urch or a
ship. Drake had missed the gold fleet, so he turned his attention to
the treasures of Santiago. When the governor and population were made
aware that the distinguished visitor to their island was the terrible
"El Draque," they and their spiritual advisers as usual flew to the
mountains, without neglecting to take their money and priceless
possessions with them. Drake looted as much as was left in the city of
wine and other valuables, but he got neither gold nor silver, and
would probably have left Santiago unharmed but for the horrible murder
of one of his sailor-boys, whose body was found hacked to pieces. This
settled the doom of the finest built city in the Old World. "El
Draque" at once set fire to it and burnt it to ashes, with that
thoroughness which characterized all such dealings in an age when
barbaric acts justified more than equivalent reprisals.

It would have been a wiser course for the governor to have treated for
the ransom of the town than to have murdered a poor sailor lad who was
innocently having a stroll. It is balderdash to talk of the Spaniards
as being too proud to treat with a person whom they believed to be
nothing better than a pirate. The Spaniards, like other nationalities,
were never too proud to do anything that would strengthen or maintain
their supremacy. Their apparent pride in not treating with Drake at
Santiago and on other rare occasions was really the acme of terror at
hearing his name; there was neither high honour nor grandee dignity
connected with it. As to Philip's kingly pride, it consisted in
offering a special reward of L40,000 to have Elizabeth's great sailor
assassinated or kidnapped. There were many to whom the thought of the
bribe was fascinating. Numerous attempts were made, but whenever the
assassins came within sound of his name or sight of him or his ships
they became possessed of involuntary twitchy sensations, and fled in a
delirium of fear, which was attributed to his being a magician.

As soon as Drake had avenged the sailor-boy's murder he sailed for the
West Indies. When he got into the hot latitudes the plague of yellow
fever appeared, and nearly three hundred of his men died in a few
days. Arriving at Dominica, they found the Caribs had a deadly hatred
of the Spanish, and when they learned that the British were at war
with Spain they offered to prescribe a certain cure for yellow jack
which was eminently effectual. After disinfecting the ships, and