condition as might serve for a lively representation of what reward
attends wickedness at the latter end of life. Whence we ought to have
learned how to regulate and amend our actions for the future."

Sir Francis Drake, "sea king of the sixteenth century," the greatest
admiral of the time, belongs not with the catalogue of pirates and
buccaneers, yet he left a true tale of buried treasure among his
exploits and it is highly probable that some of that rich plunder is
hidden to-day in the steaming jungle of the road he took to Panama.
There were only forty-eight Englishmen in the band which he led on the
famous raid to ambush the Spanish treasure train bound to
Nombre-de-Dios, a century before Morgan's raiders crossed the Isthmus.
This first attempt resulted in failure, but after sundry adventures,
Drake returned and hid his little force close by that famous treasure
port of Nombre-de-Dios, where they waited to hear the bells of the
pack-mule caravan moving along the trail from Panama. It was at dawn
when this distant, tinkling music was first heard, and the Cimaroons,
or Indian guides, were jubilant. "Now they assured us we should have
more Gold and Silver than all of us could bear away." Soon the
Englishmen had glimpses of three royal treasure trains plodding along
the leafy road, one of fifty mules, the others of seventy each, and
every one of them laden with three hundred pounds weight of silver
bullion, or thirty tons in all. The guard of forty-five Spanish
soldiers loafed carelessly in front and rear, their guns slung on their
backs.

Drake and his bold seamen poured down from a hill, put the guard to
flight, and captured the caravan with the loss of only two men. There
was more plunder than they could carry back to their ships in a hasty
retreat, and "being weary, they were content with a few bars and quoits
of gold." The silver was buried in the expectation of returning for it
later, "partly in the burrows which the great land-crabs have made in
the earth, and partly under old trees which are fallen thereabouts, and
partly in the sand and gravel of a river not very deep of water."

Then began a forced march, every man burdened with all the treasure he
could carry, and behind them the noise of "both horse and foot coming,
as it seemed, to the mules." Presently a wounded French captain became
so exhausted that he had to drop out, refusing to delay the march and
telling the company that he would remain beh