stealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in the
morning. A long and nerve-racking wait ensued. As the hours dragged on,
Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized.
They began to whisper about the size of the town--'as big as
Plymouth'--with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanish
infantry, and so on. It wanted an hour of the first real streak of dawn.
But just then the old moon sent a ray of light quivering in on the tide.
Drake instantly announced the dawn, issued the orders: 'Shove off, out
oars, give way!' Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea was picking
up her moorings. A boat left her side and pulled like mad for the wharf.
But Drake's men raced the Spaniards, beat them, and made them sheer off
to a landing some way beyond the town.

Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns off
their platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life. In five
minutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpet
calls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, and
the civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the
Maroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fell
in--they were all well-drilled--and were quickly told off into three
detachments. The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham--the hero
of Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_--and the third, of twelve men only, to
guard the pinnaces. Having found that the new fort on the hill
commanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched
against the town at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a flank,
Drake straight up the main street, each with a trumpet sounding, a drum
rolling, fire-pikes blazing, swords flashing, and all ranks yelling like
fiends. Drake was only of medium stature. But he had the strength of a
giant, the pluck of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the cut of a
man that is born to command. Broad-browed, with steel-blue eyes and
close-cropped auburn hair and beard, he was all kindliness of
countenance to friends, but a very 'Dragon' to his Spanish foes.

As Drake's men reached the Plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast of
defiance and then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley and
charged immediately, the drummer beating furiously, pikes levelled, and
swords brandished. The Spaniards did not wait for him to close; for
Oxenham's party, fire-pikes blazing, were taking them in flank. Out