, "if they got it from the
Spaniards." "The Negroes promised to help him with their bows and
arrows," and with this addition to their force they set off down the
river-bank in pursuit.

[Footnote 2: _Caliver_, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch,
or rest.]

After three days' travelling, they came upon the Spaniards, in camp, on
the bank of the river, apparently in some strong position, sheltered
with trees. Oxenham at once fell on "with great fury," exposing himself
and his men to the bullets of the musketeers. The Spaniards were used to
woodland fighting. Each musketeer retired behind a tree, and fired from
behind it, without showing more than his head and shoulders, and then
but for a moment. The Englishmen charged up the slope to the muzzles of
the guns, but were repulsed with loss, losing eleven men killed and five
men taken alive. The number of wounded is not stated. The negroes, who
were less active in the charge, lost only five men. The Spaniards loss
was two killed "and five sore hurt." The English were beaten off the
ground, and routed. They made no attempt to rally, and did not fall on a
second time.

The Spanish captain asked his prisoners why they had not crossed the
isthmus to their ship in the days before the pursuit began. To this the
prisoners answered with the tale of their mutinies, adding that their
Captain would not stay longer in those parts now that his company had
been routed. The Spaniards then buried their dead, retired on board
their galleys, and rowed home to Panama, taking with them their
prisoners and the English pinnace. When they arrived in that city, the
prisoners were tortured till they confessed where their ship was hidden.
Advice was then sent to Nombre de Dios, where four pinnaces were at once
equipped to seek out the secret haven. They soon found the ship, "and
brought her to Nombre de Dios," where her guns and buried stores were
divided among the King's ships employed in the work of the coast. While
this search for the ship was being made, the Viceroy of Peru sent out
150 musketeers to destroy the "fiftie English men" remaining alive.
These troops, conducted by Maroons, soon found the English in a camp by
the river, "making of certaine Canoas to goe into the North Sea, and
there to take some Bark or other." Many of them were sick and ill, "and
were taken." The rest escaped into the forest, where they tried to make
some arrangement with the negroes. The negroes, it see