the fleet, well
supplied at St. John's with fish and other necessaries, Gilbert
(August 20) sailed south as far as forty-four degrees north latitude.
Off Sable Island a storm assailed them, and the largest of the
vessels, called the _Delight_, carrying most of the provisions, was
driven on a rock and went to pieces.

Overwhelmed by this terrible misfortune, the colonists returned to
Newfoundland, where, yielding to his crew, Gilbert discontinued his
explorations, and on August 31 changed the course of the two ships
remaining, the _Squirrel_ and _Golden Hind_, directly for England. The
story of the voyage back is most pathetic. From the first the sea was
boisterous; but to entreaties that he should abandon the _Squirrel_, a
little affair of ten tons, and seek his own safety in the _Hind_, a
ship of much larger size, Gilbert replied, "No, I will not forsake my
little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms
and perils." Even then, amid so much danger, his spirit rose supreme,
and he actually planned for the spring following two expeditions, one
to the south and one to the north; and when some one asked him how he
expected to meet the expenses in so short a time, he replied, "Leave
that to me, and I will ask a penny of no man."

A terrible storm arose, but Gilbert retained the heroic courage and
Christian faith which had ever distinguished him. As often as the
_Hind_, tossed upon the waves, approached within hailing distance of
the _Squirrel_, the gallant admiral, "himself sitting with a book in
his hand" on the deck, would call out words of cheer and
consolation--"We are as near heaven by sea as by land." When night
came on (September 10) only the lights in the riggings of the
_Squirrel_ told that the noble Gilbert still survived. At midnight the
lights went out suddenly, and from the watchers on the Hind the cry
arose, "The admiral is cast away." And only the _Golden Hind_ returned
to England.[4]

The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of his half-brother Sir
Walter Raleigh, whose energy and versatility made him, perhaps, the
foremost Englishman of his age. When the _Hind_ returned from her
ill-fated voyage Raleigh was thirty-one years of age and possessed a
person at once attractive and commanding. He was tall and well
proportioned, had thick, curly locks, beard, and mustaches, full, red
lips, bluish gray eyes, high forehead, and a face described as "long
and bold."

By service in Fra