_, "according to appointment."
Oxenham had had a very prosperous and pleasant cruise, for off Tolu he
had come across a victual frigate "in which there were ten men [whom
they set ashore], great store of maize, twenty-eight fat hogs, and two
hundred hens." The lading was discharged into the _Pascha_ on the 19th
and 20th of March as a seasonable refreshment to the company. The
frigate pleased Drake, for though she was small (not twenty tons, in
fact) she was strong, new, and of a beautiful model. As soon as her
cargo was out of her, he laid her on her side, and scraped and tallowed
her "to make her a Man of war." He then fitted her with guns from the
_Pascha_, and stored her with provisions for a cruise. The Spaniards
taken in her had spoken of "two little galleys built in Nombre de Dios,
to waft [tow] the Chagres Fleet to and fro." They were "not yet both
launched," and the Chagres fleet lay waiting for them within the mouth
of the Chagres River. Drake "purposed now to adventure for that Fleet."
The day on which he made his plan was Easter Sunday, the 22nd March.
"And to hearten his company" for that bold attempt "he feasted them that
Easter Day with great cheer and cheerfulness" on the dainties taken from
the Spaniards.

The next day, he manned "the new tallowed frigate of Tolu," and sailed
away west (with Oxenham in the _Bear_ in company) "towards the
Cativaas," where they landed to refresh themselves. As they played about
upon the sand, flinging pebbles at the land-crabs, they saw a sail to
the westward coming down towards them. They at once repaired aboard, and
made sail, and "plied towards" the stranger, thinking her to be a
Spaniard. The stranger held on her course as though to run the raiders
aboard, "till he perceived by our confidence that we were no Spaniards,
and conjectured we were those Englishmen of whom he had heard long
before." He bore up suddenly under the lee of the English ships, "and in
token of amity shot off his lee ordnance"--a salute which Drake at once
acknowledged by a similar discharge. As the ships neared each other, the
stranger hailed Drake, saying that he was Captain Tetu, or Le Testu, a
Frenchman of Newhaven (or Havre), in desperate want of water. He had
been looking for Drake, he said, for the past five weeks, "and prayed
our Captain to help him to some water, for that he had nothing but wine
and cider aboard him, which had brought his men into great
sickness"--gastritis or dysentery. D