Drake had coasted Florida
and the West Indies. He knew they yielded no such harvest. Then it
must come from one of three other regions--South America, Central
America, Mexico.

For two years Drake prospected for the sources of that golden wealth.
In the _Dragon_ and _Swan_, he cruised the Spanish Main during 1570.
In 1571 he was out again in the _Swan_. By 1572 he knew the secret of
that gold--gold in ship-loads, in caravans of one thousand mules, in
masses that filled from cellar to attic of the King's Treasure House,
where tribute of one-fifth was collected for royalty. It came from the
subjugated Kingdom of Peru, by boat up the Pacific to the Port of
Panama, by pack-train across the isthmus--mountainous, rugged, forests
of mangroves tangled with vines, bogs that were bottomless--to Nombre
de Dios, the Spanish fort on the Atlantic side, which had become the
storehouse of all New Spain. Drake took counsel of no one.

Next year he was back on the Spanish Main, in the {141} _Pacha_,
forty-seven men; his brother John commanding the _Swan