able
snapping weak as thread against the drive of tide and wind. Only the
_Elizabeth_ kept her anchor grip, and her crew became so
panic-stricken, they only waited till the storm abated, then turned
back through the straits, swift heels to the stormy, ill-fated sea, and
steered straight for England, where they moored in June. Towed by the
_Golden Hind_, now driving southward before the tempest, was a
jolly-boat with eight men. The mountain seas finally wrenched the
tow-rope from the big ship, and the men were adrift in the open boat.
Their fortunes are a story in itself. Only one of the eight survived
to reach England after nine years' wandering in Brazil.[6]

Onward, sails furled, bare poles straining to the storm, drifted Drake
in the _Golden Hind_. Luck, that so often favors daring, or the
courage, that is its own talisman, kept him from the rocks. With
battened hatches he drove before what he could not {153} stem,
southward and south, clear down where Atlantic and Pacific met at Cape
Horn, now for the first time seen by navigator. Here at last, on
October 30, came a lull. Drake landed, and took possession of this
earth's end for the Queen. Then he headed his prow northward for the
forbidden waters of the Pacific bordering New Spain. Not a Spaniard
was seen up to the Bay of San Filipe off Chile, where by the end of
November Drake came on an Indian fisherman. Thinking the ship Spanish,
the fellow offered to pilot her back eighteen miles to the harbor of
Valparaiso.

Spanish vessels lay rocking to the tide as Drake glided into the port.
So utterly impossible was it deemed for any foreign ship to enter the
Pacific, that the Spanish commander of the fleet at anchor dipped
colors in salute to the pirate heretic, thinking him a messenger from
Spain, and beat him a rattling welcome on the drum as the _Golden Hind_
knocked keels with the Spanish bark. Drake, doubtless, smiled as he
returned the salute by a wave of his plumed hat. The Spaniards
actually had wine jars out to drown the newcomers ashore, when a quick
clamping of iron hooks locked the Spanish vessel in death grapple to
the _Golden Hind_. An English sailor leaped over decks to the Spanish
galleon with a yell of "_Downe, Spanish dogges_!" The crew of sixty
English pirates had swarmed across the vessel like hornets before the
poor hidalgo knew what had happened. Head over heels, down the
hatchway, reeled the astonished dons. Drake clapped down {15